Ancient Religions in North Africa According to Medieval Arab Sources

Abstract

Although the information provided by mediaeval Arabic sources about the Pre-Islamic history of North Africa is often scant and confused, the description they give of the religious situation in this region in the 7th century is not far removed from that given by the classical sources. The majority of the African-Roman population was Christianised, but the local tribal world was divided between those who adopted the Christian religion and those who retained their traditional polytheism. When they invaded North Africa, the Muslims did not seem to have given much importance to the religious beliefs of the conquered peoples, instead merely distinguishing between those who agreed to submit to the new masters and those who opposed them. Bound by treaties of alliance with Roman power, the Christianised tribes raised the banner of resistance, whereas the pagan tribes, already in open struggle against the regime in place, did not adopt a united front. Those who submitted, such as the Lawāta and many others, sat uneasily within the late legal framework devised by the 9th century fuqaha concerning the status of the dhimmi. It was solely to remedy this situation that the epithet maǧūs was applied to them, stripped of all its primitive connotations in connection with Persian Zoroastrianism.