Tunisians () are the citizens and nationals of Tunisia in North Africa, who speak Tunisian Arabic and/or one of the Berber languages commonly found in Southern Tunisia and share a common Tunisian culture and identity. In addition to the approximately 12 million residents in Tunisia, a Tunisian diaspora has been established with modern migration, particularly in Western Europe, namely France, Italy and Germany. The vast majority of Tunisians are Arabs and Berbers who adhere to Sunni Islam.
History
Africa and Ifriqiya
The Phoenicians, a Semitic people, migrated and settled in the region of present-day Tunisia from the 12th to the 2nd century BC, establishing numerous settlements on the coast, including ancient Carthage which emerged as the most powerful by the 7th century BC. The migrants brought with them their culture and language that progressively spread from Tunisia's coastal areas to the rest of the coastal areas of Northwest Africa, as well as parts of the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean islands.Aubet, M. E. (2001). The Phoenicians and the West: politics, colonies and trade. Cambridge University Press. The descendants of the Phoenician settlers came to be known as the Punic people. From the 8th century BC, most Tunisians were Punic. Evidence from Sicily shows that some western Phoenicians (Punic people) used the term "Phoinix," although it is not clear what term they self-identified with, as they may have self-identified themselves as 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍𐤌 (, "Canaanites"). A passage from Augustine's writings has frequently been understood as suggesting that they called themselves Canaanites ( in Latin). (see in the Latin source: Unde interrogati rustici nostri, quid sint, punice respondentes: chanani, corrupta scilicet sicut in talibus solet una littera, quid aliud respondent quam: chananaei?) The Punic language, a variety of the Phoenician language, seems to have survived well past written use. Arab geographer al-Bakri described a people who lived in Sirte who spoke a language which was not Berber, Latin, or Coptic, well after the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. Punic culture survived the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC.
When Carthage fell in 146 BC to the Romans,Appian of Alexandria (162). The Punic Wars. Roman HistoryAppian of Alexandria (162). "The Third Punic War. Roman History" the coastal population was mainly Punic, but that influence decreased away from the coast.Jongeling, K., & Kerr, R.M. (2005). Late Punic epigraphy: an introduction to the study of Neo-Punic and Latino- Punic inscriptions. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 114, . From the Roman period until the Islamic conquest, Latins, Greeks and Numidians further influenced the Tunisians, which prior to the modern era, Tunisians were known as Afāriqah,The Muslim conquest and settlement of North Africa and Spain, Abdulwahid Thanun Taha, Routledge Library Edition: Muslim Spain p21 from the ancient name of Tunisia, Ifriqiya or Africa in the antiquity, which gave the present-day name of the continent Africa. Article « Ifriqiya » (Larousse.fr).
From the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in 673, many Arabs settled with Arab tribes in Tunisia which was called Ifriqiya, in places like Kairouan which soon became one of the purely Arab settlements in the Umayyad Caliphate. This accelerated in the 11th century with the large migrations of the Arab tribes of Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym to Ifriqiya and the rest of the Maghreb. Some Persians and other Middle-Eastern populations also settled in Ifriqiya, which had its name from the ancient name, the Roman province of Africa.Holt, P. M., Lambton, A. K., & Lewis, B. (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam (Vol. 2). Cambridge University Press. In the early-11th century, Normans from the Kingdom of Sicily took over Ifriqiya and founded the Kingdom of Africa, which lasted from 1135 to 1160.All the Arabic sources can be found in Michele Amari, Biblioteca arabo-sicula (Rome and Turin: 1880). Muslim refugees from Sicily and Malta were encouraged by the Normans to settle in Tunisia during this period.
After the Reconquista and expulsion of non-Christians and Moriscos from Spain, many Spanish Muslims and Jews also arrived. According to Matthew Carr, "As many as eighty thousand Moriscos settled in Tunisia, most of them in and around the capital, Tunis, which still contains a quarter known as Zuqaq al-Andalus, or Andalusia Alley."
Tunisians
By around the 15th century, the region of modern-day Tunisia had already been almost completely Arabized, establishing Arabs as the demographic majority of the population.
During the 17th to the 19th centuries, Ifriqiya came under Spanish, then Ottoman rule and hosted Morisco then Italian immigrants from 1609. Quitout, M. (2002). Parlons l'arabe tunisien: langue & culture. Editions L'Harmattan. Tunis was officially integrated into the Ottoman Empire as the Eyalet of Tunis (province), eventually including all of the Maghreb except Morocco and Mauritania.
Under the Ottoman Empire, the boundaries of the territory inhabited by Tunisians contracted; Ifriqiya lost territory to the west (Constantine) and to the east (Tripoli). In the 19th century, the rulers of Tunisia became aware of the ongoing efforts at political and social reform in the Ottoman capital. The Bey of Tunis then, by his own lights but informed by the Turkish example, attempted to effect a modernizing reform of institutions and the economy. Tunisian international debt grew unmanageable. This was the reason or pretext for French forces to establish a Protectorate in 1881.
A remnant of the centuries of Turkish rule is the presence of a population of Turkish origin, historically the male descendants were referred to as the Kouloughlis.
French colonization
Republic and Revolution
Independence from France was achieved on 20 March 1956. The State was established as a constitutional monarchy with the Bey of Tunis, Muhammad VIII al-Amin Bey, as the king of Tunisia. In 1957, the Prime Minister Habib Bourguiba abolished the monarchy and firmly established his Neo Destour (New Constitution) party. In the 1970s the economy of Tunisia expanded at a very healthy rate. Oil was discovered and tourism continued. City and countryside populations drew roughly equal in number. Yet agricultural problems and urban unemployment led to increased migration to Europe.
The 84-year-old President Bourguiba was overthrown and replaced by Ben Ali his Prime Minister on 7 November 1987. However, the Ben Ali regime came to an end 23 years later on 14 January 2011, in the events of the Tunisian Revolution, following nationwide demonstrations precipitated by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption, a lack of political freedoms like freedom of speech and poor living conditions. The Revolution would also be the catalyst that would start the Arab Spring.
Following the overthrow of Ben Ali, Tunisians elected a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution and an interim government known as the Troika because it was a coalition of three parties; the Islamist Ennahda Movement in the lead, with the centre-left Congress for the Republic and the left-leaning Ettakatol as minority partners. Widespread discontent remained however, leading to the 2013–14 Tunisian political crisis. As a result of the efforts made by the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, the Constituent Assembly completed its work, the interim government resigned, and new elections were held in 2014, completing the transition to a democratic state. The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for "its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Tunisian Revolution of 2011".
Beyond the political changes, which lead to Tunisia becoming a recognised democracy in 2014, those events also brought important changes to the post-2011 Tunisian culture.
Population
Ethnic groups The vast majority of the country's population consists chiefly of Arabs, who comprise 98% of the total population. Other ethnic groups include Europeans, which account for 1% of the population, as well as Berbers, who also make up 1%. While Ottoman influence was particularly important in the formation of a Turkish-Tunisian community among the country's elites, other peoples also migrated to Tunisia over different periods of time, including but not limited to, sub-Saharans, Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians (Punics), Jews and French settlers."Tunisia – Land | history – geography". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 July 2017. Nevertheless, from 1870, the distinction between the Tunisian masses and the Turkish elite became blurred.Green, Arnold H. (1978), The Tunisian Ulama 1873–1915: Social Structure and Response to Ideological Currents, BRILL, p. 69, ISBN 978-90-04-05687-9 There is also a minority Berber population (1%)Q&A: The Berbers". BBC News. 12 March 2004. Retrieved 19 January 2013. mainly located in the Dahar mountains.
From the late 19th century to after World War II, Tunisia was home to large populations of French and Italians (255,000 Europeans in 1956), although nearly all of them, along with the Jewish population, left after Tunisia became independent. The history of the Jews in Tunisia goes back some 2,600 years, with the El Ghriba Synagogue in Djerba believed one of, if not the oldest synagogue in the world. In 1948 the Jewish population was an estimated 105,000, but by 2013 only about 900 remained.
Religion
99% of Tunisians identify as Muslims. The remaining 1% primarily follow Christianity or Judaism. According to a 2018 Arab Barometer survey, an overwhelming 99.4% of Tunisians still identified as Muslim at the time. However, the same survey revealed a notable shift in religious self-identification: over one-third of Tunisians described themselves as non-religious. This marked a sharp rise from around 12% in 2013 to approximately 33% in 2018, positioning Tunisia as the least religious country in the Arab world at the time. The Arab Barometer found that about 46% of the Tunisian youth said they were not religious. However, as of July 2022, new surveys by the Arab Barometer say otherwise, that the previously noted wave of those saying they were not religious has been, in fact, "reversed".
The majority of Tunisians follow the Maliki school of Sunni Islam, and their mosques are marked by square minarets. During Ottoman rule, the Turks introduced the Hanafi school, which is still practiced by families of Turkish descent. Their mosques are characterized by octagonal minarets. Sunnis make up the majority of Muslims, with non-denominational Muslims as the second-largest group,Chapter 1: Religious Affiliation retrieved 4 September 2013 followed by the Ibadite Amazighs."Les mosquées ibadites du Maghreb" [The Ibadi mosques of the Maghreb]. Remmm.revues.org. Retrieved on 5 September 2015.
The Church of Carthage, in particular, became significant in the history of Christianity, playing a key role in the development of Christian philosophy and theology, and producing many prominent religious scholars and theologians. Before Tunisia's independence, the country was home to over 250,000 Christians, mostly of Italian and Maltese descent. Many Italian settlers left for Italy or France following independence from France. Today, Tunisia's Christian population is around 35,000, primarily Catholics (22,000), with a smaller number of Protestants. Historically, Berber Christians lived in some Nefzaoua villages until the early 15th century, and a community of Tunisian Christians existed in Tozeur until the 18th century. According to the 2007 International Religious Freedom Report, there were documented cases of a small number of Tunisian Muslims converting to Christianity.