Located in the centre of Tunisia, in a plain at an almost equal distance from the sea and the mountain, Kairouan (Al Qairawān) was founded around 670, as an Arab military post for the conquest of the West. The site had housed a Byzantine garrison before the Arab conquest, far from the sea - safe from the continued attacks of the Berbers, who had fiercely resisted the Arab invasion. In the period of Caliph Mu'awiya (r. 661-680), it became an important centre for Islamic and Quranic learning, and thus attracting a large number of Muslims, next only to Mecca and Medina. In 745, Kharijite Berbers captured it, but Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab recaptured it at the end of the 8th century. In 800 Caliph Harun ar-Rashid confirmed Ibrahim as Emir and hereditary ruler of Ifriqiya. He founded the Aghlabid dynasty, who built the great mosque and established in it a university, whose role can be compared to that of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages. The year 909 saw the establishment of the ShiiteFatimid dynasty, which neglected the city. When the Zirids declared their independence from Cairo and their conversion to Sunni Islam in 1045, the Fatimid Caliph Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah sent punishment hordes, which destroyed Kairouan in 1057. Despite the transfer of the political capital to Tunis in the 12th century, Kairouan remained the Maghreb's principal holy city.
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