Arab Invasions: The First Islamic Empire During the seventh
century the Arabs invaded North Africa three times, bringing not
just a new religion but a language and customs that were alien
to the native Berber tribes of the Sahara and Mediterranean
hinterland. Eamonn Gearon looks at the rise of the first Islamic
empire. When Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, died in 632 the new
religion had already gathered a number of impressive victories
on the battlefield. The armies of Islam quickly and easily
conquered the Arabian peninsula before moving on to take the
homelands of their various neighbours. Marching out of Arabia in
639 they entered non-Arab Egypt; 43 years later they reached the
shores of the Atlantic; and in 711 they invaded Spain. In just
70 years they had subdued the whole of North Africa, instituting
a new order. This conquest, from the Nile to the Atlantic, was
more complete than anything achieved by previous invaders and
the changes it wrought proved permanent. Before the arrival of
the Arabs, in 533