Like Rome, Pisa and Genoa on the western coast of Italy, Tunis prospered in the ninth century from trade, slavery, naval-merchant exchange and raiding. Being on the coast was both an opportunity and a risk for residents of Tunis. Raiding always went both ways, the North Africans feared Italian pirates and vice versa. At any moment, an Italian duke or even another unfriendly Berber or Muslim ship, could arrive to take recently captured spoils. Overall, however, the opportunity of the sea still made a protected and strategic port city such as Tunis capable of thriving. Only a short trip from Sicily and the coast of Italy, Tunis was within the same commercial sphere as European cities to the north. The city of Tunis, nestled in a Lake of Tunis, itself protected within a Gulf of Tunis, faced out towards the Western Mediterranean. Following the legacy of Carthage, fewer cities could be better situated than Tunis to take advantage of Western Mediterranean trade. Tunis was to dominate the southern Mediterranean shore and north to the many islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea where boats were sent by steady currents. Although it never became a city at the level of Rome or Cairo, Tunis was often close to this status. It had been on the verge of empire at its height, a stopover point for ideas and movements far vaster than its immediate surroundings. Tunis at one point would be recognized in Mecca and Madina as the capital of the Caliph – leader of the Islamic world.

Tunis would eventually become the capital of Ifriqiya; the Arabized Latin name of the land that covers much of what is now Tunisia. Like a fat blade between the western mountains of Algeria and the deserts of Libya, Ifriqiya also seems to push northwards into the Tyrrhenian Sea, towards Sicily, with Rome and the strategic islands of Malta, Sardinia and the Balearics (Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza) easily accessible to trade, pillage, invasion or some combination of all three. The Bay of Tunis, in this respect, functioned like a net catapulting boats north and west and capturing them when heading east. Tunis eventually became not only a major port but also a significant center of learning, trade and commerce that not only raided but also rivaled European cities well into the medieval period.