Kairouan, TN
Kairouan is a historic city in Tunisia
Kairouan is a historic city in Tunisia. It was founded by the Umayyads around 670, under Caliph Mu'awiya, when Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi selected a site in a dense forest teeming with wild beasts and reptiles for a military post. The Aghlabids later built the great mosque and established a university there, which became a center of education in Islamic thought and secular sciences. In 1045, when the Zirids declared independence from Cairo and converted to Sunni Islam, the Fatimid Caliph sent Arab tribes (Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym) to invade Ifriqiya. These invaders captured Kairouan in 1057, destroying it so thoroughly that it never regained its former importance.
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Sources
- Wikidata · CC0
- Wikipedia (en) · CC BY-SA 4.0