This concise and accessible book offers the first assessment of the archaeology of early Islamic North Africa (7th-9th centuries), drawing on a wide range of new evidence from recent archaeological work in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. It lays out current debates about its interpretation and suggests new ways of thinking about this crucial period in world history. Presenting a challenge to the current debates about the impact of the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam in North Africa, this volume proposes a new approach to this pivotal period. In recent years, those studying the Islamic world have shown that the coming of Islam was not marked by devastation or rapid decline, but rather by considerable cultural and economic continuity. In North Africa, with continuity came significant change. Corisande Fenwick argues that the establishment of Muslim rule also coincided with a phase of intense urbanization, the appearance of new architectural forms (mosques, housing, hammams), the spread of Muslim social and cultural practices, the introduction of new crops and manufacturing techniques and the establishment of new trading links with sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Essential reading for those interested in understanding the impact of the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam on daily life, it will also challenge students of archaeology and history to think in new ways about North Africa, the nature of the earliest Islamic empires and the transition from the Roman to the medieval Mediterranean.