Islam

The Idrissides

By the 7C AD the Arabs were in full expansion. They were inspired primarily by their fierce desire to spread their own religion of Islam throughout the World. but they were doubtless particularly attracted to North Africa by the endless stretches of desert sand which were to them like home. It was in 670 that the first Arab invasions of the North African coastal plain took place under Oqba Ben Nafi, commander of the Umayed dynasty in Damascus.

He is best known for having founded the city of Kairwan (S of Tunis) and for having built the first ever mosque in North Africa, He swept with his army into what is now Morocco in the year 683. Which he called this Maghreb al Aqsa or farthest West

When a second Ummayed leader, Musa lbn Nouasser, arrived in 703,the Berbers were not unwilling to participate in the Islamic expansion into southern Spain and into the more southerly areas of Morocco, However, the progress of Islam remained patchy and small enclaves of Christians still existed in the interior though many fled to Spain). This lack of national unity persisted until the arrival of ldriss Ben Abdallah, a descendant of the prophet Mohammed, in 788. There are very few original Arab sources available for reference about this early period but that which is most frequently cited by historians is the Raoud El Kartas, a chronicle by the 13C writer from Fez, Ibn Abi-Zar-El-fasi: from this we learn that ldriss Ben Abdallah fled into Egypt from the Abbasides .He arrived by way of Kairwan, first in Tangier and then in the former Roman city of Volubilis where was received by Berbers already fully converted to Islam by the earlier Arab arrivals. The Berbers chief proclaimed Idriss King and pledged the support of his own and neighboring tribes. It seems that the arrival of an assured leader who would guide the country out of the spiritual uncertainties which had increased since the death of Oqba ben Nafi was welcome. Idriss II was born after his father’s death and was educated and prepared for his awesome task. He became King at the age of 12, in 804.

He founded Fez which in his time was well prospered. In 818, 8000 Arab families arrived after being expelled by Christians from the Emirate of Cordoba in Spain. Seven years 2000 families came from Kairwan. These ‘refugies’ were welcomed and installed, respectively, on the right and left banks of the river which divides the town. It was very largely as a result of the of these people, with their refinements and skills, that Fez became a great spiritual and intellectual center whose influence very much reached to the far north of the country and, later, beyond. Idriss II who died in 828In Morocco came the next dynasty, from the south The Almoravides.