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
Aghlabids
The Aghlabids were an Arab dynasty of emirs from the Najdi tribe of Banu Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about a century, until overthrown by the new power of the Fatimids. In 800, the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab, son of a Khurasanian Arab commander from the Banu Tamim tribe, as hereditary Emir of Ifriqiya as a response to the anarchy that had reigned in that province following the fall of the Muhallabids. At that time there were 100,000 Arabs living in Ifriqiya, although the Berbers still constituted the great majority. Ibrahim was to control an area that encompassed eastern Algeria and Tripolitania. Although independent in all but name, his dynasty never ceased to recognise Abbasid overlordship; the Aghlabids paid an annual tribute to the Abbasid Caliph and their suzerainty was referenced in the khutba at Friday prayers. After the pacification of the country Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab established a residence at a new capital, al-‘Abbāsiyya, founded outside Kairouan to distance himself from the opposition of the Malikite jurists and theologians, who condemned what they saw as the luxurious life of the Aghlabids, disliked the unequal treatment of the Muslim Berbers.
Additionally, border defenses were set up in Monastir. The Aghlabids built up the irrigation of the area and enhanced the public buildings and mosques of al-‘Abbāsiyya, it was recorded. One unique feature of the Aghlabids is that despite the political differences and rivalry between Aghlabids, who served under the Abbasid Caliphate, the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba, the Muslims in Spain sent a fleet under Asba' ibn Wakil to aid the Aghlabids conquest of Sicily. Ibn Kathir recorded that a joint force of 300 Aghlabid ships were present; the Aghlabid garrison at Mineo managed to get into contact with the Andalusian Umayyads whom agreed to the alliance, provided that Asbagh was recognized as the overall commander, together with fresh troops from Ifriqiya they marched on Mineo. Theodotus retreated to Enna and the siege of Mineo was broken; the combined Ifriqiyan and Andalusian army torched Mineo and laid siege to another town Calloniana. However, a plague broke out in their camp causing the death of many others.
The town fell in autumn, but the Arabs' numbers were depleted subsequently they had to abandon it and retreat west. Theodotus launched a pursuit and inflicted heavy casualties, so that most of the Andalusians departed the island. However, Theodotus too was killed at this time in one of these skirmishes. Under Ziyadat Allah I came the crisis of a revolt of Arab troops in 824, not quelled until 836 with the help of the Berbers; the conquest of Byzantine Sicily from 827 under Asad ibn al-Furat was an attempt to keep the unruly troops under control - it was only achieved and only in 902 was the last Byzantine outpost taken. Plundering raids into mainland Italy, which included the sack of the Roman basilicas in 846, took place until well into the 10th century; the Aghlabids lost control of the Arab forces in Sicily and a new dynasty, the Kalbids, emerged there. The Aghlabid kingdom reached its high point under Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Aghlabi. Ifriqiya was a significant economic power thanks to its fertile agriculture, aided by the expansion of the Roman irrigation system.
It became the focal point of trade between the Islamic world and Byzantium and Italy the lucrative slave trade. Kairuan became the most important centre of learning in the Maghreb, most notably in the fields of theology and law, a gathering place for poets; the Aghlabid emirs sponsored building projects, notably the rebuilding of the Mosque of Uqba and the kingdom developed an architectural style which combined Abbasid and Byzantine architecture. The decline of the dynasty began under Ibrahim II ibn Ahmad. An attack by the Tulunids of Egypt had to be repelled and a revolt of the Berbers put down with much loss of life. In addition, in 893 there began amongst the Kutama Berbers the movement of the Shiite Fatimids to overthrow the Aghlabids. Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah captured the cities of Qairawan and Raqqada and took an oath of allegiance from the people. By 909, the Aghlabid Dynasty was replaced with the Fatimids. Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab ibn Salim Abdallah I ibn Ibrahim Ziyadat Allah I ibn Ibrahim al-Aghlab Abu Iqal ibn Ibrahim Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad I ibn al-Aghlab Abi Affan Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Aghlabi Ziyadat Allah II ibn Abil-Abbas Abu'l-Gharaniq Muhammad II ibn Ahmad Abu Ishaq Ibrahim II ibn Ahmad Abu'l-Abbas Abdallah II ibn Ibrahim Abu Mudhar Ziyadat Allah III ibn Abdallah History of Islam in southern Italy History of medieval Tunisia List of Sunni Muslim dynasties History of Algeria History of Libya Georges Marçais, "Aghlabids," Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. Vol. I, pp. 699–700.
Mohamed Talbi, Emirat Aghlabide, Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1967. Maurice Vonderheyden, La Berbérie orientale sous la dynastie des Benoû l-Aṛlab, 800-909, Paris: Geuthner, 1927. Versteegh, Kees; the Arabic Language. Columbia University Press
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
Tassili n'Ajjer
Tassili n'Ajjer is a national park in the Sahara desert, located on a vast plateau in south-east Algeria. Having one of the most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world, covering an area of over 72,000 km2, Tassili n'Ajjer was inducted into UNESCO's World Heritage Site list in 1982; the rock formation is an archaeological site, noted for its numerous prehistoric parietal works of rock art, first reported in 1910, that date to the early Neolithic era at the end of the last glacial period during which the Sahara was a habitable savanna rather than the current desert. Although sources vary the earliest pieces of art are assumed to be 12,000 years old; the vast majority date to the 9th and 10th millennia BP or younger, according to OSL dating of associated sediments. Among the 15,000 engravings so far identified depicted are large wild animals including antelopes and crocodiles, cattle herds and humans that engage in activities such as hunting and dancing. According to UNESCO, "The exceptional density of paintings and engravings...have made Tassili world famous."
Tassili n'Ajjer is a vast plateau in south-east Algeria at the borders of Libya and Mali, covering an area of 72,000 km2. It ranges from 26°20′N 5°00′E east-south-east to 24°00′N 10°00′E, its highest point is the Adrar Afao that peaks at 2,158 m, located at 25°10′N 8°11′E. The nearest town is Djanet, situated around 10 km southwest of Tassili n'Ajjer; the archaeological site has been designated a national park, a Biosphere Reserve and was induced into UNESCO's World Heritage Site list as Tassili n'Ajjer National Park. The plateau is of great geological and aesthetic interest, its panorama of geological formations of rock forests, which comprises eroded sandstone, resembles a strange lunar landscape. The range is composed of sandstone; the sandstone is stained by a thin outer layer of deposited metallic oxides which color the rock formations anywhere from near-black to dull red. Erosion in the area has resulted in nearly 300 natural rock arches being formed, along with many other spectacular landforms.
Because of the altitude and the water-holding properties of the sandstone, the vegetation here is somewhat richer than in the surrounding desert. The ecology of the Tassili n'Ajjer is more described in the article West Saharan montane xeric woodlands, the ecoregion to which this area belongs; the literal English translation of Tassili n'Ajjer is'Plateau of the rivers' referring to a time when the climate was far wetter than it is today. Relict populations of the West African crocodile persisted in the Tassili n'Ajjer until the 20th century. Various other fauna still reside on the plateau, including mouflons, the only surviving type of the larger mammals depicted in the area's rock paintings. In 1989, the psychedelics researcher Giorgio Samorini exposed the theory that the fungoid-like paintings in the caves of Tassili are proof of the relationship between humans and psychedelics in the ancient populations of the Sahara, when it was still a wild green land: One at the most important scenes is to be found in the Tin-Tazarift rock art site, at Tassili, in which we find a series of masked figures in line and hieratically dressed or dressed as dancers surrounded by long and lively festoons of geometrical designs of different kinds.
Each dancer holds a mushroom-like object in the right hand and more surprising, two parallel lines come out of this object to reach the central part of the head of the dancer, the area of the roots of the two horns. This double line could signify an indirect association or non-material fluid passing from the object held in the right hand and the mind; this interpretation would coincide with the mushroom interpretation if we bear in mind the universal mental value induced by hallucinogenic mushrooms and vegetals, of a mystical and spiritual nature. It would seem that these lines – in themselves an ideogram which represents something non-material in ancient art – represent the effect that the mushroom has on the human mind. In a shelter in Tin – Abouteka, in Tassili, there is a motif appearing at least twice which associates mushrooms and fish. Two mushrooms are depicted opposite each other, in a perpendicular position with regard to the fish motif and near the tail. Not far from here, above, we find other fish which are similar to the aforementioned but without the side-mushrooms.
This theory was reused by new-age icon Terence McKenna in his 1992 book Food of the Gods, hypothesizing that the Neolithic culture that inhabited the site used psilocybin mushrooms as part of its religious ritual life, citing rock paintings showing persons holding mushroom-like objects in their hands, as well as mushrooms growing from their bodies. For Henri Lohte who discovered the Tassili caves in the late 1950s, these were secret sanctuaries; the painting that best backs the mushroom hypothesis is the Tassili mushroom man Matalem-Amazar where the body of the represented shaman is covered with mushrooms. According to Earl Lee in his book From the Bodies of the Gods: Psychoactive Plants and the Cults of the Dead, this imagery refers to an ancient episode where a "mushroom shaman" was buried with his clothes, when unearthed some time his body was covered with tiny mushrooms growing in his clothes. Earl Lee considered the mushroom paintings at Tassili realistic. According to Brian Akers, writer of the Mushroom j
Prehistoric North Africa
The Prehistory of North Africa spans the period of earliest human presence in the region to gradual onset of historicity in the Maghreb during classical antiquity. Early anatomically modern humans are known to have been present at Jebel Irhoud, in what is now Morocco, from about 300,000 years ago; the Nile valley participated in the development of the Old World Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age, along with the Ancient Near East. By contrast, the Maghreb, including the "Green Sahara", remained in the Mesolithic stage until the 4th millennium BC, with gradual introduction of the Neolithic nomadic pastoralism in the 3rd millennium BC, early Iron Age Phoenician colonization along the Mediterranean coast from about 1100 BC. Human habitation in North Africa has been influenced by the climate of the Sahara, which has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years; this is due to a 41000-year cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°.
At present, we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15000 years. During the last glacial period, the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries; the end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BC to 6000 BC because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north. Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BC, the monsoon retreated south to where it is today, leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara; the Sahara is now as dry. These conditions are responsible for. During periods of a wet or "Green Sahara", the Sahara becomes a savanna grassland and various flora and fauna become more common. Following inter-pluvial arid periods, the Sahara area reverts to desert conditions and the flora and fauna are forced to retreat northwards to the Atlas Mountains, southwards into West Africa, or eastwards into the Nile Valley.
This separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates, forcing them to adapt giving rise to allopatric speciation. In terms of human evolution, the Saharan pump has been used to date four waves of human migration from Africa, namely: Homo erectus into Southeast and East Asia Homo heidelbergensis into the Middle East and Western Europe Homo sapiens sapiens "Out of Africa theory" The spread of Afro-Asiatic languages; the earliest inhabitants of central North Africa have left behind significant remains: early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, for example, were found in Ain el Hanech, in Setif. Some studies have placed the earliest settlement of homo sapiens in North Africa to around 160,000 years ago According to some sources, North Africa was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic flake-tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 130,000 BCE, are called Aterian and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, specialization.
Humans in North Africa are known to have dabbled in chert mining, as early as ~100,000 years ago for use as tools. The earliest blade industries in North Africa belong to the Oranian; this lithic industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of North Africa between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Between about 9000 and 5000 BC, the Capsian culture made its appearance showing signs to belong to the Neolithic and began influencing the Iberomaurusian, after about 3000 BC the remains of just one human culture can be found throughout the former region. Neolithic society spread in the Saharan and Mediterranean North Africa after the Levante between 6000 and 2000 BC; this type of economy, so richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer cave paintings, predominated in North Africa until the classical period. Saharan rock art was produced in the "Green Sahara" during the Neolithic Subpluvial period, they were executed by hunter-gatherery of the Capsian period who lived in a savanna region teeming with giant buffalo, elephant and hippopotamus.
The Mesolithic cultures producing rock art flourished during the Neolithic Subpluvial. In Prehistoric Egypt, Neolithic settlements appear from about 6000 BC. Other parts of North Africa began to participate in the Neolithic revolution just before the rapid desertification of the Sahara around 3500 BC; the neolithization of North Africa was most introduced by waves of migration both from the Levant and from Iberia. The beginning of the Bronze Age in Egypt is conventionally identified as the Protodynastic Period, following the Neolithic Naqada culture about 3200 BC; the Egyptian Bronze Age corresponds to the Old and New Kingdoms. The Iron Age in Egypt corresponds to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. While the Nile valley had entered historicity since the Bronze Age, Tamazgha remained in the prehistoric period longer. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers are replaced by pastoralists by the early 3rd millennium BC; some Phoe
Kingdom of Ait Abbas
The kingdom of the Ait Abbas or sultanate of the Beni Abbas, in, is a former berber state of North Africa a fief and a principality, controlling Lesser Kabylie and its surroundings from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. It is referred to in the Spanish historiography as "reino de Labes", its capital was the Kalâa of an impregnable citadel in the Biban mountain range. Founded by last Hafsid dynasty emirs of Bejaia, the kingdom was for a long time a bastion of resistance to the Spaniards to the regency of Algiers. Strategically located on the road from Algiers to Constantine and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sahara, its capital Kalâa of Ait Abbas attracted Andalusians and Jews in the sixteenth century, fleeing Spain or Algiers, their know-how enriched a local industrial fabric whose legacy is the handicraft of the Ait Abbas tribe. The surrounding tribes were home to intense intellectual activity and a literary tradition that rivalled those of other Maghreb cities. At its peak, the influence of the kingdom of Ait Abbas extended from the valley of the Soummam to the Sahara and its capital the Kalâa rivalled the biggest cities.
In the seventeenth century, its chiefs took the title of sheikh of the Medjana, but were still described as sultans or kings of the Beni Abbés. At the end of the eighteenth century, the kingdom led by the Mokrani family broke up into several clans, some of which became vassals of the regency of Algiers. However, the Sheikh of the Medjana maintained himself at the head of his principality as a tributary of the Bey of Constantine, managing his affairs independently. With the arrival of the French, some Mokrani took the side of the colonisers, while others sided with the resistance; the French, to strengthen their hold in the region, relied on the local lords, maintaining an appearance of autonomy of the region under its traditional leaders until 1871. Its sovereigns assumed various titles, successively sultan and sheikh of the Medjana. Temporarily integrated into the French military administration before the revolt of 1871, they were known as khalifa and bachagha; the defeat of 1871 marked the end of the political role of the Mokrani with the surrender of the Kalâa to the French.
Ifriqiya, which corresponds to the eastern part of the present-day Maghreb, was part of the Hafsid kingdom. In this kingdom, the city of Bejaia, the ancient capital of the Hammadids in the eleventh century, was a prominent city. Indeed, its wealth and its strategic port location made it an object of covetousness for the Zayyanids and the Marinids; the city was seen as the capital of the western regions of the Hafsid sultanate and it's "frontier place". In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it became, on various occasions, the seat of power of independent emirates-governors or dissidents from the Hafsid dynasty; these "sovereigns of Béjaïa" extended their authority - which went hand in hand with political dissent - to the entire domain of the ancient kingdom of the Hammadids: Algiers, Medea, Constantine and the oases of the Zab. Ibn Khaldun describes them as ruling "Biğāya wa al-ṯagr al-garbī min Ifriqiya". Ibn Khaldoun was the vizier of the independent administration of a Hafsid prince of Béjaïa in 1365.
The fifteenth century saw a general return to the centralization of the Hafsid state. But at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, Leo the African and Al-Marini described a prince of Bejaia, distinct from Tunis, in a position similar to Constantine and Annaba, reflecting a fragmentation of Hafsid territory; these last emirs of Bejaia, independent of the central power of Tunis, were the origin of the dynasty, to found and direct the kingdom of Beni Abbes. In 1510, as part of the Reconquista, the Spaniards seized Bejaia, in the hands of dissident Hafsid emirs, they organized raids in the hinterland from this position. The Berbers of the region sought protection in the interior and took as their new capital the Kalâa of the Beni Abbas, in the heart of the Bibans mountains; this city was an ancient fortified place of the Hammadid era and a staging point on the triq sultan the commercial route going from Hautes Plaines to Béjaia. Abderahmane, the last of the emirs of Bejaia, chose the site for security reasons.
His son Ahmed became famous for his religious status with the Kabylian and Arab tribes in the region who settled in the Kalâa, fleeing the relative chaos in the country. Benefiting from growing support among the surrounding tribes, he proclaimed himself "Sultan of the Kalâa", he was buried in a village in the vicinity of the Kalâa. The reign of his grandson Abdelaziz El Abbes brought the name of the Kalâa to wider attention: at its peak, the city had 80,000 inhabitants; the Kalâa was equipped with weapons factories with the help of Christian renegades as well as some of the inhabitants of Bejaia driven out by the Spanish occupation, including Andalusians, Muslims, as well as a Jewish community who were welcomed for their know-how. Following successive annexations of territory, the kingdom of Ait Abbas Under Abdelaziz extended to the south and the surrounding mountains; the Spaniards, who had fallen back into Bejaia, offered him their alliance, he temporarily ignored the establishment of the regency of Algiers led by the Barbarossa brothers because his kingdom was not oriented towards the sea.
The Barbarossa brothers, wis
Jedars
Jedars are thirteen Berber mausoleums located south of Tiaret city in Algeria. The name is derived from the Arabic: جدار jidār, used locally to refer to ancient monumental ruins; these pre-Islamic tombs date from Late Antiquity. The tombs are situated on the tops of two hills in the mountainous Frenda area, around 30 km south of Tiaret. There are three sepulchres on Jabal Lakhdar, ten on Jabal Arawi 6 km south of the first group; the graves' size and commanding situation indicate. They have been systematically plundered for many centuries, hence are in a state of ruin; the monuments were erected straight onto the substratum or with shallow excavation. Some stone was quarried from local limestone and sandstone, some was recycled from nearby settlements and necropoli of earlier times; the materials vary widely: dressed stone blocks 1-1.5 m. long dressed blocks up to 2.4 m. long, natural rock slabs with minimal dressing, old tombstones, old building fragments. Most of the construction is dry stone.
The thirteen Jedars share many characteristics. There are many similarities with much smaller Berber tombs called bazinas, which are common in the pre-Sahara zone; this shows that they represent indigenous Berber architecture in spite of their use of Roman architectural techniques and Mediterranean Christian iconography. The characteristics are: A square body, the largest being 46 m. on a side, the smallest 11.55 m. with a height of up to 4 m. In some cases, the body is solid stonework, in the largest examples. A pyramidal top, which in all cases is much ruined, but which must have been up to 13 m. high, constructed in many small steps. The top is solid masonry, but in those jedars that contain funerary chambers, removable steps on one side conceal a passage leading down into the chambers, the ceilings of which may protrude up into the top. Most all, were surrounded by a courtyard, square except for an extension in the middle of the side facing east. In the larger ones this extension contains a small building modeled after the main monument.
This building is believed to have been used for obtaining divinatory dreams by sleeping in the vicinity of the tomb. Most if not all were further surrounded by a complex of low walls, it is believed that the solid jedars that do not contain funerary chambers may cover a single tomb excavated into the bedrock. The jedars of Jabal Lakhdar seem to have displayed a dedicatory inscription on one side of the top; this inscription was in Latin, but not engraved and hence in every case is now illegible. Enough remains only to confirm. However, these jedars display an enormous range of stonecutters' marks, from isolated letters to partial names. Most of these are Latin, some have been postulated to be Tifinagh. There are a few unobtrusive Christian symbols, a couple of carved panels similar to many ancient Lybico-Berber rock carvings; the largest jedar at Ternaten is the only one in that group sufficiently intact to display epigraphy and iconography. It contained large well-executed polychrome murals of religious scenes typical of Mediterranean Christian iconography of the 5th century or indicating that the ruling class had by become Christian.
This jedar contains many Latin inscriptions on recycled tombstones and other building material, dating from the time of Septimius Severus up to 494 CE. The source of this recycled material is not known with certainty, but there are several large ruins of cities and necropoli in the surrounding districts; the three jedars of Jabal Lakhdar are believed to be the oldest. Within this group, the relative chronology is now believed known, from study of the stonemasons' marks; the largest, with funerary chambers, known as Jedar A, is the oldest. The last jedar, C, is believed to have been incomplete when it was hurriedly finished and its occupant interred a generation later. Taking into account the unobtrusive nature of the Christian symbols, it is believed the occupants of these tombs were not themselves Christian but ruled over Christian subjects. Remains of a wooden coffin from Jedar B returned a C14 date of 410 ± 50 CE. Calibrating the date on the OxCal system gives a range of 410 - 615 AD at 95.4% probability.
A recent re-reading of the dedication from Jedar A has proposed a 4th-century date. The only jedar in the Ternaten group for which dating has been attempted is the largest, Jedar F; because the latest recycled tombstone bears a date of 494, it may belong to the 7th century. Unlike the Jabal Lakhdar monuments, its funerary chambers seem to have been built to hold more than one occupant, so it has been proposed that it is dynastic, with the smaller jedars surrounding it those of lesser nobility or rank; the earliest known reference to the jedars is in the lost Tarikh of the 11th-century historian Ibrahim ar-Raqiq, in extracts preserved in the works of Ibn Khaldun and other writers. Ar-Raqiq relates that when the Fatimid caliph Ismail al-Mansur was conducting military operations in the Tiaret area, he was shown the jedars at Jabal Lakhdar and wanted to know what the dedicatory inscriptions said.
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