Tunis Tunis Tunisia

The Roman army, commanded by the consul Marcus Atilius Regulus, lands in Africa and begins ravaging the Carthaginian countryside as a result of the favorable outcome of the naval battle off Cape Ecnomus.

The invaders are so successful that the other consul, Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus, is recalled to Rome, leaving Regulus behind to finish the war.

Regulus is at first victorious, winning the Battle of Adys and forcing Carthage to sue for peace.

The terms are so harsh that negotiations fail and, in response, the Carthaginians replace the outmatched general Hamilcar with new leadership in the person of Xanthippus, a Spartan mercenary, to reorganize the army.

Defeating the Roman army and capturing Regulus, along with five hundred of his men, at the Battle of Tunis, Xanthippus then manages to cut off what remains of the Roman army from its base by reestablishing Carthaginian naval supremacy.

The remainder of the army is evacuated by the Roman navy, only to be lost in a storm at sea.

There is no further trustworthy information about Regulus.

According to tradition, he remained in captivity until 250 BCE, when after the defeat of the Carthaginians at the Battle of Panormus he was sent to Rome on parole to negotiate a peace or an exchange of prisoners.

On his arrival, he instead strongly urged the Roman Senate to refuse both proposals and continue fighting, and honored his parole by returning to Carthage where he was executed.

Rome, after taking Tunis, …

Al-Zaytuna (literally, the Mosque of Olives) is the second mosque to be built in Ifriqiya and the Maghreb region after the Mosque of Uqba in Al-Kairouan.

The exact date of building varies according to source.

Ibn Khaldun and Al-Bakri wrote that it was built in 116 Hijri (731 C.E.)

by Obeid-Allah Ibn Al-Habhab.

A second source states that the Umayyad Hisham Ibn Abdel-Malek ordered the building; however, Ahmed In Abu Diyaf and Ibn Abi Dinar attributed the order to Hasan ibn al-Nu'man who led the conquest of Tunis and Carthage.

Most scholars agree that the third possibility is the strongest by evidence as it is unlikely that the city of Tunis remained a long time without a mosque, after its conquest in 698.

Thus the closest date is 84 Hijri (703 CE), and what Al-Habhab did was in fact enlarge the mosque and improve its architecture.

…the construction of the town of Tunis nearby.

These successes and Arab naval supremacy in the Mediterranean force the imperial forces to evacuate their remaining positions on the Maghribi coast, including …

The Ez-Zitouna madrassa is founded in Tunis 737 as the teaching arm of the Olive-Tree Mosque (Djemaa ez-Zitouna); it has been in continuous existence since then.

As the nucleus of today's Ez-Zitouna University, located in Tunis, it is the oldest teaching establishment in the Arab world.

Abu Muhammad Ziyadat Allah I had succeeded his brother Abdallah I (812–817) to the Emirate of Ifriqiya.

During his rule, the relationship between the ruling dynasty on the one hand and the jurists and Arab troops on the other remains strained.

When Ziyadat Allah I attempts to disband the Arab units in 824, it leads to a great revolt at Tunis, which will only be put down in 836 with the help of the Berbers.

Isma'ilis from Yemen have reached North Africa, where the Fatimid movement arises.

Before the Fatimids, there had been other rulers in North Africa and Egypt who had succeeded in making themselves virtually independent of the 'Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad; but they had been Muslims of the Sunni branch of Islam, willing to recognize the token suzerainty of the caliph as head of the Islamic community.

The Fatimids, however, as the heads of a rival religious movements—the Isma'ili sect of the Shi'i branch—are dedicated to the overthrow of the existing religious and political order in all Islam.

Unlike their predecessors, they refuse to offer even nominal recognition to the 'Abbasid caliphs, whom they reject as usurpers.

They themselves—as Isma'ili imams, descendants of the Prophet through his daughter Fatimah and his kinsman 'Ali—are, in the eyes of their followers, the rightful caliphs, both by descent and by divine choice the custodians of the true faith and the legitimate heads of the universal Islamic state and community.

Their purpose is not to establish another regional sovereignty but to supersede the 'Abbasids and to found a new caliphate in their place.

By 909, they are strong enough for their imam, who had been in hiding, to emerge and proclaim himself caliph, with the messianic title of al-Mahdi (the Rightly Guided One).

This marks the beginning of a new state and dynasty.

The population of Tunis throws out their governor and lets Abū Yazīd in.

By the end of the year, …

Abd ar-Rahman signs a peace in 951 with the new king of León, Ordoño III, in order to have a free hand against the Fatimids, whose ships are harassing the caliphal fleet in the Mediterranean and had even launched an assault against Almeria.

Abd ar-Rahman's force, led by prime minister Ahmad ibn Said, besieges the Fatimid port of Tunis, which purchases its safety through a huge sum.

Hammadid vassals have been installed in Tunis and …