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23-585: When Uqba ibn Nafi passed through the area in 46 A.H. (666/67 CE), there was no city there. Zawila was settled probably in the early 8th century. It very quickly became the chief town of the region. During its early history, it was dominated by the Hawwara Berbers , who mostly followed Ibadism . The Abbasids under Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath al-Khuza'i captured the town in 762/63, and killed its Ibadi ruler, Abd Allah ibn Hayyan, but Ibadism persisted in Zuwila and

46-716: A leather variety named after the town, and its privileged position on the trans-Saharan trade networks. The city was cosmopolitan and rich, the site of one of the largest markets of slave captured from the Lake Chad basin . The Fatimids recruited soldiers from the area, whence the name of the Bab Zuwayla gate in Cairo . Alongside the Berbers, the town was inhabited by a free black settler population, likely of Toubou and Kanuri origin. Kanemi rule seems to have been relatively intermittent after

69-649: Is often surnamed al-Fihri in reference to the Banu Fihr, a clan connected to the Quraysh . His descendants would be known as the ʿUqbids or Fihrids . Uqba was born in 622. As a general of the Rashidun Caliphate , Uqba accompanied Amr ibn al-As in his initial capture of cities in North Africa starting with Barqa , then proceeding to Tripolitania in 644. Upon conquering Cyrenaica in 642 or 643, Amr ibn al-As fixed

92-483: The Battle of Vescera . Uqba was killed beside his hated rival, Abu al-Muhajir Dinar . His armies evacuated Kairouan and withdrew to Barca, though it was recaptured in 688. In 686, Sidi Uqba Mosque was built as a mausoleum dedicated to him after his death. The building was at first built in a simple manner, completely made out of limestone mortars , with no precious materials used. This architectural style resembled some of

115-517: The Egyptian deserts, and setting up military posts at regular intervals along his route. In a region of what is now Tunisia , he established the town now called Kairouan (meaning "camp" or " caravanserai " in Persian ) about 99 miles south of present-day Tunis , which he used as a base for further operations. This became a place of religious pilgrimage and the most important city in North Africa. Kairouan

138-584: The jizyah to be paid by its Berber tribes at 13,000 dinars. After the First Fitna and establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate in 661 by Mu'awiya I , a second invasion of the Maghreb began. An army of 10,000 Muslims and thousands of others led by Uqba departed from Damascus and marched into Byzantine Africa , conquering it. In 670 now the emir or commander, Uqba led an Arab army to North Africa, crossing

161-695: The 11th century, but the Banu Khattab held power until they were conquered by an Armenian Mamluk , Sharaf al-Din Qaraqush , who, coming from Egypt, conquered the region in the 1170s. The instability created by Qaraqush was exploited by the Kanem, who by the end of the 12th century had seized control of the Fezzan, establishing a new capital at Traghan , a few miles west of Zawila. During this period, Zawila enjoyed considerable prosperity from irrigated agriculture, its production of

184-623: The 8th century. The Fihrids were from the Arabian clan of Banu Fihr, part of the Quraysh , the tribe of the Prophet . Probably the most illustrious of the Fihrids was Uqba ibn Nafi al-Fihri , the Arab Muslim conqueror of North Africa in 670-680s, and founder of al-Qayrawan . Several of his sons and grandsons participated in the subsequent conquest of Hispania in 712. As spearheads of the western conquest,

207-615: The Fezzan in general. The town then became part of the Rustamid domains, albeit lying on the extreme eastern periphery of their realm. After the demise of the Rustamid dynasty at the hands of the Fatimids , in 918/19 Zawila became the capital of another independent Ibadi state, under the Berber Banu Khattab dynasty, which lasted until 1176/77. The Kanem Empire started raiding the region in

230-755: The Fihrids there and erect the Umayyad Emirate of Qurtubah in 756. While the Andalusi branch was eclipsed by the Umayyads, the Ifriqiyan branch of the Fihrids descended into a bloody family quarrel in 755, that threw Ifriqiya into chaos, and ended with them being overrun and extinguished in a Kharijite Berber uprising in 757–758. The al-Fihri name continued to have a magical effect in Al-Andalus, and pretenders drawn from that family continued to challenge Umayyad rule until

253-571: The al-Fihris were probably the leading aristocratic Arab family of Ifriqiya and Al-Andalus in the first half of the 8th century. They produced several governors and military leaders of those provinces. After the Berber Revolt of 740-41, the west fell into a period of anarchy and disorder. The Umayyad Caliph in Damascus , facing revolts in Persia, did not have the resources to re-impose their authority in

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276-595: The bravest Arabs; and the genuine force of the Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many thousand Barbarians." He then marched into North Africa. Gibbon continues: "It would be difficult, nor is it necessary, to trace the accurate line of the progress of Akbah." On the North African coast, "the well-known titles of Bugia , and Tangier define the more certain limits of the Saracen victories." Gibbon then tells

299-481: The conquest of Fezzan by the end of the 12th century. During this time period, Zawila became one of the many slave-colonies established by Kanem-Bornu throughout their lands and became known for the extraction of salt. Evebtually, the local Bornuan garrison began to exercise an increasing about of autonomy from Bornuan authority, ushering in a period of Semi-Independence as influence from the Hafsids began to grow. This period

322-454: The fall of the Umayyads in 749-50 with delight, and sought to reach an accommodation with the new Abbasid Caliphs of the east to allow them to continue. But when the Abbasids rejected their offer of nominal vassalship and demanded full submission, the Fihrids broke with the Abbasids and declared independence. In a decision that would prove fatal, Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib invited the remnants of

345-498: The fugitive Umayyad clan to take refuge in his dominions. He soon regretted his decision. The arriving Umayyad princes, as the sons and grandsons of caliphs , were of more noble blood than the Fihrids themselves, and became a focal point of conspiracies among the Arab nobles of al-Qayrawan , resentful of Ibn Habib's autocracy. Ibn Habib set about persecuting the exiles. One of them, the young Abd al-Rahman , would flee to Al-Andalus, depose

368-522: The moment when Uqba reached the Atlantic Ocean , where he allegedly said: | "O God, if the sea had not prevented me, I would have galloped on for ever like Alexander the Great, upholding your faith and fighting the unbelievers!" Edward Gibbon , referring to Uqba ibn Nafi as Akbah , gives him the title "Conqueror of Africa," beginning his story when he "marched from Damascus at the head of ten thousand of

391-580: The oldest Islamic architectures and the mosques built Muhammad . Al-Watiya Air Base in Libya is also known as "Okba ibn Nafa Air Base" after him. Extant records of most of the accounts describing Arab conquests of North Africa in general and Uqba's conquests in particular date back to at least two centuries after the conquests took place. One of the earliest reports comes from the Arab chronicler Ibn Idhari in his Al-Bayan al-Mughrib . In it, Ibn Idhari describes

414-536: The story of Akbah's conquest of the Roman province of Mauretania Tingitana : The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the country, traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the splendid capitals of Fez and Morocco, and at length penetrated to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert.... The career, though not the zeal, of Akbah was checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean. He spurred his horse into

437-705: The waves, and raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed: 'Great God! if my course were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of the holy name, and putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship another gods than Allah.' Scholarship on the life and conquests of ibn Nafi are available, but most have not been translated from their original Arabic. Fihrids The Fihrids ( Arabic : الفهريون ), also known as Banu Fihr ( Arabic : بنو فهر ), were an Arab family and clan, prominent in North Africa and Al-Andalus in

460-594: The west. In the vacuum, the Fihrids, the pre-eminent local Arab family, seized power in the west. Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri in Ifriqiya (745–755) and Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri in Al-Andalus (747–756) ruled their dominions virtually independently of the Caliphate . For a moment, it seemed as if the Fihrids might succeed in turning the western half of the Islamic world into a private family empire. The Fihrids greeted

483-511: Was an Arab general serving the Rashidun Caliphate since the reign of Umar and later the Umayyad Caliphate during the reigns of Mu'awiya I and Yazid I , leading the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb , including present-day Libya , Tunisia , Algeria and Morocco and a failed attempt in Nubia . He is credited with establishing Umayyad rule in North Africa . Uqba was the nephew of Amr ibn al-As . He

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506-918: Was brought to an abrupt end with the Ottoman conquest of Fezzan, but failure to integrate the economy of the Libyan countryside with the Mediterranean coast led to the disruption of the trans-Saharan trade routes which affected the town's prosperity and it lost its importance and rank of capital. When the Awlad Muhammad dynasty established Murzuk as their capital to the west of Zawila, the trade routes were diverted there, and Zawila fell into obscurity. Uqba ibn Nafi ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī al-Qurashī ( Arabic : عقبة بن نافع بن عبد القيس الفهري القرشي , romanized :  ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī ), also simply known as Uqba ibn Nafi ,

529-531: Was chosen as the capital of the new Umayyad province of Ifriqiya . Uqba chose the site for its first mosque, and the Great Mosque of Kairouan was constructed on the same year. This mosque has served as a model of all later mosques in the Maghreb, and is considered one of the masterpieces of Islamic architecture . In 683 Uqba was ambushed by the Berber Christian king Kusaila and his Byzantine allies in

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