What is a good book on the history of the spread of Islam in north Africa?

Answer 1

Answer 1

I think our QURAN Is best! We can know every kind of knowledge from QURAN. If we read it fully and properly you will find out the basic history of Islam.

Answer 2

The best literature on the Spread of Islam in North Africa is actually in French. Two books worth reading in French are: Robert Brunschvig's Al-Andalus(1975), Identités et Cultures dans l'Algérie Antique (2005) which has a number of different smaller pieces, and Ahmed Siraj's L'Image de la Tingitane. L'historiographie arabe medievale et l'Antiquite nord-africaine (1995).

In terms of English language literature, there are more general books such as Will Durant's The History of Civilization: Part IV-The Age of Faith (1950) and Charles Scott Kimball's A History of Africa (2004). Both of these are more general. There is also Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 51, but the book is primarily about the Byzantine Empire, not the Islamic Period directly after.

As concerns Answer 1, the Qur'an is relatively useless in describing the Spread of Islam in North Africa for two major reasons. Firstly, the Qur'an deals with things said by Mohammed, as Divine Revelations, between 610-633 C.E. The conquest of Africa did not begin until 638 C.E. and did not end until 680 C.E. The Qur'an does not describe the future. Secondly, the Qur'an provides very minimal history. Most of the Qur'an is commentaries on previous religious stories or history, edicts, and laws for Muslims (and sometimes Non-Muslims) to follow. Most Muslims know about Prophet Mohammed's life, for examples, from the Biography of the Prophet as opposed to the Qur'an (which rarely discusses Mohammed).