The Roman power rose to the zenith of its glory, and still the desert remained uncrossed; it dwindled towards its fall, and then its days of geographical conquest were over. In Northern Africa, as elsewhere, the mythological gave place to the Christian era, and the influence of the new religion spread apparently to the remotest desert tribes. It was not, however, fated to be permanent. In the seventh century a new prophet had risen in the Sacred East, and the seeds of a mighty revolution were germinating in the deserts of Arabia. The boundaries of its parent country soon proved too small for the astonishing vitalities and ardent missionary enterprise of the new faith--the faith of Islam. Bursting out, it pushed with incredible rapidity along the north of Africa, overwhelming Paganism and Christianity alike in its irresistible course, till reaching the Atlantic it turned to north and south in search of new fields to conquer for God. The natural difficulties which had stopped the southern progress of the Carthaginians and the Romans formed no barrier to a people born in a desert. In the plateau lands of the Berber tribes the Arabs were at home. Winged with a fiery enthusiasm which nothing could withstand, and inspired by a hope of heaven which nothing could shake, they swept from district to district, from tribe to tribe, everywhere carrying the blazing torch of Islam, everywhere striking fire from the roving people with whom they came in contact, till from every Saharan oasis there was heard the common cry, “There is no God but the one God.” In the new conflagration Christian symbols and Pagan idols alike disappeared in one fell holocaust.
To a race so educated and nurtured, so steeped in fiery ardour and unquenchable faith, and so imbued with the paramount importance of their mission--provided, moreover, as regards the practical part of their work, with the drought-enduring camel, hitherto unknown in Africa--the so-called impassable desert was no barrier to the performance of the task divinely set them. Only for him who turned back did hell yawn. For him who went forward it might be death, but it was death with Paradise gained.
In this spirit the terrors of the Sahara were faced, and faced only to be conquered; and ere the ninth century gave place to the tenth, the land of the negroes was reached, and the forces of Islam set themselves in array against those of heathendom. For the first time the Niger basin was now brought into direct relation with Northern Africa. The actual time when this was accomplished is still a matter of some doubt, though the statement is quoted by Barth that within less than a hundred years of the commencement of the Mohammedan era, schools and mosques were established in the negro kingdom of Ghana or Ghanata, to the west of Timbuktu. More incontestable is the statement of the Arab writer, Ebn Khaldun (A.D. 1380), that trading relations existed about 280 A.H. or 893 A.D. between the Upper Niger and Northern Africa. When these were first established we are not informed.