Note 114 — Chapter IV · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF AFRICA.

There is little more to add to these sparse records of the decay of the North African Church. A Muhammadan traveller,114 who visited al-Jarīd, the southern district of Tunis, in the early part of the fourteenth century, tells us that the Christian churches, although in ruins, were still standing in his day, not having been destroyed by the Arab conquerors, who had contented themselves with building a mosque in front of each of these churches. Ibn K͟haldūn (writing towards the close of the fourteenth century), speaks of some villages in the province of Qastīliyyah,115 with a Christian population whose ancestors had lived there since the time of the Arab conquest.116 At the end of the following century there was still to be found in the city of Tunis a small community of native Christians, living together in one of the suburbs, quite distinct from that in which the foreign Christian merchants resided; far from being oppressed or persecuted, they were employed as the bodyguard of the Sultan.117 These were doubtless the same persons as were congratulated on their perseverance in the Christian faith by Charles V after the capture of Tunis in 1535.118