Muslim Expansion and Byzantine Collapse in North Africa (review)

How did the Byzantines lose North Africa to the Muslims in the seventh century c.e.? Kaegi deploys an interdisciplinary approach to address this issue and to produce a critical synthesis based on the methods of history, religious studies, archaeology, numismatics, and epigraphy; the source criticism of Arabic, Greek, and Latin texts; Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic toponymics; and topography. These approaches are well integrated with each other in his arguments, and his appeal to a variety of disciplines compensates for a lack of information in the literary sources.

One of Kaegi’s most original contributions is a detailed survey of topographical zones across North Africa and the identification of thirteen micro-regions, the diversity of which created challenges for military and political decision making and operations. In addition to explaining why the location of Sbeitla was strategic, this survey enables him to make the reasonable argument that ‘Uqba’s campaign from Qayrawan to the Atlantic in the 680s went inland through the east–west valleys, not because he wanted to avoid the Byzantines on the coast but because there is no viable coastal route west of Carthage.

In general, Kaegi explains the Byzantine collapse by a combination of ecclesiastical politics; a crisis of Heraclian dynastic legitimacy; fears of internal military unrest; fiscal pressure; gaps between Greek and Latin culture and between Greeks, Latins, and indigenous populations; and lengthy and tenuous communications that impeded any viable defense. In particular, Constans II’s presence on Sicily in the 660s and his attempts to raise money by head taxes, navigation and commercial taxes, and confiscation of Church treasures alienated his subjects in Calabria, Sicily, North Africa, and Sardinia and hindered local resistance to the Muslims. Kaegi sees the events in Byzacena between 660 and 670 as the decisive turning point for the Byzantine collapse in North Africa, and the assassination of Constans II in 669 as the end of coherent Byzantine resistance.

Local resistance was also impeded in North Africa by the Byzantine failure to ally with indigenous leaders, resulting in confusion and missed opportunities instead of coordination. Thus, Kasilo (who drove the Muslims out of Qayrawan in the 670s and killed ‘Uqba in an ambush in the 680s) and the forces of the Kahina in the 690s were not part of the Byzantine resistance, although the Muslims had to deal with them.

Although Kaegi recognizes the strategic importance of North Africa to the Byzantines—in that its loss would threaten Sicily, southern Italy, and east–west navigation across the Mediterranean—he does not consider the possibility of strategic objectives on the part of the Muslims. Their initial occupation of the North African coast may have been an outflanking operation against the Byzantines in the eastern and central Mediterranean.

Kaegi is also teleological in that his focus is on why the Byzantine defense of North Africa ultimately failed, not on why it took the Muslims so long to succeed (about seventy years). He seems to contradict himself by suggesting that the latter can be partly explained by the establishment of a Byzantine military presence farther west and south in Algeria than previously assumed.

In general, Kaegi’s account is closely argued, thoughtful, nuanced, careful, and judicious. It is also full of hypothetical arguments. Kaegi asks all of the right questions, only to report that they cannot be answered definitively because of a lack of documentation.