Contacts between Nubians and Arabs long predate the coming of Islam, but the arabization of the Nile Valley is a gradual process that occurs over a period of nearly one thousand years.

Arab nomads continually wander into the region in search of fresh pasturage, and Arab seafarers and merchants trade in Red Sea ports for spices and slaves.

Intermarriage and assimilation also facilitate arabization.

After the initial attempts at military conquest fail, the Arab commander in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn Saad, concludes the first in a series of regularly renewed treaties with the Nubians that, with only brief interruptions, will govern relations between the two peoples for more than six hundred years.

So long as Arabs rule Egypt, there is peace on the Nubian frontier; however, when non- Arabs acquire control of the Nile Delta, tension arises in Upper Egypt.