Ibn Abdelḥakam and the Conquest of North Africa

[108] We now have at our disposal a convenient edition – text and annotated translation – of the chapter of Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s work which deals with the conquest of North Africa and Spain by the Arabs, and their history until the middle of the eighth century, in other words until the end of the Umayyad dynasty of Damascus. Albert Gateau has reproduced there, ¹ with some minor variations, ² the Arabic text of the Futūḥ Miṣr published by Charles C. Torrey in 1922, ³ and, with some light fine-tuning, the French translation which he himself had published in the Revue Tunisienne in 1931, 1932 and 1935; the contribution of the Revue Tunisienne to the study of this subject deserves acknowledgement. The Introduction includes several clear and welcome pages on the sources of Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam: this had already appeared, in almost the same form, at the beginning of a study – thereafter somewhat overlong and involved – which Albert Gateau devoted, in the same revue, from 1936 to 1942, to Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, historian of the Muslim West.