The Libyan Past

Abstract

A vague area known as Libya existed long before the Arab incursions and long before the birth of Islam: the Arabs, only one of many invading groups, were to bring the word of the Prophet to an ancient and recalcitrant people. The term ‘Libya’, of Egyptian origin and derived from the Berber tribes known as the Lebu, was used in antiquity to denote all of North Africa west of Egypt. The ancient Greeks referced to Libye, and in AD 300 the Roman emperor Diocletian created the provinces of Libya Superior and Libya Inferior in northern Cyrenaica. The earliest signs of human life on the Libyan coastal plain, and in the Saharan wastes to the south, are dated to around 8000 BC. In some areas of Fezzan — with Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, one of the three great regions of historical (and modern) Libya — there is a profusion of prehistoric rock art, with paintings and carvings of animals today only found in tropical Africa but once sought by Libyan hunters.