Umayyad Conquest of North Africa - Sources For The History of The Invasion

Sources For The History of The Invasion

Before the accounts below are read, it should be realised that there are virtually no contemporary records of the conquest, and particularly of events outside Egypt. It should also be noted that, as the history of a war is usually written by the victors, Arab accounts of the conquest tend to predominate and possibly present a more favourable account of the invasion.

The earliest Arab accounts that have come down to us are those of Ibn Abd-el-Hakem, Al-Baladhuri and Ibn Khayyat, all of which were written in the 9th century some 200 years after the first invasions. These are not very detailed. In the case of the most informative, the History of the Conquest of Egypt and North Africa and Spain by Ibn Abd-el-Hakem, Brunschvig has shown that it was written with a view to illustrating points of Maliki law rather than documenting a history, and that some of the events it describes are probably historical.

Beginning in the 12th century, scholars at Kairouan began to construct a new version of the history of the conquest, which was finalised by ar-Raqiq. This version was copied in its entirety, and sometimes interpolated, by later authors, reaching its zenith in the 14th century with scholars such as Ibn Idhari, Ibn Khaldun and Al-Nuwayri. It differs from the earlier version not only in the greater detail, but also in giving conflicting accounts of events. This, however, is the best known version and is the one given below.

There is ongoing controversy regarding the relative merits of the two versions. For more information, refer to the works cited below by Brunschvig, Modéran and Benabbès (all supporters of the earlier version) and Siraj (supports the later version).