Abdallah ibn Sa'd led the invasion with 20,000 soldiers from Medina in the Arabian Peninsula, swiftly taking over Tripolitania and then defeating a much larger Byzantine army at the Battle of Sufetula in the same year.

An army of 10,000 Muslims and thousands of others, led by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi, departed from Damascus and marched into Africa, conquering it.

Numerous large Arab communities were established across various areas, with a significant number of settlers hailing from the Najdi tribe of Banu Tamim.

[8] In 711, the Umayyad conquest of Spain was launched by Tariq ibn Ziyad from territory in North Africa, establishing full control over the Iberian Peninsula and the province of Al-Andalus by 726.

[9] During his term as governor of Ifriqiya, Musa ibn Nusayr raided Berber settlements and took captives, who were treated as war booty and taken into slavery.

[11] As a result of dhimmi taxation and slave-tributes, the resentful Berber population started to consider radical Kharijite activists from the East, especially the Sufrites and Ibadites, which began to arrive in the Maghreb since the 720s.

The Kharijites preached a strict form of Islam, promising a new political order, where all Muslims would be equal regardless of ethnicity or tribal status.

Bishr personally led an expedition against Sicily which resulted in the acquisition of loot and goods, but this offensive ended badly when storms overtook his fleet and killed a great amount of his army.

Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik swore that he would send a large army and added "I will not leave a single Berber compound without pitching beside it a tent of a tribesman from Qays or Tamim".

The Arab cavalry commander Khalid ibn Abi Habiba did not pursue them, but just held his line south of Tangier, blockading the Berber-held city.

In 747, during the Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate, the Fihrid clan (descendants of Uqba ibn Nafi) took advantage of the situation and seized power in Ifriqiya.

They controlled all of present-day Tunisia, except for the southern parts, which were under the influence of the independent Warfajuma Berber tribe, who were associated with the Sufri Kharijites.

This vast territory extended from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Western Desert in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the deep oases of the Sahara in the south.

Due to its large size, it was divided into Ifriqiya, Tripolitania, Zab, and Sus, which were governed by 'amils (sub-governors), and were further subdivided into districts (kuras) and cantons (rustaqs), each with their own commander.

[1] Following the model of the Eastern provinces, the Maghreb was governed by a wali (governor) appointed by the Umayyad caliph from the capital of Damascus.

Hassan ibn al-Nu'man established the diwan and imposed the Kharaj Islamic tax on the town-dwellers of Ifriqiya and all remaining Christian Berbers.

[1] Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, who became governor of Ifriqiya in 720, re-imposed the jizyah on the Berber populations and expanded other taxes and tributes.

[1] Like Egypt and the Levant, North Africa operated with a Byzantine-style gold-standard currency, however this was eventually abandoned and replaced by a new Umayyad design.

[22] The Umayyads controlled the vast territory of North Africa through a military force of 50,000 Arabian soldiers, who were given land grants.

Due to the great influx of men during the Abbasid period, primarily Khurasani Arab troops from Iraq, the ethnic makeup and tribal balance of Ifriqiya was shifted, in which the North Arabian Adnanite tribes such as Banu Tamim became the majority.

[1] Members of the Christian population also joined the army, such as Roman Africans including the convert Abd al-Rahman al-Hubuli.

Due to the great influx of men during the Abbasid period, primarily Khurasani Arab troops from Iraq, the ethnic makeup and tribal balance of Ifriqiya was shifted, in which the North Arabian Adnanite tribes such as Banu Tamim became the majority.