Berbers

(noun)

An ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. They are distributed in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River. Since the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the 7th century, a large number inhabiting the Maghreb have acquired different degrees of knowledge of the various languages of North Africa.

Related Terms

(noun)

An ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. They are distributed in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River. Historically, they spoke Berber languages, which together form the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Since the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the 7th century, a large number of them inhabiting the Maghreb have acquired different degrees of knowledge of varieties of the languages of North Africa.

Related Terms

Examples of Berbers in the following topics:

  • Islamic Conquest of the Maghreb

    • On his return, a Berber-Byzantine coalition ambushed and crushed his forces near Biskra, killing Uqba and wiping out his troops.
    • After the fall of Tangiers, many Berbers joined the Muslim army. 
    • In 740, Umayyad rule in the region was shaken by a major Berber revolt. 
    • After a series of defeats, the caliphate was finally able to crush the rebellion in 742, although local Berber dynasties continued to drift away from imperial control from that time on.
    • Various Islamic variations, such as the Ibadis and the Shia, were adopted by some Berbers, often leading to scorning of caliph control in favor of other interpretations of Islam.

  • Expansion Under the Umayyad Caliphates

    • Although the Umayyad Caliphate did not rule all of the Sahara, nomadic Berber tribes paid homage to the caliph.
    • This period of prosperity was marked by increasing diplomatic relations with Berber tribes in north Africa, Christian kings from the north, and France, Germany, and Constantinople.

  • The Sultanates of Somalia

    • For many years, Mogadishu stood as the pre-eminent city in what is known as the Land of the Berbers, which was the medieval Arab term for the Somali coast.
    • Contemporary historians suggest that the Berbers were ancestors of the modern Somalis.

  • The Reconquista

    • In 711 an Islamic Berber raiding party, led by Tariq ibn Ziyad, was sent to Iberia to intervene in a civil war in the Visigothic Kingdom.

  • The Abbasid Empire

    • The Berber Kharijites set up an independent state in North Africa in 801 CE.

  • Bornu Empire

    • The major factor that later influenced the history of the state of Kanem was the early penetration of Islam that came with North African traders, Berbers, and Arabs.

  • Charles Martel and Pepin the Short

    • Arab and Berber Islamic forces had conquered Spain (711), crossed the Pyrenees (720), seized a major dependency of the Visigoths (721–725), and after intermittent challenges, under Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-General of al-Andalus, advanced toward Gaul and on Tours, "the holy town of Gaul."

  • Songhai

    • He annexed Timbuktu in 1468, after Islamic leaders of the town requested his assistance in overthrowing marauding Tuaregs (Berber people with a traditionally nomadic pastoralist lifestyle) who had taken the city following the decline of Mali.