Note 2 — Chapter X · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN CHINA.

The information we possess of the spread of Islam among the heathen population of North Africa is hardly less meagre than the few facts recorded above regarding the disappearance of the Christian Church. The Berbers offered a vigorous resistance to the progress of the Arab arms, and force seems to have had more influence than persuasion in their conversion. Whenever opportunity presented itself, they rebelled against the religion as well as the rule of their conquerors, and Arab historians declare that they apostasised as many as twelve times.2 In the annals of the long struggle a few scanty references to conversions are to be found. These would appear sometimes to have been prompted by the recognition of the fact that further resistance to the Arab arms was useless. When in 703 the Berbers made their last stand against the invaders, their intrepid leader and prophetess, al-Kāhinah,3 foreseeing that the fortune of battle was to turn against them, sent her sons into the camp of the Muslim general with instructions that they were to embrace Islam and make common cause with the enemy; she herself elected to fall fighting with her countrymen in the great battle that crushed the political power of the Berbers and gave Northern Africa into the hands of the Arabs. Peace was made on condition that the Berbers would furnish 12,000 combatants to the ranks of the Arab troops, and of these men two army-corps were formed, each of which was placed under the command of one of the sons of al-Kāhinah.4 By this device of enlisting the Berbers in their armies, the Arab generals hoped to win them to their own religion by the hope of booty.