Along the coast there had been a series of colonies, Greek, Punic, Roman, and Visigothic, but these left no permanent mark on the Berber population, language, or culture. Although at the time of the Arab invasion the country was theoretically under the rule of Byzantium, and the invaders had to meet the resistance of a Greek army, the early defeat of the Greeks brought an immediate end to Greek influence in the country, and left the Arabs face to face with the Berber tribes. The Arab invasion of North Africa followed immediately after the conquest of Egypt, but the internal disputes of the Muslim community prevented this invasion from resulting in a regular conquest, much less in settlement. It was not until the second invasion took place in A.H. 45 (= A.D. 665) that we can regard the Arabs as really beginning the conquest of the country and its settlement. For centuries afterwards the Arab hold was precarious in the extreme, and many Berber states were founded from time to time, some of which had an existence of several centuries. As a rule there was a pronounced racial antipathy between Arab and Berber, but this was mild compared with the tribal feuds between different Berber groups, and Arab rule was only possible by temporary alliance with one or other of the quarrelling factions. Strangely enough the religion of Islam spread rapidly amongst the Berbers, but it took a peculiar development which shows the survival of many pre-Islamic religious ideas and observances. The worship of saints and the reverence paid to their tombs is a corruption of Islam which appears in most lands, but in the West it takes an extreme form, although there are tribes which reject it altogether. Similar worship, often in a revolting form, is paid to living saints or _murabits_ (marabouts), who are allowed to indulge every passion, and to disregard the ordinary rules of morality: very often these reputed saints are no more than insane persons, for the Berbers, like many other primitive people, regard insanity as a form of divine inspiration. Such saints, even those living to-day, are credited with miraculous powers, and especially with the power of surpassing the limitations of time and place, and so to pass from one place to another in an instant of time, and to be in two places at once.