In 661 the first dissenting sect of Islam arose, the Khariji. These schismatics preached the equality of all good Muslims—a kind of communism—the need for a Puritan life and the cessation of the hereditary Khalifat (Caliphate) with the death of Ali. As they were much persecuted, some of the Khariji fled at this period to the coast of Tunis, and in the island of Jerba their descendants remain to this day; while their doctrines were adopted by the bulk of the Berber population of that island[29], and spread thence right across inner North Africa to the Atlantic coast of Morocco, becoming after 720 almost a national religion of the Berbers as contrasted with the orthodox Sunni Muhammadanism of the Arab governors or the Omaiyad dynasties of Spain, or the Shia faith of the Fatimites of Tunis and Egypt. The industrious Mzab Berbers of south central Algeria and the Nefusa tribes of western Tripoli are also Khariji still at the present day. In 669 the Arab invasions of North Africa were resumed. Oqba-bin-Nafa overran Fezzan, and was appointed by the Omaiyad Khalif governor of “Ifriqiah” (modern Tunis). The Byzantines were defeated in several battles, and Kairwan[30] was founded as a Muhammadan capital about 673. Oqba was replaced for a time by Dinar Bu’l-Muhajr, who pushed his conquests as far west as Tlemsan, on the borders of modern Morocco. Oqba resumed command in 681, and advanced with his victorious army to the Sūs country and shore of the Atlantic Ocean, afterwards receiving a somewhat friendly reception from Count Julian at Ceuta[31] (Septa).