There is the story of Tunisia and there is the story of the Muslims.
At the start of the 7th century A.D., in the Mediterranean region and thereabouts, there were a few big, bureaucratic states, and a bunch of tribal groups, some nomadic.
The bureaucratic states were the Romans, operating out of Constantinople (Istanbul today, and we call them Byzantines), and Persia, run at that time by the Sasanid dynasty. There were “barbarian” kingdoms of various kinds in Europe and North Africa: Vandals in Africa, Visigoths in Spain, Lombards in Italy, Ostrogoths in Central Europe, and so forth.
For most of the 7th century, Carthage was held by the Byzantines, who had taken it from the Vandals in the previous century. Outside of Carthage, in what is now Tunisia, were…
