ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the history of Islam’s expansion into North Africa, as well as Spain (Iberia), during the seventh and eighth centuries under Arab commanders such as ‘Uqba ibn Nafi. Attention is given to the turbulent relations between the invading Arabs and indigenous Berbers. The chapter continues with an account of the rise of the Ismaili Shi‘a Fatimids in North Africa, as a threat to Sunni Islam, and its fall at the hands of Salah ud-Din (Saladin) and the subsequent Sunni Ayyubid dynasty. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the Ottoman Empire’s conquest of Egypt and the Maghreb, which assured the dominance of Sunni Islam throughout the region.
