Tripoli, Libya

Tripoli (; ar, طرابلس الغرب, translit= Ṭarābulus al-Gharb , translation=Western Tripoli) is the capital and largest city of Libya, with a population of about 1.1 million people in 2019. It is located in the northwest of Libya on the edge of the desert, on a point of rocky land projecting into the Mediterranean Sea and forming a bay. It includes the port of Tripoli and the country's largest commercial and manufacturing center. It is also the site of the University of Tripoli. The vast barracks, which includes the former family estate of Muammar Gaddafi, is also located in the city. Colonel Gaddafi largely ruled the country from his residence in this barracks.

Tripoli was founded in the 7th century BC by the Phoenicians, who gave it the Libyco-Berber name ( xpu, 𐤅𐤉‬‬𐤏‬𐤕‬, ) before passing into the hands of the Greek rulers of Cyrenaica as Oea ( grc-gre, Ὀία, ). Due to the city's long history, there are many sites of archeological significance in Tripoli. ''Tripoli'' may also refer to the (top-level administrative division in the Libyan system), the Tripoli District.

Name

In the Arab World, Tripoli is also known as Tripoli-of-the-West ( ar, طرابلس الغرب ), to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon, known in Arabic as (), meaning 'Levantine Tripoli'. It is affectionately called "The Mermaid of the Mediterranean" ( ; lit: 'bride of the sea'), describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings.

The name derives from grc, Τρίπολις, translit=Tripolis, literally "three cities", referring to Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna. The city of Oea was the only one of the three to survive antiquity, and became known as Tripoli, within a wider region known as Tripolitania. Neighboring Sabratha was sometimes referred to by sailors as "Old Tripoli".

In Arabic, it is called , (; Libyan Arabic: , ; Berber: , from grc, Τρίπολις , from grc , text=Τρεις Πόλεις , translit=Treis Póleis , lit=three cities).

History

The city was founded in the 7th century BC by the Phoenicians, who gave it the Libyco-Berber name Oyat ( Punic: 𐤅𐤉‬‬𐤏‬𐤕‬, ''wyʿt''), suggesting that the city may have been built upon an existing native Berber city. The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by its natural harbor, flanked on the western shore by the small, easily defensible peninsula, on which they established their colony. The city then passed into the hands of the Greek rulers of Cyrenaica as Oea (Greek: Ὀία, ''Oía''). Cyrene was a colony on the North African shore, a bit east of Tambroli and halfway to Egypt. The Carthaginians later wrested it again from the Greeks.

By the later half of the 2nd century BC, it belonged to the Romans, who included it in their province of Africa, and gave it the name of "Regio Syrtica". Around the beginning of the 3rd century AD, it became known as the Regio Tripolitana, meaning "region of the three cities", namely Oea (''i.e.'', modern Tripoli), Sabratha and Leptis Magna. It was probably raised to the rank of a separate province by Septimius Severus, who was a native of Leptis Magna.
In spite of centuries of Roman habitation, the only visible Roman remains, apart from scattered columns and capitals (usually integrated in later buildings), is the Arch of Marcus Aurelius from the 2nd century AD. The fact that Tripoli has been continuously inhabited, unlike ''e.g.'', Sabratha and Leptis Magna, has meant that the inhabitants have either quarried material from older buildings (destroying them in the process) or built on top of them, burying them beneath the streets, where they remain largely unexcavated.

There is evidence to suggest that the Tripolitania region was in some economic decline during the 5th and 6th centuries, in part due to the political unrest spreading across the Mediterranean world in the wake of the collapse of the Western Roman empire, as well as pressure from the invading Vandals. It is recorded by Ibn Abd al-Hakam that during the siege of Tripoli by a general of the Rashidun Caliphate named Amr ibn al-As, seven of his soldiers from the clan of Madhlij, sub branch of Kinana, unintentionally found a section on the western side of Tripoli beach that was not walled during their hunting routine. Those seven soldiers then managed to infiltrate through this way without being detected by the city guards, then managed to incite a riot within the city while shouting Takbir, causing the confused Byzantine garrison soldiers to think the Muslim forces were already inside in the city and flee towards their ship leaving Tripoli, thus allowing Amr to subdue the city easily.

According to al-Baladhuri, Tripoli was, unlike Western North Africa, taken by the Muslims very early after Alexandria, in the 22nd year of the Hijra, that is between 30 November 642 and 18 November 643 AD. Following the conquest, Tripoli was ruled by dynasties based in Cairo, Egypt (first the Fatimids, and later the Mamluks), and Kairouan in Ifriqiya (the Arab Fihrids, Muhallabids and Aghlabid dynasties). For some time it was a part of the Berber Almohad empire and of the Hafsids kingdom.

16th to 19th centuries

In 1510, it was taken by Pedro Navarro, Count of Oliveto for Spain, and, in 1530, it was assigned, together with Malta, to the Knights of St. John, who had lately been expelled by the Ottoman Turks from their stronghold on the island of Rhodes.
Finding themselves in very hostile territory, the Knights enhanced the city's walls and other defenses. Though built on top of a number of older buildings (possibly including a Roman public bath), much of the earliest defensive structures of the Tripoli castle (or "Assaraya al-Hamra", ''i.e.'', the " Red Castle") are attributed to the Knights of St John.

Having previously combated piracy from their base on Rhodes, the reason that the Knights were given charge of the city was to prevent it from relapsing into the nest of Barbary pirates it had been prior to the Spanish occupation. The disruption the pirates caused to the Christian shipping lanes in the Mediterranean had been one of the main incentives for the Spanish conquest of the city.

The knights kept the city with some trouble until 1551, when they were compelled to surrender to the Ottomans, led by the Muslim Turkish commander Turgut Reis. Turgut Reis served as pasha of Tripoli. During his rule, he adorned and built up the city, making it one of the most impressive cities along the North African Coast. Turgut was buried in Tripoli after his death in 1565. His body was taken from Malta, where he had fallen during the Ottoman siege of the island, to a tomb in the Sidi Darghut Mosque which he had established close to his palace in Tripoli. The palace has since disappeared (supposedly it was situated between the so-called "Ottoman prison" and the Arch of Marcus Aurelius), but the mosque, along with his tomb, still stands, close to the Bab Al-Bahr gate.

After the capture by the Ottoman Turks, Tripoli once again became a base of operation for Barbary pirates. One of several Western attempts to dislodge them again was a Royal Navy attack under John Narborough in 1675, of which a vivid eye-witness account has survived. Effective Ottoman rule during this period (1551–1711) was often hampered by the local Janissary corps. Intended to function as enforcers of local administration, the captain of the Janissaries and his cronies were often the ''de facto'' rulers.

In 1711, Ahmed Karamanli, a Janissary officer of Turkish origin, killed the Ottoman governor, the "Pasha", and established himself as ruler of the Tripolitania region. By 1714, he had asserted a sort of semi-independence from the Ottoman Sultan, heralding in the Karamanli dynasty. The Pashas of Tripoli were expected to pay a regular tributary tax to the Sultan but were in all other aspects rulers of an independent kingdom. This order of things continued under the rule of his descendants, accompanied by the brazen piracy and blackmailing until 1835 when the Ottoman Empire took advantage of an internal struggle and re-established its authority.

The Ottoman province (''vilayet'') of Tripoli (including the dependent '' sanjak'' of Cyrenaica) lay along the southern shore of the Mediterranean between Tunisia in the west and Egypt in the east. Besides the city itself, the area included Cyrenaica (the Barca plateau), the chain of oases