In the following centuries most of the Berbers converted to Islam, although after the Arab rule receded permanently from North Africa.

The Berbers went on to shape Islam in their own image – some ( like the Banu Ifran ) retained their connection with radical puritan Islamic sects, others ( like the Berghwata ) constructed a new syncretic faith which was simply folk religion thinly disguised as Islam.

The Berbers were indigenous inhabitants of North Africa who only recently had been converted to Islam ; they had provided most of the soldiery of the invading Islamic armies but sensed Arab discrimination against them.

" Two centuries later, Europeans perceived Saracens as poor, uneducated idolaters belonging to a group wholly separate from the Arabs who brought Aristotle to the Latin West and the Moors and Berbers fighting Christians in Spain ; someone who got all of his or her information on Islam from medieval sources would not conclude the three groups represented one continuous culture.

The Berbers had been converted to Islam barely a generation earlier, and were considered second rank to Arabs and Syrians.

The dynasty was founded in 909 by, who in the late 9th century started a movement among the Kutama Berbers and managed to convert them to Shi ' a Islam.

* 720-Caliph Umar II puts heavy pressure on the Christian Berbers to convert to Islam

Various Islamic variations, such as the Ibadis and the Shia, were adopted by some Berbers, often leading to scorning of Caliphal control in favour of their own interpretation of Islam.

It was spoken by Mozarabs ( Christians living as dhimmis ), Muladis ( the native Iberian population converted to Islam ) and some layers of the ruling Arabs and Berbers.

This proved highly successful, as many Berbers converted to Islam and even entered his army as soldiers and officers, possibly including Tariq bin Ziyad who would lead the later Islamic expedition in Iberia.

Nomadic Berbers, mainly of the Sanhaja tribal confederation, inhabited the areas now known as Western Sahara, southern Morocco, Mauritania and extreme southernwestern Algeria, before Islam arrived in the 8th century AD.

After the conversion to Islam at the beginning of the 8th century and the Maysara uprising ( CE 739-742 ), the Barghawata Berbers formed their own state on the Atlantic coast between Safi and Salé.

In 710, Salih I ibn Mansur founded the kingdom of Nekor in the Rif and Berbers started converting to Islam.

: See also History of Arab Egypt, Rise of Islam in Algeria, Berbers and Islam, Muslim History, Islam in Africa

In the 11th century, Berbers of the Sahara began a jihad to reform Islam in North Africa and remove any trace of cultural or religious pluralism.

Most Berbers embraced Islam quickly, though their non-Arab ethnic and linguistic distinction has resisted the Arab-Islamic influence.

As in the Hellenic lands of Christendom, so also in Mauretania, Judaism involuntarily prepared the way for Islam ; and the conversion of the Berbers to Islam took place so much the more easily.

Berbers also accepted Islam while others were persuaded by the fact that the other side had been successful.

Prior to the seventh century, the Berbers had successfully resisted foreign invasions of Islam.

The Meghrawa, a tribe of Zanata Berbers, were one of the first Berber tribes to submit to Islam in the 7th century.