Note 30 — Chapter III · THE ARAB CONQUEST OF AFRICA

The origin of the name Kairwan has been much disputed. The present writer, visiting this place some years ago, was told by a native that the word was the Arab name for a small bustard-like courser (a bird which the French call Poule de Kairouan), and that, seeing this bird in large numbers—where it is still to be found—in the marshy plain on which the city was built, the Arabs gave its name to the town. Kairwan was chosen as the site for the Muhammadan capital by the early Arab invaders because it was considered sufficiently far from the sea-coast to be beyond the reach of attack from a Byzantine fleet.