Zirids of Ifriqiya rule from Kairouan

1027

The Berber Zirid dynasty continued to rule Tunisia as nominal Fatimid vassals, maintaining Kairouan's prestigious Maliki legal scholarship and a relatively prosperous agricultural economy in the Tunisian countryside. Their break with Cairo over religious allegiance two decades later would bring disaster in the form of Banu Hilal invasion. Kairouan's Great Mosque, already centuries old, remained the spiritual heart of North African Islam.