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Arab tribes of Algeria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Following the spread of Islam, Algeria experienced three major waves of Arab migration that significantly altered its demographics and culture. The first wave occurred in the 7th century, with Arab political and trading elites settling mainly in large cities following the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. This was followed by the large-scale migration of Bedouin tribes, including Banu Hilal, Banu Sulaym, and Banu Ma'qil in the 11th century, who settled in rural areas, especially the plains. Around the same time, Arabs from al-Andalus (Moors) also migrated, further contributing to the Arabization of the country. Gabriel Martinez described these Andalusian Arabs as the "watchdogs" of the Arabic language.[1]
The first wave of migration led to the Arabization of tribal society from the top down, while the later Bedouin migration brought about Arabization from the grassroots level.
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In medieval Algeria, tribal power relied on the internal cohesion of social relations and a horizontal hierarchy, emphasizing resource sharing and direct democracy, under the leadership of a charismatic figure who acted as both decision-maker and arbiter. This tribal formation valued its autonomy.
French generals noted in their memoirs that Algeria had around 1,200 tribes,[2] indicating a complex and functional tribal order during Ottoman rule. However, this system was disrupted by the colonial regime from the beginning of the French conquest of Algeria in 1830 and the First World War.[3] Disruption took place through physical destruction, land dispossession, and destruction of traditional authority structures, as well as the imposition of new cultural norms on indigenous populations.[3] The French colonial empire sought to dismantle the tribal system, replacing it with douar-communes that served the colonial state.[4] Despite these efforts, the tribal system endured but gradually lost its coercive power over individuals.[4]
The surveys conducted during the senatus consultum of 1863 revealed significant confusion in the oral traditions of Algeria, making it challenging to distinguish between Arab and Berber groups. This difficulty stemmed from the Islamization and Arabization processes that led to numerous mythical genealogical reconstructions.[5] Over time, the tribal system contributed to a fusion of Arab and Berber identities,[5] with oral traditions retaining little beyond the names of prominent founding ancestors. Several reorganized themselves around influential figures, including religious leaders such as Marabouts[6] and military leaders such as Djouad.[4][7]
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Notable Algerian Arab tribes and clans
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Urban Arabs (first settlements)
The urban Arabs constitute the first settlement of Arab tribes in the Maghreb, starting in the 7th century:
- The Banu al-Aghlab (Aghlabids) of the Banu Tamim were an Arab tribe originating from northern Arabia who came to Algeria before the Hilalian invasions.
- The Banu Ukhaidhir of the Quraysh were an Arab tribe originating from the Hejaz region that were present in Algeria since the 9th century.
- The Fihrids were aristocratic Arab family from the Quraysh clan. They settled in the Maghreb (in Cyrenaica, Ifriqiya, Biskra and al-Andalus) from the 7th century, following the conquests of Uqba ibn Nafi. The members of this family have particularly marked the history of the Maghreb and al-Andalus, notably Yusuf al-Fihri, Habib al-Fihri, and Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri I.
- Sharifian tribes such as the Sulaymanids and Idrisids that are descended from Banu Hashim, between the 8th and 10th centuries.
Bedouin Arabs (second settlements)
Although the first Arab migration to the Maghreb in the 7th century during the first conquests was essentially composed of settled Arab noble clans in smaller numbers, the second wave was much more substantial in that it was mainly composed of nomadic tribes.
The objective of the Fatimid Caliphate was to regain suzerainty over the Zirids, to repopulate the Maghreb, which had been insufficiently exploited until then, and to reverse the demographic trend so that the Berbers were no longer the majority. The original tribe of the Banu Hilal was then composed of three fractions, themselves constituted into sub-factions:
- Athbaj: Durayd, Taouba, Bokhtor, Kherfa, Dahhak, Iyad, and Latif
- Riyah : Mohammed, Mirdass, Sinber, and Dhouaouda
- Zoghba : Malik, Yazid Amer, and Suwayd
During their migration to the Maghreb, the Banu Hilal were joined by three other Arab tribal groups:
- Jusham : Qorra, al-Assem, Moqaddem, Khlout, Sofiane, and Djaber;
- Maqil : Hedadj, Kharadj, Shabanaat, Ghosl, Metarfa, Thaleba, Ahlaf;
- Sulaym : Zoghb, Heib, Aouf, Kaoub, Hakim, Debbab, Ouchah, Djouari.
The influx of Hilalians was a major factor in the linguistic, cultural, and ethnic Arabization of the Maghreb and in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously dominated. Estimates of the displacement of Arab populations from the 11th century onward vary among historians from 200,000 to 1,000,000.[8][9] According to Luis del Mármol Carvajal, the Hilalians numbered over a million, and he estimated the Hilalian population at his time at 1,000,000 in 1573.[10][11]
In the 16th century, the total population of Arab tribesmen in the Maghreb states was approximately 4,650,000, distributed as follows: 3,000,000 in Morocco, 900,000 in Algeria, and 750,000 in Tunisia and Tripoli.[12]
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