AD 670

Kairouan

Uqba ibn Nafi begins building the garrison-city of Kairouan

The city said to have been founded in 670 reportedly took five years to build — and nothing identifiable survives from the mosque Uqba laid out.

A date supplied by tradition

Medieval tradition dates Uqba ibn Nafi's foundation of a new inland Kairouan to 50 AH — 670. In the conventional chronology he had taken command in Ifriqiya and, with a force reported as 10,000 men plus support from some Moorish groups, raided Capsa and Qastiliya before advancing to the site.

That date is traditional rather than independently fixed. A modern scholarly synthesis notes that it appears in only a minority of relatively late Arabic sources, while other chronicles place Uqba's arrival anywhere between 662–663 and 676–677.

Nor was it the first Arab camp of the name in the district. Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj had already established one called Kairouan at al-Qarn, northwest of Uqba's settlement.

A mosque, a palace, and five years of work

Construction began with a mosque and a nearby governor's palace, not with a finished city. The reported build time for the new capital is five years from 670.

What the site offered was a fixed inland base for administering and extending the Arab position in Ifriqiya without depending on the fortified, Byzantine-held coast.

No identifiable fabric of that first mosque survives; the Great Mosque standing at Kairouan is principally the product of later rebuilding.

Dismissed, and the seat moved north

The foundation did not settle Umayyad rule in Ifriqiya, and it did not end Byzantine or Berber resistance.

Uqba was dismissed in 675. His successor Abu al-Muhajir Dinar relocated the government settlement north.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Traditional date

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at ~0670.

What the sources leave uncertain

The familiar date 670 is traditional rather than independently fixed by contemporary evidence. A modern scholarly synthesis notes that the date appears in only a minority of relatively late Arabic sources; other chronicles place Uqba's arrival between 662–663 and 676–677.
The 10,000 figure is reported in modern scholarship from narrative sources, but the stronger claim that all 10,000 were Arab horsemen is not securely established.
Foundation was a multi-year process. Sources also describe earlier camps in the same region, especially Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj's al-Qarn, so 670 was not the first Arab encampment there.