from Part VII - AFRICA AND THE MUSLIM WEST
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
According to the tradition of the chroniclers, it was in 26/647 that the Muslims first came into contact with North Africa. The Caliph ‘Umar had in fact forbidden his conquering generals to proceed westwards beyond Tripoli, but his successor ’Uthmān authorized the military commander ‘Abd Allāh b. Sa'd to lead an expedition into Ifrīqiya to obtain plunder. This ended in victory for the Muslims over the Byzantine troops of the Patrician Gregory on the plain of Sbeitla.
The new conquerors found a complex country. It is true that they found a Byzantine power that they were beginning to know well, since they had already conquered the Byzantine provinces of Syria and Egypt. But Byzantine authority did not by any means extend throughout the whole of North Africa: it stopped at the meridian of the Chott el-Hodna (Shatt al-Hadna) in the west and did not begin again until Ceuta, (Sabta) where a Byzantine governor held on for better or worse until 92/711. The rest of the country was controlled by the Berbers. Some of them had come under Carthaginian, and later under Roman influence: this was the case with the Berbers of the present-day Tunisia and of the region of Constantine. Others had come under Roman influence only— those of the present-day Algeria and of northern Morocco; but many of them had no direct contact with either Carthaginians or Romans: this was the case with the majority of the Berbers of Morocco and those of the high western plains of Algeria.
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