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, image = File:Berber_flag.svg
, caption = The Berber ethnic flag
, population = 36 million
, region1 =
Minorities
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
, pop1 = 14 million to 18 million
, region2 = Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, pop2 = 9 million to ~13 million
, region3 = Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...
, pop3 = 2.9 million
, region4 = Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesFrance
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, pop5 = 2 million
, region6 = Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
, pop6 = 850,000
, region7 = Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
, pop7 = 600,000
, region8 = Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, pop8 = 500,000 (including descendants)
, region9 = Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, pop9 = 467,455 (including descendants)
, region10 = Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...
, pop10 = 406,271, Burkina Faso: 1.9% of 21.4 million
, region11 = Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, pop11 = 23,000 or 1,826,580
, region12 = Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
, pop12 = 117,783
, region13 = Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, pop13 = 37,060 (including those of mixed ancestry)
, region14 = Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
, pop14 = 4,500 (including descendants)
, region15 = Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, pop15 = 3,500
, region16 = United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, pop16 = 1,325
, region17 = Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
, pop17 = ~Unknown
, langs = Berber languages
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...
(Tamazight), traditionally written with Tifinagh
Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: or , ) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuare ...
alphabet, also Berber Latin alphabet;Maghrebi Arabic
Maghrebi Arabic (, Western Arabic; as opposed to Eastern or Mashriqi Arabic) is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb region, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. It includes Moroccan, Alger ...
, rels = Predominantly Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagre ...
.Minorities
Ibadi
The Ibadi movement or Ibadism ( ar, الإباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah) is a school of Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis.
Ibadism emerged around 60 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AD as a moderate sc ...
s, Shia
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...
s, Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
(chiefly Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
), Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
, related-c = Arab-Berbers
Arab-Berbers ( ar, العرب والبربر ''al-ʿarab wa-l-barbar'') are a population of the Maghreb, a vast region of North Africa in the western part of the Arab world along the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Arab-Berbers are peop ...
, Kabyle, Chenoua, Riffians
Riffians or Rifians (; singular: , ) are a Berber ethnic group originally from the Rif region of northeastern Morocco (includes the autonomous city of Spain, Melilla). Communities of Riffian immigrants are also found in southern Spain, Netherla ...
, Chaoui
The Chaoui people or ''Shawia'' ( arq, الشاوية, shy, Išawiyen) are an Amazigh (Berber) ethnic group to the Aurès region in northeastern Algeria which spans Batna and Khenchla, Oum El Bouaghi provinces located in and surrounded by t ...
, Zayanes
Zayanes ( ber, Azayi (singular), (plural); ) are a Berber population inhabiting the Khenifra region, located in the central Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco.
Zayanes tribes are known for their attachment to ancestral land and for their tenac ...
, Shilha, other Afro-Asiatic peoplesShirai, Noriyuki. The Archaeology of the First Farmer-Herders in Egypt: New Insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic. Leiden University Press, 2010. .Bender ML (1997), Upside Down Afrasian, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 50, pp. 19–34
, native_name_lang = ber
, related_groups =
Berbers, also called Amazigh or Imazighen ( ber, translit=Imaziɣen, ⵉⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵏ, ⵎⵣⵗⵏ; singular: , ; ar, أمازيغ-بربر), are an ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, specifically Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
, Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
, and Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
, and to a lesser extent Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...
, northern Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
, and northern Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languages Smaller Berber communities are also found in
The
Human fossils excavated at the Ifri n'Amr ou Moussa site in Morocco have been
The great tribes of Berbers in classical antiquity (when they were often known as ancient Libyans) were said to be three (roughly, from west to east): the Mauri, the 
In fact, for a time their numerical and military superiority (the best horse riders of that time) enabled some Berber kingdoms to impose a tribute on Carthage, a condition that continued into the 5th century BC. Also, due to the Berbero-Libyan Meshwesh dynasty's rule of Egypt (945–715 BC), the Berbers near Carthage commanded significant respect (yet probably appearing more rustic than the elegant Libyan pharaohs on the Nile). Correspondingly, in early Carthage, careful attention was given to securing the most favourable treaties with the Berber chieftains, "which included intermarriage between them and the Punic aristocracy". In this regard, perhaps the legend about 
Yet in times of stress at Carthage, when a foreign force might be pushing against the city-state, some Berbers would see it as an opportunity to advance their interests, given their otherwise low status in Punic society. Thus, when the Greeks under
BBC World Service , The Story of Africa some perhaps
According to historians of the Middle Ages, the Berbers were divided into two branches, Butr and
The first Arabian military expeditions into the Maghreb, between 642 and 669, resulted in the spread of Islam. These early forays from a base in Egypt occurred under local initiative rather than under orders from the central caliphate. But when the seat of the caliphate moved from Medina to Damascus, the 
The Muslims who invaded the
New waves of Berber settlers arrived in al-Andalus in the 10th century, brought as mercenaries by Abd ar-Rahman III, who proclaimed himself caliph in 929, to help him in his campaigns to restore Umayyad authority in areas that had overthrown it during the reigns of the previous emirs. These new Berbers "lacked any familiarity with the pattern of relationships" that had existed in al-Andalus in the 700s and 800s; thus they were not involved in the same web of traditional conflicts and loyalties as the previously already existing Berber garrisons.
New frontier settlements were built for the new Berber mercenaries. Written sources state that some of the mercenaries were placed in Calatrava, which was refortified. Another Berber settlement called , west of Toledo, is not mentioned in the historical sources, but has been excavated archaeologically. It was a fortified town, had walls, and a separate fortress or alcazar. Two cemeteries have also been discovered. The town was established in the 900s as a frontier town for Berbers, probably of the Nafza tribe. It was abandoned soon after the Kingdom of Castile, Castilian occupation of Toledo in 1085. The Berber inhabitants took all their possessions with them.
In the 900s, the Umayyad caliphate faced a challenge from the Fatimids in North Africa. The Fatimid Caliphate of the 10th century was established by the Kutama Berbers. After taking the city of Kairouan and overthrowing the Aghlabids in 909, the Mahdi Ubayd Allah was installed by the Kutama as Imam and Caliph, which posed a direct challenge to the Umayyad's own claim. The Fatimids gained overlordship over the Idrisids, then launched a conquest of the Maghreb. To counter the threat, the Umayyads crossed the strait to take Ceuta in 931, and actively formed alliances with Berber confederacies, such as the Zenata and the Awraba. Rather than fighting each other directly, the Fatimids and Umayyads competed for Berber allegiances. In turn, this provided a motivation for the further conversion of Berbers to Islam, many of the Berbers, particularly farther south, away from the Mediterranean, being still Christian and pagan. In turn, this would contribute to the establishment of the Almoravid dynasty and Almohad Caliphate, which would have a major impact on al-Andalus and contribute to the end of the Umayyad caliphate.
With the help of his new mercenary forces, Abd ar-Rahman launched a series of attacks on parts of the Iberian peninsula that had fallen away from Umayyad allegiance. In the 920s he campaigned against the areas that rebelled under Umar ibn Hafsun and refused to submit until the 920s. He conquered Mérida in 928–929, Ceuta in 931, and Toledo in 932. In 934 he began a campaign in the north against Ramiro II of León, Ramiro II of Leon and Muhammad ibn Hashim al-Tujibi, the governor of Zaragoza. According to Ibn Hayyan, after inconclusively confronting al-Tujibi on the Ebro, Abd ar-Rahman briefly forced the Kingdom of Pamplona into submission, ravaged Castile (historical region), Castile and Alava, and met Ramiro II in an inconclusive battle. From 935 to 937, he confronted the Tujibids, defeating them in 937. In 939, Ramiro II defeated the combined Umayyad and Tujibid armies in the Battle of Simancas.
Umayyad influence in western North Africa spread through diplomacy rather than conquest. The Umayyads sought out alliances with various Berber confederacies. These would declare loyalty to the Umayyad caliphate in opposition to the Fatimids. The Umayyads would send gifts, including embroidered silk ceremonial cloaks. During this time, mints in cities on the Moroccan coast—Fez, Morocco, Fes, Sijilmasa, Sfax, and al-Nakur—occasionally issued coins with the names of Umayyad caliphs, showing the extent of Umayyad diplomatic influence. The text of a letter of friendship from a Berber leader to the Umayyad caliph has been preserved in the work of ʿĪsā al-Rāzī, 'Isa al-Razi.
During Abd ar-Rahman's reign, tensions increased between the three distinct components of the Muslim community in al-Andalus: Berbers, Saqaliba (European slaves), and those of Arab or mixed Arab and Gothic descent. Following Abd ar-Rahman's proclamation of the new Caliphate of Córdoba, Umayyad caliphate in Cordoba, the Umayyads placed a great emphasis on the Umayyad membership of the Quraysh tribe. This led to a fashion, in Cordoba, for claiming pure Arab ancestry as opposed to descent from freed slaves. Claims of descent from Visigoths, Visigothic noble families also became common. However, an "immediately detrimental consequence of this acute consciousness of ancestry was the revival of ethnic disparagement, directed in particular against the Berbers and the Saqaliba".
When the Fatimids moved their capital to Egypt in 969, they left north Africa in charge of viceroys from the Zirid clan of Sanhaja Berbers, who were Fatimid loyalists and enemies of the Zenata. The Zirids in turn divided their territories, assigning some to the Hammadid branch of the family to govern. The Hammadids became independent in 1014, with their capital at Beni Hammad Fort, Qal'at Beni-Hammad. With the withdrawal of the Fatimids to Egypt, however, the rivalry with the Umayyads decreased.
Al-Hakam II sent Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir al-Manṣūr, Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir to north Africa in 973–974 to act as (chief justice) to the Berber groups that had accepted Umayyad authority. Ibn Abī ‘Āmir was treasurer of the household of the caliph's wife and children, director of the mint at Madinat al-Zahra, commander of the Cordoba police, and qadi of the frontier. During his time as qadi in north Africa, Ibn Abi Amir developed close ties with the North African Berbers.
On the death of Al-Hakam II, the heir, Hisham II, was underage, and the position of hajib was occupied by a Berber named al-Mushafi. However, General Ghālib ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir formed an alliance, and in 978 they overthrew al-Mushafi and his sons and other family members, who had received offices. Al-Mushafi was imprisoned for five years before being killed, and his family was stripped of property and titles.
In 980, Ghalib fell out with his ally Ibn Abī ‘Āmir, and a civil war began. Ibn Abi Amir called on the Berbers he had lived with in 973–974 to help him. His Berber ally Jafar ibn Hamdun crossed the strait with his army, whereas Ghalib allied with the Kingdom of Navarre. These armies fought several battles, in the last one of which Ghalib was killed, bringing the civil war to an end. Ibn Abī ‘Āmir then took the name , or Almanzor, 'the victorious', by which he is more commonly known. Having won the war, al-Mansur no longer needed his Berber ally Ibn Hamdun, who instead became a threat, due to his substantial army. Ibn Hamdun was murdered in 983, having been made drunk at a feast held in his honor, then murdered as he departed. According to Ibn Idhari, his head and one hand were then presented in secret to al-Mansur.
Employing large numbers of Berber and Saqaliba mercenaries, al-Mansur initiated a series of successful attacks on the Christian portions of the peninsula. Among the most memorable campaigns were the sack of Barcelona in 985, the destruction of Leon in 988, the capture of Count Garcia Fernandez of Castile in 995, and the sack of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago in 997. Al-Mansur died in 1002. He was succeeded as hajib by his son, Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar, Abd al-Malik. In 1008, Abd al-Malik died and was succeeded as hajib by his half-brother, Abd ar-Rahman, who was known as Abd al-Rahman Sanchuelo, Sanchuelo because his mother was Navarrese. Meanwhile, Hisham II remained caliph, though this had become a ceremonial position.
Considerable resentment arose in Cordoba against the increasing numbers of Berbers brought from north Africa by al-Mansur and his children Abd al-Malik and Sanchuelo. It was said that Sanchuelo ordered anyone attending his court to wear Berber turbans, which Roger Collins suggests may not have been true, but shows that hostile anti-Berber propaganda was being used to discredit the sons of al-Mansur. In 1009, Sanchuelo had himself proclaimed Hisham II's successor, and then went on military campaign. However, while he was away a revolt took place. Sanchuelo's palace was sacked and his support fell away. As he marched back to Cordoba his own Berber mercenaries abandoned him. Knowing the strength of ill feeling against them in Cordoba, they thought Sanchuelo would be unable to protect them, and so they went elsewhere in order to survive and secure their own interests. Sanchuelo was left with only a few followers, and was captured and killed in 1009. Hisham II abdicated and was succeeded by Muhammad II al-Mahdi.
Having abandoned Sanchuelo, the Berbers who had formed his army turned to support another ambitious Umayyad, Sulayman ibn al-Hakam, Sulayman. They obtained logistical support from Count Sancho Garcia of Castile. Marching on Cordoba, they defeated Saqaliba general Wāḍiḥ al-Ṣiqlabī, Wadih and forced Muhammad II al-Mahdi to flee to Toledo. They then installed Sulayman as caliph, and based themselves in the Madinat al-Zahra to avoid friction with the local population. Wadih and al-Mahdi formed an alliance with the Counts of Barcelona and Urgell and marched back on Cordoba. They defeated Sulayman and the Berber forces in a Battle of Aqbat al-Bakr, battle near Cordoba in 1010. To avoid being destroyed, the Berbers fled towards Algeciras.
Al-Mahdi swore to exterminate the Berbers and pursued them. However, he was defeated in battle near Marbella. With Wadih, he fled back to Cordoba while his Catalan allies went home. The Berbers turned around and Siege of Córdoba (1013), besieged Cordoba. Deciding that he was about to lose, Wadih overthrew al-Mahdi and sent his head to the Berbers, replacing him with Hisham II. However, the Berbers did not end the siege. They methodically destroyed Cordoba's suburbs, pinning the inhabitants inside the old Roman walls and destroying the Madinat al-Zahra. Wadih's allies killed him, and the Cordoba garrison surrendered with the expectation of amnesty. However, "a massacre ensued in which the Berbers took revenge for many personal and collective injuries and permanently settled several feuds in the process". The Berbers made Sulayman caliph once again. Ibn Idhari said that the installation of Sulayman in 1013 was the moment when "the rule of the Berbers began in Cordoba and that of the Umayyads ended, after it had existed for two hundred and sixty eight years and forty-three days".
During the taifa period, the Almoravid empire developed in northwest Africa, whose core was formed by the Lamtuna branch of the Sanhaja Berber. In the mid-11th century, they allied with the Godala, Guddala and Massufa Berber. At that time, the Almoravid leader Yahya Ibn Ibrahim, Yahya ibn Ibrahim went on a hajj. On his way back he met Malikite preachers in Kairouan, and invited them to his land. Malikite disciple Abdallah ibn Yasin, Abd Allah ibn Yasin accepted the invitation. Traveling to Morocco, he established a military monastery or ribat where he trained a highly motivated and disciplined fighting force. In 1054 and 1055, employing these specially trained forces, Almoravid leader Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni, Yahya ibn Umar defeated the Ghana Empire, Kingdom of Ghana and the Zenata Berber. After Yahya ibn Umar died, his brother Abu Bakr ibn Umar pursued an Almoravid expansion. Forced to resolve a Sanhaja civil war, he left control of the Moroccan conquests to his brother, Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Yusuf continued to conquer territory; and following Abu Bakr's death in 1087, he became the Almoravid leader.
After their loss of Cordoba, the Hammudids had occupied Algeciras and Ceuta. In the mid-11th century, the Hammudids lost control of their Iberian possessions, but retained a small taifa kingdom based in Ceuta. In 1083, Yusuf ibn Tashufin conquered Ceuta. In the same year, al-Mutamid, king of the Taifa of Seville, traveled to Morocco to appeal to Yusuf for help against King Alfonso VI of León and Castile, Alfonso VI of Castile. Earlier, in 1079, the king of Badajoz, al-Mutawakkil, had appealed to Yusuf for help against Alfonso. After the fall of Taifa of Toledo, Toledo to Alfonso VI in 1085, al-Mutamid appealed again to Yusuf. This time, financed by the taifa kings of Iberia, Yusuf crossed to al-Andalus and took direct personal control of Algeciras in 1086.
The Kabylians were independent of outside control during the period of Ottoman Empire rule in North Africa. They lived primarily in three states or confederations: the Kingdom of Ait Abbas, Kingdom of Kuku, and the principality of Aït Jubar.''E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936''
Volume 4, publié par M. Th. Houtsma, Page 600 The Kingdom of Ait Abbas was a Berber state of North Africa, controlling Lesser Kabylie and its surroundings from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. It is referred to in the Spanish historiography as ; sometimes more commonly referred to by its ruling family, the Mokrani, in Berber ( ar, أولاد مقران ). Its capital was the Kalâa of Ait Abbas, an impregnable citadel in the Bibans, Biban mountain range. The most serious Mokrani Revolt, native revolt against colonial power in French Algeria since the time of Abdelkader al-Jazairi, Abd al-Qadir broke out in 1871 in the Kabylie and spread through much of Algeria. By April 1871, 250 tribes had risen, or nearly a third of Algeria's population. In the aftermath of this revolt and until 1892, the Kabyle myth, which supposed a variety of stereotypes based on a binary between Arabs and Kabyle people, reached its climax.Lazreg, Marnia. “The Reproduction of Colonial Ideology: The Case of the Kabyle Berbers.” Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, 1983, pp. 380–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41857696. Accessed 31 Aug. 2022. In 1902, the French penetrated the Hoggar Mountains and defeated Kel Ahaggar, Ahaggar Tuareg in the battle of Tit, Tamanrasset, Tit.
In 1912, Treaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco, Morocco was divided into French and Spanish zones. The Rifians, Rif Berbers rebelled, led by Abd el-Krim, a former officer of the Spanish administration. In July 1921, the Spanish army in northeastern Morocco, under Manuel Fernández Silvestre, Manuel Silvestre, were routed by the forces of Abd el-Krim, in what became known in Spain as the Disaster of Annual. The Spaniards may have lost up to 22,000 soldiers at Annual and in subsequent fighting.
During the Algerian War (1954–1962), the National Liberation Front (Algeria), FLN and National Liberation Army (Algeria), ALN's reorganisation of the country created, for the first time, a unified Kabyle administrative territory, Provinces of Algeria#1954-1962, wilaya III, being as it was at the centre of the anti-colonial struggle. From the moment of Algerian independence, tensions developed between Kabyle leaders and the central government.
Soon after gaining independence in the middle of the twentieth century, the countries of North Africa established 
The Black Spring (Algeria), Black Spring was a series of violent disturbances and political demonstrations by Kabyle activists in the Kabylie region of Algeria in 2001. In the 2011 Libyan civil war, Berbers in the Nafusa Mountains were quick to revolt against the Gaddafi regime. The mountains became a stronghold of the rebel movement, and were a focal point of the conflict, with much 2011 Nafusa Mountains Campaign, fighting occurring between rebels and loyalists for control of the region. The Tuareg rebellion (2012), Tuareg Rebellion of 2012 was waged against the Malian government by rebels with the goal of attaining independence for the northern region of Mali, known as Azawad. Since late 2016, Hirak Rif, massive riots have spread across Moroccan Berber communities in the Rif region. Another escalation took place in May 2017.
In Morocco, after the constitutional reforms of 2011, Berber has become an official language, and is now taught as a compulsory language in all schools regardless of the area or the ethnicity. In 2016, Algeria followed suit and changed the status of Berber from "national" to "official" language.
Although Berberists who openly show their political orientations rarely reach high positions, Berbers have reached high positions in the social and political hierarchies across the Maghreb. Examples are the former president of Algeria, Liamine Zeroual; the former prime minister of Morocco, Driss Jettou; and Khalida Toumi, a feminist and Berberist militant, who has been nominated as head of the Ministry of Communication in Algeria.
The Maghreb today is home to large Berber populations, who form the principal indigenous ancestry in the region (see #Origins, Origins). The Semitic ethnic presence in the region is mainly due to the migratory movements of Phoenicians, Jews, and Arab Bedouin Hilallianss in the 3rd century BC and the 11th century AD.
The large Berber populations that speak a Berber language in the Maghreb comprise 30% to 40%, Université Laval
Québec, 2016. of the Moroccan population, and 15% to 35% of the Algerian population, with smaller communities in Libya and Tunisia and very small groups in Egypt and Mauritania.
Prominent Berber groups include the Kabyles—from Kabylia, a historical autonomous region of northern Algeria—who number about six million and have kept, to a large degree, their original language and society; and the Shilha or Chleuh —in High and Anti-Atlas and Sous Valley of Morocco—who number about eight million. Other groups include the Riffians of northern Morocco, the Chaoui people of eastern Algeria, the Chenouas in western Algeria and the Berbers of Tripolitania.
Outside the Maghreb, the Tuareg in Mali (early settlement near the old imperial capital of Timbuktu), Niger, and Burkina Faso number some 850,000, 1,620,000, and 50,000, respectively. Tuaregs are Berber people with a traditionally nomadic pastoralist lifestyle and are the principal inhabitants of the vast Sahara Desert.
Though stereotyped in Europe and North America as nomads, most Berbers were in fact traditionally farmers, living in mountains relatively close to the Mediterranean coast, or oasis dwellers, such as the Siwa Oasis, Siwa of Egypt; but the Tuareg and Zenata of the southern Sahara were almost wholly nomadic. Some groups, such as the Chaouis, practiced transhumance.
Over the past few decades, political tensions have arisen between some Berber groups (especially the Kabyle people, Kabyles and Rifians) and with North African governments, partly over linguistic and social issues. For example, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, giving children Berber names was banned. The regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya also banned the teaching of Berber languages, and, in a 2008 diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the Libyan leader warned Berber minorities: "You can call yourselves whatever you want inside your homes – Berbers, Children of Satan, whatever – but you are only Libyans when you leave your homes." As a result of the persecution suffered under Gaddafi's rule, many Berbers joined the Libyan opposition in the 2011 Libyan civil war.
The Berber languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They thus descend from the proto-Afroasiatic language. It is still disputed which branches of Afroasiatic diverged most recently from Berber, but most linguists accept either Egyptian language, Egyptian
or Chadic languages, Chadic (see Afroasiatic languages#Classification history, Afro-Asiatic languages).
is a generic name for all of the Berber languages, which consist of many closely related varieties and dialects. Among these Berber languages are Riffian, Kabyle language, Kabyle, Shilha language, Shilha, Siwi language, Siwi, Zenaga language, Zenaga, Sanhaja de Srair language, Sanhaja, Central Atlas Tamazight, Tazayit (Central Atlas Tamazight), Mozabite language, Tumẓabt (Mozabite), Nafusi language, Nafusi, and Tamasheq language, Tamasheq, as well as the ancient Guanche language.
Berber languages are spoken by around thirty to forty million people in Africa (see Berber languages#Population, population estimation). These Berber speakers are mainly concentrated in Morocco and Algeria, followed by Mali, Niger, and Libya. Smaller Berber-speaking communities are also found as far east as Egypt, with a southwestern limit today at Burkina Faso.
Although most Maghrebis are of Berber ancestry, only some scattered Berber ethnicities succeeded in preserving Berber languages into modern times.
The Berber identity encompasses language, religion, and ethnicity, and is rooted in the entire history and geography of North Africa. Berbers are not an entirely homogeneous ethnicity, and they include a range of societies, ancestries, and lifestyles. The unifying forces for the Berber people may be their shared language or a collective identification with Berber heritage and history.
As a legacy of the spread of Islam, the Berbers are now mostly Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim. However, the Mozabite people, Mozabite Berbers of the Saharan M'zab, Mozabite Valley and Libyan Berbers in Nafusis and Zuwara are primarily adherents of
Before the arrival of Islam in the region, most Berber groups were either Christian, Jewish, or Animist, and a number of Berber theologians were important figures in the development of western Christianity. In particular, the Berber Donatus Magnus was the founder of a Christian group known as the Donatists. The 4th-century Catholic Church viewed the Donatists as heretics and that dispute led to a schism in the Church that divided North African Christians. Donatists are linked to Circumcellions, a sect that worked on disseminating the doctrine in North Africa by the sword.
Scholars generally agree that Augustine of Hippo (Hippo being the modern Algerian city of Annaba) and his family, especially Saint Monica, his mother, were Berbers, but that they were thoroughly Romanized, speaking only Latin at home as a matter of pride. Augustine is recognized as a saint and a Doctor of the Church by Roman Catholicism and the Anglican Communion and is revered by the Reformed tradition, Reformed. He was an outspoken opponent of Donatism.
Tariq ibn Ziyad (died 720), known in Spanish history and legend as ('Taric the one-eyed'), was a Berber Muslim and Umayyad general who led the conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711. He is considered to be one of the most important military commanders in Spanish history. He was initially a servant of Musa ibn Nusair in North Africa, and was sent by his superior to launch the first thrust of an invasion of the Iberian peninsula. Some claim that he was invited to intervene by the heirs of the Visigothic King, Wittiza, in the Visigothic civil war.
On April 29, 711, the armies of Tariq landed at Gibraltar (the name Gibraltar is derived from the Arabic name , which means 'mountain of Tariq', or the more obvious , meaning 'rock of Tariq'). Upon landing, Tariq is said to have burned his ships then made the following speech, well known in the Muslim world, to his soldiers:
Ibn Firnas, a 9th-century inventor and aviation pioneer.
Ziri ibn Manad (died 971), founder of the Zirid dynasty in the Maghreb. Ziri ibn Manad was a clan leader of the Berber Sanhaja tribe who, as an ally of the Fatimids, suppressed the rebellion of Abu Yazid (943–947). His reward was the governorship of the western provinces, an area that roughly corresponds with modern Algeria north of the Sahara.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin (c. 1061–1106) was the Berber Almoravid ruler in North Africa and Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia). He took the titles of ('commander of the Muslims') and ('commander of the faithful') after visiting the Caliph of Baghdad and officially receiving his support. He was either a cousin or nephew of Abu Bakr ibn Umar, the founder of the Almoravid dynasty. He united all of the Muslim dominions in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain) to the Maghreb (), after being called to the Al-Andalus by the Emir of Seville and, in alliance with Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, Abbad III al-Mu'tamid, defeating Alfonso VI on 23 October 1086 at the battle of Sagrajas. Yusuf bin Tashfin is the founder of the famous Moroccan city Marrakesh, Marrakech. He himself chose the place where it was built in 1070 and later made it the capital of his Empire. Until then, the Almoravids had been desert nomads, but the new capital marked their settling into a more urban way of life.
Ibn Tumart (), was a Berber religious teacher and leader from the Masmuda tribe who spiritually founded the Almohad dynasty. He is also known as El-Mahdi in reference to his prophesied redeeming. In 1125, he began an open revolt against Almoravid rule. The name comes from the Berber language and means 'son of the earth'.
Averroes, a 12th-century philosopher.
Abu Ya'qub Yusuf (died on 29 July 1184) was the second Almohad ''Caliphate, caliph''. He reigned from 1163 until 1184 and had the Giralda in Seville built.
Yusuf II, Almohad Caliph, Abu Yaqub al-Mustansir Yusuf II, Caliph of Maghreb from 1213 until his death, was the son of the previous caliph, Muhammad an-Nasir. Yusuf assumed the throne at the age of only 16, following his father's death.
Al-Busiri (1211–1294) was a Sanhaja Berber Sufi poet belonging to the Shadhiliyya order and being a direct disciple of Sheikh Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi.
Ibn Battuta (born 1304; year of death uncertain, possibly 1368 or 1377) was a Berber Sunni Islamic scholar and jurisprudent from the Maliki Madhhab (a school of Fiqh, or Islamic law), and at times a qadi, or judge. However, he is best known as a traveler and explorer, whose account documents his travels and excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some . These journeys covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic realm, extending from modern West Africa to Pakistan, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, South-East Asia, and China, a distance surpassing that of his predecessor and near-contemporary Marco Polo.
Muhammad al-Jazuli was from the Jazulah tribe, which was settled in the Sous area of the Maghreb between the Atlantic Ocean and the Atlas Mountains. He is most famous for compiling the ''Dala'il al-Khayrat'', a popular Muslim prayer book.
Mohammed Awzal was a religious Berber poet. He is considered the most important author of the Shilha literary tradition. He was born around 1670 in the village of al-Qasaba in the region of Sous, Maghreb and died in 1748 or 1749 (Hijri year, AH 1162).
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...
and Egypt's Siwa Oasis
The Siwa Oasis ( ar, واحة سيوة, ''Wāḥat Sīwah,'' ) is an urban oasis in Egypt; between the Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea in the Western Desert (Egypt), Western Desert, 50 km (30 mi) east of the Libyan Egypt–Li ...
. Historically, Berber nations have spoken Berber languages
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...
, which are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family
The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...
.
Name
The indigenous ethnic population of theMaghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
region of North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
are as a collective known as Berbers or Amazigh in English. The plural form Imazighen is sometimes also used in English. While Berber is more widely known among English-speakers, its usage is a subject of debate, due to its historical background as an exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
and present equivalence with the Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
word for "barbarian."
The Numidian
Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunis ...
, Mauri
Mauri (from which derives the English term "Moors") was the Latin designation for the Berber population of Mauretania, located in the part of North Africa west of Numidia, in present-day northern Morocco and northwestern Algeria.
Name
''Mauri' ...
or Moor
Moor or Moors may refer to:
Nature and ecology
* Moorland, a habitat characterized by low-growing vegetation and acidic soils.
Ethnic and religious groups
* Moors, Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during ...
, and Libu
The Libu ( egy, rbw; also transcribed Rebu, Lebu, Lbou, Libou) were an Ancient Libyan tribe of Berber origin, from which the name ''Libya'' derives.
Early history
Their occupation of Ancient Libya is first attested in Egyptian language text ...
populations of antiquity are typically understood to refer to approximately the same population as modern Amazigh or Berbers.
Prehistory
The Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
region in northwestern Africa is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers from at least 10,000 BC. Cave paintings
In archaeology, Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric art, prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are mor ...
, which have been dated to twelve millennia before present, have been found in the Tassili n'Ajjer
Tassili n'Ajjer ( Berber: ''Tassili n Ajjer'', ar, طاسيلي ناجر; "Plateau of rivers") is a national park in the Sahara desert, located on a vast plateau in southeastern Algeria. Having one of the most important groupings of prehistoric ...
region of southeastern Algeria. Other rock art
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also ...
has been discovered at Tadrart Acacus
The Acacus Mountains or Tadrart Akakus ( ar, تدرارت أكاكوس / ALA-LC: ''Tadrārt Akākūs'') form a mountain range in the desert of the Ghat District in western Libya, part of the Sahara. They are situated east of the city of Ghat, Lib ...
in the Libyan desert. A Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
society, marked by domestication
Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. ...
and subsistence agriculture
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no su ...
and richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, developed and predominated in the Saharan and Mediterranean region (the Maghreb) of northern Africa between 6000 and 2000 BC (until the classical period).
Prehistoric Tifinagh
Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: or , ) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuare ...
inscriptions were found in the Oran
Oran ( ar, وَهران, Wahrān) is a major coastal city located in the north-west of Algeria. It is considered the second most important city of Algeria after the capital Algiers, due to its population and commercial, industrial, and cultural ...
region. During the pre-Roman era, several successive independent states (Massylii) existed before King Masinissa
Masinissa ( nxm, , ''MSNSN''; ''c.'' 238 BC – 148 BC), also spelled Massinissa, Massena and Massan, was an ancient Numidian king best known for leading a federation of Massylii Berber tribes during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), ulti ...
unified the people of Numidia
Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunis ...
.Histoire de l'émigration kabyle en France au XXe siècle: réalités culturelles ... De Karina Slimani-Direche
History
The areas of North Africa that have retained the Berber language and traditions best have been, in general, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. Much of Berber culture is still celebrated among the cultural elite in Morocco and Algeria, theKabylie
Kabylia ('' Kabyle: Tamurt n Leqbayel'' or ''Iqbayliyen'', meaning "Land of Kabyles", '','' meaning "Land of the Tribes") is a cultural, natural and historical region in northern Algeria and the homeland of the Kabyle people. It is part of the ...
, the Aurès
, native_name_lang =
, settlement_type = Natural region
, image_skyline = Ras el Aïoun.jpg
, image_alt =
, image_caption = Landscape of the Aurès in Ras el Aïoun
, image_flag ...
, etc. The Kabyles were one of the few peoples in North Africa who remained independent during successive rule by the Romans, the Byzantines, the Vandals, the Ottoman Turks and the Carthaginians. Even after the Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
conquest of North Africa, the Kabyle people still maintained possession of their mountains.
Origins
Mythical
According to the '' Al-Fiḥrist'', the Barber (i.e. Berbers) comprised one of seven principal races in Africa. The medieval Tunisian historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), recounting the oral traditions prevalent in his day, sets down two popular opinions as to the origin of the Berbers: according to one opinion, they are descended fromCanaan, son of Ham
Canaan ( – ''Kənáʿan'', in pausa – ''Kənā́ʿan''), according to the ''Book of Genesis'' in the Hebrew Bible, was a son of Ham and grandson of Noah, as well as the father of the Canaanites.
Etymology
The English term ''Canaan'' ...
, and have for ancestors Berber, son of Temla, son of Mazîgh, son of Canaan, son of Ham, a son of Noah; alternatively, Abou-Bekr Mohammed es-Souli (947 CE) held that they are descended from Berber, the son of Keloudjm (Casluhim
The Casluhim or Casluhites ( he, כסלחים) were an ancient Egyptian people mentioned in the Bible and related literature.
Biblical accounts
According to the Book of Genesis () and the Books of Chronicles (), the Casluhim were descendants of M ...
), the son of Mesraim
Mizraim (; cf. Arabic مصر, ''Miṣr'') is the Hebrew and Aramaic name for the land of Egypt, with the dual suffix ''-āyim'', perhaps referring to the "two Egypts": Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Mizraim is the dual form of matzor, meaning a "mou ...
, the son of Ham.
Scientific
As of about 5000 BC, the populations of North Africa were descended primarily from theIberomaurusian
The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian.The " ...
and Capsian
The Capsian culture was a Mesolithic and Neolithic culture centered in the Maghreb that lasted from about 8,000 to 2,700 BC. It was named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia, which was known as Capsa in Roman times.
Capsian industry was concentra ...
cultures, with a more recent intrusion being associated with the Neolithic Revolution
The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an incre ...
. The proto-Berber tribes evolved from these prehistoric communities during the late Bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
- and early Iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
ages.
Uniparental DNA analysis has established ties between Berbers and other Afroasiatic speakers in Africa. Most of these populations belong to the E1b1b
E-M215, also known as E1b1b and formerly E3b, is a major human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is a division of the macro-haplogroup E-M96, which is defined by the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation M215. In other words, it is one of ...
paternal haplogroup, with Berber speakers having among the highest frequencies of this lineage.
Additionally, genomic analysis found that Berber and other Maghreb communities have a high frequency of an ancestral component that originated in the Near East. This Maghrebi element peaks among Tunisian Berbers. This ancestry is related to the Coptic/Ethio-Somali component, which diverged from these and other West Eurasian-affiliated components before the Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...
.;
In 2013, Iberomaurusian skeletons from the prehistoric sites of Taforalt
Taforalt or Grotte des Pigeons is a cave in the province of Berkane, Aït Iznasen region, Morocco, possibly the oldest cemetery in North Africa (Humphrey ''et al.'' 2012). It contained at least 34 Iberomaurusian adolescent and adult human skele ...
and Afalou in the Maghreb were also analyzed for ancient DNA
Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient specimens. Due to degradation processes (including cross-linking, deamination and fragmentation) ancient DNA is more degraded in comparison with contemporary genetic material. Even under the bes ...
. All of the specimens belonged to maternal clades associated with either North Africa or the northern and southern Mediterranean littoral
The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas ...
, indicating gene flow between these areas since the Epipaleolithic
In archaeology, the Epipalaeolithic or Epipaleolithic (sometimes Epi-paleolithic etc.) is a period occurring between the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic during the Stone Age. Mesolithic also falls between these two periods, and the two are someti ...
. The ancient Taforalt individuals carried the mtDNA haplogroup
A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the el, ἁπλοῦς, ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and en, group) is a group of similar haplotypes that share ...
s U6, H, JT, and V, which points to population continuity in the region dating from the Iberomaurusian period.
Human fossils excavated at the Ifri n'Amr ou Moussa site in Morocco have been radiocarbon dated
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was dev ...
to the Early Neolithic period, BC. Ancient DNA analysis of these specimens indicates that they carried paternal haplotypes related to the E1b1b1b1a (E-M81) subclade and the maternal haplogroups U6a and M1, all of which are frequent among present-day communities in the Maghreb. These ancient individuals also bore an autochthonous
Autochthon, autochthons or autochthonous may refer to:
Fiction
* Autochthon (Atlantis), a character in Plato's myth of Atlantis
* Autochthons, characters in the novel ''The Divine Invasion'' by Philip K. Dick
* Autochthon, a Primordial in the ' ...
Maghrebi genomic component that peaks among modern Berbers, indicating that they were ancestral to populations in the area. Additionally, fossils excavated at the Kelif el Boroud Kehf el Baroud, sometimes mistakenly spelled Kelif el Boroud, is an archaeological site in Morocco. It is located to the south of Rabat, near Dar es Soltan.
Genetics
examined the remains of 8 individuals buried at Kelif el Boroud c. 3780-3650 BC ...
site near Rabat
Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populati ...
were found to carry the broadly-distributed paternal haplogroup T-M184 as well as the maternal haplogroups K1, T2 and X2, the latter of which were common mtDNA lineages in Neolithic Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. These ancient individuals likewise bore the Berber-associated Maghrebi genomic component. This altogether indicates that the late-Neolithic Kehf el Baroud Kehf el Baroud, sometimes mistakenly spelled Kelif el Boroud, is an archaeological site in Morocco. It is located to the south of Rabat, near Dar es Soltan.
Genetics
examined the remains of 8 individuals buried at Kelif el Boroud c. 3780-3650 B ...
inhabitants were ancestral to contemporary populations in the area, but also likely experienced gene flow from Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
.
Antiquity
The great tribes of Berbers in classical antiquity (when they were often known as ancient Libyans) were said to be three (roughly, from west to east): the Mauri, the Numidians
The Numidians were the Berber population of Numidia (Algeria and in smaller parts of Tunisia and Morocco). The Numidians were one of the earliest Berber tribes to trade with Carthaginian settlers. As Carthage grew, the relationship with the Numi ...
near Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
, and the Gaetuli
Gaetuli was the Romanised name of an ancient Berber tribe inhabiting ''Getulia''. The latter district covered the large desert region south of the Atlas Mountains, bordering the Sahara. Other documents place Gaetulia in pre-Roman times along the ...
ans. The Mauri inhabited the far west (ancient Mauretania
Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...
, now Morocco and central Algeria). The Numidians occupied the regions between the Mauri and the city-state of Carthage. Both the Mauri and the Numidians had significant sedentary
Sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like soci ...
populations living in villages, and their peoples both tilled the land and tended herds. The Gaetulians lived to the near south, on the northern margins of the Sahara
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
, map_image =
, location =
, country =
, country1 =
, ...
, and were less settled, with predominantly pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
elements.
For their part, the Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
ns ( Semitic Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ites) came from perhaps the most advanced multicultural sphere then existing, the western coast of the Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
region of West Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
. Accordingly, the material culture of Phoenicia was likely more functional and efficient, and their knowledge more advanced, than that of the early Berbers. Hence, the interactions between Berbers and Phoenicians were often asymmetrical. The Phoenicians worked to keep their cultural cohesion and ethnic solidarity, and continuously refreshed their close connection with Tyre, the mother city.
The earliest Phoenician coastal outposts were probably meant merely to resupply and service ships bound for the lucrative metals trade with the Iberians, and perhaps at first regarded trade with the Berbers as unprofitable. However, the Phoenicians eventually established strategic colonial cities in many Berber areas, including sites outside of present-day Tunisia, such as the settlements at Oea
Oea () was an ancient city in present-day Tripoli, Libya. It was founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BC and later became a Roman– Berber colony. As part of the Roman Africa Nova province, Oea and surrounding Tripolitania were prosp ...
, Leptis Magna
Leptis or Lepcis Magna, also known by other names
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent fil ...
, Sabratha
Sabratha ( ar, صبراتة, Ṣabrāta; also ''Sabratah'', ''Siburata''), in the Zawiya DistrictVolubilis
Volubilis (; ar, وليلي, walīlī; ber, ⵡⵍⵉⵍⵉ, wlili) is a partly excavated Berber-Roman city in Morocco situated near the city of Meknes, and may have been the capital of the kingdom of Mauretania, at least from the time of Kin ...
, Chellah
The Chellah or Shalla ( ber, script=Latn, Sla or ; ar, شالة), is a medieval fortified Muslim necropolis and ancient archeological site in Rabat, Morocco, located on the south (left) side of the Bou Regreg estuary. The earliest evidence of th ...
, and Mogador
Essaouira ( ; ar, الصويرة, aṣ-Ṣawīra; shi, ⵜⴰⵚⵚⵓⵔⵜ, Taṣṣort, formerly ''Amegdul''), known until the 1960s as Mogador, is a port city in the western Morocco, Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, Marakesh-Safi, on the ...
(now in Morocco). As in Tunisia, these centres were trading hubs, and later offered support for resource development, such as processing olive oil
Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: f ...
at Volubilis and Tyrian purple
Tyrian purple ( grc, πορφύρα ''porphúra''; la, purpura), also known as Phoenician red, Phoenician purple, royal purple, imperial purple, or imperial dye, is a reddish-purple natural dye. The name Tyrian refers to Tyre, Lebanon. It is ...
dye at Mogador. For their part, most Berbers maintained their independence as farmers or semi-pastorals, although, due to the example of Carthage, their organized politics increased in scope and sophistication.
In fact, for a time their numerical and military superiority (the best horse riders of that time) enabled some Berber kingdoms to impose a tribute on Carthage, a condition that continued into the 5th century BC. Also, due to the Berbero-Libyan Meshwesh dynasty's rule of Egypt (945–715 BC), the Berbers near Carthage commanded significant respect (yet probably appearing more rustic than the elegant Libyan pharaohs on the Nile). Correspondingly, in early Carthage, careful attention was given to securing the most favourable treaties with the Berber chieftains, "which included intermarriage between them and the Punic aristocracy". In this regard, perhaps the legend about Dido
Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC.
In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...
, the foundress of Carthage, as related by Trogus
Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus also anglicized as was a Gallo-Roman historian from the Celtic Vocontii tribe in Narbonese Gaul who lived during the reign of the emperor Augustus. He was nearly contemporary with Livy.
Life
Pompeius Trogus's grandfath ...
is apposite. Her refusal to wed the Mauritani chieftain Hiarbus might be indicative of the complexity of the politics involved.
Eventually, the Phoenician trading stations would evolve into permanent settlements, and later into small towns, which would presumably require a wide variety of goods as well as sources of food, which could be satisfied through trade with the Berbers. Yet, here too, the Phoenicians probably would be drawn into organizing and directing such local trade, and also into managing agricultural production. In the 5th century BC, Carthage expanded its territory, acquiring Cape Bon
Cape Bon ("Good Cape") is a peninsula in far northeastern Tunisia, also known as Ras at-Taib ( ar, الرأس الطيب), Sharīk Peninsula, or Watan el Kibli;
Cape Bon is also the name of the northernmost point on the peninsula, also known as Ra ...
and the fertile Wadi Majardah
The Medjerda River ( ar, وادي مجردة), the classical Bagrada, is a river in North Africa flowing from northeast Algeria through Tunisia before emptying into the Gulf of Tunis and Lake of Tunis. With a length of , it is the longest river ...
, later establishing control over productive farmlands for several hundred kilometres. Appropriation of such wealth in land by the Phoenicians would surely provoke some resistance from the Berbers; although in warfare, too, the technical training, social organization, and weaponry of the Phoenicians would seem to work against the tribal Berbers. This social-cultural interaction in early Carthage has been summarily described:
For a period, the Berbers were in constant revolt, and in 396 there was a great uprising.
Yet the Berbers lacked cohesion; and although 200,000 strong at one point, they succumbed to hunger, their leaders were offered bribes, and "they gradually broke up and returned to their homes". Thereafter, "a series of revolts took place among the Libyans erbersfrom the fourth century onwards".
The Berbers had become involuntary 'hosts' to the settlers from the east, and were obliged to accept the dominance of Carthage for centuries. Nonetheless, therein they persisted largely unassimilated, as a separate, submerged entity, as a culture of mostly passive urban and rural poor within the civil structures created by Punic rule. In addition, and most importantly, the Berber peoples also formed quasi-independent satellite societies along the steppe
In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.
Steppe biomes may include:
* the montane grasslands and shrublands biome
* the temperate grasslands, ...
s of the frontier and beyond, where a minority continued as free 'tribal republics'. While benefiting from Punic material culture and political-military institutions, these peripheral Berbers (also called Libyans)—while maintaining their own identity, culture, and traditions—continued to develop their own agricultural skills and village societies, while living with the newcomers from the east in an asymmetric symbiosis.
As the centuries passed, there naturally grew a Punic society of Phoenician-descent but born in Africa, called . This term later came to be applied also to Berbers acculturated to urban Phoenician culture. Yet the whole notion of a Berber apprenticeship to the Punic civilization has been called an exaggeration sustained by a point of view fundamentally foreign to the Berbers. There evolved a population of mixed ancestry, Berber and Punic. There would develop recognized niches in which Berbers had proven their utility. For example, the Punic state began to field Berber–Numidian cavalry under their commanders on a regular basis. The Berbers eventually were required to provide soldiers (at first "unlikely" paid "except in booty"), which by the fourth century BC became "the largest single element in the Carthaginian army".
Yet in times of stress at Carthage, when a foreign force might be pushing against the city-state, some Berbers would see it as an opportunity to advance their interests, given their otherwise low status in Punic society. Thus, when the Greeks under Agathocles Agathocles (Greek: ) is a Greek name, the most famous of which is Agathocles of Syracuse, the tyrant of Syracuse. The name is derived from , ''agathos'', i.e. "good" and , ''kleos'', i.e. "glory".
Other personalities named Agathocles:
*Agathocles, ...
(361–289 BC) of Sicily landed at Cape Bon and threatened Carthage (in 310 BC), there were Berbers, under Ailymas, who went over to the invading Greeks. During the long Second Punic War
The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...
(218–201 BC) with Rome (see below), the Berber King Masinissa ( BC) joined with the invading Roman general Scipio, resulting in the war-ending defeat of Carthage at Zama, despite the presence of their renowned general Hannibal; on the other hand, the Berber King Syphax
Syphax (, ''Sýphax''; , ) was a king of the Masaesyli tribe of western Numidia (present-day Algeria) during the last quarter of the 3rd century BC. His story is told in Livy's '' Ab Urbe Condita'' (written c. 27–25 BC).
(d. 202 BC) had supported Carthage. The Romans, too, read these cues, so that they cultivated their Berber alliances and, subsequently, favored the Berbers who advanced their interests following the Roman victory.
Carthage was faulted by her ancient rivals for the "harsh treatment of her subjects" as well as for "greed and cruelty". Her Libyan Berber sharecroppers, for example, were required to pay half of their crops as tribute to the city-state during the emergency of the First Punic War
The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and grea ...
. The normal exaction taken by Carthage was likely "an extremely burdensome" one-quarter. Carthage once famously attempted to reduce the number of its Libyan and foreign soldiers, leading to the Mercenary War
The Mercenary War, also known as the Truceless War, was a mutiny by troops that were employed by Carthage at the end of the First Punic War (264241 BC), supported by uprisings of African settlements revolting against Carthaginian contro ...
(240–237 BC). The city-state also seemed to reward those leaders known to deal ruthlessly with its subject peoples, hence the frequent Berber insurrections. Moderns fault Carthage for failure "to bind her subjects to herself, as Rome did er Italians, yet Rome and the Italians held far more in common perhaps than did Carthage and the Berbers. Nonetheless, a modern criticism is that the Carthaginians "did themselves a disservice" by failing to promote the common, shared quality of "life in a properly organized city" that inspires loyalty, particularly with regard to the Berbers. Again, the tribute demanded by Carthage was onerous.R. Bosworth Smith, ''Carthage and the Carthaginians'' (London: Longmans, Green 1878, 1908) at 45–46
e most ruinous tribute was imposed and exacted with unsparing rigour from the subject native states, and no slight one either from the cognate Phoenician states. ..Hence arose that universal disaffection, or rather that deadly hatred, on the part of her foreign subjects, and even of the Phoenician dependencies, toward Carthage, on which every invader of Africa could safely count as his surest support. ..This was the fundamental, the ineradicable weakness of the Carthaginian Empire ...ref name="Smith 1878" />The Punic relationship with the majority Berbers continued throughout the life of Carthage. The unequal development of material culture and social organization perhaps fated the relationship to be an uneasy one. A long-term cause of Punic instability, there was no melding of the peoples. It remained a source of stress and a point of weakness for Carthage. Yet there were degrees of convergence on several particulars, discoveries of mutual advantage, occasions of friendship, and family. The Berbers gain historicity gradually during the
Roman era
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
. Byzantine authors mention the (Amazigh) as tribal people raiding the monasteries of Cyrenaica
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...
. Garamantia was a notable Berber kingdom that flourished in the Fezzan
Fezzan ( , ; ber, ⴼⵣⵣⴰⵏ, Fezzan; ar, فزان, Fizzān; la, Phazania) is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ...
area of modern-day Libya in the Sahara desert between 400 BC and 600 AD.
Roman-era Cyrenaica became a center of early Christianity
Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...
. Some pre-Islamic Berbers were Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
(there is a strong correlation between adherence to the Donatist
Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and t ...
doctrine and being a Berber, ascribed to the doctrine matching their culture, as well as their being alienated from the dominant Roman culture of the Catholic church),The BerbersBBC World Service , The Story of Africa some perhaps
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, and some adhered to their traditional polytheist religion. The Roman-era authors Apuleius
Apuleius (; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern-day ...
and St. Augustine were born in Numidia, as were three pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
s, one of whom, Pope Victor I
Pope Victor I (died 199) was the bishop of Rome in the late second century (189–199 A.D.). The dates of his tenure are uncertain, but one source states he became pope in 189 and gives the year of his death as 199.Kirsch, Johann Peter (1912). "Po ...
, served during the reign of Roman emperor Septimius Severus
Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa (Roman province), Africa. As a young man he advanced thro ...
, who was a North African of Roman/Punic ancestry (perhaps with some Berber blood).
Numidia
Numidia (20246 BC) was an ancient Berber kingdom in modern Algeria and part of Tunisia. It later alternated between being aRoman province
The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...
and being a Roman client state
A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...
. The kingdom was located on the eastern border of modern Algeria, bordered by the Roman province of Mauretania (in modern Algeria and Morocco) to the west, the Roman province of Africa
Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, ...
(modern Tunisia) to the east, the Mediterranean to the north, and the Sahara Desert to the south. Its people were the Numidians.
The name was first applied by Polybius
Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail.
Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...
and other historians during the third century BC to indicate the territory west of Carthage, including the entire north of Algeria as far as the river Mulucha (Muluya
The Moulouya River ( Berber: ''iɣẓer en Melwect'', ) is a 520 km-long river in Morocco. Its sources are located in the Ayashi mountain in the Middle Atlas. It empties into the Mediterranean Sea near Saïdia, in northeast Morocco.
Water l ...
), about west of Oran. The Numidians were conceived of as two great groups: the Massylii in eastern Numidia, and the Masaesyli in the west.
During the first part of the Second Punic War, the eastern Massylii, under King Gala
Gala may refer to:
Music
* ''Gala'' (album), a 1990 album by the English alternative rock band Lush
*''Gala – The Collection'', a 2016 album by Sarah Brightman
*GALA Choruses, an association of LGBT choral groups
*''Gala'', a 1986 album by Th ...
, were allied with Carthage, while the western Masaesyli, under King Syphax, were allied with Rome.
In 206 BC, the new king of the Massylii, Masinissa, allied himself with Rome, and Syphax, of the Masaesyli, switched his allegiance to the Carthaginian side. At the end of the war, the victorious Romans gave all of Numidia to Masinissa. At the time of his death in 148 BC, Masinissa's territory extended from Mauretania to the boundary of Carthaginian territory, and southeast as far as Cyrenaica, so that Numidia entirely surrounded Carthage except towards the sea.
Masinissa was succeeded by his son Micipsa
Micipsa (Numidian: MKWSN; , ; died BC) was the eldest legitimate son of Masinissa, the King of Numidia, a Berber kingdom in North Africa. Micipsa became the King of Numidia in 148 BC.
Early life
In 151 BC, Masinissa sent Micipsa and his brother ...
. When Micipsa died in 118 BC, he was succeeded jointly by his two sons Hiempsal I
Hiempsal I (died c. 117 BC), son of Micipsa and grandson of Masinissa, was a king of Numidia in the late 2nd century BC.
Micipsa, on his deathbed, left his two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal, together with his cousin, Jugurtha, joint heirs of his ...
and Adherbal and Masinissa's illegitimate grandson, Jugurtha
Jugurtha or Jugurthen (Libyco-Berber ''Yugurten'' or '' Yugarten'', c. 160 – 104 BC) was a king of Numidia. When the Numidian king Micipsa, who had adopted Jugurtha, died in 118 BC, Jugurtha and his two adoptive brothers, Hiempsal and Adh ...
, of Berber origin, who was very popular among the Numidians. Hiempsal and Jugurtha quarreled immediately after the death of Micipsa. Jugurtha had Hiempsal killed, which led to open war with Adherbal.
After Jugurtha defeated him in open battle, Adherbal fled to Rome for help. The Roman officials, allegedly due to bribes but perhaps more likely out of a desire to quickly end conflict in a profitable client kingdom, sought to settle the quarrel by dividing Numidia into two parts. Jugurtha was assigned the western half. However, soon after, conflict broke out again, leading to the Jugurthine War
The Jugurthine War ( la, Bellum Iugurthinum; 112–106 BC) was an armed conflict between the Roman Republic and king Jugurtha of Numidia, a kingdom on the north African coast approximating to modern Algeria. Jugurtha was the nephew and adopted ...
between Rome and Numidia.
Mauretania
In antiquity, Mauretania (3rd century BC44 BC) was an ancient Mauri Berber kingdom in modern Morocco and part of Algeria. It became a client state of theRoman empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
in 33 BC, after the death of king Bocchus II
Bocchus II was a king of Mauretania in the 1st century BC. He was the son of Mastanesosus, who died in 49 BC, upon which Bocchus inherited the throne.
Biography
He was surely the son of Mastanesosus, king of Mauretania. His father was identifi ...
, then a full Roman province in AD 40, after the death of its last king, Ptolemy of Mauretania
Ptolemy of Mauretania ( grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ''Ptolemaîos''; la, Gaius Iulius Ptolemaeus; 13 9BC–AD40) was the last Roman client king and ruler of Mauretania for Rome. He was the son of Juba II, the king of Numidia and a member o ...
, a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty (; grc, Πτολεμαῖοι, ''Ptolemaioi''), sometimes referred to as the Lagid dynasty (Λαγίδαι, ''Lagidae;'' after Ptolemy I's father, Lagus), was a Macedonian Greek royal dynasty which ruled the Ptolemaic ...
.
Middle Ages
According to historians of the Middle Ages, the Berbers were divided into two branches, Butr and Baranis
al-Baranis (Arabic: البرانس, ''Al-Barānis''), spelled sometimes as Barnès or Branes, are one of the two major groups to which Berbers were divided by medieval genealogists, the other being called al-Butr. Despite being mentioned by medieva ...
(known also as Botr and Barnès), descended from Mazigh ancestors, who were themselves divided into tribes and subtribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several fully independent tribes (e.g., Sanhaja
The Sanhaja ( ber, Aẓnag, pl. Iẓnagen, and also Aẓnaj, pl. Iẓnajen; ar, صنهاجة, ''Ṣanhaja'' or زناگة ''Znaga'') were once one of the largest Berber tribal confederations, along with the Zanata and Masmuda confederations. Ma ...
, Houaras, Zenata
The Zenata (Berber language: Iznaten) are a group of Amazigh (Berber) tribes, historically one of the largest Berber confederations along with the Sanhaja and Masmuda. Their lifestyle was either nomadic or semi-nomadic.
Etymology
''Iznaten (ⵉ ...
, Masmuda
The Masmuda ( ar, المصمودة, Berber: ⵉⵎⵙⵎⵓⴷⵏ) is a Berber tribal confederation of Morocco and one of the largest in the Maghreb, along with the Zanata and the Sanhaja. They were composed of several sub-tribes: Berghouatas, ...
, Kutama
The Kutama ( Berber: ''Ikutamen''; ar, كتامة) was a Berber tribe in northern Algeria classified among the Berber confederation of the Bavares. The Kutama are attested much earlier, in the form ''Koidamousii'' by the Greek geographer Ptolemy. ...
, Awraba, Barghawata
The Barghawatas (also Barghwata or Berghouata) were a Berber tribal confederation on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, belonging to the Masmuda confederacy. After allying with the Sufri Kharijite rebellion in Morocco against the Umayyad Caliphate, ...
, etc.).
Several Berber dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and al-Andalus
Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, ...
. The most notable are the Zirids
The Zirid dynasty ( ar, الزيريون, translit=az-zīriyyūn), Banu Ziri ( ar, بنو زيري, translit=banū zīrī), or the Zirid state ( ar, الدولة الزيرية, translit=ad-dawla az-zīriyya) was a Sanhaja Berber dynasty from ...
(Ifriqiya
Ifriqiya ( '), also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna ( ar, المغرب الأدنى), was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia and eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania (today's western Libya). It included all of what had previously ...
, 973–1148), the Hammadids
The Hammadid dynasty () was a branch of the Sanhaja Berber dynasty that ruled an area roughly corresponding to north-eastern modern Algeria between 1008 and 1152. The state reached its peak under Nasir ibn Alnas during which it was briefly the m ...
(Western Ifriqiya, 1014–1152), the Almoravid dynasty
The Almoravid dynasty ( ar, المرابطون, translit=Al-Murābiṭūn, lit=those from the ribats) was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that s ...
(Morocco and al-Andalus, 1040–1147), the Almohads
The Almohad Caliphate (; ar, خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or or from ar, ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, translit=al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit=those who profess the unity of God) was a North African Berber Muslim empire fo ...
(Morocco and al-Andalus, 1147–1248), the Hafsids
The Hafsids ( ar, الحفصيون ) were a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Berber descentC. Magbaily Fyle, ''Introduction to the History of African Civilization: Precolonial Africa'', (University Press of America, 1999), 84. who ruled Ifriqiya (western ...
(Ifriqiya, 1229–1574), the Zianids (Tlemcen
Tlemcen (; ar, تلمسان, translit=Tilimsān) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran, and capital of the Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the por ...
, 1235–1556), the Marinids
The Marinid Sultanate was a Berber Muslim empire from the mid-13th to the 15th century which controlled present-day Morocco and, intermittently, other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) ar ...
(Morocco, 1248–1465) and the Wattasids
The Wattasid dynasty ( ber, Iweṭṭasen; ar, الوطاسيون, ''al-waṭṭāsīyūn'') was a ruling dynasty of Morocco. Like the Marinid dynasty, its rulers were of Zenata Berber descent. The two families were related, and the Marinids ...
(Morocco, 1471–1554).
Before the eleventh century, most of Northwest Africa had become a Berber-speaking Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
area. Unlike the conquests of previous religions and cultures, the coming of Islam, which was spread by Arabs, was to have extensive and long-lasting effects on the Maghreb. The new faith, in its various forms, would penetrate nearly all segments of Berber society, bringing with it armies, learned men, and fervent mystics, and in large part replacing tribal practices and loyalties with new social norms and political idioms. A further Arabization of the region was in large part due to the arrival of the Banu Hilal
The Banu Hilal ( ar, بنو هلال, translit=Banū Hilāl) was a confederation of Arabian tribes from the Hejaz and Najd regions of the Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to North Africa in the 11th century. Masters of the vast plateaux of th ...
, a tribe sent by the Fatimids
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Isma'ilism, Ismaili Shia Islam, Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the ea ...
of Egypt to punish the Berber Zirid dynasty for having abandoned Shiism
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most ...
. The Banu Hilal reduced the Zirids to a few coastal towns and took over much of the plains, resulting in the spread of nomadism to areas where agriculture had previously been dominant.
Besides the Arabian influence, North Africa also saw an influx, via the Barbary slave trade
The Barbary slave trade involved slave markets on the Barbary Coast of North Africa, which included the Ottoman states of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania and the independent sultanate of Morocco, between the 16th and 19th century. The Ottom ...
, of Europeans, with some estimates placing the number of European slaves brought to North Africa during the Ottoman period to be as high as 1.25 million. Interactions with neighboring Sudanic empires, traders, and nomads from other parts of Africa also left impressions upon the Berber people.
Islamic conquest
The first Arabian military expeditions into the Maghreb, between 642 and 669, resulted in the spread of Islam. These early forays from a base in Egypt occurred under local initiative rather than under orders from the central caliphate. But when the seat of the caliphate moved from Medina to Damascus, the Umayyads Umayyads may refer to:
*Umayyad dynasty, a Muslim ruling family of the Caliphate (661–750) and in Spain (756–1031)
*Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
:*Emirate of Córdoba (756–929)
:*Caliphate of Córdoba
The Caliphate of Córdoba ( ar, خ ...
(a Muslim dynasty ruling from 661 to 750) recognized that the strategic necessity of dominating the Mediterranean dictated a concerted military effort on the North African front. In 670, therefore, an Arab army under Uqba ibn Nafi
ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī al-Qurashī ( ar, عقبة بن نافع بن عبد القيس الفهري القرشي, ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī), also simply known as Uqba ibn Nafi, was an Arab general ser ...
established the town of Qayrawan
Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by th ...
about 160 kilometres south of modern Tunis
''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois
, population_note =
, population_urban =
, population_metro = 2658816
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, timezone1 = CET
, utc_offset1 ...
and used it as a base for further operations.
Abu al-Muhajir Dinar
Abu al-Muhajir Dinar ( ar, أبو المهاجر دينار) was a governor of Ifriqiya under the Umayyad Caliphate and lead the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. He died in Tabuda after the Battle of Vescera in 683.
Biography
His biography is co ...
, Uqba's successor, pushed westward into Algeria and eventually worked out a modus vivendi with Kusaila
Kusaila (Arabic: Kusaila Ibn Malzam, Latin: Caecilius) was a 7th-century Berber Christian ruler of the kingdom of Altava and leader of the Awraba tribe, a Christianised sedentary tribe of the Aures of the Imazighen and possibly Christian king of ...
, the ruler of an extensive confederation of Christian Berbers. Kusaila, who had been based in Tlemcen
Tlemcen (; ar, تلمسان, translit=Tilimsān) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran, and capital of the Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the por ...
, became a Muslim and moved his headquarters to Takirwan, near Al Qayrawan. This harmony was short-lived; Arabian and Berber forces controlled the region in turn until 697. Umayyad forces conquered Carthage in 698, expelling the Byzantines, and in 703 decisively defeated Dihya
Al-Kahina ( ar, الكاهنة, , the diviner), also known as Dihya, was a Berber queen of the Aurès and a religious and military leader who led indigenous resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, the region then known as Numidia notab ...
's Berber coalition at the Battle of Tabarka
The Battle of Tabarka was a military engagement fought between the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate and Dihya, a Berber queen. The battle took place near the city of Tabarka, Tunisia, in either 701, 702 or 703 AD. The battle resulted in a major vi ...
. By 711, Umayyad forces helped by Berber converts to Islam had conquered all of North Africa. Governors appointed by the Umayyad caliphs ruled from Kairouan
Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by th ...
, capital of the new wilaya
A wilayah ( ar, وَلاية, wālāya or ''wilāya'', plural ; Urdu and fa, ولایت, ''velâyat''; tr, vilayet) is an administrative division, usually translated as "state", "province" or occasionally as "governorate". The word comes fr ...
(province) of Ifriqiya, which covered Tripolitania
Tripolitania ( ar, طرابلس '; ber, Ṭrables, script=Latn; from Vulgar Latin: , from la, Regio Tripolitana, from grc-gre, Τριπολιτάνια), historically known as the Tripoli region, is a historic region and former province o ...
(the western part of modern Libya), Tunisia, and eastern Algeria.
The spread of Islam among the Berbers did not guarantee their support for the Arab-dominated caliphate, due to the discriminatory attitude of the Arabs. The ruling Arabs alienated the Berbers by taxing them heavily, treating converts as second-class Muslims, and, worst of all, by enslaving them. As a result, widespread opposition took the form of open revolt in 739–740 under the banner of Ibadi Islam
The Ibadi movement or Ibadism ( ar, الإباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah) is a school of Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis.
Ibadism emerged around 60 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AD as a moderate sc ...
. The Ibadi had been fighting Umayyad rule in the East, and many Berbers were attracted by the sect's seemingly egalitarian precepts.
After the revolt, Ibadis established a number of theocratic tribal kingdoms, most of which had short and troubled histories. But others, such as Sijilmasa
, alternate_name =
, image = 1886608-the ruins of Sijilmassa-Rissani.jpg
, alt =
, caption = Sijilmasa ruins
, map_type = Morocco
, map_alt =
, coordinates =
, location = Errachidia, Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco
, region =
, type = Sett ...
and Tlemcen, which straddled the principal trade routes, proved more viable and prospered. In 750, the Abbasids, who succeeded the Umayyads as Muslim rulers, moved the caliphate to Baghdad and reestablished caliphal authority in Ifriqiya, appointing Ibrahim ibn al Aghlab
Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab ( ar, إبراهيم بن الأغلب; 756–812) was the first Emir of the Ifriqiya from Aghlabid family (800-812).
Origin and early career
He was the son of al-Aghlab, a Khurasani who had been a companion of Abu Musli ...
as governor in Kairouan. Though nominally serving at the caliph's pleasure, Al Aghlab and his successors, the Aghlabids
The Aghlabids ( ar, الأغالبة) were an Arab dynasty of emirs from the Najdi tribe of Banu Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya and parts of Southern Italy, Sicily, and possibly Sardinia, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about a cen ...
, ruled independently until 909, presiding over a court that became a center of learning and culture.
Just to the west of Aghlabid lands, Abd ar Rahman ibn Rustam
Abd al-Rahman ibn Rustam was the first Persian ''imam'' of the Imamate of Tiaret and the founder of Rustamid dynasty, which existed in central Maghreb from about 776 or 778 CE to 908 CE. He was also the founder of the new Tiaret.
Life
Abd al-Rahm ...
ruled most of the central Maghreb from Tahert
Tiaret ( ar, تاهرت / تيارت; Berber: Tahert or Tihert, i.e. "Lioness") is a major city in northwestern Algeria that gives its name to the wider farming region of Tiaret Province. Both the town and region lie south-west of the capital of ...
, south-west of Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
. The rulers of the Rustamid
The Rustamid dynasty () (or ''Rustumids'', ''Rostemids'') was a ruling house of Ibadi, Ibāḍī imam, imāms of Persian people, Persian descent centered in Algeria. The dynasty governed as a Muslim theocracy for a century and a half from its cap ...
imamate (761–909), each an Ibadi imam
Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, ser ...
, were elected by leading citizens. The imams gained a reputation for honesty, piety, and justice. The court at Tahert was noted for its support of scholarship in mathematics, astronomy, astrology, theology, and law. The Rustamid imams failed, by choice or by neglect, to organize a reliable standing army. This important factor, accompanied by the dynasty's eventual collapse into decadence, opened the way for Tahert's demise under the assault of the Fatimids.
Mahdia
Mahdia ( ar, المهدية ') is a Tunisian coastal city with 62,189 inhabitants, south of Monastir and southeast of Sousse.
Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax
Sfax (; ar, صفاقس, Ṣafāqis ) is a city in Tunisia, located ...
was founded by the Fatimids under the Caliph
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
Abdallah al-Mahdi
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh/ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn (), 873 – 4 March 934, better known by his regnal name al-Mahdi Billah, was the founder of the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate, the only major Shi'a caliphate in Islamic history, and th ...
in 921, and made the capital city of Ifriqiya by caliph Abdallah El Fatimi. It was chosen as the capital because of its proximity to the sea, and the promontory on which an important military settlement had been since the time of the Phoenicians.
In al-Andalus under the Umayyad governors
The Muslims who invaded the Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
in 711 were mainly Berbers, and were led by a Berber, Tariq ibn Ziyad
Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād ( ar, طارق بن زياد), also known simply as Tarik in English, was a Berber commander who served the Umayyad Caliphate and initiated the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Hispania (present-day Spain and Portugal) ...
, under the suzerainty
Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...
of the Arab Caliph of Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
, motto =
, image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg
, image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg
, seal_type = Seal
, map_caption =
, ...
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam ( ar, عبد الملك ابن مروان ابن الحكم, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam; July/August 644 or June/July 647 – 9 October 705) was the fifth Umayyad caliph, ruling from April 685 ...
and his North African Viceroy, Musa ibn Nusayr
Musa ibn Nusayr ( ar, موسى بن نصير ''Mūsá bin Nuṣayr''; 640 – c. 716) served as a Umayyad governor and an Arab general under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I. He ruled over the Muslim provinces of North Africa (Ifriqiya), and direct ...
. Due to subsequent antagonism between Arabs and Berbers, and due to the fact that most of the histories of al-Andalus were written from an Arab perspective, the Berber role is understated in the available sources. The biographical dictionary of Ibn Khallikan
Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān) ( ar, أحمد بن محمد بن إبراهيم بن أبي بكر ابن خلكان; 1211 – 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a 13th century Shafi'i Islamic scholar w ...
preserves the record of the Berber predominance in the invasion of 711, in the entry on Tariq ibn Ziyad. A second mixed army of Arabs and Berbers came in 712 under Ibn Nusayr himself. They supposedly helped the Umayyad caliph Abd ar-Rahman I in al-Andalus, because his mother was a Berber.
English medievalist Roger Collins
Roger J. H. Collins (born September 2, 1949) is an English medievalist, currently an honorary fellow in history at the University of Edinburgh.
Collins studied at the University of Oxford ( Queen's and Saint Cross Colleges) under Peter Brown ...
suggests that if the forces that invaded the Iberian peninsula were predominantly Berber, it is because there were insufficient Arab forces in Africa to maintain control of Africa and attack Iberia at the same time. Thus, although north Africa had only been conquered about a dozen years previously, the Arabs already employed forces of the defeated Berbers to carry out their next invasion. This would explain the predominance of Berbers over Arabs in the initial invasion. In addition, Collins argues that Berber social organization made it possible for the Arabs to recruit entire tribal units into their armies, making the defeated Berbers excellent military auxiliaries. The Berber forces in the invasion of Iberia came from Ifriqiya or as far away as Tripolitania.
Governor As-Samh distributed land to the conquering forces, apparently by tribe, though it is difficult to determine from the few historical sources available. It was at this time that the positions of Arabs and Berbers were regularized across the Iberian peninsula. Berbers were positioned in many of the most mountainous regions of Spain, such as Granada
Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...
, the Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...
, Cantabria
Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east ...
, and Galicia. Collins suggests this may be because some Berbers were familiar with mountain terrain, whereas the Arabs were not. By the late 710s, there was a Berber governor in Leon
Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León
* Province of León, Spain
* Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...
or Gijon. When Pelagius
Pelagius (; c. 354–418) was a British theologian known for promoting a system of doctrines (termed Pelagianism by his opponents) which emphasized human choice in salvation and denied original sin. Pelagius and his followers abhorred the moral s ...
revolted in Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in nor ...
, it was against a Berber governor. This revolt challenged As-Samh's plans to settle Berbers in the Galician and Cantabrian mountains, and by the middle of the eighth century it seems there was no more Berber presence in Galicia. The expulsion of the Berber garrisons from central Asturias, following the battle of Covadonga
The Battle of Covadonga took place in 718 or 722 between the army of Pelagius the Visigoth and the army of the Umayyad Caliphate. Fought near Covadonga in the Picos de Europa, either in 718 or 722, it resulted in a victory for the forces of Pelag ...
, contributed to the eventual formation of the independent Asturian kingdom.
Many Berbers were settled in what were then the frontier lands near Toledo, Talavera, and Mérida, Mérida becoming a major Berber stronghold in the eighth century. The Berber garrison in Talavera would later be commanded by Amrus ibn Yusuf 'Amrus ibn Yusuf al-Muwallad al-Laridi ( ar, عمروس بن يوسف المولد, died 808/9 or 813/4) was a Muwallad (probably of Visigothic origin) general of the Emirate of Córdoba and governor of Zaragoza.
Amrus, a native of Huesca, and h ...
and was involved in military operations against rebels in Toledo in the late 700s and early 800s. Berbers were also initially settled in the eastern Pyrenees and Catalonia. They were not settled in the major cities of the south, and were generally kept in the frontier zones away from Cordoba.
Roger Collins cites the work of Pierre Guichard
Pierre Guichard (5 November 1939 – 6 April 2021) was a French historian, archeologist, medievalist, and academic. He specialized in Al-Andalus and western Muslims during the Middle Ages.
Biography
A professor of history at Lumière University ...
to argue that Berber groups in Iberia retained their own distinctive social organization. According to this traditional view of Arab and Berber culture in the Iberian peninsula, Berber society was highly impermeable to outside influences, whereas Arabs became assimilated and Hispanized. Some support for the view that Berbers assimilated less comes from an excavation of an Islamic cemetery in northern Spain, which reveals that the Berbers accompanying the initial invasion brought their families with them from north Africa.
In 731, the eastern Pyrenees were under the control of Berber forces garrisoned in the major towns under the command of Munnuza. Munnuza attempted a Berber uprising against the Arabs in Spain, citing mistreatment of Berbers by Arabic judges in north Africa, and made an alliance with Duke Eudo of Aquitaine
Aquitaine ( , , ; oc, Aquitània ; eu, Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne ( oc, Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 January ...
. However, governor Abd ar-Rahman attacked Munnuza before he was ready, and, besieging him, defeated him at Cerdanya
Cerdanya () or often La Cerdanya ( la, Ceretani or ''Ceritania''; french: Cerdagne; es, Cerdaña), is a natural comarca and historical region of the eastern Pyrenees divided between France and Spain. Historically it was one of the counties ...
. Because of the alliance with Munnuza, Abd ar-Rahman wanted to punish Eudo, and his punitive expedition ended in the Arab defeat at Poitiers
Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...
.
By the time of the governor Uqba, and possibly as early as 714, the city of Pamplona
Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region.
Lying at near above ...
was occupied by a Berber garrison. An eighth-century cemetery has been discovered with 190 burials all according to Islamic custom, testifying to the presence of this garrison. In 798, however, Pamplona is recorded as being under a Banu Qasi
The Banu Qasi, Banu Kasi, Beni Casi ( ar, بني قسي or بنو قسي, meaning "sons" or "heirs of Cassius"), Banu Musa, or al-Qasawi were a Muladí (local convert) dynasty that in the 9th century ruled the Upper March, a frontier ter ...
governor, Mutarrif ibn Musa. Ibn Musa lost control of Pamplona to a popular uprising. In 806 Pamplona gave its allegiance to the Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...
, and in 824 became the independent Kingdom of Pamplona
The Kingdom of Navarre (; , , , ), originally the Kingdom of Pamplona (), was a Basque kingdom that occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, alongside the Atlantic Ocean between present-day Spain and France.
The medieval state took ...
. These events put an end to the Berber garrison in Pamplona.
Medieval Egyptian historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam, Al-Hakam wrote that there was a major Berber Revolt, Berber revolt in north Africa in 740–741, led by Maysara al-Matghari, Masayra. The ''Chronicle of 754'' calls these rebels Arures, which Collins translates as 'heretics', arguing it is a reference to the Berber rebels' Ibadi or Kharijites, Khariji sympathies. After Charles Martel attacked Arab ally Maurontus at Marseille in 739, governor Uqba planned a punitive attack against the Franks, but news of a Berber revolt in north Africa made him turn back when he reached Zaragoza. Instead, according to the ''Chronicle of 754'', Uqba carried out an attack against Berber fortresses in Africa. Initially, these attacks were unsuccessful; but eventually Uqba destroyed the rebels, secured all the crossing points to Spain, and then returned to his governorship.
Although Masayra was killed by his own followers, the revolt spread and the Berber rebels defeated three Arab armies. After the defeat of the third army, which included elite units of Syrians commanded by Kulthum ibn Iyadh al-Kushayri, Kulthum and Balj ibn Bishr al-Qushayri, Balj, the Berber revolt spread further. At this time, the Berber military colonies in Spain revolted. At the same time, Uqba died and was replaced by Abd al-Malik ibn Katan al-Fihri, Ibn Qatan. By this time, the Berbers controlled most of the north of the Iberian peninsula, except for the Ebro valley, and were menacing Toledo. Ibn Qatan invited Balj and his Syrian troops, who were at that time in Ceuta, to cross to the Iberian peninsula to fight against the Berbers.
The Berbers marched south in three columns, simultaneously attacking Toledo, Cordoba, and the ports on the Gibraltar strait. However, Ibn Qatan's sons defeated the army attacking Toledo, the governor's forces defeated the attack on Cordoba, and Balj defeated the attack on the strait. After this, Balj seized power by marching on Cordoba and executing Ibn Qatan. Collins points out that Balj's troops were away from Syria just when the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads broke out, and this may have contributed to the fall of the Umayyad regime.
In Africa, the Berbers were hampered by divided leadership. Their attack on Kairouan was defeated, and a new governor of Africa, Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi, Hanzala ibn Safwan, proceeded to defeat the rebels in Africa and then to impose peace between Balj's troops and the existing Andalusi Arabs.
Roger Collins argues that the Great Berber revolt facilitated the establishment of the Kingdom of Asturias and altered the demographics of the Berber population in the Iberian peninsula, specifically contributing to the Berber departure from the northwest of the peninsula. When the Arabs first invaded the peninsula, Berber groups were situated in the northwest. However, due to the Berber revolt, the Umayyad governors were forced to protect their southern flank and were unable to mount an offense against the Asturians. Some presence of Berbers in the northwest may have been maintained at first, but after the 740s there is no more mention of the northwestern Berbers in the sources.
In al-Andalus during the Umayyad emirate
When the Umayyad Caliphate was overthrown in 750, a grandson of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Caliph Hisham, Abd ar-Rahman, escaped to north Africa and hid among the Berbers of north Africa for five years. A persistent tradition states that this is because his mother was Berber and that he first took refuge with the Nafsa Berbers, his mother's people. As the governor Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri, Ibn Habib was seeking him, he then fled to the more powerful Zenata Berber confederacy, who were enemies of Ibn Habib. Since the Zenata had been part of the initial invasion force of al-Andalus, and were still present in the Iberian peninsula, this gave Abd ar-Rahman a base of support in al-Andalus, although he seems to have drawn most of his support from portions of Balj's army that were still loyal to the Umayyads. Abd ar-Rahman crossed to Spain in 756 and declared himself the legitimate Umayyad ruler of al-Andalus. The governor, Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, Yusuf, refused to submit. After losing the initial battle near Cordoba, Yusuf fled to Mérida, where he raised a large Berber army, with which he marched on Seville, but was defeated by forces loyal to Abd ar-Rahman. Yusuf fled to Toledo, and was killed either on the way or after reaching that place. Yusuf's cousin Hisham ibn Urwa continued to resist Abd ar-Rahman from Toledo until 764, and the sons of Yusuf revolted again in 785. These family members of Yusuf, members of the Fihrids, Fihri tribe, were effective in obtaining support from Berbers in their revolts against the Umayyad regime. As emir of al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman I, Abd ar-Rahman I faced persistent opposition from Berber groups, including the Zenata. Berbers provided much of Yusuf's support in fighting Abd ar-Rahman. In 774, Zenata Berbers were involved in a Yemeni revolt in the area of Seville. Andalusi Berber Salih ibn Tarif declared himself a prophet and ruled the Barghawata, Bargawata Berber confederation in Morocco in the 770s. In 768, a Miknasa Berber named Shaqya ibn Abd al-Walid declared himself a Isma'ilism, Fatimid imam, claiming descent from Fatimah and Ali. He is mainly known from the work of the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir, who wrote that Shaqya's revolt originated in the area of modern Cuenca, Spain, Cuenca, an area of Spain that is mountainous and difficult to traverse. Shaqya first killed the Umayyad governor of the fortress of (near Roman Ercavica), and subsequently ravaged the district surrounding Coria. Abd ar-Rahman sent out armies to fight him in 769, 770, and 771; but Shaqya avoided them by moving into the mountains. In 772, Shaqya defeated an Umayyad force by a ruse and killed the governor of the fortress of Medellín, Spain, Medellin. He was besieged by Umayyads in 774, but the revolt near Seville forced the besieging troops to withdraw. In 775, a Berber garrison in Coria declared allegiance to Shaqya, but Abd ar-Rahman retook the town and chased the Berbers into the mountains. In 776, Shaqya resisted sieges of his two main fortresses at Santaver and Shebat'ran (near Toledo); but in 777 he was betrayed and killed by his own followers, who sent his head to Abd ar-Rahman. Roger Collins notes that both modern historians and ancient Arab authors have had a tendency to portray Shaqya as a fanatic followed by credulous fanatics, and to argue that he was either self-deluded or fraudulent in his claim of Fatimid descent. However, Collins considers him an example of the messianic leaders that were not uncommon among Berbers at that time and earlier. He compares Shaqya to Idris I of Morocco, Idris I, a descendant of Ali accepted by the Zenata Berbers, who founded the Idrisid dynasty in 788, and to Salih ibn Tarif, who ruled the Bargawata Berber in the 770s. He also compares these leaders to pre-Islamic leaders Dihya and Kusaila. In 788, Hisham I of Córdoba, Hisham I succeeded Abd ar-Rahman as emir; but his brother Sulayman revolted and fled to the Berber garrison of Valencia, where he held out for two years. Finally, Sulayman came to terms with Hisham and went into exile in 790, together with other brothers who had rebelled with him. In north Africa, Sulayman and his brothers forged alliances with local Berbers, especially the Kharijite ruler of Tahert. After the death of Hisham and the accession of Al-Hakam I, Al-Hakam, Hisham's brothers challenged Al-Hakam for the succession. Abd Allah crossed over to Valencia first in 796, calling on the allegiance of the same Berber garrison that sheltered Sulayman years earlier. Crossing to al-Andalus in 798, Sulayman based himself in Elvira (now Granada), Écija, Ecija, and Jaén, Spain, Jaen, apparently drawing support from the Berbers in these mountainous southern regions. Sulayman was defeated in battle in 800 and fled to the Berber stronghold in Mérida, but was captured before reaching it and executed in Cordoba. In 797, the Berbers of Talavera played a major part in defeating a revolt against Al-Hakam in Toledo. A certain Ubayd Allah ibn Hamir of Toledo rebelled against Al-Hakam, who ordered Amrus ibn Yusuf, the commander of the Berbers in Talavera, to suppress the rebellion. Amrus negotiated in secret with the Banu Mahsa faction in Toledo, promising them the governorship if they betrayed Ibn Hamir. The Banu Mahsa brought Ibn Hamir's head to Amrus in Talavera. However, there was a feud between the Banu Mahsa and the Berbers of Talavera, who killed all the Banu Mahsa. Amrus sent the heads of the Banu Mahsa along with that of Ibn Hamir to Al-Hakam in Cordoba. The Toledo rebellion was sufficiently weakened that Amrus was able to enter Toledo and convince its inhabitants to submit. Collins argues that unassimilated Berber garrisons in al-Andalus engaged in local vendettas and feuds, such as the conflict with the Banu Mahsa. This was due to the limited power of the Umayyad emir's central authority. Collins states that "the Berbers, despite being fellow Muslims, were despised by those who claimed Arab descent". As well as having feuds with Arab factions, the Berbers sometimes had major conflicts with the local communities where they were stationed. In 794, the Berber garrison of Tarragona, Spain, Tarragona massacred the inhabitants of the city. Tarragona was uninhabited for seven years until the Frankish conquest of Barcelona led to its reoccupation. In 829, one of the leaders of the Toledo rebellion of 797, Hashim al-Darrab, who had been kept under arrest in Cordoba, escaped, returned to Toledo, and raised another rebellion. From Toledo, Hashim attacked the Berber garrisons of Santaver and Talavera, precisely those that had been involved in suppressing the Toledo rebellion a generation earlier. Hashim and his followers controlled Calatrava la Vieja, then a major fortress town, until 834. Hashim was killed in battle in 831, but his followers continued the rebellion, and Berbers from Calatrava besieged Toledo in 835 and 836. The rebellion was finally ended in 837, when the emir's brother al-Walid became governor of Toledo. A Berber leader named H'abiba led a rebellion around Algeciras in 850. Little is known of this rebellion other than its occurrence, and that it may have had a religious inspiration. Berber groups were involved in the rebellion of Umar ibn Hafsun from 880 to 915. Ibn Hafsun rebelled in 880, was captured, then escaped in 883 to his base in Bobastro. There he formed an alliance with the Banu Rifa' tribe of Berbers, who had a stronghold in Alhama. He then formed alliances with other local Berber clans, taking the towns of Osuna, Estepa, and Ecija in 889. He captured Jaen in 892. He was only defeated in 915 by Abd al-Rahman III, Abd ar-Rahman III. Throughout the ninth century, the Berber garrisons were one of the main military supports of the Umayyad regime. Although they had caused numerous problems for Abd ar-Rahman I, Collins suggests that by the reign of Al-Hakam the Berber conflicts with Arabs and native Iberians meant that Berbers could only look to the Umayyad regime for support and patronage and developed solid ties of loyalty to the emirs. However, they were also difficult to control, and by the end of the ninth century the Berber frontier garrisons disappear from the sources. Collins says this might be because they migrated back to north Africa or gradually assimilated.In al-Andalus during the Umayyad caliphate
New waves of Berber settlers arrived in al-Andalus in the 10th century, brought as mercenaries by Abd ar-Rahman III, who proclaimed himself caliph in 929, to help him in his campaigns to restore Umayyad authority in areas that had overthrown it during the reigns of the previous emirs. These new Berbers "lacked any familiarity with the pattern of relationships" that had existed in al-Andalus in the 700s and 800s; thus they were not involved in the same web of traditional conflicts and loyalties as the previously already existing Berber garrisons.
New frontier settlements were built for the new Berber mercenaries. Written sources state that some of the mercenaries were placed in Calatrava, which was refortified. Another Berber settlement called , west of Toledo, is not mentioned in the historical sources, but has been excavated archaeologically. It was a fortified town, had walls, and a separate fortress or alcazar. Two cemeteries have also been discovered. The town was established in the 900s as a frontier town for Berbers, probably of the Nafza tribe. It was abandoned soon after the Kingdom of Castile, Castilian occupation of Toledo in 1085. The Berber inhabitants took all their possessions with them.
In the 900s, the Umayyad caliphate faced a challenge from the Fatimids in North Africa. The Fatimid Caliphate of the 10th century was established by the Kutama Berbers. After taking the city of Kairouan and overthrowing the Aghlabids in 909, the Mahdi Ubayd Allah was installed by the Kutama as Imam and Caliph, which posed a direct challenge to the Umayyad's own claim. The Fatimids gained overlordship over the Idrisids, then launched a conquest of the Maghreb. To counter the threat, the Umayyads crossed the strait to take Ceuta in 931, and actively formed alliances with Berber confederacies, such as the Zenata and the Awraba. Rather than fighting each other directly, the Fatimids and Umayyads competed for Berber allegiances. In turn, this provided a motivation for the further conversion of Berbers to Islam, many of the Berbers, particularly farther south, away from the Mediterranean, being still Christian and pagan. In turn, this would contribute to the establishment of the Almoravid dynasty and Almohad Caliphate, which would have a major impact on al-Andalus and contribute to the end of the Umayyad caliphate.
With the help of his new mercenary forces, Abd ar-Rahman launched a series of attacks on parts of the Iberian peninsula that had fallen away from Umayyad allegiance. In the 920s he campaigned against the areas that rebelled under Umar ibn Hafsun and refused to submit until the 920s. He conquered Mérida in 928–929, Ceuta in 931, and Toledo in 932. In 934 he began a campaign in the north against Ramiro II of León, Ramiro II of Leon and Muhammad ibn Hashim al-Tujibi, the governor of Zaragoza. According to Ibn Hayyan, after inconclusively confronting al-Tujibi on the Ebro, Abd ar-Rahman briefly forced the Kingdom of Pamplona into submission, ravaged Castile (historical region), Castile and Alava, and met Ramiro II in an inconclusive battle. From 935 to 937, he confronted the Tujibids, defeating them in 937. In 939, Ramiro II defeated the combined Umayyad and Tujibid armies in the Battle of Simancas.
Umayyad influence in western North Africa spread through diplomacy rather than conquest. The Umayyads sought out alliances with various Berber confederacies. These would declare loyalty to the Umayyad caliphate in opposition to the Fatimids. The Umayyads would send gifts, including embroidered silk ceremonial cloaks. During this time, mints in cities on the Moroccan coast—Fez, Morocco, Fes, Sijilmasa, Sfax, and al-Nakur—occasionally issued coins with the names of Umayyad caliphs, showing the extent of Umayyad diplomatic influence. The text of a letter of friendship from a Berber leader to the Umayyad caliph has been preserved in the work of ʿĪsā al-Rāzī, 'Isa al-Razi.
During Abd ar-Rahman's reign, tensions increased between the three distinct components of the Muslim community in al-Andalus: Berbers, Saqaliba (European slaves), and those of Arab or mixed Arab and Gothic descent. Following Abd ar-Rahman's proclamation of the new Caliphate of Córdoba, Umayyad caliphate in Cordoba, the Umayyads placed a great emphasis on the Umayyad membership of the Quraysh tribe. This led to a fashion, in Cordoba, for claiming pure Arab ancestry as opposed to descent from freed slaves. Claims of descent from Visigoths, Visigothic noble families also became common. However, an "immediately detrimental consequence of this acute consciousness of ancestry was the revival of ethnic disparagement, directed in particular against the Berbers and the Saqaliba".
When the Fatimids moved their capital to Egypt in 969, they left north Africa in charge of viceroys from the Zirid clan of Sanhaja Berbers, who were Fatimid loyalists and enemies of the Zenata. The Zirids in turn divided their territories, assigning some to the Hammadid branch of the family to govern. The Hammadids became independent in 1014, with their capital at Beni Hammad Fort, Qal'at Beni-Hammad. With the withdrawal of the Fatimids to Egypt, however, the rivalry with the Umayyads decreased.
Al-Hakam II sent Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir al-Manṣūr, Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir to north Africa in 973–974 to act as (chief justice) to the Berber groups that had accepted Umayyad authority. Ibn Abī ‘Āmir was treasurer of the household of the caliph's wife and children, director of the mint at Madinat al-Zahra, commander of the Cordoba police, and qadi of the frontier. During his time as qadi in north Africa, Ibn Abi Amir developed close ties with the North African Berbers.
On the death of Al-Hakam II, the heir, Hisham II, was underage, and the position of hajib was occupied by a Berber named al-Mushafi. However, General Ghālib ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir formed an alliance, and in 978 they overthrew al-Mushafi and his sons and other family members, who had received offices. Al-Mushafi was imprisoned for five years before being killed, and his family was stripped of property and titles.
In 980, Ghalib fell out with his ally Ibn Abī ‘Āmir, and a civil war began. Ibn Abi Amir called on the Berbers he had lived with in 973–974 to help him. His Berber ally Jafar ibn Hamdun crossed the strait with his army, whereas Ghalib allied with the Kingdom of Navarre. These armies fought several battles, in the last one of which Ghalib was killed, bringing the civil war to an end. Ibn Abī ‘Āmir then took the name , or Almanzor, 'the victorious', by which he is more commonly known. Having won the war, al-Mansur no longer needed his Berber ally Ibn Hamdun, who instead became a threat, due to his substantial army. Ibn Hamdun was murdered in 983, having been made drunk at a feast held in his honor, then murdered as he departed. According to Ibn Idhari, his head and one hand were then presented in secret to al-Mansur.
Employing large numbers of Berber and Saqaliba mercenaries, al-Mansur initiated a series of successful attacks on the Christian portions of the peninsula. Among the most memorable campaigns were the sack of Barcelona in 985, the destruction of Leon in 988, the capture of Count Garcia Fernandez of Castile in 995, and the sack of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago in 997. Al-Mansur died in 1002. He was succeeded as hajib by his son, Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar, Abd al-Malik. In 1008, Abd al-Malik died and was succeeded as hajib by his half-brother, Abd ar-Rahman, who was known as Abd al-Rahman Sanchuelo, Sanchuelo because his mother was Navarrese. Meanwhile, Hisham II remained caliph, though this had become a ceremonial position.
Considerable resentment arose in Cordoba against the increasing numbers of Berbers brought from north Africa by al-Mansur and his children Abd al-Malik and Sanchuelo. It was said that Sanchuelo ordered anyone attending his court to wear Berber turbans, which Roger Collins suggests may not have been true, but shows that hostile anti-Berber propaganda was being used to discredit the sons of al-Mansur. In 1009, Sanchuelo had himself proclaimed Hisham II's successor, and then went on military campaign. However, while he was away a revolt took place. Sanchuelo's palace was sacked and his support fell away. As he marched back to Cordoba his own Berber mercenaries abandoned him. Knowing the strength of ill feeling against them in Cordoba, they thought Sanchuelo would be unable to protect them, and so they went elsewhere in order to survive and secure their own interests. Sanchuelo was left with only a few followers, and was captured and killed in 1009. Hisham II abdicated and was succeeded by Muhammad II al-Mahdi.
Having abandoned Sanchuelo, the Berbers who had formed his army turned to support another ambitious Umayyad, Sulayman ibn al-Hakam, Sulayman. They obtained logistical support from Count Sancho Garcia of Castile. Marching on Cordoba, they defeated Saqaliba general Wāḍiḥ al-Ṣiqlabī, Wadih and forced Muhammad II al-Mahdi to flee to Toledo. They then installed Sulayman as caliph, and based themselves in the Madinat al-Zahra to avoid friction with the local population. Wadih and al-Mahdi formed an alliance with the Counts of Barcelona and Urgell and marched back on Cordoba. They defeated Sulayman and the Berber forces in a Battle of Aqbat al-Bakr, battle near Cordoba in 1010. To avoid being destroyed, the Berbers fled towards Algeciras.
Al-Mahdi swore to exterminate the Berbers and pursued them. However, he was defeated in battle near Marbella. With Wadih, he fled back to Cordoba while his Catalan allies went home. The Berbers turned around and Siege of Córdoba (1013), besieged Cordoba. Deciding that he was about to lose, Wadih overthrew al-Mahdi and sent his head to the Berbers, replacing him with Hisham II. However, the Berbers did not end the siege. They methodically destroyed Cordoba's suburbs, pinning the inhabitants inside the old Roman walls and destroying the Madinat al-Zahra. Wadih's allies killed him, and the Cordoba garrison surrendered with the expectation of amnesty. However, "a massacre ensued in which the Berbers took revenge for many personal and collective injuries and permanently settled several feuds in the process". The Berbers made Sulayman caliph once again. Ibn Idhari said that the installation of Sulayman in 1013 was the moment when "the rule of the Berbers began in Cordoba and that of the Umayyads ended, after it had existed for two hundred and sixty eight years and forty-three days".
In al-Andalus in the Taifa period
During the Taifa era, the petty kings came from a variety of ethnic groups; some—for instance the Zirid kings of Granada—were of Berber origin. The Taifa period ended when a Berber dynasty—the Moroccan Almoravids—took over al-Andalus; they were succeeded by the Almohad dynasty of Morocco, during which time al-Andalus flourished. After the fall of Cordoba in 1013, the Saqaliba fled from the city to secure their own fiefdoms. One group of Saqaliba seized Orihuela from its Berber garrison and took control of the entire region. Among the Berbers who were brought to al-Andalus by al-Mansur were the Zirid family of Sanhaja Berbers. After the fall of Cordoba, the Zirids took over Granada in 1013, forming the Taifa of Granada, Zirid kingdom of Granada. The Saqaliba Khayran, with his own Umayyad figurehead Abd al-Rahman IV, Abd ar-Rahman IV al-Murtada, attempted to seize Granada from the Zirids in 1018, but failed. Khayran then executed Abd ar-Rahman IV. Khayran's son, Zuhayr, also made war on the Zirid kingdom of Granada, but was killed in 1038. In Cordoba, conflicts continued between the Berber rulers and those of the citizenry who saw themselves as Arab. After being installed as caliph with Berber support, Sulayman was pressured into distributing southern provinces to his Berber allies. The Sanhaja departed from Cordoba at this time. The Zenata Berber Hammudid dynasty, Hammudids received the important districts of Ceuta and Algeciras. The Hammudids claimed a family relation to the Idrisids, and thus traced their ancestry to the caliph Ali. In 1016 they rebelled in Ceuta, claiming to be supporting the restoration of Hisham II. They took control of Málaga, then marched on Cordoba, taking it and executing Sulayman and his family. Ali ibn Hammud al-Nasir declared himself caliph, a position he held for two years. For some years, Hammudids and Umayyads fought one another and the caliphate passed between them several times. Hammudids also fought among themselves. The last Hammudid caliph reigned until 1027. The Hammudids were then expelled from Cordoba, where there was still a great deal of anti-Berber sentiment. The Hammudids remained in Málaga until expelled by the Zirids in 1056. The Zirids of Granada controlled Málaga until 1073, after which separate Zirid kings retained control over the taifas of Granada and Malaga until the Almoravid conquest. During the taifa period, the Aftasid dynasty, based in Taifa of Badajoz, Badajoz, controlled a large territory centered on the Guadiana, Guadiana River valley. The area of Aftasid control was very large, stretching from the Sierra Morena and the taifas of Taifa of Mértola, Mértola and Taifa of Silves, Silves in the south, to the Campo de Calatrava in the west, the Montes de Toledo in the northwest, and nearly as far as Porto, Oporto in the northeast. According to Bernard Reilly, during the taifa period genealogy continued to be an obsession of the upper classes in al-Andalus. Most wanted to trace their lineage back to the Syrian and Yemeni Arabs who accompanied the invasion. In contrast, tracing descent from the Berbers who came with the same invasion "was to be stigmatized as of inferior birth". Reilly notes, however, that in practice the two groups had by the 11th century become almost indistinguishable: "both groups gradually ceased to be distinguishable parts of the Muslim population, except when one of them actually ruled a taifa, in which case his low origins were well publicized by his rivals". Nevertheless, distinctions between Arab, Berber, and slave were not the stuff of serious politics, either within or between the taifas. It was the individual family that was the unit of political activity." The Berber that arrived towards the end of the caliphate as mercenary forces, says Reilly, amounted to only about 20 thousand people in a total al-Andalusi population of six million. Their high visibility was due to their foundation of taifa dynasties rather than large numbers. In the power hierarchy, Berbers were situated between the Arabic aristocracy and the Muwallad, Muladi populace. Ethnic rivalry was one of the most important factors driving Andalusi politics. Berbers made up as much as 20% of the population of the occupied territory.In al-Andalus under the Almoravids
During the taifa period, the Almoravid empire developed in northwest Africa, whose core was formed by the Lamtuna branch of the Sanhaja Berber. In the mid-11th century, they allied with the Godala, Guddala and Massufa Berber. At that time, the Almoravid leader Yahya Ibn Ibrahim, Yahya ibn Ibrahim went on a hajj. On his way back he met Malikite preachers in Kairouan, and invited them to his land. Malikite disciple Abdallah ibn Yasin, Abd Allah ibn Yasin accepted the invitation. Traveling to Morocco, he established a military monastery or ribat where he trained a highly motivated and disciplined fighting force. In 1054 and 1055, employing these specially trained forces, Almoravid leader Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni, Yahya ibn Umar defeated the Ghana Empire, Kingdom of Ghana and the Zenata Berber. After Yahya ibn Umar died, his brother Abu Bakr ibn Umar pursued an Almoravid expansion. Forced to resolve a Sanhaja civil war, he left control of the Moroccan conquests to his brother, Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Yusuf continued to conquer territory; and following Abu Bakr's death in 1087, he became the Almoravid leader.
After their loss of Cordoba, the Hammudids had occupied Algeciras and Ceuta. In the mid-11th century, the Hammudids lost control of their Iberian possessions, but retained a small taifa kingdom based in Ceuta. In 1083, Yusuf ibn Tashufin conquered Ceuta. In the same year, al-Mutamid, king of the Taifa of Seville, traveled to Morocco to appeal to Yusuf for help against King Alfonso VI of León and Castile, Alfonso VI of Castile. Earlier, in 1079, the king of Badajoz, al-Mutawakkil, had appealed to Yusuf for help against Alfonso. After the fall of Taifa of Toledo, Toledo to Alfonso VI in 1085, al-Mutamid appealed again to Yusuf. This time, financed by the taifa kings of Iberia, Yusuf crossed to al-Andalus and took direct personal control of Algeciras in 1086.
Modern history
The Kabylians were independent of outside control during the period of Ottoman Empire rule in North Africa. They lived primarily in three states or confederations: the Kingdom of Ait Abbas, Kingdom of Kuku, and the principality of Aït Jubar.''E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936''Volume 4, publié par M. Th. Houtsma, Page 600 The Kingdom of Ait Abbas was a Berber state of North Africa, controlling Lesser Kabylie and its surroundings from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. It is referred to in the Spanish historiography as ; sometimes more commonly referred to by its ruling family, the Mokrani, in Berber ( ar, أولاد مقران ). Its capital was the Kalâa of Ait Abbas, an impregnable citadel in the Bibans, Biban mountain range. The most serious Mokrani Revolt, native revolt against colonial power in French Algeria since the time of Abdelkader al-Jazairi, Abd al-Qadir broke out in 1871 in the Kabylie and spread through much of Algeria. By April 1871, 250 tribes had risen, or nearly a third of Algeria's population. In the aftermath of this revolt and until 1892, the Kabyle myth, which supposed a variety of stereotypes based on a binary between Arabs and Kabyle people, reached its climax.Lazreg, Marnia. “The Reproduction of Colonial Ideology: The Case of the Kabyle Berbers.” Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, 1983, pp. 380–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41857696. Accessed 31 Aug. 2022. In 1902, the French penetrated the Hoggar Mountains and defeated Kel Ahaggar, Ahaggar Tuareg in the battle of Tit, Tamanrasset, Tit.
In 1912, Treaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco, Morocco was divided into French and Spanish zones. The Rifians, Rif Berbers rebelled, led by Abd el-Krim, a former officer of the Spanish administration. In July 1921, the Spanish army in northeastern Morocco, under Manuel Fernández Silvestre, Manuel Silvestre, were routed by the forces of Abd el-Krim, in what became known in Spain as the Disaster of Annual. The Spaniards may have lost up to 22,000 soldiers at Annual and in subsequent fighting.
During the Algerian War (1954–1962), the National Liberation Front (Algeria), FLN and National Liberation Army (Algeria), ALN's reorganisation of the country created, for the first time, a unified Kabyle administrative territory, Provinces of Algeria#1954-1962, wilaya III, being as it was at the centre of the anti-colonial struggle. From the moment of Algerian independence, tensions developed between Kabyle leaders and the central government.
Soon after gaining independence in the middle of the twentieth century, the countries of North Africa established Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
as their official language, replacing French, Spanish, and Italian; although the shift from European colonial languages to Arabic for official purposes continues even to this day. As a result, most Berbers had to study and know Arabic, and had no opportunities until the twenty-first century to use their First language, mother tongue at school or university. This may have accelerated the existing process of Arabization of Berbers, especially in already bilingual areas, such as among the Chaouis of Algeria. Tamazight is now taught in Aurès since the march led by in 2004.
While Berberism had its roots before the independence of these countries, it was limited to the Berber elite. It only began to succeed among the greater populace when North African states replaced their European colonial languages with Arabic and identified exclusively as Arabian nations, downplaying or ignoring the existence and the social specificity of Berbers. However, Berberism's distribution remains uneven. In response to its demands, Morocco and Algeria have both modified their policies, with Algeria redefining itself constitutionally as an "Arab, Berber, Muslim nation".
There is an identity-related debate about the persecution of Berbers by the Arab-dominated regimes of North Africa through both Pan-Arabism and Islamism, their issue of identity is due to the pan-Arabist ideology of former Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Some activists have claimed that "[i]t is time—long past overdue—to confront the racist arabization of the Amazigh lands."
The Black Spring (Algeria), Black Spring was a series of violent disturbances and political demonstrations by Kabyle activists in the Kabylie region of Algeria in 2001. In the 2011 Libyan civil war, Berbers in the Nafusa Mountains were quick to revolt against the Gaddafi regime. The mountains became a stronghold of the rebel movement, and were a focal point of the conflict, with much 2011 Nafusa Mountains Campaign, fighting occurring between rebels and loyalists for control of the region. The Tuareg rebellion (2012), Tuareg Rebellion of 2012 was waged against the Malian government by rebels with the goal of attaining independence for the northern region of Mali, known as Azawad. Since late 2016, Hirak Rif, massive riots have spread across Moroccan Berber communities in the Rif region. Another escalation took place in May 2017.
In Morocco, after the constitutional reforms of 2011, Berber has become an official language, and is now taught as a compulsory language in all schools regardless of the area or the ethnicity. In 2016, Algeria followed suit and changed the status of Berber from "national" to "official" language.
Although Berberists who openly show their political orientations rarely reach high positions, Berbers have reached high positions in the social and political hierarchies across the Maghreb. Examples are the former president of Algeria, Liamine Zeroual; the former prime minister of Morocco, Driss Jettou; and Khalida Toumi, a feminist and Berberist militant, who has been nominated as head of the Ministry of Communication in Algeria.
Contemporary demographics
The Maghreb today is home to large Berber populations, who form the principal indigenous ancestry in the region (see #Origins, Origins). The Semitic ethnic presence in the region is mainly due to the migratory movements of Phoenicians, Jews, and Arab Bedouin Hilallianss in the 3rd century BC and the 11th century AD.
The large Berber populations that speak a Berber language in the Maghreb comprise 30% to 40%, Université Laval
Québec, 2016. of the Moroccan population, and 15% to 35% of the Algerian population, with smaller communities in Libya and Tunisia and very small groups in Egypt and Mauritania.
Prominent Berber groups include the Kabyles—from Kabylia, a historical autonomous region of northern Algeria—who number about six million and have kept, to a large degree, their original language and society; and the Shilha or Chleuh —in High and Anti-Atlas and Sous Valley of Morocco—who number about eight million. Other groups include the Riffians of northern Morocco, the Chaoui people of eastern Algeria, the Chenouas in western Algeria and the Berbers of Tripolitania.
Outside the Maghreb, the Tuareg in Mali (early settlement near the old imperial capital of Timbuktu), Niger, and Burkina Faso number some 850,000, 1,620,000, and 50,000, respectively. Tuaregs are Berber people with a traditionally nomadic pastoralist lifestyle and are the principal inhabitants of the vast Sahara Desert.
Though stereotyped in Europe and North America as nomads, most Berbers were in fact traditionally farmers, living in mountains relatively close to the Mediterranean coast, or oasis dwellers, such as the Siwa Oasis, Siwa of Egypt; but the Tuareg and Zenata of the southern Sahara were almost wholly nomadic. Some groups, such as the Chaouis, practiced transhumance.
Over the past few decades, political tensions have arisen between some Berber groups (especially the Kabyle people, Kabyles and Rifians) and with North African governments, partly over linguistic and social issues. For example, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, giving children Berber names was banned. The regime of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya also banned the teaching of Berber languages, and, in a 2008 diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the Libyan leader warned Berber minorities: "You can call yourselves whatever you want inside your homes – Berbers, Children of Satan, whatever – but you are only Libyans when you leave your homes." As a result of the persecution suffered under Gaddafi's rule, many Berbers joined the Libyan opposition in the 2011 Libyan civil war.
Diaspora
According to a 2004 estimate, there were about 2.2 million Berber immigrants in Europe, especially the Riffians in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France; and Algerians of Kabyles and Chaouis heritage in France.Languages
The Berber languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They thus descend from the proto-Afroasiatic language. It is still disputed which branches of Afroasiatic diverged most recently from Berber, but most linguists accept either Egyptian language, Egyptian
or Chadic languages, Chadic (see Afroasiatic languages#Classification history, Afro-Asiatic languages).
is a generic name for all of the Berber languages, which consist of many closely related varieties and dialects. Among these Berber languages are Riffian, Kabyle language, Kabyle, Shilha language, Shilha, Siwi language, Siwi, Zenaga language, Zenaga, Sanhaja de Srair language, Sanhaja, Central Atlas Tamazight, Tazayit (Central Atlas Tamazight), Mozabite language, Tumẓabt (Mozabite), Nafusi language, Nafusi, and Tamasheq language, Tamasheq, as well as the ancient Guanche language.
Berber languages are spoken by around thirty to forty million people in Africa (see Berber languages#Population, population estimation). These Berber speakers are mainly concentrated in Morocco and Algeria, followed by Mali, Niger, and Libya. Smaller Berber-speaking communities are also found as far east as Egypt, with a southwestern limit today at Burkina Faso.
Groups
Although most Maghrebis are of Berber ancestry, only some scattered Berber ethnicities succeeded in preserving Berber languages into modern times.
Religion
The Berber identity encompasses language, religion, and ethnicity, and is rooted in the entire history and geography of North Africa. Berbers are not an entirely homogeneous ethnicity, and they include a range of societies, ancestries, and lifestyles. The unifying forces for the Berber people may be their shared language or a collective identification with Berber heritage and history.
As a legacy of the spread of Islam, the Berbers are now mostly Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim. However, the Mozabite people, Mozabite Berbers of the Saharan M'zab, Mozabite Valley and Libyan Berbers in Nafusis and Zuwara are primarily adherents of Ibadi Islam
The Ibadi movement or Ibadism ( ar, الإباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah) is a school of Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis.
Ibadism emerged around 60 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AD as a moderate sc ...
.
In antiquity, before the arrival of Abrahamic faiths into North Africa, the Berber people adhered to the traditional Berber religion. This traditional religion emphasized ancestor veneration, polytheism, and animism. Many ancient Berber beliefs were developed locally, whereas others were influenced over time through contact with other traditional African religions (such as the Ancient Egyptian religion), or borrowed during antiquity from the Punic religion, Judaism, Spanish mythology, Iberian mythology, and the Hellenistic religion. The most recent influence came from Islam and religion in pre-Islamic Arabia, pre-Islamic Arab religion during the medieval period. Some of the ancient Berber beliefs still subtly exist today within the Berber popular culture and tradition.
Until the 1960s, there was also a significant Jewish Berber minority in Morocco, but emigration (mostly to Israel and France) dramatically reduced their number to only a few hundred individuals.
Following Christian missions, the Kabyle community in Algeria has a recently constituted Christian minority, both Protestant and Roman Catholic; and a 2015 study estimates that 380,000 Muslim Algerians have converted to Christianity in Algeria. There are Berbers among the 8,000–40,000 Moroccans who have converted to Christianity in the last decades, some of whom explain their conversion as an attempt to go back to their "Christian sources". The ''International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, International Religious Freedom Report'' for 2007 estimates that thousands of Tunisian people, Tunisian Berber Muslims have converted to Christianity. ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.''
Notable Berbers
Some of the best known of the ancient Berbers are the Numidian kings Masinissa and Jugurtha, the Berber-Roman author Apuleius, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and the Berber-Roman general Lusius Quietus, who was instrumental in defeating the Kitos War, major wave of Jewish revolts of 115–117 in ancient Israel. The Berber queen Dihya, or Kahina, was a religious and political leader who led a military Berber resistance against the Arab-Muslim expansion in Northwest Africa. Kusaila was a 7th-century leader of the Berber Awerba tribe and King of the Sanhadja, Iẓnagen confederation that resisted the Arab-Muslim invasion. Yusuf ibn Tashfin was a Muslim king of the Berber Almoravid dynasty. Abbas ibn Firnas was a Berber–Andalusian Inventions of the Islamic Golden Age, prolific inventor and early Physics in medieval Islam, pioneer in aviation. Ibn Battuta was a Geography in medieval Islam, medieval Berber explorer who departed from Tangiers, Tanja, Morocco and travelled the longest distances known to his time, while chronicling his impressions of hundreds of nations and cultures.In Christian history
Before the arrival of Islam in the region, most Berber groups were either Christian, Jewish, or Animist, and a number of Berber theologians were important figures in the development of western Christianity. In particular, the Berber Donatus Magnus was the founder of a Christian group known as the Donatists. The 4th-century Catholic Church viewed the Donatists as heretics and that dispute led to a schism in the Church that divided North African Christians. Donatists are linked to Circumcellions, a sect that worked on disseminating the doctrine in North Africa by the sword.
Scholars generally agree that Augustine of Hippo (Hippo being the modern Algerian city of Annaba) and his family, especially Saint Monica, his mother, were Berbers, but that they were thoroughly Romanized, speaking only Latin at home as a matter of pride. Augustine is recognized as a saint and a Doctor of the Church by Roman Catholicism and the Anglican Communion and is revered by the Reformed tradition, Reformed. He was an outspoken opponent of Donatism.
Of all the fathers of the church, St. Augustine was the most admired and the most influential during the Middle Ages ... Augustine was an outsider—a native North African whose family was not Roman but Berber ... He was a genius—an intellectual giant.Many believe that Arius, another early Christian theologian who was deemed a heretic by the Christian Church, was of Libyan Berber descent. Another Berber cleric, Saint Adrian of Canterbury, traveled to England and played a significant role in its early medieval religious history. Lusius Quietus was the son of a Christian tribal lord from unconquered Mauretania. Lusius' father and his warriors had supported the Roman legions in their attempt to subdue Mauretania Tingitana (modern northern Morocco) during Aedemon's revolt in 40. Masuna (fl. 508) was a Romano-Moorish Christian king in Mauretania Caesariensis (western Algeria) who is said to have encouraged the Byzantine general Solomon, the Prefect of Africa, to launch an invasion of the Moorish kingdom of Numidia. Dihya was a Berber Christian religious and military leader who led indigenous resistance to Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. She was born in the early seventh century and died around the end of the seventh century, in modern Algeria. According to Abu Bakr al-Maliki, al-Mālikī she was said to have been accompanied in her travels by what the Arabs called an "idol", possibly an icon of the Mary, mother of Jesus, Virgin Mary or one of the Christian saints. Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus ( AD), known as Tertullian (), was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa and was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity" and "the founder of Western theology". Sabellius, who was a third-century priest and theologian, who most likely taught in Rome, and who may have been of African Berber descent. Basil Davidson and others call him a Libyan from Pentapolis, but this seems to rest on the fact that Pentapolis was a place where the teachings of Sabellius thrived, according to Dionysius of Alexandria, . What is known of Sabellius is drawn mostly from the polemical writings of his opponents. Ahmed es-Sikeli, born in Djerba to a Berber family of the Sadwikish tribe, was baptized a Christian under the name Peter, was a eunuch and qaid of the Diwan of the Kingdom of Sicily during the reign of William I of Sicily. His story was recorded by his Christian contemporaries, Romuald Guarna and Hugo Falcandus from Sicily, and the Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun. Fadhma Aït Mansour, born in Tizi Hibel, Algeria, is the mother of writers Jean Amrouche, Jean and Taos Amrouche. Fadhma, the illegitimate daughter of a widow, was born in a Kabylie village. Later, when she was with the sisters at Aït Manguellet Hospital, she converted to Roman Catholicism. She met another Kabyle Catholic convert, Antoine-Belkacem Amrouche, whom she married in 1898. Malika Oufkir is a Moroccan writer and former "disappeared" person. She is the daughter of General Mohamed Oufkir and a cousin of fellow Moroccan writer and actress Leila Shenna. She and her siblings are converts from Islam to Catholicism. She writes in her book ''Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail'': "we had rejected Islam, which had brought us nothing good, and opted for Catholicism instead". Brother Rachid, a Moroccan Christian convert from Islam whose father is a well-known respected Imam. He is one of the most outspoken converts in the world, he hosts a weekly live call-in show on the Al-Hayat channel where he compares Islam and Christianity as well as debating with Islamic scholars.
In Islamic history
Tariq ibn Ziyad (died 720), known in Spanish history and legend as ('Taric the one-eyed'), was a Berber Muslim and Umayyad general who led the conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711. He is considered to be one of the most important military commanders in Spanish history. He was initially a servant of Musa ibn Nusair in North Africa, and was sent by his superior to launch the first thrust of an invasion of the Iberian peninsula. Some claim that he was invited to intervene by the heirs of the Visigothic King, Wittiza, in the Visigothic civil war.
On April 29, 711, the armies of Tariq landed at Gibraltar (the name Gibraltar is derived from the Arabic name , which means 'mountain of Tariq', or the more obvious , meaning 'rock of Tariq'). Upon landing, Tariq is said to have burned his ships then made the following speech, well known in the Muslim world, to his soldiers:
Ibn Firnas, a 9th-century inventor and aviation pioneer.
Ziri ibn Manad (died 971), founder of the Zirid dynasty in the Maghreb. Ziri ibn Manad was a clan leader of the Berber Sanhaja tribe who, as an ally of the Fatimids, suppressed the rebellion of Abu Yazid (943–947). His reward was the governorship of the western provinces, an area that roughly corresponds with modern Algeria north of the Sahara.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin (c. 1061–1106) was the Berber Almoravid ruler in North Africa and Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia). He took the titles of ('commander of the Muslims') and ('commander of the faithful') after visiting the Caliph of Baghdad and officially receiving his support. He was either a cousin or nephew of Abu Bakr ibn Umar, the founder of the Almoravid dynasty. He united all of the Muslim dominions in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain) to the Maghreb (), after being called to the Al-Andalus by the Emir of Seville and, in alliance with Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, Abbad III al-Mu'tamid, defeating Alfonso VI on 23 October 1086 at the battle of Sagrajas. Yusuf bin Tashfin is the founder of the famous Moroccan city Marrakesh, Marrakech. He himself chose the place where it was built in 1070 and later made it the capital of his Empire. Until then, the Almoravids had been desert nomads, but the new capital marked their settling into a more urban way of life.
Ibn Tumart (), was a Berber religious teacher and leader from the Masmuda tribe who spiritually founded the Almohad dynasty. He is also known as El-Mahdi in reference to his prophesied redeeming. In 1125, he began an open revolt against Almoravid rule. The name comes from the Berber language and means 'son of the earth'.
Averroes, a 12th-century philosopher.
Abu Ya'qub Yusuf (died on 29 July 1184) was the second Almohad ''Caliphate, caliph''. He reigned from 1163 until 1184 and had the Giralda in Seville built.
Yusuf II, Almohad Caliph, Abu Yaqub al-Mustansir Yusuf II, Caliph of Maghreb from 1213 until his death, was the son of the previous caliph, Muhammad an-Nasir. Yusuf assumed the throne at the age of only 16, following his father's death.
Al-Busiri (1211–1294) was a Sanhaja Berber Sufi poet belonging to the Shadhiliyya order and being a direct disciple of Sheikh Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi.
Ibn Battuta (born 1304; year of death uncertain, possibly 1368 or 1377) was a Berber Sunni Islamic scholar and jurisprudent from the Maliki Madhhab (a school of Fiqh, or Islamic law), and at times a qadi, or judge. However, he is best known as a traveler and explorer, whose account documents his travels and excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some . These journeys covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic realm, extending from modern West Africa to Pakistan, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, South-East Asia, and China, a distance surpassing that of his predecessor and near-contemporary Marco Polo.
Muhammad al-Jazuli was from the Jazulah tribe, which was settled in the Sous area of the Maghreb between the Atlantic Ocean and the Atlas Mountains. He is most famous for compiling the ''Dala'il al-Khayrat'', a popular Muslim prayer book.
Mohammed Awzal was a religious Berber poet. He is considered the most important author of the Shilha literary tradition. He was born around 1670 in the village of al-Qasaba in the region of Sous, Maghreb and died in 1748 or 1749 (Hijri year, AH 1162).
Architecture
Antiquity
Some of the earliest evidence of original Amazigh culture in North Africa has been found in the highlands of the Sahara and dates from the second millennium BC, when the region was much less arid than it is today and when the Amazigh population was most likely in the process of spreading across North Africa. Numerous archaeological sites associated with the Garamantes have been found in the Fezzan (in present-day Libya), attesting to the existence of small villages, towns, and tombs. At least one settlement dates from as early as 1000 BC. The structures were initially built in dry stone, but around the middle of the millennium (c. 500 BC) they began to be built with mudbrick instead. By the second century AD there is evidence of large villas and more sophisticated tombs associated with the aristocracy of this society, in particular at Germa. Further west, the kingdom of Numidia was contemporary with the Phoenician civilization of Carthage and the Roman Republic. Among other things, the Numidians have left thousands of pre-Christian tombs. The oldest of these is Madghacen, Medracen in present-day Algeria, believed to date from the time ofMasinissa
Masinissa ( nxm, , ''MSNSN''; ''c.'' 238 BC – 148 BC), also spelled Massinissa, Massena and Massan, was an ancient Numidian king best known for leading a federation of Massylii Berber tribes during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), ulti ...
(202–148 BC). Possibly influenced by Ancient Greek architecture, Greek architecture further east, or built with the help of Greek craftsmen, the tomb consists of a large tumulus constructed in well-cut ashlar masonry and featuring sixty Doric order, Doric columns and an Egyptian-style cornice. Another famous example is the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, Tomb of the Christian Woman in western Algeria. This structure consists of columns, a dome, and spiral pathways that lead to a single chamber. A number of "tower tombs" from the Numidian period can also be found in sites from Algeria to Libya. Despite their wide geographic range, they often share a similar style: a three-story structure topped by a convex pyramid. They may have initially been inspired by Greek monuments but they constitute an original type of structure associated with Numidian culture. Examples of these are found at Siga, Soumaa d'el Khroub, Libyco-Punic Mausoleum of Dougga, Dougga, and Sabratha
Sabratha ( ar, صبراتة, Ṣabrāta; also ''Sabratah'', ''Siburata''), in the Zawiya District
Mediterranean empires of
File:Garma (Garama) - Ruinen der antiken Stadt Garma 02.jpg, Remains of Germa, a capital of the Garamantes (first millennium BC)
File:Mausolée medghassen.jpg,
File:Koutoubia minaret DSCF8275.jpg, The Kutubiyya Mosque in Marrakesh, built by the
File:Berber szív.JPG, Berber henna decoration
File:TapisKabyle2.jpg, Detail of a traditional Berber carpet
File:Berber Calendars.jpg, Algerian Berber calendar
File:Tifinagh Algeria.jpg, Ancient
File:MarrakeshTagine2.jpg, Customized tajine
File:Cuscus.jpg, Couscous
File:Tajine d'Elise with turkey.jpg, Turkey tajine
Berber music has a wide variety of regional styles. The best known are music of Morocco, Moroccan music, the popular Gasba music, Gasba, Kabyle and Chawi music of Algeria, and the widespread Tuareg music of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali. Instruments used include the bendir (large drums) and the guembri (a lute). There are three varieties of Berber folk music: village music, ritual music, and the music performed by professional musicians. Village music is performed collectively for dancing, including ahidus and ahouach dances, which each begin with a chanted prayer. Ritual music is performed at regular ceremonies to celebrate marriages and other important life events, and is also used as protection against evil spirits. Professional musicians () travel in groups of four, led by a poet (). The amydaz recites improvised poems, often accompanied by drums and a Rebab, rabab (a one-stringed fiddle), along with a who plays a double clarinet and acts as a clown for the group. The Chleuh Berbers have professional musicians called s who play in ensembles consisting of lutes, rababs, and cymbals, with any number of vocalists. The leader, or , leads the group in its music and choreography. These performances begin with an instrumental on rabab, which also gives the notes of the melody which follows. The next phase is the , or sung poetry, and then , a danced overture, , an energetic song, , a dance, and finally the rhythmically swift . There is some variation in the order of the presentation, but the is always at the beginning, and the always at the end.
Traditional Berber festivals include Fantasia (culture), Fantasia, Imilchil marriage festival and Goulmima#Udayn n Acur, Udayn n Acur.
Portail des Amazighs (Berbères)
Amazigh/Berber Culture
Culture Amazighe (Berbère)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040728005528/http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf World Haplogroups Maps] {{Authority control Berber, Arabized Berbers Afroasiatic peoples Indigenous peoples of North Africa Ethnic groups in Morocco Ethnic groups in Mauritania Ethnic groups in Algeria Ethnic groups in Libya Ethnic groups in Tunisia Ethnic groups in Western Sahara Ethnic groups in Mali Ethnic groups in Burkina Faso Ethnic groups in Niger Ethnic groups in Egypt Maghreb Ethnic groups in the Arab world Ancient peoples Ethnic groups divided by international borders Ethnic groups in the Middle East
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
and Ancient Rome, Rome left their mark in the material culture of North Africa as well. Phoenician and Punic people, Punic (Carthaginian) remains can be found at Carthage itself and at Lixus (ancient city), Lixus. Numerous remains of Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture can be found across the region, such as the amphitheatre of El Jem and the archaeological sites of Sabratha
Sabratha ( ar, صبراتة, Ṣabrāta; also ''Sabratah'', ''Siburata''), in the Zawiya DistrictVolubilis
Volubilis (; ar, وليلي, walīlī; ber, ⵡⵍⵉⵍⵉ, wlili) is a partly excavated Berber-Roman city in Morocco situated near the city of Meknes, and may have been the capital of the kingdom of Mauretania, at least from the time of Kin ...
, among others.Numidia
Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunis ...
n tomb of Madghacen, Medracen (c. 200-150 BC)
File:TUNISIA DOUGGA MAUSOLEE LIBYCO PUNIQUE 001.jpg, Libyco-Punic Mausoleum of Dougga, Numidian mausoleum of Dougga, example of a "tower tomb" (2nd century BC)
After the Muslim conquest
After the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, Arab-Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th and early 8th centuries, Islamic architecture developed in the region. Various dynasties, either based in North Africa or beyond it, contributed to the architecture of the region, including the Aghlabids, the Fatimids, and the Caliphate of Córdoba, Umayyads of Cordoba. In addition to the general Moorish architecture, "Moorish" style prevalent in North Africa during the History of Islam, Islamic period, some architectural styles and structures in North Africa are distinctively associated with areas that have maintained strong Berber populations and cultures, including but not limited to the Atlas Mountains, Atlas Mountain regions of Morocco, the Aurès and M'zab regions of Algeria, and southern Tunisia.L. Golvin, « Architecture berbère », ''Encyclopédie berbère'' [online], 6 (1989), document A264, published online on December 1, 2012, accessed on April 10, 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/encyclopedieberbere/2582 They do not form one single architectural style but rather a diverse variety of local vernacular styles. Berber ruling dynasties also contributed to the formation and patronage of western Islamic art and architecture through their political domination of the region between the 11th and 16th centuries (during the rule of the Almoravids, Almohads, Marinids and Hafsids, among others). In Morocco, the largely Berber-inhabited Rural area, rural valleys and oases of the Atlas and the south are marked by numerous kasbahs (fortresses) and ''Ksar, ksour'' (fortified villages), typically flat-roofed structures made of rammed earth and decorated with local geometric motifs, as with the famous example of Aït Benhaddou, Ait Benhaddou. Likewise, southern Tunisia is dotted with hilltop ''ksour'' and multi-story fortified Granary, granaries (''ghorfa''), such as the examples in Medenine and Ksar Ouled Soltane, which are typically built with loose stone bound by a Mortar (masonry), mortar of clay. Fortified granaries also exist in the form of ''Agadir (granary), agadir''s, of which numerous examples can be found in Morocco. The island of Djerba, Jerba in Tunisia, traditionally dominated by Ibadi Berbers, has a traditional style of mosque architecture that consists of low-lying structures built in stone and covered in whitewash. Their prayer halls are domed and they have short, often round minarets. The mosques are often described as "fortified mosques" because the island's flat topography made it vulnerable to attacks and as a result the mosques were designed in part to act as watch posts along the coast or in the countryside. The M'zab region of Algeria (e.g. Ghardaïa) also has distinctive mosques and houses that are completely whitewashed, but built in rammed earth. The structures here also make frequent use of domes and barrel vaults. Unlike in Jerba, the distinctive minarets in this region are tall and have a square base, tapering towards the end and crowned with "horn"-like corners.Almohads
The Almohad Caliphate (; ar, خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or or from ar, ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, translit=al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit=those who profess the unity of God) was a North African Berber Muslim empire fo ...
in the 12th century
File:Ait Benhaddou Qsar (588071549).jpg, The ''ksar'' of Aït Benhaddou in Morocco
File:Ksar ouledsoltane04.jpg, Ksar Ouled Soltane, an example of a multi-level ''ghorfa'' in southern Tunisia
File:Tunisie Jemaâ Fadhloun 5.jpg, The Fadhloun Mosque in Djerba (Tunisia), an example of a traditional "fortified mosque"
File:Bounora Mosque .jpg, The central mosque in Ghardaïa, an example of local architecture in the M'zab region (Algeria)
Culture and arts
Social context
The traditional social structure of the Berbers has been tribal. A leader is appointed to command the tribe. In the Middle Ages, many women had the power to govern, such as Dihya and Tazoughert Fatma in the Aurès Mountains, Tin Hinan in the Hoggar, Chemci in , in the Aurès. Lalla Fatma N'Soumer was a Berber woman in Kabylie who fought against the French. The majority of Berber tribes currently have men as heads of the tribe. In Algeria, the Berber Arouch Citizen's Movement, el Kseur platform in Kabylie gives tribes the right to fine criminal offenders. In areas of Chaoui, tribal leaders enact sanctions against criminals. The Tuareg have a king who decides the fate of the tribe and is known as Amenukal, Amenokal; it is a very hierarchical society. The Mozabites are governed by the spiritual leaders of Ibadism and lead communal lives. During the crisis of Berriane between the Maliki and Ibadite movements, the heads of each tribe began talks to end the crisis and resolved the problem. In marriages, the man usually selects the woman, and depending on the tribe, the family often makes the decision. In contrast, in the Tuareg culture, the woman chooses her future husband. The rites of marriage are different for each tribe. Families are either patriarchal or matriarchal, according to the tribe. Traditionally, men take care of livestock. They migrate by following the natural cycle of grazing, and seeking water and shelter. They are thus assured of an abundance of wool, cotton, and plants used for dyeing. For their part, women look after the family and handicrafts – first for their personal use, and secondly for sale in the souqs in their locality.Visual arts
The Berber tribes traditionally weave kilims (tapestry-woven carpets), whose designs maintain the traditional appearance and distinctiveness of the region of origin of each tribe, which has in effect its own repertoire of drawings. The plain weave textile designs include a wide variety of stripes and, more rarely, geometrical patterns such as triangles and diamonds. Additional decorations such as sequins or fringes, are typical of Berber weave in Morocco. The nomadic and semi-nomadic lifestyle of the Berbers is suitable for weaving kilims. In Algeria, the cloak-like kachabia is typical Berber masculine clothing. Jewellery of the Berber cultures, Traditional Berber jewelry is a style of jewellery, originally worn by women and girls of different rural Berber groups of Morocco, Algeria and other North African countries. It is usually made of silver and includes elaborate triangular plates and pins, originally used as clasps for garments, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and similar items. In modern times, these types of jewellery are produced also in contemporary variations and sold as a commercial product of ethnic-style fashion. From December 2004 to August 2006, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University presented the exhibition ''Imazighen! Beauty and Artisanship in Berber Life'', curated by Susan Gilson Miller and Lisa Bernasek, with an accompanying catalogue on artifacts from the Berber regions Kabylia in northeastern Algeria, the Rif mountains of northeastern Morocco and the Tuareg regions of the Algerian Sahara. From June to September 2007, the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Musée du quai Branly in Paris showed an exhibition on the history of traditional ceramics in Algeria, titled ''Ideqqi, art de femmes berbères'' (Art of Berber women), and published an accompanying catalogue. The exhibition highlighted the originality of these pieces compared to urban earthenware, underlining their African roots as well as close relationship with the ancient art of the Mediterranean.Tifinagh
Tifinagh ( Tuareg Berber language: or , ) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber alphabet. The traditional Tifinagh, sometimes called Tuareg Tifinagh, is still favored by the Tuare ...
scripts in Algeria
File:Bijoux traditionnels de Kabylie.JPG, Jewelry from Kabylia region, Algeria
Cuisine
Berber cuisine is a traditional cuisine that has evolved little over time. It differs from one area to another between and within Berber groups. Principal Berber foods are: * Couscous, a semolina staple dish * Tajine, a stew made in various forms * Pastilla, a meat pie traditionally made with squab (fledgling pigeon); today often made using chicken * Bread made with traditional yeast * , fine yeastless wafers soaked in butter and natural honey * , pancake containing flour, eggs, yeast, and salt * , light and spongy pancake made from flour, yeast, and salt; served hot and soaked in butter and ('honey'). * , sheep offal (brains, tripe, lungs, and heart) rolled up with the intestines on an oak stick and cooked on embers in specially designed ovens. The meat is coated with butter to make it even tastier. This dish is served mainly at festivities. Although they are the original inhabitants of North Africa, and in spite of numerous incursions by Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, and French, Berber groups lived in very contained communities. Having been subject to limited external influences, these populations lived free from acculturation, acculturating factors.Music
Berber music has a wide variety of regional styles. The best known are music of Morocco, Moroccan music, the popular Gasba music, Gasba, Kabyle and Chawi music of Algeria, and the widespread Tuareg music of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali. Instruments used include the bendir (large drums) and the guembri (a lute). There are three varieties of Berber folk music: village music, ritual music, and the music performed by professional musicians. Village music is performed collectively for dancing, including ahidus and ahouach dances, which each begin with a chanted prayer. Ritual music is performed at regular ceremonies to celebrate marriages and other important life events, and is also used as protection against evil spirits. Professional musicians () travel in groups of four, led by a poet (). The amydaz recites improvised poems, often accompanied by drums and a Rebab, rabab (a one-stringed fiddle), along with a who plays a double clarinet and acts as a clown for the group. The Chleuh Berbers have professional musicians called s who play in ensembles consisting of lutes, rababs, and cymbals, with any number of vocalists. The leader, or , leads the group in its music and choreography. These performances begin with an instrumental on rabab, which also gives the notes of the melody which follows. The next phase is the , or sung poetry, and then , a danced overture, , an energetic song, , a dance, and finally the rhythmically swift . There is some variation in the order of the presentation, but the is always at the beginning, and the always at the end.
Traditional Berber festivals include Fantasia (culture), Fantasia, Imilchil marriage festival and Goulmima#Udayn n Acur, Udayn n Acur.
See also
* Arabized Berber *Berber languages
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...
* Berberism
* Guanches, the indigenous Berber peoples of the Canary Islands
* Hamites
* List of Berber people
* Moors
* Traditional Berber religion
* Tuareg people
* Haratin
* Maghrebis
Notes
References
Further reading
# # # # # # # # # # (as cited in Michael Harrison's work, 1974) # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #External links
Portail des Amazighs (Berbères)
Amazigh/Berber Culture
Culture Amazighe (Berbère)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040728005528/http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf World Haplogroups Maps] {{Authority control Berber, Arabized Berbers Afroasiatic peoples Indigenous peoples of North Africa Ethnic groups in Morocco Ethnic groups in Mauritania Ethnic groups in Algeria Ethnic groups in Libya Ethnic groups in Tunisia Ethnic groups in Western Sahara Ethnic groups in Mali Ethnic groups in Burkina Faso Ethnic groups in Niger Ethnic groups in Egypt Maghreb Ethnic groups in the Arab world Ancient peoples Ethnic groups divided by international borders Ethnic groups in the Middle East