The above incident is no doubt illustrative of the manner in which Islam was introduced among such other sections of the independent tribes of the interior as had received any Christian teaching, but whose knowledge of this faith had dwindled down to the observance of a few superstitious rites; [376] for, cut off as they were from the rest of the Christian world and unprovided with spiritual teachers, they could have had little in the way of positive religious belief to oppose to the teachings of the Muslim missionaries. There is little more to add to these sparse records of the decay of the North African Church. A Muhammadan traveller, [377] who visited al-Jarīd, the southern district of Tunis, in the early part of the fourteenth century, tells us that the Christian churches, although in ruins, were still standing in his day, not having been destroyed by the Arab conquerors, who had contented themselves with building a mosque in front of each of these churches. Ibn Khaldūn (writing towards the close of the fourteenth century), speaks of some villages in the province of Qastīliyyah, [378] with a Christian population whose ancestors had lived there since the time of the Arab conquest. [379] At the end of the following century there was still to be found in the city of Tunis a small community of native Christians, living together in one of the suburbs, quite distinct from that in which the foreign Christian merchants resided; far from being oppressed or persecuted, they were employed as the bodyguard of the Sultan. [380] These were doubtless the same persons as were congratulated on their perseverance in the Christian faith by Charles V after the capture of Tunis in 1535. [381] This is the last we hear of the native Christian Church in North Africa. The very fact of its so long survival would militate against any supposition of forced conversion, even if we had not abundant evidence of the tolerant spirit of the Arab rulers of the various North African kingdoms, who employed Christian soldiers, [382] granted by frequent treaties the free exercise of their religion to Christian merchants and settlers, [383] and to whom Popes [384] recommended the care of the native Christian population, while exhorting the latter to serve their Muhammadan rulers faithfully. [385] CHAPTER V. THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIANS OF SPAIN.