The Maghreb

The next few posts are some regional political histories of the pre-modern Islamic period and include some of the regions that, at first, were of little interest to the then insular and weak West. But first, I come back to the southern (and to a significant extent the northern) shores of what the Romans called mare nostrum (our sea), the Mediterranean Sea.

The Maghreb is that first region of interest. It is the west of the Arab Islamic world (as the name suggests) and included al-Andalus when it was in Muslim hands. Here we will consider the remainder of the Maghreb which is effectively Muslim North Africa excluding Egypt. The West in our Western sense is called the Gharab. Incidentally, the east of the Arab Islamic world is usually referred to as the Mashriq. Usually Maghreb refers today to Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco (which is also called the Maghreb by itself), Mauritania and sometimes Libya. Morocco and Mauritania are also sometimes called the far Maghreb since the French defined those countries as such in the 19^th Century.

Both Ifriqiyya (from which we get Africa) and Mauritania (land of the ‘Maurs’ (‘blacks’)) are originally Roman words that described parts of North Africa before the Arab Islamic period. At times, Arabs used to refer to Ifriqiyya (centred on Tunis) and Maghreb (around Morocco) as two separate regions and Spain as a third. This region is central to the Arab world in many ways as it faces Europe and Africa as well as the eastern Arab world.

The Arabs had conquered the entire region by 700 CE mostly under Muawiya I and II after beginning in the period of ‘Uthman’s rule and thus both ruled the Berbers and supplanted Byzantine and Latin/Vandal rule and civilisation. Berber-Carthaginian civilisation was too indigenous and successful in North Africa to be as easily done away with. The Carthaginians (in modern day Tunisia), we remember, threatened the Roman Republic in Europe and may have directly brought about the Roman Empire by encouraging Roman militarism.

In the 11^th Century under the Fatimids (discussed in other posts) a further migration of Arabs from Egypt to the Maghreb (known in Arab folklore as the taghrib, meaning both going west and being exiled and possibly being actually both) produced a notable degree of discord between Berbers and Arabs for some time. Writing much later, Ibn Khaldoun discusses the havoc wreaked.

The Berber (locally Amazigh) language, however, did not resist the relative supremacy of Arabic especially well, not being a major language of literature (although today's Algerian Arabic especially owes a lot to its influence). The Berber and Arab culture always had a number of similarities that smoothed any problems of integration between them including desert living, a penchant for genealogy and the use of the camel. Indeed it is likely that the two groups are ethnically related as was always suggested by those who supported the cause of this integration.

The first governorate capital of the Arab-ruled region was at Qairowan in Tunisia, built by the Arabs in the 7^th Century. In the ‘Abbasid period, Haroun ar-Rashid (famous from the Arabian Nights) permitted further division of the region along with the rest of his Caliphate (with local dynastic rule in order to alleviate succession issues that would otherwise have ensued). In this early period, the two major dynasties which developed were the Idrisids (named for the first dynast, a great grandson of the Prophet, who, in the end, the Caliph wanted dead) roughly in Morocco (Maghreb) and the more approved Aghlabids in Tunisia (roughly Ifriqiyya). A Khawarij dynasty, the Rustamids, also ruled in the interior of Algeria for some time and they were also relatively unacceptable to the Caliphs. The Fatimids, who later ruled in Egypt and there asserted their own claim to a Shi’a Caliphate, also arose in the Maghreb (where they supplanted the Aghlabids). As the Fatimids came to rule from Cairo they, in turn, permitted lesser, often Berber, dynasties to rule locally further West such as the Zirids centred on Qairowan. Qairowan continued to be a major centre of Islamic (especially Maliki (I will discuss the different schools of Islamic jurisprudence including the Maliki School in a later post)) and other learning in the Arab Islamic world.

From the late 11^th to the early 13^th Centuries, the two major dynasties in the region (including in Islamic Spain) were the Almoravids (or al-Murabitun) and then the Almohads (or al-Muwahhidun).

The expansions of these last two dynasties especially permitted continuing cross-cultural pollination that promoted secular learning. Averroes, for example, was born in Cordoba and died in Marrakesh having thus been able to span the Mediterranean in the course of his academic learning. The Maghreb also rightly lays claim to the greats of Arabic/Berber learning, Ibn Khaldoun and Ibn Battuta, whom I will discuss further in later posts.

Nevertheless, a sort of ‘cultural cringe’ persisted in deference to the more religion-bound Mashriqi culture. Ironically, and perhaps for that reason, the Mauritanian culture of the far Maghreb continues to have more affinity with Mashriqi culture than the Libyan culture which is obviously much closer to the Mashriq. The hajj pilgrimage has probably contributed significantly to the continued influence of the Mashriq upon the Maghreb.

Since the 17^th Century, Morocco has had four imperial capitals that as a result have many buildings of interest. The capitals have been, in order, Fes (Fez), Meknes, Marrakesh and Rabat-Salé, the current capital. Notably, the name Rabat means something like Sufi outpost centre at a port or border area in the local Arabic and the name Salé is derived from a Berber name for the city which predates the Arab conquests. Today Casablanca (actually ad-Dar al-Bayda’ in Arabic) is Morocco’s largest city and port and contains the modern Hasan II Mosque (there was Australian involvement in its construction). The Qayrawiyyin (or Qarawiyyin) Mosque at Fes is notably named for the early visitors from the first important Arab city of the area, Qairowan. Many of the major buildings of the old cities are mosques and madrasas and some are also built in a style that appears to have originated in al-Andalus and Syria but with local North African variations in style and materials and products. The Kutubiyya Mosque in Marrakesh is another notable mosque. Zarhoun near Meknes and Sousah near Rabat are also important historical sites.

From a religious point of view the Roman and Byzantine Christian projects in their African provinces were relatively unsuccessful among the Berbers when compared with the success of the spread of Islam in the population. There were also Jewish communities that predated ‘Uthman’s invasion (and continue today). Sufism was influential in this culture of the Maghreb. The great Ibn ‘Arabi was from Almohad Spain, for example, and epitomised the philosophical and inventive bent of the Maghrebi culture generally. The many varieties of the Sufis of the Maghreb were largely responsible for the spread of Islam to West Africa which I will consider in the next post.