The Maghreb, also known as the Greater Maghreb and Northwest Africa,"Northwest Africa". English for Students. . is the western part of the Arab world. The Maghreb region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. As of 2018, the region had a population of over 100 million people.
The Maghreb is usually defined as encompassing much of the northern part of continental Africa, including a large portion of the Sahara Desert, while excluding Egypt and the Sudan, which are considered to be located in the Mashriq — the eastern part of the Arab world. The traditional definition of the Maghreb — which restricted its scope to the Atlas Mountains and the coastal Mediterranean plains of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya — was expanded in recent decades to today include Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. During the era of al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula (711–1492), the Maghreb's inhabitants — the Muslim and Jewish Maghrebis — were known by Europeans as the "Moors"."The Moors were simply Maghrebis, inhabitants of the Maghreb, the western part of the Islamic world, that extends from Spain to Tunisia, and represents a homogeneous cultural entity". Titus_Burckhardt, Moorish Culture in Spain. Suhail Academy. 1997, p.7 The Greeks referred to the region as the "Land of the Atlas", referring to its Atlas Mountains.
Before the establishment of modern states of the region during the 20th century, the Maghreb most commonly referred to a smaller area encompassing Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia — between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Mountains. It often also included the territory of eastern Libya, and it always excluded what is now considered modern Mauritania. As recently as the early-to-mid 20th century, the term "Maghreb" was exclusively used to refer to the western Mediterranean region of coastal North Africa in general, and to Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia in particular.
The region comprising the Maghreb was somewhat unified as an independent political entity under the kingdom of Numidia, followed briefly by the Kingdom of Mauretania, then Roman rule. The Germanic Vandals invaded after that, followed by the equally brief re-establishment of a weak Roman rule by the Byzantine Empire. The Islamic caliphates came to power under the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate and the Fatimid Caliphate. The most enduring rule was that of the local Arab empires of the Aghlabids, Idrisids, Salihids, Sulaymanids, Umayyads of Cordoba, Hammudids, Nasrids, Saadians, Alawites and the Sennusids, as well as the Berber empires of the Ifranids, Almoravids, Almohads, Hammadids, Zirids, Marinids, Zayyanids, Hafsids and Wattasids, extending from the 8th to 13th centuries. The Ottoman Empire also controlled parts of the region for a period.
Centuries of Arab migrations to the Maghreb since the 7th century shifted the demographic scope of the Maghreb in favor of the Arabs. During the mid-to-late 19th and early 20th centuries, the region was administered by European powers: France (Algeria, Tunisia, most of Morocco, and Mauritania) Italy (Libya), and Spain (northern Morocco and Western Sahara). Italy was expelled from North Africa by the Allies in World War II. Decolonization of the region continued in the decades thereafter, with violent conflicts such as the Algerian War, the Ifni War, and the Western Sahara War.
Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia established the Arab Maghreb Union in 1989 to promote cooperation and economic integration in a common market. The union implicitly included Western Sahara under Morocco's membership. However, this progress was short-lived, and the union is now largely dormant. Tensions between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara re-emerged, reinforced by the unresolved border dispute between the two countries. These two conflicts have hindered progress on the union's joint goals.
Terminology The toponym maghrib () is an Arabic term that the first Muslim Arab settlers gave to the recently conquered area situated west of the Umayyad capital of Damascus in the 7th century AD. The term was used to refer to the region extending from Alexandria in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. Etymologically, it means both "the western place/land" and "the place where the sun sets", in contrast to the Mashriq, the Fertile Crescent and eastern part of the Arab world. In Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm fī Ma'rifat al-Aqālīm (c. 985 AD), medieval Arab geographer Al-Maqdisi used the term Arab regions () to refer to the lands of Arabia, Iraq, Upper Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Maghreb. This constituted the earliest documented differentiation between the terms Maghreb and Gharb (Muslim lands west of the Abbasid capital, Baghdad). The former referred to the present-day Maghreb whereas the latter incorporated the Levant and Egypt in addition to the Maghreb.
Medieval Muslim historians and geographers divided the Maghreb region into three areas: al-Maghrib al-Adna (the near Maghrib; also known as Ifriqiya), which included the lands extending from Alexandria to Tarabulus (modern-day Tripoli) in the west; al-Maghrib al-Awsat (the middle Maghrib), which extended from Tripoli to Bijaya (Béjaïa); and al-Maghrib al-Aqsa (the far Maghrib), which extended from Tahart (Tiaret) to the Atlantic Ocean. Historians and geographers disagreed, however, over the definition of the eastern boundary. Some authors place it at the sea of Kulzum (the Red Sea) and thus include Egypt and Barqa (Cyrenaica) in the Maghreb. Ibn Khaldun does not accept this definition because, he says, the inhabitants of the Maghreb do not consider Egypt and Barqa as forming part of Maghrib. The latter commences only at the province of Tripoli and includes the districts of which the country of the Berbers was composed in former times. Later Maghribi writers repeated the definition of Ibn Khaldun, with a few variations in details.
The term Maghrib is used in opposition to Mashriq in a sense near to that which it had in medieval times, but it also denotes simply Morocco when the full al-Maghrib al-Aqsa is abbreviated. Certain politicians seek a political union of the North African countries, which they call the Greater Maghrib () or the Arab Maghrib ().
History
Prehistory
Some 9,000 years ago, Earth's tilt was 24.14 degrees, as compared with the current 23.45 degrees. Around 3,500 BC, these changes in the tilt of the Earth's orbit appear to have caused a rapid desertification of the Sahara regionSahara's Abrupt Desertification Started by Changes in Earth's Orbit, Accelerated by Atmospheric and Vegetation Feedbacks , Science Daily. "One of the most striking climate changes of the past 11,000 years caused the abrupt desertification of the Saharan and Arabia regions midway through that period. The resulting loss of the Sahara to agricultural pursuits may be an important reason that civilizations were founded along the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. German scientists, employing a new climate system model, have concluded that this desertification was initiated by subtle changes in the Earth's orbit and strongly amplified by resulting atmospheric and vegetation feedbacks in the subtropics." forming a natural barrier that severely limited contact between the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. The Berber people have inhabited western North Africa since at least 10,000 BC.Historical Dictionary of the Berbers (Imazighen), by Hsain Ilahiane, (2006), p. 112. Quote: "The Siwan people are mostly Berbers, the indigenous people who once roamed the North African coast between Tunisia and Morocco. They inhabited the area as early as 10,000 B.C., first moving toward the coast but later inland as conquering powers pushed them to take refuge in the desert."
Antiquity
Isolated from the rest of the continent by the Atlas Mountains (stretching from present-day Morocco to present-day Tunisia) and by the Sahara desert, inhabitants of the northern parts of the Maghreb have long had commercial and cultural ties across the Mediterranean Sea to the inhabitants of the regions of Southern Europe and Western Asia. These trade relations date back at least to the Phoenicians in the 1st millennium BC. (According to tradition, the Phoenicians founded their colony of Carthage (in present-day Tunisia) ).
Phoenicians and Carthaginians arrived for trade. The main Berber and Phoenician settlements centered in the Gulf of Tunis (Carthage, Utica, Tunisia) along the North African littoral, between the Pillars of Hercules and the Libyan coast east of ancient Cyrenaica. They dominated the trade and intercourse of the Western Mediterranean for centuries. Rome's defeat of Carthage in the Punic Wars (264 to 146 BC) enabled Rome to establish the Province of Africa (146 BC) and to control many of these ports. Rome eventually took control of the entire Maghreb north of the Atlas Mountains. Rome was greatly helped by the defection of Massinissa (later King of Numidia, ) and of Carthage's eastern Numidian Massylii client-allies. Some of the most mountainous regions, such as the Moroccan Rif, remained outside Roman control. Furthermore, during the rule of the Romans, Byzantines, Vandals and Carthaginians the Kabyle people were one of the few ethnic groups in North Africa who remained independent. The Kabyle people were incredibly resistible so much so that even during the Arab conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains.
The pressure put on the Western Roman Empire by the barbarian invasions (notably by the Vandals and Visigoths in Iberia) in the 5th century AD reduced Roman control and led to the establishment of the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa in 430 A.D., with its capital at Carthage. A century later, the Byzantine emperor Justinian I sent (533) a force under General Belisarius that succeeded in destroying the Vandal Kingdom in 534. Byzantine rule lasted for 150 years. The Berbers contested the extent of Byzantine control.
After the advent of Islam in Mediterranean North Africa in the period from 639 to 700 AD, Arabs took control of the entire Maghreb region.
Middle Ages
The Arabs reached the Maghreb in early Umayyad times in the 7th century, and from then the Arab migration to the Maghreb began. Islamic Berber kingdoms such as the Almohads expansion and the spread of Islam contributed to the development of trans-Saharan trade. In addition, several Arab dynasties formed in the Maghreb region, such as the Idrisids, Aghlabids, Sulaymanids and more. While restricted due to the cost and dangers, the trade was highly profitable. Commodities traded included such goods as salt, gold, ivory, and slaves. Various Islamic variations, such as the Ibadis and the Shia, were adopted by some Berbers, often leading to scorning of Caliphal control in favour of their own interpretation of Islam.