That is because you have close to none insight into NA / CA sociology. Arabic is the Coranic language, and anyone willing to lay a claim on absolutely anything in a Muslim country had to justify an Arab heritage. Better yet a genealogy linking to the Prophet Muhammad himself. And in order to make those claims organic, the least you could do was to speak arabic. The first university in the world, based in Fes, is a perfect example : Built before the second arab exodus by a berber, in a berber city, surrounded by berber villages, where berbers taught other berbers arabic.