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(in modern Arabic: Mlīlya , Berber Tamlilt , "the white"; in the Arab geographers, Malīla ), a seaport on the east coast of Morocco on a promontory on the peninsula of Gelʿiyya at the end of which is the Cape Tres Forcas or the Three Forks ( Rās Hurk of the Arab geographers, now Rās Werk ). Melilla probably corresponds to the Rusadir of the ancients (cf. Rhyssadir oppidum et portus (Pliny, v. 18), Russadir Colonia of the Antoninian Itinerary). Leo Africanus says that it had belonged for a time to the Goths and that the Arabs took it from them, but…

, a collection of poetry or prose [see ʿarabiyya ; persian literature ; turkish literature ; urdū literature and s̲h̲iʿr ], a register, or an office. Sources differ about linguistic roots. Some ascribe to it a Persian origin from dev , ‘mad’ or ‘devil’, to describe secretaries. Others consider it Arabic from dawwana , to collect or to register, thus meaning a collection of records or sheets. (See Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ , i, 90; LA, xvii, 23-4; Ṣūlī, Adab al-kuttāb , 187; Māwardī, al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya , 175; D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, Wuzarāʾ , ¶ 16-17; cf. Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ ,…

(in the Marīnid period Agarsīf occurs quite as frequently; the occlusive Berber g is some times transcribed in Arabic characters as d̲j̲īm , sometimes as kāf , each distinguished by three diacritical points), the Guercif of French maps, a small place in eastern Morocco 60 km. east of Taza, in the middle of the immense Tāfrāṭa steppe. It is situated on the spit of land between the Mulullū and Moulouya rivers at their confluence; hence its name (Berber ger- “between” and āsīf “river”). Marmol wished to identify Guercif with Ptolemy’s Galapha but this is scarcely l…

(Berber), a term borrowed by the Arabic of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia from Berber, with the same meaning as in that language namely "pasturage reserved for the exclusive use of the landowner". In Morocco, however, the word has acquired the special sense of "a wide expanse of pasture lands, surrounded by high walls and adjoining the Sultan’s palace, reserved for the exclusive use of his cavalry and livestock". Such enclosures exist in each of the royal cities, Fez, Meknes, Rabāṭ and Marrākus̲h̲. (G.S. Colin)

, name of three places in Arabia: 1. S̲h̲ard̲j̲at al-Ḳarīṣ, a port on the coast of the Yaman, where there were storehouses for the durra which was shipped to ʿAden; the native town of Sirād̲j̲ al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Zabīdī, the famous grammarian who taught in Cairo and died in 802 a.h. (1399—1400). 2. A place near Mekka. 3. A port on the Pirate Coast, on the Persian Gulf between ʿOman and Baḥrain. (G. S. Colin) Bibliography Ibn Ḥawḳal, B.G.A., ii. 19 al-Muḳaddasī, B. G.A., iii. 53, 69, 86, 92 Ibn Ḵh̲urdad̲h̲beh, B.G.A., vi. 143 al-Yaʿḳūbī, B.G.A., vii. 317, 319 Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfel…

, the name of a Berber tribe, belonging to the large family of the Butr, and brethren of the Maṭg̲h̲ara, Kūmya, Lamāya, Ṣaddīna, Madyūna, Mag̲h̲īla, etc. They formed with them the ethnic group of the Banū Fātin who, like all the other Butr, seem to have had their original home in Tripolitania. Our chief source of information about the Maṭmāṭa are al-Bakrī and Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn. As with the majority of the Butr Berbers, three principal divisions can be distinguished: 1. Elements settled in the eastern Mag̲h̲rib not far from their original home: these are the modern Maṭmāṭa in So…

, Tetuan, Fr. Tétouan, Sp. Tetuan, the Tetteguin of Leo Africanus, a Berber place-name meaning “the springs” (a quarter of the town is still called al-ʿUyūn); al-Idrīsī gives the defective form Tiṭṭāwin and the modern popular pronunciation is Tsiṭṭāwen, Tsiṭṭāun. The name Tetuán given it by the Spaniards comes from the form found at the end of the xviith century on coins of the early sovereigns of the Fīlālī dynasty. It is a town in the north of Morocco, 21 miles S. of Ceuta. It is built on a little terrace which juts out of Mount Darsa and commands th…

(old Arabic name: al-Buraid̲j̲a, “the little fortress”; modern Arabic name: al-Ḏj̲adīda “the new”), a town on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, 7 miles S. E. of the mouth of the Wādī Umm Rabīʿ. Its population in 1926 was 19,159, of whom 14,141 were Muslims and 3.385 Jews. Some writers think that Mazagan was built on the site of the ‘ΡουσιβίΣ λιμήν of Ptolemy, or Portus Rutubis of Pliny. The texts however do not say that there was ever a town there, but only a roadstead frequented by ships. The situation seems to have remained unchanged throughout the middle ages…

, a large Berber tribe belonging to the ethnic group of the Ṣanhād̲j̲a who lived in tents, and led a nomadic life in the desert to the south of Morocco with other tribes whose members veiled their faces with the lit̲h̲ām [q. v.] ( mulat̲h̲t̲h̲imūn). At first idolaters, the Lamtūna embraced Islām and converted also the Negro peoples who lived around them. After having had a series of independent kings, they fell into anarchy until Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm al-Gudālī took control of them; having gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 440 (1048— 1049) he br…

, a cape forming the extreme N. W. point of Morocco and of Africa, 7 or 8 miles west of Tangier. Al-Idrīsī does not mention it; al-Bakrī knows of it as a hill jutting out into the sea, 30 miles from Arzila and 4 from Tangier, which has springs of fresh water and a mosque used as a ribāṭ. Opposite it on the coast of Andalusia is the mountain of al-Ag̲h̲arr (=Ṭarf al-Ag̲h̲arr > Trafalgar). The name Is̲h̲bartāl (probably connected with the Latin spartaria = places overgrown with esparto) given it by al-Bakrī is not known to the natives. (G. S. Colin) Bibliography al-Bakrī, Description de l’Afrique Se…

(the broken plural Maṣāmida is also found), one of the principal Berber ethnic groups forming a branch of the Barānis. If we set aside the Maṣmūda elements mentioned by al-Bakrī in the neighbourhood of Bone, the post-Islāmic Maṣmūda seem to have lived exclusively in the western extremity of the Mag̲h̲rib; and as far back as one goes in the history of the interior of Morocco, we find them forming with the Ṣanhād̲j̲a [q. v.], another group of Barānis Berbers, the main stock of the Berber population of this country. I…

(Berber Māsset), the name of a small Berber tribe of Morocco of Sūs, settled some 30 miles south of Agadir at the mouth of the Wādī Māssa; the latter is probably the flumen masatat mentioned by Pliny the Elder (v. 9) to the north of the flumen Darat, the modern Wādī Darʿa, and the Masatas of the geographer would correspond to the modern ahl Māssa. The name Māssa is associated with the first Arab conquest of Morocco: according to legend, it was on the shore there that, after conquering Sūs, ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ drove his steed into the waves of the Atlantic calling …

, a Berber ethnical group, belonging to the family of Butr, whose eponymous ancestor was Lawā the younger, son of Lawā the older, son of Zaḥīk. Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn disputes the view of certain Berber genealogists recorded by Ibn Ḥazm who consider the Lawāta as Saddarāta and the Mazāta as of Coptic origin. Others say the Lawāta with the Hawwāra and the Lamṭa were of Ḥimyarite origin. In any case the oldest home of the Lawāta seems most likely to have been the eastern part of North Africa. They were found in Egypt to the north between Alexandria and Cairo; to the south in the oases and in al-Ṣaʿīd. Some ¶ Lawāt…

(in the texts one finds sometimes the Berber name Tīṭ-an-Fiṭr, sometimes its Arabic translation: ʿAin al-Fiṭr, “Source of the Breaking of the Fast”), a place on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, some eight miles S.W. of Mazagan. Accordiug to the local legend, Tīṭ owed its foundation to a saint, Ismāʿīl Amg̲h̲ār (Berber = Arabic s̲h̲aik̲h̲) who came from Medina, led by a light which guided him in the sky, and settled among the Gudāla, a branch of the Ṣanhād̲j̲a of Azemmūr; he settled in the forest opposite a spring “situated in the sea” to which he use…

, the name of a Berber tribe belonging to the great family of the Butr; they were related to the Zanāta and brethren of the Maṭmāṭa, Kūmya, Lamāya, Ṣaddīna, Madyūna, Mag̲h̲īla etc., with whom they form the racial group of the Banū Fātin. Like the other tribes belonging to this group, the Maṭg̲h̲ara originally came from Tripolitania: the most eastern members of the Maṭg̲h̲ara, however, known to al-Bakrī and Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn were those who lived in the mountainous regions along the Mediterranean from …

, a large Berber tribe of the Barāni family. Its exact origin does not seem to have been known to the Arab and Berber genealogists, who simply make them brethren of the Ṣanhād̲j̲a, Haskūra and Gazūla; others give them a Ḥimyarite origin like the Hawwāra and the Lawāta. The Lamṭa were one of the nomad tribes who wore a veil ( mulat̲h̲t̲h̲imūn). One section lived on the south of the Mzāb, between the Massūfa on the west and the Tārga (Tuareg) on the east; they even seem to have extended as far as the Niger. In the south of Morocco, in al-Sūs, where there we…

, 1. French form for zmāla, in the Algerian dialect of Arabic, “camp of a tribe or of an important personage, containing his family and his servants, as well as the beasts of burden”. The word passed into the French language as a result of the fame of the smala of ʿAbd al-Ḳādir b. Muḥyi ’l-Dīn [q. v.] the capture of which made a great stir in 1843. 2. In Algeria under Turkish rule, the name zmāla (plur. zmūl) was given to some tribes forming a kind of mounted police (cf. the articles dwāʾir and zmāla. (G. S. Colin)

, a country and Muslim state of northern Africa. The name (Spanish Marruecos, French Maroc) is a corruption of Marrākus̲h̲, the largest town in southern Morocco [see the article marrākus̲h̲]. 1. Geography. Morocco occupies the western part of Barbary; it corresponds to the Mag̲h̲rib al-Aḳṣā of the Arab geographers [see the article mag̲h̲rib]. Lying between 5° and 15° W. longitude (Greenwich) on the one hand and between 36° and 28° N. latitude on the other, it covers approximately an area of between 500,000 and 550,000 square kilometres. On the No…

(popularly Chechaouen, ech-Chaoun, in Spanish Xauen; the original of the name is no doubt the Berber plural Is̲h̲efs̲h̲āwen), a little town in Northwest Morocco, 35 miles south of Tetuan. It lies at the foot of the mountain of Sīdī Bū-Ḥād̲j̲a (a spur of the massif of Bū-Hās̲h̲em) on a tributary of the Wādī Lāu; it now lies within the lands of the tribe of el-Ḵh̲mās, but it used to belong to the Banū Zad̲j̲al, a tribe belonging to the G̲h̲umāra group. In 1918 the population was about 7,000, who lived in a thousand houses in the six quarters: el-ʿOnṣar, Rīf el-Andalus, el-Ḵh̲a…

(Berber Masst), the name of a small Berber tribe of the Sūs of Morocco, from which comes the name of the place where it is settled, some 30 miles south of Agadir at the mouth of the Wādī Māssa; the latter is probably the flumen Masatat mentioned by Pliny the Elder (v. 9) to the north of the flumen Darat , the modern Wādī Darʿa, and the Masata of the geographer would correspond to the modern ahl Māssa . The name Māssa is associated with the first Arab conquest of Morocco: according to legend, it was on the shore there that, after conquering the Sūs, ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ drove his…