Haratin

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Haratin , Arabic حراطين, DMG ḥarāṭīn ( Pl .; Sing. M .:حرطاني / ḥarṭānī ), are the black workers and descendants of slaves in the oases of the western Sahara . Haratins live predominantly in Mauritania , also in the Western Sahara , in the south of Morocco , in Senegal , in Algeria and in Mali . The Tuareg call them Izzeggaren .

The term Haratin is derived from folk etymology from ḥorr , “free” or “free” and ṯnān , “two” or ṯāni , “the second”. It can be translated as “the subsequently liberated” and is used to distinguish it from the light-skinned Moors , the Beiḍān (“whites”).

The Haratin are Arabic , more rarely Berber . In Mauritania, Haratin and other dark-skinned populations made up 30 to 35 percent of the population in the 1960s. They also make up a large proportion of the population in Western Sahara. Haratins formed a caste of serfs in Mauritania and many still live in conditions similar to slavery . Widespread discrimination results from their history. The origin of the Haratin is unclear. Haratin could be the descendants of a black people who lived in the Sahara area before the Sahara became a desert and before the Berbers came. Such a historical derivation cannot be proven. Haratin may belong to the descendants of slaves from southern West Africa in the greater Sudan region .

In Morocco and Mauritania, Haratins are often called the dark-skinned inhabitants of the oases who work in agriculture. They would have emerged from a mixture of Berbers and black Africans. Such a geographical and ethnic demarcation does not take into account the social classes that exist regardless of skin color. Haratins live throughout the area and can be shepherds just as well.

In some Moroccan oral traditions, the Haratin of the southeastern oases were the original inhabitants. Overall, this term is less common in Morocco; Dark-skinned people are more likely to be referred to as Ait Dra (Berber) or Draoua (Arabic), meaning “people from Wadi Dara”.

Haratins are not to be confused with the Gnawa in Morocco . This is the name of the members of a popular Islamic Sufi order ( Tariqa ) with black African roots who are known for their music, dances and rituals of possession ( Derdeba ) . As Moroccan society modernized and urbanized, the importance of ethnic and social belonging diminished through urban migration and intermarriage. In the almost exclusively nomadic way of life in Mauritania until the middle of the 20th century, the division into social classes is still present.

literature

  • John Mercer: The Haratin: Mauritania's Slaves . Society for Threatened Peoples, 1982, ISBN 3922197108
  • Hsain Ilahiane: The Power of the Dagger, the Seeds of the Koran, and the Sweat of the Plowman: Ethnic Stratification and Agricultural Intensification in the Ziz Valley, Southeast Morocco . 107, 7, unpublished dissertation, Univ. of Arizona, 1998
  • Chouki El Hamel: “Race”, Slavery and Islam in the Maghribi Mediterranean Thought: The Question of the Haratin in Morocco , Journal of North African Studies 29 (38), 2002
  • Aziz Abdalla Batrán: The 'Ulamá of Fas, Mulay Isma'il, and the Issue of the Haratin of Fas . in: John Ralph, Willis: Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, 1: Islam and the Ideology of Enslavement . Frank Cass, London 1985, pp. 125-59
  • Remco Ensel: Saints and Servants in Southern Morocco . Brill, Leiden 1999
  • JO Hunwick: Black Slaves in the Mediterranean World: Introduction to a Neglected Aspect of the African Diaspora . Journal of African History
  • Edgar Sommer : Kel Tamashek - The Tuareg , Cargo Verlag, Schwülper 2006, ISBN 3-938693-05-3 (only on the Izzeggaren term for the Tuareg)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edgar Sommer, Kel Tamashek, p. 15 (see lit.)
  2. ^ Wolfgang Creyaufmüller: Nomad culture in the Western Sahara. The material culture of the Moors, their handicraft techniques and basic ornamental structures. Burgfried-Verlag, Hallein (Austria) 1983, pp. 43, 58, 65
  3. ↑ Creyaufmüller, p. 53
  4. ^ Rainer Oßwald: The trading cities of the West Sahara. The development of the Arab-Moorish culture of Šinqīt, Wādān, Tīšīt and Walāta. Marburg studies on Africa and Asia. Vol. 39. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1986, pp. 14-17