The 7th century is the period from 601 through 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era.
The 640s decade ran from January 1, 640, to December 31, 649.
Year 652 (DCLII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 652 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Year 642 (DCXLII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 642 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Mu'awiya I was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashidun ('rightly-guided') caliphs. Unlike his predecessors, who had been close, early companions of Muhammad, Mu'awiya was a relatively late follower of the Islamic prophet.
Makuria was a medieval Nubian kingdom in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. Its capital was Dongola in the fertile Dongola Reach, and the kingdom is sometimes known by the name of its capital.
The Baqt (بقط) was a 7th-century treaty between the Christian state of Makuria and the new Muslim rulers of Egypt. Lasting almost seven hundred years, it is by some measures the longest-lasting treaty in history. The name comes either from the Egyptian's term for barter, or the Greco-Roman term for pact.
Banu Kanz, also known as Awlad Kanz, was a semi-nomadic Muslim dynasty of Arab descent that ruled the border region between Upper Egypt and Nubia between the 10th and 15th centuries. They were descended from the sons of sheikhs of the Arab Banu Hanifa tribe who intermarried with the princesses of the Beja Hadariba tribe. They gained official control over the region of Aswan, Wadi Allaqi and the frontier zone in the early 11th century when their chief, Abu al-Makarim Hibatallah, captured a major rebel on behalf of the Fatimid authorities. Abu al-Makarim was accorded the title Kanz al-Dawla by Caliph al-Hakim and his successors inherited the title. The Banu Kanz entered into conflict with the Ayyubids in 1174, during which they were defeated and forced to migrate southward into northern Nubia, where they helped accelerate the expansion of Islam in the mostly Christian region. They eventually assumed control of the Nubian Kingdom of Makuria in the early 14th century, but by the early the 15th century, they were supplanted by the Hawwara tribesmen dispatched by the Mamluks to combat the Banu Kanz. Their modern-day descendants are a Sudanese tribe known as the "Kunuz", who live in the far north of the country.
The Exarchate of Africa was a division of the Byzantine Empire around Carthage that encompassed its possessions on the Western Mediterranean. Ruled by an exarch (viceroy), it was established by the Emperor Maurice in 591 and survived until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the late 7th century. It was, along with the Exarchate of Ravenna, one of two exarchates established following the western reconquests under Emperor Justinian I to administer the territories more effectively.
Abu Muhammad Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Salimal-Aswani was a tenth-century Egyptian diplomat and Shia Muslim dāʿī (missionary) in the service of the Fatimids. Following the Fatimid conquest of Egypt, he was dispatched to Nubia by the Fatimid governor Jawhar al-Siqilli in 975 AD (365 AH) or perhaps a little earlier. He left a written record of his mission, the Kitāb Akhbār al-Nūba waʾl-Muḳurra wa ʿAlwa waʾl-Buja waʾl-Nīl. This is the only surviving eyewitness description of medieval Nubia other than the very brief account in Ibn Ḥawqal.
The Arab–Byzantine wars were a series of wars between a number of Muslim Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire from the 7th to the 11th century. Conflict started during the initial Muslim conquests, under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs, in the 7th century and continued by their successors until the mid-11th century.
ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī al-Qurashī, also simply known as Uqba ibn Nafi, was an Arab general serving the Rashidun Caliphate since the reign of Umar and later the Umayyad Caliphate during the reigns of Muawiyah I and Yazid I, leading the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, including present-day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. He is credited to establishing Umayyad rule in North Africa. Uqba was the nephew of Amr ibn al-As. He is often surnamed al-Fihri in reference to the Banu Fihr, a clan connected to the Quraysh. His descendants would be known as the ʿUqbids or Fihrids.
The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As, took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long Roman period in Egypt that began in 30 BC, and widely speaking Greco-Roman period for about a millennium. Byzantine rule in the country had been shaken, as Egypt had been conquered and occupied for a decade by the Sasanian Empire in 618–629, before being recovered by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. The caliphate took advantage of Byzantines' exhaustion and captured Egypt ten years after its reconquest by Heraclius.
Islamic rule in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica began as early as the 7th century. With tenuous Byzantine control over Libya restricted to a few poorly defended coastal strongholds, the Arab invaders who first crossed into Pentapolis, Cyrenaica in September 642 encountered little resistance. Under the command of Amr ibn al-A'as, the armies of Islam conquered Cyrenaica, renaming the Pentapolis, Barqa.
Umar was the second Rashidun Caliph and reigned during 634–644. Umar's caliphate is notable for its vast conquests, aided by brilliant field commanders, he was able to incorporate present day Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and part of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and south western Pakistan into the Caliphate. During his reign, the Byzantines lost more than three fourths of their territory and in Persia, and Umar was the king (ruler) of the Sassanid Empire before it ceased to exist.
The Rashidun Caliphate was the first caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was ruled by the first four successive caliphs of Muhammad after his death in 632 CE. During its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Middle East.
The Rashidun army was the core of the Rashidun Caliphate's armed forces during the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century. The army is reported to have maintained a high level of discipline, strategic prowess and organization, granting them successive victories in their various campaigns.
The Second Battle of Dongola or Siege of Dongola was a military engagement between early Arab forces of the Rashidun Caliphate and the Nubian-Christian forces of the kingdom of Makuria in 652. The battle ended Muslim expansion into Nubia, establishing trade and a historic peace between the Muslim world and a Christian nation. As a result, Makuria was able to grow into a regional power that would dominate Nubia for over the next 500 years.
Umayyad rule in North Africa or Umayyad Ifriqiya was a province of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) during the historical period in which it ruled the Maghreb region of North Africa, from its conquest of the Maghreb starting in 661 to the Kharijite Berber Revolt ending in 743, which led to the end of its rule in the western and central Maghreb. Following this period, the Umayyads retained their rule over Ifriqiya while the rest of the Maghreb fell to successive Islamic dynasties of Arab, Berber and Persian descent.
