ABSTRACT
Diverse issues of identity and contested visions of community characterized social relations in North Africa at the time of the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Seventh-century North Africa significantly lacked any monastic authors comparable to Anastasius the Sinaite, and the absence of monastic constructors of identity may have facilitated the disappearance of Christian communities. Marwn, unlike his Byzantine imperial rivals, had handson direct military campaign experience in North Africa. The ethnic composition of the seventh-century Byzantine or Roman army in North Africa is thinly documented, but it was not homogeneous. It may have stiffened the determination of some to continue to fight in North Africa, while others may have sought to return to the East to help defend their homelands and villages or to assist their families. Military officers with that kind of effective experience were not, it seems, transferred to North Africa to apply the innovations the Byzantines were developing in Anatolia.
