A.D. 647. Abd-ullah, governor of Egypt, proceeds to the conquest of Africa. He vanquishes the Greek patrician Gregory in the battle of Yakûb.
PART I.
AFRICA.
THIS and the subsequent events are so ably narrated by Mr. Gibbon[17], that it would be presumptuous to enter the same ground. It is sufficient to observe that the Arabs, alternately advancing and repulsed, were not complete masters of Africa, or rather that portion of this vast continent which extends along the Mediterranean Sea, till about the year 709 of our æra. They had not only been opposed by the Greeks, but by the Berbers, or natives of the West. These Berbers were, according to Cardonne, an ancient Arabian colony, which had migrated into Africa, and retained its native speech. They were divided into five tribes, which now amount to about six hundred lineages, partly dwelling under tents, and partly in towns and villages.
Mûsa ben Nasr had effectuated the conquest of Africa before he proceeded to that of Spain. Till this period Africa had remained an appendage to the government of Egypt, which was in quiet submission to the Chalîfs, successors of Mohammed. But Abd-el-aziz, governor of Egypt, having been guilty of great extortions from Hassan the general in Africa, the Chalîf, Walid I. had assigned to Mûsa an independent authority.
Mohammed-ben-Yezîd succeeded Mûsa in the government of Africa.
A.D. 721. Nechrên Seffran was appointed governor of Africa by the Chalîf Yezîd, and died in 727, after having made some incursions into the interior of that continent.
The natives soon after revolted against the Arabs, whom they defeated with great slaughter.
A.D. 741. Hantele-ben-Seffran, governor of Egypt, was sent against them by the Chalîf Hakim. He succeeded in his enterprise; subdued the insurgents with great slaughter, and regained possession of Cairoan, the Arabian capital of Africa, founded by Akbal, about A.D. 670, fifty miles to the south of Tunis.
The revolt reviving, Hantelé again conquered the rebels, whose vast army was conducted by Abd-el-wahhad. The exaggeration of the Arabian authors computes the insurgents slain at an hundred and sixty thousand; and Hantelé, in giving an account of his operations to the Chalîf Hakim, reported that a more sanguinary contest had never been fought.