The Arab conquest and the rise of Islam in North Africa

Abstract

The Arab conquests, which created a great new empire and led to the establishment of Islam as one of the great religions of the world, are one of the traditional landmarks of history. The Egyptian papyri form an invaluable record; they also demonstrate that the written tradition, when it made its appearance in Egypt from the middle of the eighth century onwards, was indebted to an archive going back to the establishment of a regular administration under Arab control. The movement of soldiers, slaves and tribute to and fro along the North African coast from Egypt to Spain had revived the market economy after the lapse into subsistence of the late Roman and Byzantine period. In the ninth century, all the great mosques of Egypt and North Africa which dated from the early days of the conquest were enlarged to their present size, while new ones were founded.