Though repulsed before the impregnable walls of
Constantinople, the Arabs continued to win new dominions in other North Africa
parts of the Christian world. After their occupation of Egypt, they began to
overrun North Africa, which Justinian, little more than a century earlier, had
reconquered from the Vandals. The Romanized provincials, groaning under
the burdensome taxes imposed on them by the eastern emperors, made only a slight
resistance to the Moslem armies. A few of the great cities held out for a time,
but after the capture and destruction of Carthage in 698 A.D., Arab rule
was soon established over the whole extent of the Mediterranean coast from
Egypt to the Atlantic.
ARABS AND BERBERS
Islam made in North Africa one of its most permanent
conquests. After the coming of the Arabs many of the Christian inhabitants
appear to have withdrawn to Spain and Sicily, leaving the field clear for the
introduction of Arabian civilization. The Arabs who settled in North Africa
gave their religion and government to the Berbers, as the natives of the
country were called, and to some extent intermingled with them. Arabs and
Berbers still comprise the population of North Africa, though their once
independent states have now been absorbed by European powers. [12]
[12] Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis belong to France;
Tripoli, to Italy.
