Editing Moors (section)

== Moors of the Maghreb ==
[[File:Great Mosque of Kairouan Panorama - Grande Mosquée de Kairouan Panorama.jpg|thumb|The [[Mosque of Uqba|Great Mosque of Kairouan]] in [[Tunisia]] was founded by the Arab general [[Uqba ibn Nafi]] in 670 during the Islamic conquest, to provide a place of worship for recently converted or immigrating Muslims.]]
In the late 7th and early 8th centuries CE, the Islamic [[Umayyad Caliphate]], established after the death of Muhammad, underwent a period of rapid growth. In 647 CE, 40,000 Arabs forced the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] governor of northern Africa to submit and pay tribute, but failed to permanently occupy the region.<ref>Rodd, Francis. "Kahena, Queen of the Berbers: "A Sketch of the Arab Invasion of Ifriqiya in the First Century of the Hijra" Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. 3, No. 4, (1925), 731–2</ref> After an interlude, during which the Muslims fought a [[First Fitna|civil war]], the invasions resumed in 665, seizing [[Byzantine North Africa]] up to [[Béjaïa|Bugia]] over the course of a series of campaigns, lasting until 689. A Byzantine counterattack largely expelled the Arabs but left the region vulnerable. Intermittent war over the inland provinces of North Africa continued for the next two decades. Further civil war delayed the continuation of further conquest, but an Arab assault took [[Carthage]] and held it against a Byzantine counterattack.

Although a [[Christianity|Christian]] and [[Traditional Berber religion|pagan Berber]] rebellion pushed out the Arabs temporarily, the Romanized urban population preferred the Arabs to the Berbers and welcomed a renewed and final conquest that left northern Africa in Muslim hands by 698. Over the next decades, the Berber and urban populations of northern Africa gradually converted to Islam, although for separate reasons.<ref name="Lapidus 4">Lapidus, 200–201</ref> The Arabic language was also adopted. Initially, the Arabs required only vassalage from the local inhabitants rather than assimilation, a process which took a considerable time.<ref name="Lapidus 4"/>  The groups that inhabited the Maghreb following this process became known collectively as Moors. Although a Kharijite rebellion would [[Berber Revolt|later push out Umayyad rule]] from the western Maghreb and form temporarily independent Arab, Berber and Persian dynasties, that effort failed to dislodge the usage of the collective term.