The Maghrib, in the geographical sense used here, comprised northern Africa west of Egypt and north of the Sahara. Its coastal belt, Mediterranean slopes, Atlas forests, pasturelands, and Atlantic soils offered far more varied resources than the older image of a land dominated by rock and sand. The Atlas Mountains and adjoining regions formed the principal homeland of the Berbers, whose communities extended into Libya and parts of the Sahara.

At the beginning of the Arab conquest, the Berbers were organized in kabīlas, as were the Arabs. Arab accounts divided them into two broad categories, the Butr and the Barānis, although the terminology appears only in accounts connected with the conquest and its later historiography. The extract treats the division cautiously: it may reflect remembered ancestral blocs, but the genealogical explanations are retrospective and the distinction between sedentary and nomadic ways of life remains speculative.

The principal Butr confederations named for the conquest period were the Zanāta, Matghara, and Nafzāwa. The Barānis included the Awrāba, Hawwāra, and Sanhādja, alongside other large groupings. The source warns that genealogical tables were compiled later for political or dynastic purposes, contain contradictions, and cannot provide a fully reliable picture of tribal geography.

The Zanāta occupied Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, extending southward toward the Djabal Nafusa and the oases of Fezzān. Associated groups included the Hawwāra, Luwāta, Nafūsa, and Zaghāwa. Zanāta-linked groups also ruled eastern Algeria and occupied pasturelands along the northern slopes of the Central Atlas as far as the Mulūya River, while the Miknāsa extended southward toward the fertile Tafilālet oases.

Kutāma and Sanhādja communities occupied the central Maghrib, including the Awrās massif, Grande Kabylie, and areas around Tāhert and Tlemcen. The Kutāma later contributed to the establishment of the Fāṭimid Caliphate, the Talkāta founded the two Zīrid emirates, and the Awrāba played a major role in founding the Idrīsid emirate in northern Morocco. Other Sanhādja enclaves were located in the High Atlas.

A second Sanhādja grouping stretched from the desert south of Wādī Darʿa to the Atlantic Sahara as far as the Senegal River. Its principal groups included the Lamtūna, Massūfa, Djuddāla, Gazūla, Banū Wārith, Lamṭa, and Tārka, identified in the extract with the Tuareg. These were camel-breeding nomads. The Maṣmūda or Masāmida controlled most of the western Maghrib, including the Rif, the High and Anti-Atlas, and the fertile plain of Sūs.

Before and during the early Arab conquest, Berber religious life was diverse. Most Berbers followed ancient cults associated with the forces of nature, while Arab writers used the term mādjūs in the sense of pagans. Christianity was concentrated chiefly in the coastal belt among the Afārika, a mixed population of Berbers, Romanized Carthaginians, Romans, and Greeks, and had only limited penetration among Berber communities inland.

In parts of Zeugitana and Byzacena, Christianity had become established, but the Christian communities of Byzantine Africa were divided by schisms. The extract presents earlier Christian affiliations, including Arianism and Donatism, as having offered forms of resistance to Roman and later Byzantine religious policies. Judaism had also spread throughout North Africa, with many native-born North African Jews described as descendants of converts from before the advent of Islam.

The conquest began in the wider setting of the Arab takeover of Egypt. In 641, the Treaty of Alexandria was concluded between ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ and the patriarch Cyrus, and the last Byzantine garrison evacuated Alexandria on 17 September 642. ʿAmr then moved toward Cyrenaica, which, together with Tripolitania, had been administratively attached to Egypt since the imperial reorganization under Maurice.