The Berbers of the Arabs

Abstract

Arab conquest of northwest Africa is a major event in the field ofNorth African Studies. For scholars, its most lasting effects were the Islamization and Arabization of the Berber populations. While historians often disagree about the chronology, character, and extent of these processes, they ail agree that they are essential to understanding the medieval period. In truth, the scholarly consensus is slightly more complicated than this more popular view. Specialists know that the category is of Ara bie origin and thus that the Arabs could not have conquered peoples called Barbar prior to the conquest.1 Furthermore, while Latin and Greek sources refer to some people in northwest Africa as (βάρβαροι and bar bari), the ideas associated with these wil be shown to be so dif ferent from the Arabie Barbar that it is difficult to confuse the two. Thus, in spite of the obvious linguistic similarity of the Greek, Latin, and Arabie terms, the Arabs did not apply the term Barbar to describe the exact same groups of peoples called barbarians in classical and late antique sources. So, who were the Barbar of the Arabs? Encapsulating a widely held view among specialists, Gabriel Camps explained, The Berbers of the Arabs are the Moors of the Romans.2 According to this understanding, instead of conquering the Berbers, the