From the origins of the Islamic era to the nineteenth century, the history of North African society turned on two essential motifs: state formation and Islamization. Historically the basic units of society – families, hamlets, or groups of hamlets – were embedded in factional and tribal groups. The economy was based on small-scale grain, fruit, and olive production; stock raising by pastoral peoples; and limited urban-based textile and other small-scale manufacturing. Although trade was important, the merchant middle class was not highly developed. Unlike the Middle East, North Africa did not have a long experience of imperial organization, monotheistic religious communities, sedentarized agriculture, and urban commerce. It had a veneer of imperial and urban Christian civilization set down by the Phoenicians and Romans, and confined to relatively limited coastal territories.

Islamic civilization was brought to North Africa and Spain by the Arab conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries. The Arab conquests led to the formation of not one but several political centers, and an ever-changing political geography. North African forces conquered Spain in the eighth century. From the seventh to the eleventh centuries, North Africa and Spain were divided among governments formed by the Arab conquerors, by Berber tribes, or by Arab-Berber coalitions. The smaller Berber kingdoms defined themselves in varying forms of Khariji Islam, while the Umayyad dynasty in Spain and the Fatimids in North Africa claimed to be the caliphs of the whole Islamic world.