What Was the Conquerors’ Religion? Social Grouping and Religious Discourse in Early Islamic Ifrīqiya

Abstract This article assesses the evidence that legal biographies, legal and theological treatises and epigraphical inscriptions offer about the development of religious discourse in early 3rd/9th-century Ifrīqiya. It shows that, in contrast to the more homogenous depiction of religious life of Fatimid Ifrīqiya, according to which the main division was between Sunni Mālikī scholars and Fatimid, Shiʾite rulers, early 3rd/9th-century Ifrīqiya was characterized by a variety of different legal and theological interpretations, bringing its early intellectual history closer to that of other regions of the Islamic Empire. It also shows that this variety was related to the demographic configuration of the province, especially the distinction between the early wave of Arab settlers that arrived under Umayyad rule, and the later wave of settlers that arrived under the Abbasids. The formation of the religious identity of Ifrīqiya should be understood against this political and social background and against the province’s geographical and social proximity to al-Andalus and Egypt.