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Aḥmad b. Abī Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh , second last ʿAbd al-Wādid ruler of Tlemcen. Thanks to the support of the Turks of Algiers he seized the power and was proclaimed in 947/1540. The Spaniards of Oran who supported his brother Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad undertook an expedition against Tlemcen, which failed (949/1543). After a second, victorious expedition, the Spaniards made it possible for Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad to seize the power (30 Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḳaʾda 949/7 March 1543), but he was soon…

, one of the common Arabic terms (with d̲j̲und and ʿaskar ) for the army. ¶ i. — Classical . Except possibly in the Yaman, pre-Islamic Arabia, although living under permanent conditions of minor warfare, knew no armies in the proper meaning of the term apart from those of foreign occupation. Conflicts between tribes brought into action virtually all able-bodied men, but without any military organization, and combats were very often settled by individual feats of arms. The embryo of an army may be said to have appeared with Islam in the expeditions led or prepared by the Prophet, although the d̲…

(Arabic ḳawm ; French goum ), the usual form and pronunciation, in the Arab countries of North Africa, of the name given to a group of armed horsemen or fighting men from a tribe. The derivative gūma signifies “a levy of gūm s, troops, a plundering foray”, “sedition”, “revolt”. It was the Turks who, in the former Regencies of Algiers and Tunis, gave the gūms an official existence by making them the basis of their system of occupation of the country. All the tribes had been divided by them into mak̲h̲zen or auxiliaries, who were exempt from most taxes, and raʿiyya , who wer…

, the classical form of the name of a tribe of northwestern Morocco pronounced K̲h̲loṭ (but ethnic, K̲h̲ulṭi). The K̲h̲loṭ came into North Africa with the invasions of the Banū Hilāl in the 5th/11th century, and formed part of the “mixed” Arab people known as the D̲j̲us̲h̲am; according to Ibn K̲h̲aldūn and other historians, the K̲h̲loṭ allegedly belonged to the Banu ’l-Muntafiḳ. The D̲j̲us̲h̲am spread throughout the central Mag̲h̲rib, settled there and took part in all the wars which desolated B…

Muḥammad b. Abī Saʿīd ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Yag̲h̲murāsan , third sovereign of the ʿAbd al-Wādid dynasty. Proclaimed in Tlemcen on 2 Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 703/6 June 1304, he succeeded in having the siege of his capital by the Marīnid troops raised. He then chastised the tribes in the eastern part of his kingdom who had supported the enemy; the Tūd̲j̲īn Berbers were forced to submit and pay tribute, the Arab tribes were severely treated and driven back into the desert. On his return to Tlemcen, he…

Muḥammad b. Abī Hammū II , sovereign of the ʿAbd al-Wādid dynasty. During the lifetime of his father he was governor of Algiers and tried in vain, on his father’s death, to seize power. He took refuge with the Marīnid sultan Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad, who led an expedition against Tlemcen and made it possible for Abū Zayyān to be proclaimed in Muḥarram 796/Nov.-Dec. 1393. He remained a faithful vassal of the Marīnids. A patron of men of letters and poets, he was assassinated ¶ in 801/1398 after being driven from the throne by his brother Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh. (A. Cour*) Bibliography see ʿabd al-wādi…

(a.), a word probably of Berber origin meaning couscous, a culinary preparation containing semolina which is the national dish of the peoples of North Africa. It appears with the article and with a final nūn in an anecdote depicting an Oriental being advised by the Prophet, in a dream, to treat with al-kuskusūn a sick Mag̲h̲ribī; this anecdote, related by Dozy ( Suppl., s.v.) is very well known and is probably responsible for leading Moroccan scholars to adopt the form attributed to the Prophet. L. Bauer ( Wörterbuch der arabischen Umgangsprache 2, Wiesbaden 1957, 402), heard kusukson/ kusk…

, plural of dāʾira , group of families attached to the service and the person of a native chief in Algeria. Before the French conquest, the name of dawāʾir (local pronunciation dwāyr ) was borne especially by four tribal groups encamped to the south-west of Oran and attached to the service of the Bey of that city, although there were other dawāʾir, for example in the Titteri. They were organized as a militia, living on the products of the ¶ land put at their disposition by the Turkish government and the profit from expeditions against tribes who were unruly or refused to p…

b. al-S̲h̲arīf , Abu ’l-Naṣr , the second ruler of the Moroccan dynasty of the ʿAlawids [see ʿalawīs and ḥasanī ]. On the death of sultan Mawlāy al-Ras̲h̲īd, the empire of Morocco was divided. Mawlāy Ismāʿīl, governor of Meknès [see miknās ] and brother of the deceased sultan, was proclaimed sultan in this town. He advanced at once on the capital Fās, which had declared against him and seized it. He was proclaimed there on 11 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 1082/14 April 1672), being then 26 years of age. But Three rivals, his brother Mawlāy al-Ḥarrānī in Tāfilālt, his nephew Aḥmad b. Muḥriz…