Founding of al-Qayrawān

The raids into Ifrīqiyah had come and gone with the armies; ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ's answer was a permanent camp. In 50 AH he laid out al-Qayrawān — "the caravanserai" — on the inland steppe, deliberately away from the Byzantine-patrolled coast, with its great mosque at the centre.

The city held through revolts and recaptures to become the metropolis of the Muslim West: the seat from which the Maghreb and then al-Andalus were governed, and for centuries the region's capital of Mālikī learning. The Great Mosque of ʿUqba, rebuilt in the third century AH, still marks his ground plan.

The founding year is carried as 50 AH in the common account, with 55 also given; no month survives.