ABSTRACT
The term ‘North Africa’ is a general one, and it will first be necessary to define the precise geographical area included in this study. It is equivalent to the term ‘al-Maghrib’ which is used by Arab historians and geographers to describe the entire area extending from the western boundaries of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean.1 In this study ‘North Africa’ will be used to indicate the territory nowadays divided into Libya, Tūnisia, Algeria and Morocco. Arab chroniclers also used the term ‘Ifrīqiya’, which was sometimes confused with the whole of the ‘Maghrib’,2 but later on it became clear that ‘Ifrīqiya’ meant approximately the area now covered by Tūnisia and eastern Algeria.3
