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, Dey of Algiers (1682— 1683), usually called Baba Ḥasan. He was previously a raʾīs (corsair captain) and took part in the revolution of 1671, which put an end to the rule of the Ag̲h̲as and replaced it by that of the Deys. As son-in-law of Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ Muḥammad, who was the first to fill the office of Dey, he held the actual power in name of his father-in-law. He made many enemies by his arrogance, mistrust, and cruelty but suppressed with a strong arm all attempts at rebellion. In 1680, under the pretext of r…

(Land of Palms), or as it is popularly called al-Ḏj̲erīd, a district in Central Tunisia. The name is now given to a group of four oases, viz. Tūzer, Nefṭa, al-Wadiān and al-Ḥamma [cf. the articles tūzer and nefṭa]. The Ḏj̲arīd is a rocky stretch of land bounded on the north by the S̲h̲oṭṭ G̲h̲arsa and in the south by the S̲h̲oṭṭ al-Ḏj̲arīd. The latter forms with its eastern continuation the S̲h̲oṭṭ Fed̲j̲ed̲j̲ an almost ¶ unbroken depression from the shores of the Gulf of Gabes to the Algerian frontier. Shut in by mountains and sand hills against which measures have n…

(Fez from the old Spanish spelling) a town in Morocco and one of the residences of the Sulṭān, situated in 4° 54’ 30” Long W. of Greenwich and 34° 6′ 20″ N. Lat.; it has about 100,000 inhabitants (Erckmann 50,000, Gaillard 90,000, Lamartinière 100,000, Budgett Meakin 120,000). Fās lies at a height of 1155 feet above sea level in the centre of the plain of Saïs, in part on a plateau which lies in front of the outer spurs of the Ḏj̲ebel Zelāg̲h̲a and in part in the hollow through which the waters of the Wādī Fās run to the Sebū which flows abo…

, in Berber Isli (the betrothed), a riverin North Africa. It rises in western Morocco in the S. W. of Ud̲j̲da, runs from S. W. to N. E. through the land of the Angad, passing near Ud̲j̲da, then under the name of Wēd Bū Nuʿaim joins the Muila, a tributary on the left bank of the Tafna. Several battles have been fought on the banks of the Isly. The ʿAbdalwādī Sulṭān Yag̲h̲morāsen was defeated there by the Marīnids in 648 (1250) and 670 (1271). On Aug. 14, 1844 Marshal Bugeaud won a decisive victory there over the Moroccan troops commanded by Mūlāy Muḥam…

(Arabic: Bid̲j̲āya, Kabylian: Bogait̲h̲), a town on the coast of Algeria (department Constantine), Long 5° 9’ (Greenwich), Lat. 36° 49’ N., Population in 1906: 5528. The town is built in an amphitheatre formed by the outermost spurs of the Ḏj̲ebel Gūrāya (2000 feet) around a bay, well sheltered from the winds from the open sea by high cliffs. The temperature is remarkably mild in winter and as the rainfall is very abundant, the vegetation is luxurious (olives, holm-oaks, cork-trees etc.). ¶ Of the history of Bougie for the first three centuries after the Muḥammadan invasion …

, Beylerbey of Algiers. He was the son of Ḵh̲air al-Dīn [q. v.] and a Mooress. His father’s influence with the Porte obtained him the office of Pas̲h̲a of Algiers in 1544 and he was entrusted with the task of restoring Turkish power in western Algeria where it had been considerably weakened. In 1546, Ḥasan conducted a campaign against the Spaniards in the Tlemcen district, but just as he had come face to face with the Christian troops near Arbal he had to return to Algiers as his father had died…

, an oasis of the Sahara on the caravan route from the Lake of Chad to Tripoli at a height of 1016 feet, belongs to the group of oases, called Kawār by the Arabs, and Henneri Tug̲h̲e by the Tebbu (= Rocky Valley according to Nachtigal). Kawār occupies the centre of a sandstone basin of the cretaceous period beneath which impermeable schists collect, not far from the surface, the water which filters down from the mountains of Tibesti. It is a valley running from north to south, about 60 miles lon…

(al-Ṣaḥrāʾ), an African desert. Ṣaḥrāʾ is the feminine of the adjective aṣḥar, “of a fawn colour”. The word is applied by some writers to a combination of stony soil, steppes and sands (cf. al-Idrīsī, ed. de Goeje, p. 37 note), while the word mud̲j̲diba, is more particularly applied to areas covered with moving sands and absolutely devoid of water (cf. Abu ’l-Fidāʾ, Taḳwīm al-Buldān, ed. Reinaud and de Slane, p. 137; transl. Reinaud, it. 190). Leo African us uses it as a synonym for desert in general (Schefer I, i. 5). The Sahara lies between Barbary, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Marma…

, an oasis in the Sahara, about 180 miles south of the coast of the Gulf of Sidra, and about 300 south-east of Tripoli, a valley in the form of an ellipse running from east to west, surrounded by hills rising to a height of 700 feet, viz. the Ḏj̲abal Mas̲h̲riḳ in the N. W., the Ḏj̲abal Ḥōn and Ḏj̲abal Waddān in the N. E., the Ḏj̲abal Miutr in the W. and the Ḏj̲abal al-Soda in the S. A low ridge running from N. to S. cuts the valley into almost equal parts. Of the 1000 square miles of this valley…

, a town and oasis in Southern Algeria in the department of Constantine; 5° 42’ East Long. (Greenwich) and 39° 27’ North Lat. The oasis of Biskra, lying at the foot of the Awrās, at a height of 428 feet above sea-level is the principal oasis of the Zībān (cf. the article Zāb). It extends for 3 miles along the Wād Biskra, has an area of 3200 acres and encloses 150,000 palm trees. The native population is distributed over the villages of Mṣid and Dār al-Ḥarb on the east, Rās al-Guerria, Sidi Barkā…

, an ancient town in the Western Sūdān which has now disappeared. According to Barth it lay in 18° N. Lat. and 7° 8′ W. Long. (Greenw.) not far from Walāta. M. Delafosse however, relying on certain statements by Arab geographers, notably al-Bakrī, places G̲h̲āna in the Awkār district within the triangle Walāta, Nema, Bassikūnū, i. e. about 240 miles north of the Niger on the meridian of Sansanding. Martin Hartmann (and this is also Desborough-Cooley’s opinion) thinks that G̲h̲āna must have been nearer the Niger, not far from Timbuktu. [Cf. in addition J. Marquart, Die Bcnin-Sammlung des N…

(English: Algeria) is a possession of France in northern Africa, bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, on the south by the Sahara, on the east by Tunis and on the west by Morocco. It is situated between 30° and 37° N. Lat., 6° E. Long. and 5° W. Long. (meridian of Paris). a. Geography. Algeria occupies the central part of the Mag̲h̲rib or Barbary. It is a country of varied relief, which is formed by a compact mass of highlands, separated from the mediterranean littoral on the one side and the desert of the Sahara on the other by two mountainous borders, the Tell Atlas and the Sahara Atlas [see atlas…

(Figig), an oasis in Morocco, 76 miles S. of ʿAin Sefra and 3 miles W. of the French station of Benī Unīf (32° 18’ 54” N. Lat. and 1° 26’ 54” W. Long., Greenwich). For long closed to Europeans, it was visited only by the two travellers, Rohlfs and Schaudt; the district was practically only known from information collected by the Service des Affaires Indigènes and remained somewhat mysterious down to the beginning of the xxth century. Since then the progress of the French occupation of the Sahara, the conclusion of the Moroccan agreements and lastly the building of a ra…

, a town in the Central Mag̲h̲rib, which has now disappeared, but was in the vth (xith) century the capital of the Ḥammādid empire (cf. the article ḥammādids ii. 252). Al-Ḳalʿa (Ḳalʿat Abī Ṭawīl in al-Bakrī and in the Kit. al-Istibṣār) was founded by Ḥammād b. Bulukkīn [q. v.] in 398 = 1007-8 on a flank of a mountain called Kiyāna or ʿAd̲j̲īsa by Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn and Tāḳarbast (now Ḏj̲abal Takerbust) by al-Idrīsī. A Roman fort had perhaps previously occupied this site; in the ivth (xth) century Abū Yazīd [q. v.] had tried to check in these regions the Fāṭimid troops, who were pursui…

(Bulaida), a town in Algeria (department of Algiers) with 29,000 inhabitants of whom 6,000 are Europeans. It is built on the southern edge of the plain of Mitīd̲j̲a at a height of 770 feet. The Wēd el-Kebīr (Wādi ’l-Kabīr) runs through the town, bearing to the S̲h̲ifa the waters of the Ḏj̲ebel ʿAbd al-Ḳādir, the highest peak of the Atlas in this part of Algeria. It is surrounded by gardens and orange-groves. Blida is a town of modem origin, the foundation of which is not earlier than the xth century of the Hid̲j̲ra. According to the legend it was founded by a celebrated Marabut of …

, a town in Algeria (department of Oran), 110 miles from Oran and 60 miles S.S.E. of Mascara, 2900 feet above sea-level, on the Wādī Saïda, a branch of the Habra, in a fertile and well-watered country, suitable for the cultivation of cereals and vines. Population: 12,232 inhabitants of whom 5,410 are Europeans. Saïda is the chief town of a mixed commune of 42,469 inhabitants of whom 39,500 are natives. Owing to its position on the very edge of the high plateaux, Saïda has always been of considerable military importance. There was a Roman station here. ʿAbd al-Ḳādi…

, a salt lagoon. The sebk̲h̲a is one of the characteristic features of the hydrography of North Africa and the Sahara, very common in the high plains, without communication with the sea. It is the terminus of a network of streams either above ground or subterranean, which have spread out and disappear in the ground; it is a shallow basin with well marked contours sometimes delineated by steep sides. After rain it is more or less completely filled with water impregnated with mineral substances wh…

(Gegel in Leo Africanus; the Zi-zeri, Zigeri-Gigerry, Gigeri of western writers) a town on the Algerian coast, 50 miles west of Bougie and 30 east of Collo in 36° 49′ 54″ N. Lat. and 5° 44′ 23″ E. Long. (Greenwich) with 6300 inhabitants including 1300 Europeans. The old town of Ḏj̲ijelli was built on a rocky peninsula where the citadel still stands, extending between two bays, one on the west, small and well sheltered, and the eastern, wind-swept, separated from the open sea by a ridge of rock. The mod…

, a town in the French Sūdān, 200 miles S. W. of Timbuktu and 100 N. E. of Segu Sikoro, in Lat. 13° 35’ N. and Long 9° E. (of Greenw.). From the name Ḏj̲enne, pronounced Ḏj̲inni or Ginni, is probably derived the name Guinea given by the Portuguese in the xvith century to West Africa. The first European to reach Ḏj̲enne was the Frenchman René Caillié (11th March 1828). Ḏj̲enne lies at some distance from the left bank of the Bani, a tributary of the Niger on a rocky plateau in the midst of a wide plain which is covered with water in the rainy season. This remarkable…

(Ḏj̲ebel), a mountain massif of Southern Algeria, situated between the Ḳṣūr mountains in the S. W. and the mountains of the Awlād Nail in the N. E. [see algeria, atlas]. It is an elevation stretching from N. E. to S. W. at a length of about 62 and a breadth of about 37 miles, and covers an area of about 2700 square miles. Its height is only from 650 to 975 feet above the plateaux from which it rises in gentle slopes; towards the Sahara, however, it slopes down fairly abruptly. The structure of the massif is rather irregular…