Arabs and Berbers: From Tribe to Nation in North Africa

by Ernest Gellner (Editor), Charles Micaud (Editor)

Genres: Morocco

448 pages, Hardcover

First published February 8, 1972

About the author

Ernest Gellner was a prominent British-Czech philosopher, social anthropologist, and writer on nationalism.

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a powerfully written series of chapters that depicts a highly dramatic history. For example, when Arabian cavalry units pushed into North Africa after 662 CE, they found few population centers larger than villages between western Egypt and Morocco. Of the 600 towns in Roman North Africa, only partly-inhabited ruins remained. Arab commander Uqba bin Nafi established a town called Ifriqiya in 670 CE, not far from the ghost city of Carthage. But the Arab cavalry units riding into the Maghreb encountered a hornet’s nest of resistance against all invaders. Berber leaders like Queen Kahina held up the Islamic jihad for 35 years. Several times between 681 and 701, native Algerians drove the Arabs out completely. The Islamic empire met no fiercer opposition anywhere in its first century. When the Maghreb submitted to Islam after 708, it was at first only a military alliance in which Arab and Berber warriors united to raid Spain.