or Al-Qayrawān
City (pop., 1994: 102,600), northeastern Tunisia.
A religious centre of Islam , it was founded in 670 by the Arab general Sīdī ʽUqbah and became the first Arab city in the Maghrib . It was chosen as the Maghrib capital by the Aghlabid dynasty с 800. It served as an administrative, commercial, religious, and intellectual centre under the Tunis , the new capital, led to Kairouan's decline and its devastation by Bedouin in the 11th century. It is the site of the 9th-century Great Mosque of the Qayrawān, one of the city's 150 mosques.