Sanhaja
The Sanhādscha ( Central Atlas Tamazight ⵉⵥⵏⴰⴳⵏ Iẓnagen , Arabic صنهاجة Sanhadscha , DMG Ṣanhāǧa , sometimes also Ṣinhāǧa ) wereone of the large tribal groups of the Berbers in the Maghreb alongside the Zanata and Masmuda .
history
Some tribes of the Sanhaja immigrated from the 3rd century AD in batches, presumably from the east or northeast of the continent, from where they are believed to have introduced the camel . They first settled in the northern Sahara . After adopting Islam , they spread it in Sudan to Senegal and Niger . From the 8th or 9th century, the Sanhajah tribes began to settle in the Middle Atlas , in the Rif Mountains , on the Moroccan Atlantic coast and in Mauritania . A part of the Sanhajah settled in eastern Algeria (Kutamaberber) and formed an important pillar for the rise of the Fatimids . Until the 12th century, the Zirid and Hammudid dynasties of the Sanhajah controlled the area of the Ifrīqiya .
The Arab scholar Ibn Chaldūn (1332–1406) distinguished between two groups of Sanhajah: the nomads of the desert and the inhabitants of the Kabylia and the Middle Atlas . It is controversial in the professional world whether both ethnic groups have a common origin or whether the different cultures only share the same name. What is certain is that between the introduction of the camel and the first mention of its name in the 9th century, a Sanhajah tribal society must have developed. As elsewhere, the only criterion for assigning certain tribal groups to the Sanhajas is to consider the family structures, which are often constructs formed by those affected to establish their own identity.
At the beginning of the 9th century, a tribal kingdom of Masufa and Lamtuna was formed in what is now Mauritania under Tilantan († 826) , which controlled the western route of the Trans-Saharan trade and fought against the kingdoms in Sudan. Although this empire disintegrated at the beginning of the 10th century, the missionary and theologian Ibn Yasin managed to unite the tribes to form the Almoravid League in the middle of the 11th century . They conquered Morocco , western Algeria and Andalusia in the following period .
Sanhadscha were named after the descriptions of medieval Arab geographers like the Tuareg "veils" (Mulaṯṯamūn) because they covered the face with a cloth (Liṯām) . Since the penetration of the Arab Banū Hilāl into the Maghreb in the 11th century, the Sanhadscha have increasingly been Arabized, abandoned this custom and in part adopted Arabic irrigation methods such as the norias and the black tent made of camel hair (Ḫaīma) on the northern edge of the Sahara .
In Algeria, the Berber Kabyls are descendants of the Kutāma tribes. In Mauritania and Mali , especially in the area around Timbuktu , the Kunta are resident today , who are also considered to be descendants of the Sanhajah, although in their own genealogies they like to derive from ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ († 683), the conqueror of North Africa.
literature
- Stephan Ronart, Nandy Ronart: Lexicon of the Arab World. A historical-political reference work. Artemis Verlag, Zurich et al. 1972, ISBN 3-7608-0138-2 .
- Harry T. Norris: The Arab Conquest of the Western Sahara. Studies of the historical events, religious beliefs and social customs which made the remotest Sahara a part of the Arab World. Longman et al., Harlow (London) 1986, ISBN 0-582-75643-X ( Arab Background Series ).
Individual evidence
- ^ 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. 30-32
- ^ 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. 21f, 27, ISBN 3-9801032-1-8