Byzantines, Berbers and Arabs in 7th-century Libya

Extract

The extraordinary rapidity of the Arab conquest (FIG. 1) of the north African coastlands between Alexandria and Tripoli has often evoked comment, even in an age which has seen modern armies advancing still more rapidly over the same route. One recent writer, exceptionally well qualified to discuss Arab warfare, has affirmed that ‘the welcome offered to the Arabs in the Western Desert and Barqa seems to suggest that the people in this area were themselves partly Arab’.