Berber Revolt

The Berber Revolt of 740–743 AD (122–125 AH in the Islamic calendar) took place during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and marked the first successful secession from the Arab caliphate (ruled from Damascus). Fired up by Kharijite puritan preachers, the Berber revolt against their Umayyad Arab rulers began in Tangiers in 740, and was led initially by Maysara al-Matghari. The revolt soon spread through the rest of the Maghreb (North Africa) and across the straits to al-Andalus. The Umayyads scrambled and managed to prevent the core of Ifriqiya (Tunisia, East-Algeria and West-Libya) and al-Andalus (Spain and Portugal) from falling into rebel hands. But the rest of the Maghreb was never recovered. After failing to capture the Umayyad provincial capital of Kairouan, the Berber rebel armies dissolved, and the western Maghreb fragmented into a series of small Berber statelets, ruled by tribal chieftains and Kharijite imams. The Berber revolt was probably the largest military setback in the reign of Caliph Hisham. From it, emerged some of the first Muslim states outside the Caliphate. The underlying causes of the revolt were the policies of the Umayyad governors in Kairouan, Ifriqiya, who had authority over the Maghreb (all of North Africa west of Egypt) and al-Andalus. From the early days of the Muslim conquest of North Africa, Arab commanders had treated non-Arab (notably Berber) auxiliaries inconsistently, and often rather shabbily. When they arrived in North Africa the Umayyads had to face a Christian-majority population in Africa Proconsularis (which became Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia) and pagans in the Maghreb al-Aqsa (now Morocco) with Jewish minorities. Some Berbers of the Maghreb quickly converted and participated in the growth of Islam in the region, but the Arab authorities continued to treat them as second-class people. Although Berbers had undertaken much of the fighting in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, they were given a lesser share of the spoils and frequently assigned to the harsher duties (e.