Punic Wars
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC. At the time, they were some of the largest wars that had taken place; the term Punic comes from the Latin word Punicus, meaning "Carthaginian", with reference to the Carthaginians' Phoenician ancestry. The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflicts of interest between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic; the Romans were interested in expansion via Sicily, part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the First Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the Western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire. Rome was a ascending power in Italy, but it lacked the naval power of Carthage; the Second Punic War witnessed Hannibal's crossing of the Alps in 218 BC, followed by a prolonged but failed campaign of Carthage's Hannibal in mainland Italy. By the end of the Third Punic War, after more than a hundred years and the loss of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire destroyed the city, became the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean.
With the end of the Macedonian Wars – which ran concurrently with the Punic Wars – and the defeat of the Seleucid King Antiochus III the Great in the Roman–Seleucid War in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and one of the most powerful cities in classical antiquity. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars gave Rome a preeminent status it would retain until the 5th century AD. During the mid-3rd century BC, Carthage was a large city located on the coast of modern Tunisia. Founded by the Phoenicians in the mid-9th century BC, it was a powerful thalassocratic city-state with a vast commercial network. Of the great city-states in the western Mediterranean, only Rome rivaled it in power and population. While Carthage's navy was the largest in the ancient world at the time, it did not maintain a large, standing army. Instead, Carthage relied on mercenaries the indigenous Numidians, to fight its wars; these mercenaries were led by officers who were Carthaginian citizens.
The Carthaginians were famed for their abilities as sailors, many Carthaginians from the lower classes served in their navy, which provided them with a stable income and career. In 200 BC, the Roman Republic had gained control of the Italian peninsula south of the Po River. Unlike Carthage, Rome had a large and disciplined army, but lacked a navy at the start of the First Punic War; this left the Romans at a disadvantage until the construction of large fleets during the war. The First Punic War was fought on land in Sicily and Africa, but was a naval war, it began as a local conflict in Sicily between Hiero II of Syracuse and the Mamertines of Messina. The Mamertines enlisted the aid of the Carthaginian navy, subsequently betrayed them by entreating the Roman Senate for aid against Carthage; the Romans sent a garrison to secure Messina, so the outraged Carthaginians lent aid to Syracuse. Tensions escalated into a full-scale war between Carthage and Rome for the control of Sicily. After a harsh defeat at the Battle of Agrigentum in 262 BC, the Carthaginian leadership resolved to avoid further direct land-based engagements with the powerful Roman legions, concentrate on the sea where they believed Carthage's large navy had the advantage.
The Carthaginian navy prevailed. In 260 BC, they defeated the fledgling Roman navy at the Battle of the Lipari Islands. Rome responded by drastically expanding its navy in a short time. Within two months, the Romans had a fleet of over one hundred warships. Aware that they could not defeat the Carthaginians in traditional ramming combat, the Romans used the corvus, an assault bridge, to leverage their superior infantry; the hinged bridge would be swung down onto enemy vessels with a sharp spike to secure the two ships together. Roman legionaries could board and capture Carthaginian ships; this innovative Roman tactic reduced the Carthaginian navy's advantage in ship-to-ship engagements. However, the corvus was cumbersome and dangerous, was phased out as the Roman navy became more experienced and tactically proficient. Save for the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Tunis in Africa, the early naval defeats, the First Punic War was a nearly unbroken string of Roman victories. In 241 BC, Carthage signed a peace treaty under the terms of which they evacuated Sicily and paid Rome a large war indemnity.
The long war was costly to both powers, but Carthage was more destabilized. According to Polybius, there had been several trade agreements between Rome and Carthage a mutual alliance against king Pyrrhus of Epirus; when Rome and Carthage made peace in 241 BC, Rome secured the release of all 8,000 prisoners of war without ransom and, received a considerable amount of silver as a war indemnity. However, Carthage refused to deliver to Rome the Roman deserters serving among their troops. A first issue for dispute was that the initial treaty, agreed upon by Hamilcar Barca and the Roman commander in Sicily, had a clause stipulating that the Roman popular assembly had to accept the treaty in order for it to be valid; the assembly not only increased the indemnity Carthage had to pay. Carthage had a liquidity problem and attempted to gain financial help from Egypt, a mutual ally of Rome and Carthage, but failed; this resulted in delay of payments owed to the mercenary troops that had served Carthage in Sicily, leading to a climate of mutual mistrust and, final
Hoggar Mountains
The Hoggar Mountains, are a highland region in the central Sahara, southern Algeria, along the Tropic of Cancer. The mountains cover an area of 550,000 square km; this mountainous region is located about 1,500 km south of Algiers. The area is rocky desert with an average elevation of more than 900 m above sea level; the highest peak, Mount Tahat, is at 2,908 m. The mountains are composed of metamorphic rock 2 billion years old, although there are areas where more recent volcanic activity has laid down much newer rock. Several of the more dramatic peaks, such as Ilamen, are the result of erosion wearing away extinct volcano domes, leaving behind the more resistant material that plugged the volcanic cores. Assekrem is a famous and visited point where Charles de Foucauld built a hermitage in 1911; the main city near the Hoggar Mountains is Tamanrasset, built in wadi. The Hoggar Mountain range experiences hot summers, with a cold winter climate. Temperatures fall below 0 °C in the winter. Rainfall is sporadic year-round.
However, since the climate is less extreme than in most other areas of the Sahara, the Hoggar Mountains are a major location for biodiversity, including number of relict species. The Hoggar Mountains are part of the West Saharan montane xeric woodlands ecoregion, it is one of the national parks of the country. To the west of the Hoggar range, a population of the endangered African wild dog remained viable into the 20th century, but is now thought to be extirpated within this entire region. Analysis of collected scat in 2006 showed the presence of the Northwest African Cheetah in the region. Relict populations of the West African crocodile persisted in the Hoggar Mountains until the early 20th century; the park contains a population of herbivores such as the saharan subspecies of the barbary sheep and the Dorcas gazelle Vegetation in this area includes trees such as Vachellia tortilis, Vachellia seyal and Tamarix aphylla which are scattered throughout the area. Other plants may include Calotropis procera.
Prehistoric settlement is evident from extant rock paintings dating to 6000 BC. The Hoggar Massif is the land of the Kel Ahaggar Tuareg; the tomb of Tin Hinan, the woman believed to be the matriarch of the Tuareg, is located at Abalessa, an oasis near Tamanrasset. According to legend, the Tim Lam are from the Tafilalt region in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. France and weapons of mass destruction. 2001. Encyclopedia of World Geography, Published by Marshall Cavendish, 3456 pages ISBN 0-7614-7289-4, 9780761472896 C. Michael Hogan. 2009. Painted Hunting Dog: Lycaon pictus, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg Jeremy Keenan. 1977. "The Tuareg: People of Ahaggar", Published by Penguin Books Ltd.. London, 385 pages, ISBN 0-7139-0636-7 A website about the park Park data on UNEP-WPMC Ahaggar National Park - The Biodiverse Home of the Saharan Cheetah
French Algeria
French Algeria known as Colonial Algeria, began in 1830 with the invasion of Algiers and lasted until 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants known as colons and as pieds-noirs. However, the indigenous Muslim population remained a majority of the territory's population throughout its history. Dissatisfaction among the Muslim population with its lack of political and economic status fueled calls for greater political autonomy, independence from France. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events began of what was called the Algerian War; the war concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum. During its last years of existence, French Algeria was the founding member state of the United Nations, NATO and the European Economic Community.
Since the 1516 capture of Algiers by the Ottoman admirals, the brothers Ours and Hayreddin Barbarossa, Algeria had been a base for conflict and piracy in the Mediterranean. In 1681, Louis XIV asked Admiral Abraham Duquesne to fight the Berber pirates and ordered a large-scale attack on Algiers between 1682 and 1683 on the pretext of assisting Christian captives. Again, Jean II d'Estrées bombarded Tripoli and Algiers from 1685 to 1688. An ambassador from Algiers visited the Court in Versailles, a Treaty was signed in 1690 that provided peace throughout the 18th century. During the Directory regime of the First French Republic, the Bacri and the Busnach, Jewish negotiators of Algiers, provided important quantities of grain for Napoleon's soldiers who participated in the Italian campaign of 1796. However, Bonaparte refused claiming it was excessive. In 1820, Louis XVIII paid back half of the Directory's debts; the dey, who had loaned to the Bacri 250,000 francs, requested from France the rest of the money.
The Dey of Algiers himself was weak politically and militarily. Algeria was part of the Barbary States, along with today's Tunisia – which depended on the Ottoman Empire led by Mahmud II — but enjoyed relative independence; the Barbary Coast was the stronghold of the Berber pirates, which carried out raids against European and American ships. Conflicts between the Barbary States and the newly independent United States of America culminated in the First and Second Barbary Wars. An Anglo-Dutch force, led by Admiral Lord Exmouth, carried out a punitive expedition, the August 1816 bombardment of Algiers; the Dey was forced to sign the Barbary treaties, while the technological advance of U. S. British, French forces overwhelmed the Algerians' expertise at naval warfare; the name of "Algeria" itself came from the French. Following the conquest under the July monarchy, the Algerian territories, disputed with the Ottoman Empire, were first named "French possessions in North Africa" before being called "Algeria" by Marshal General Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, in 1839.
The conquest of Algeria was initiated in the last days of the Bourbon Restoration by Charles X, as an attempt to increase his popularity amongst the French people in Paris, where many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars lived. His intention was to bolster patriotic sentiment, distract attention from ineptly handled domestic policies by "skirmishing against the dey". In the 1790s, France had contracted to purchase wheat for the French army from two merchants in Algiers, Messrs. Bacri and Boushnak, was in arrears paying them; these merchants and Boushnak who had debts to the dey, claimed inability to pay those debts until France paid its debts to them. The dey had unsuccessfully negotiated with Pierre Deval, the French consul, to rectify this situation, he suspected Deval of collaborating with the merchants against him when the French government made no provisions for repaying the merchants in 1820. Deval's nephew Alexandre, the consul in Bône, further angered the dey by fortifying French storehouses in Bône and La Calle against the terms of prior agreements.
After a contentious meeting in which Deval refused to provide satisfactory answers on 29 April 1827, the dey struck Deval with his fly whisk. Charles X used this slight against his diplomatic representative to first demand an apology from the dey, to initiate a blockade against the port of Algiers. France demanded; when the dey responded with cannon fire directed toward one of the blockading ships, the French determined that more forceful action was required. Pierre Deval and other French residents of Algiers left for France, while the Minister of War, Clermont-Tonnerre, proposed a military expedition. However, the Count of Villèle, an ultra-royalist, President of the Council and the monarch's heir, opposed any military action; the Restoration decided to blockade Algiers for three years, but the overpowering presence of the French naval force prevented an incursion beyond the coastal perimeter. Meanwhile, the Berber pirates were able to exploit the geography of the coast with ease. Before the failure of the blockade, the Restoration decided on 31 January 1830 to engage a military expedition against Algiers.
Admiral Duperré commandeered an armada of 600 ships that originated from Toulon, leading it to Algiers. Using Napoleon's 1808 contingency plan f
Ottoman Algeria
The regency of Algiers, was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa lasting from 1515 to 1830, when it was conquered by the French. Situated between the regency of Tunis in the east and the Sharifian Empire in the west, the Regency extended its borders from La Calle to the east to Trara in the west and from Algiers to Biskra, after spread to the present eastern and western borders of Algeria; the Regency was governed by beylerbeys, pashas and deys, was composed of various beyliks under the authority of beys: Constantine in the east, Medea in the Titteri and Mazouna Mascara and Oran in the west. Each beylik was divided into various outan with at their head the caïds directly under the bey. To administer the interior of the country, the administration relied on the tribes said makhzen; these tribes were responsible for securing order and collecting taxes on the tributary regions of the country. It was through this system that, for three centuries, the State of Algiers extended its authority over the north of Algeria.
However, society was still divided into tribes and dominated by maraboutics brotherhoods or local djouads. Several regions of the country thus only recognised the authority of Algiers. Throughout its history, they formed numerous revolts, tribal fiefs or sultanates that fought with the regency for control. Before 1830, out of the 516 political units, a total of 200 principalities or tribes were considered independent because they controlled over 60% of the territory in Algeria and refused to pay taxes to Algiers. From 1496, the Spanish conquered numerous possessions on the North African coast, captured since 1496: Melilla, Mers El Kébir, Bougie, Algiers, Shershell and Tenes. Around the same time, the Ottoman privateer brothers Oruç and Hayreddin—both known to Europeans as Barbarossa, or "Red Beard"—were operating off Tunisia under the Hafsids. In 1516, Oruç moved his base of operations to Algiers and asked for the protection of the Ottoman Empire in 1517, but was killed in 1518 during his invasion of the Kingdom of Tlemcen.
Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. Oruç, Hayreddin Barbarossa's brother, captured Algiers in 1516, apart from the Spanish Peñón of Algiers. Following the death of Oruç in 1518 at the hand of the Spanish in the Fall of Tlemcen, Barbarossa requested the assistance of the Ottoman Empire, in exchange for acknowledging Ottoman authority in his dominions. Before Ottoman help could arrive, the Spanish retook the city of Algiers in 1519. Barbarossa recaptured the city definitively in 1525, in 1529 the Spanish Peñon in the capture of Algiers. Hayreddin Barbarossa established the military basis of the regency; the Ottomans provided a supporting garrison of 2,000 Turkish troops with artillery. He left Hasan Agha in command as his deputy when he had to leave for Constantinople in 1533; the son of Barbarossa, Hasan Pashan was in 1544, when his father retired, the first governor of the Regency to be directly appointed by the Ottoman Empire. He took the title of beylerbey. Algiers became a base in the war against Spain, in the Ottoman conflicts with Morocco.
Beylerbeys continued to be nominated for unlimited tenures until 1587. After Spain had sent an embassy to Constantinople in 1578 to negotiate a truce, leading to a formal peace in August 1580, the Regency of Algiers was a formal Ottoman territory, rather than just a military base in the war against Spain. At this time, the Ottoman Empire set up a regular Ottoman administration in Algiers and its dependencies, headed by Pashas, with 3 year terms to help considate Ottoman power in the Maghreb. Despite the end of formal hostilities with Spain in 1580, attacks on Christian and Catholic shipping, with slavery for the captured, became prevalent in Algiers, were the main industry and source of revenues of the Regency. In the early 17th century, Algiers became, along with other North African ports such as Tunis, one of the bases for Anglo-Turkish piracy. There were as many as 8,000 renegades in the city in 1634. Hayreddin Barbarossa is credited with tearing down the Peñón of Algiers and using the stone to build the inner harbor.
A contemporary letter states: "The infinity of goods, merchandise jewels and treasure taken by our English pirates daily from Christians and carried to Allarach and Tunis to the great enriching of Mores and Turks and impoverishing of Christians" Privateer and slavery of Christians originating from Algiers were a major problem throughout the centuries, leading to regular punitive expeditions by European powers. Spain, France, all led naval bombardments against Algiers. Abraham Duquesne fought the Barbary pirates in 1681 and bombarded Algiers between 1682 and 1683, to help Christian captives. In the mid-1700s Dano-Norwegian trade in the Mediterranean expanded. In order to protect the lucrative business against piracy, Denmark–Norway had secured a peace deal with the states of Barbary Coast, it involved paying an annual tribute to the individual rulers and additionally to the States. In 1766, Algiers had dey Baba Mohammed ben-Osman, he demanded that the annual payment made by Denmark-Norway should be increased, he should receive new gifts.
Denmark–Norway refused the demands. Shortly after, Algerian pirates hijacked three Dano-Norwegian ships and allowed the crew to be sold as slave
Archeology in Algeria
The archeology in Algeria is rich in prehistoric memorials of human occupation. Algeria contains many Roman is rich in monuments of Saracenic art. Algeria has many megalithic remains. Numerous flints of palaeolithic type have been discovered, notably at Kolea. Near Djelfa, in the Great Atlas, at Mechra-Sfa, a peninsula in the valley of the river Mina not far from Tiaret, are vast numbers of megalithic monuments. Notable among the prehistoric cultures of the area is the Capsian culture, whose shell-mounds are found throughout the north. Madghacen is a monument older, it was built around 150 B. C. as the burial place of the Numidian kings, is situated 35 miles southwest of Constantine. The form is that of a truncated cone, placed on 196 ft in diameter, it is 60 ft high. The columns encircling the cylindrical portion are stunted and much broader at the base than the top. Many of the columns, 60 in number, have been much damaged; when the sepulchral chamber was opened in 1873 by Bauchetet, a French engineer officer, clear evidence was found that at some remote period the tomb had been rifled and an attempt made to destroy it by fire.
The Qabr-er-Rumia-- best known by its French name, Tombeau de la Chrétienne, tradition making it the burial-place of Florinda, la Cava Rumía, the beautiful and unfortunate daughter of Count Julian—is near Kolea, is known to be the tomb of the Mauretanian king Juba II and of his wife Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. It is built on a hill 756 ft above the sea. A circular stone building surmounted by a pyramid rests on 209 ft square; the monument was about 130 ft in height, but it has been wantonly damaged. Its height is now 100 ft 8 in: the cylindrical portion 36 ft 6 in, the pyramid 64 ft 2 in The base, 198 ft in diameter, is ornamented with 60 engaged Ionic columns; the capitals of the columns have disappeared, but their design is preserved among the drawings of James Bruce, the African traveller. In the centre of the tomb are two vaulted chambers, reached by a spiral passage or gallery 6 1⁄2 ft broad, about the same height, 489 ft long; the sepulchral chambers are separated by a short passage, are cut off from the gallery by stone doors made of a single slab which can be moved up and down by levers, like a portcullis.
The larger of the two chambers is 142 ft long by 11 11 ft high. The other chamber is somewhat smaller; the tomb was looted in search of treasure. In 1555, Salah Rais, pasha of Algiers, set men to work to pull it down, but the records say that the attempt was given up because big black wasps came from under the stones and stung them to death. At the end of the 18th century, Baba Mahommed tried in vain to batter down the tomb with artillery. In 1866 it was explored by order of the emperor Napoleon III, the work being carried out by Adrien Berbrugger and Oscar Maccarthy; the Jedars is the name given to a number of sepulchral monuments placed on hill-tops. A rectangular or square podium is in each case surmounted by a pyramid; the tombs date from the 5th to the 7th century of the Christian era, lie in two distinct groups between Tiaret and Frenda. Frenda, which has preserved its old Berber character, has numerous dolmens and prehistoric rock sculptures close by. Tassili n'Ajjer is a national park in the Sahara desert, located on a vast plateau in south-east Algeria, covering an area of over 72,000 km2.
It has one of the most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world, was inducted into UNESCO's World Heritage Site list in 1982. Tassili n'Ajjer is known in the New Age culture for its Fungoid rock art, the primitive yet elaborate drawings of psychedelic mushrooms that hints on a shamanic consumption of those plants by the native people of this land. Lambessa Tebessa Tipasa Timgad Thubursicum: Well-preserved Roman theater Beni Hammad Fort In 2009, when the Place des Martyrs in Algiers was closed to build the subway station and French archeologists found a 5th century basilica below layers of concrete. In November 2018, archeologists in Algeria announced the discovery, on the site of Ain Boucherit near Sétif, of what seems to be stone tools and cut animal bones dated back to 2.4 million years old. This discovery turned Ain Boucherit into the oldest human site known today, shook the theory of East Africa being the craddle of humanity. Prehistory of Central North Africa
Marinid dynasty
The Marinid dynasty or Banu abd al-Haqq was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Zenata Berber descent that ruled Morocco from the 13th to the 15th century. In 1244, the Marinid rulers overthrew the Almohad Caliphate; the Marinid dynasty held sway over all the Maghreb in the mid-14th century. It supported the Kingdom of Granada in Al-Andalus in 14th centuries; the Marinids were overthrown after the 1465 revolt. The Wattasid dynasty, a related ruling house, came to power in 1472; the Marinids were a branch of the Wassin, a nomadic Zenata Berber tribe that lived in the Zibans before being driven towards Tlemcen by the Arab invasion in the 11th century. The tribe had first frequented the area between Figuig, Morocco. Following the arrival of Arab tribes in the area in the 11th-12th centuries, Marinids moved to the north-west of present-day Algeria, before settling into northern Morocco by the beginning of the 13th century; the Marinids took their name from Marin ibn Wartajan al-Zenati. After arriving in Morocco, they submitted to the Almohad dynasty, at the time the ruling house.
After contributing to the Battle of Alarcos, in central Spain, the tribe started to assert itself as a political power. Starting in 1213, they began to tax farming communities of north-eastern Morocco; the relationship between them and the Almohads became strained and starting in 1215, there were regular outbreaks of fighting between the two parties. In 1217 they tried to occupy eastern Morocco, but they were expelled, pulling back and settling in the eastern Rif mountains. Here they remained for nearly 30 years. During their stay in the Rif, the Almohad state suffered huge blows, losing large territories to the Christians in Spain, while the Hafsids of Ifriqia broke away in 1229, followed by the Zayyanid dynasty of Tlemcen in 1235. Between 1244 and 1248 the Marinids were able to take Taza, Salé, Meknes and Fes from the weakened Almohads; the Marinid leadership installed in Fes declared war on the Almohads, fighting with the aid of Christian mercenaries. Abu Yusuf Yaqub captured Marrakech in 1269.
After the Nasrids ceded Algeciras to the Marinids, Abu Yusuf went to Al-Andalus to support the ongoing struggle against the Kingdom of Castile. The Marinid dynasty tried to extend its control to include the commercial traffic of the Strait of Gibraltar, it was in this period that the Spanish Christians were first able to take the fighting to Morocco: in 1260 and 1267 they attempted an invasion of Morocco, but both attempts were defeated. After gaining a foothold in Spain, the Marinids became active in the conflict between Muslims and Christians in Iberia. To gain absolute control of the trade in the Strait of Gibraltar, from their base at Algeciras they started the conquest of several Spanish towns: by the year 1294 they had occupied Rota and Gibraltar. In 1276 they founded Fes Jdid, which they made their military centre. While Fes had been a prosperous city throughout the Almohad period becoming the largest city in the world during that time, it was in the Marinid period that Fes reached its golden age, a period which marked the beginning of an official, historical narrative for the city.
It is from the Marinid period that Fes' reputation as an important intellectual centre dates, they established the first madrassas in the city and country. The principal monuments in the medina, the residences and public buildings, date from the Marinid period. Despite internal infighting, Abu Said Uthman II initiated huge construction projects across the land. Several madrassas were built; the building of these madrassas were necessary to create a dependent bureaucratic class, in order to undermine the marabouts and Sharifian elements. The Marinids strongly influenced the policy of the Emirate of Granada, from which they enlarged their army in 1275. In the 13th century, the Kingdom of Castile made several incursions into their territory. In 1260, Castilian forces raided Salé and, in 1267, initiated a full-scale invasion, but the Marinids repelled them. At the height of their power, during the rule of Abu al-Hasan'Ali, the Marinid army was large and disciplined, it consisted of 40,000 Zenata cavalry, while Arab nomads contributed to the cavalry and Andalusians were included as archers.
The personal bodyguard of the sultan consisted of 7,000 men, included Christian and Black African elements. Under Abu al-Hasan another attempt was made to reunite the Maghreb. In 1337 the Abdalwadid kingdom of Tlemcen was conquered, followed in 1347 by the defeat of the Hafsid empire in Ifriqiya, which made him master of a huge territory, which spanned from southern Morocco to Tripoli. However, within the next year, a revolt of Arab tribes in southern Tunisia made them lose their eastern territories; the Marinids had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a Portuguese-Castilian coalition in the Battle of Río Salado in 1340, had to withdraw from Andalusia, only holding on to Algeciras until 1344. In 1348 Abu al-Hasan was deposed by his son Abu Inan Faris, who tried to reconquer Algeria and Tunisia. Despite several successes, he was strangled by his own vizir in 1358, after which the dynasty began to decline. After the death of Abu Inan Faris in 1358, the real power lay with the viziers, while the Marinid sultans were paraded and forced to succeed eac
Emir Abdelkader
Abdelkader ibn Muhieddine, known as the Emir Abdelkader or Abdelkader El Djezairi, was an Algerian religious and military leader who led a struggle against the French colonial invasion in the mid-19th century. An Islamic scholar and Sufi who unexpectedly found himself leading a military campaign, he built up a collection of Algerian tribesmen that for many years held out against one of the most advanced armies in Europe, his consistent regard for what would now be called human rights as regards his Christian opponents, drew widespread admiration, a crucial intervention to save the Christian community of Damascus from a massacre in 1860 brought honours and awards from around the world. Within Algeria, his efforts to unite the country against foreign invaders saw him hailed as the "modern Jugurtha" and his ability to combine religious and political authority has led to his being acclaimed as the "Saint among the Princes, the Prince among the Saints"; the name "Abdelkader" is sometimes transliterated as "ʿAbd al-Qādir", "Abd al-Kader", "Abdul Kader" or other variants, he is referred to as the Emir Abdelkader.
"Ibn Muhieddine" is a patronymic meaning "son of Muhieddine", "al-Hasani" is an honorary patronymic indicating his descent from Hasan ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad. He is often given the titles emir "prince", shaykh "sheik". Abdelkader was born near the town of Mascara to a family of religious belief, his father, Muhieddine al-Hasani, was a muqaddam in a religious institution affiliated with the Qadiriyya Sufi order of Islam and claimed descendance from Muhammad, through the Idrisids. Abdelkader was thus a sharif, entitled to add the honorary patronymic al-Hasani to his name, he grew up in his father's zawiya, which by the early nineteenth century had become the centre of a thriving community on the banks of the Oued al-Hammam river. Like other students, he received a traditional education in theology and grammar. A gifted student, Abdelkader succeeded in reciting the Qur'an by heart at the age of 14, thereby receiving the title of hafiz, he could excite his peers with poetry and religious diatribes.
In 1825, he set out on the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage with his father. While there, he encountered Imam Shamil, he traveled to Damascus and Baghdad, visited the graves of noted Muslims, such as Shaykh Ibn Arabi and Sidi Abd-el-Kader El Jilani named El-Jilali in Algeria. This experience cemented his religious enthusiasm. On his way back to Algeria, he was impressed by the reforms carried out by Muhammad Ali in Egypt, he returned to his homeland a few months before the arrival of the French. In 1830, Algeria was invaded by France. There was a lot of pent-up resentment against the Ottomans when the French arrived, due to numerous rebellions in the early 19th century, the Algerians could not oppose the French at all initially; when the French Africa Army reached Oran in January 1831, Abdelkader's father was asked to lead a harassment campaign against them. It was at this point. At a meeting of the western tribes in the autumn of 1832, he was elected Emir, or Commander of the Faithful; the appointment was confirmed five days at the Great Mosque of Mascara.
Within a year, through a combination of punitive raids and careful politics, Abdelkader had succeeded in uniting the tribes in the region and in reestablishing security – his area of influence now covered the entire Province of Oran. The local French commander-in-chief, General Louis Alexis Desmichels, saw Abdelkader as the principal representative of the area during peace negotiations, in 1834 they signed the Desmichels Treaty, which ceded near-total control of Oran Province to Abdelkader. For the French, this was a way of establishing peace in the region while confining Abdelkader to the west. Using this treaty as a start, he imposed his rule on the tribes of the Chelif, Médéa; the French high command, unhappy with what they now saw as the unfavorable terms of the Desmichels Treaty, recalled General Desmichels and replaced him with General Trezel, which caused a resumption of hostilities. Abdelkader's tribal warriors met the French forces in July 1834 at the Battle of Macta, where the French suffered an unexpected defeat.
France's response was to step up its pacification campaign, under new commanders the French won several important encounters including the Battle of Sikkak. But political opinion in France was becoming ambivalent towards Algeria, when French General Thomas Robert Bugeaud was deployed to the region in April 1837, he was "authorized to use all means to induce Abd el-Kader to make overtures of peace"; the result, after protracted negotiations, was the Treaty of Tafna, signed on 30 May 1837. This treaty gave more control of interior portions of Algeria to Abdelkader, but with the recognition of France's right to imperial sovereignty. Abdelkader thus won control of all of Oran and extended his reach to the neighbouring province of Titteri and beyond; the per
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