b. al-Ag̲h̲lab b. Sālim b. ʿIḳāl (184-96/800-12), founder of the Ifrīḳiyan dy…

, a town in central Tunisia, 156 km. from Tunis and 57 km. from Sousse. It is situated at an altitude of 60 m. and is the chief town of a governorate of 336,000 inhabitants which stretches over an area of 680,000 hectares. Its population of 34,000 inhabitants in 1956 had become ¶ 47,000 during the census of 3rd May 1966, and then 56,000 in 1972. Temperatures vary considerably, ranging from a few degrees below zero in winter to 40° C and over in summer. The sirocco blows there for an average of 21 days per annum. The rainfall varies from an average of 250 mm. or 300 mm. in the town and its surrounding area to 500 mm. and over in the regions west of the governorate. It changes considerably from one year to another, ranging from drought to catastrophic floods; the flood in 1969 w…

(d. after 418/1027-8), or al-Raḳīḳ Abu Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḳāsim al-Kātib al-Ḳayrawānī , who had been secretary of the Zīrids for about a quarter of a century at the time when Ibn Ras̲h̲īḳ wrote his ʿUmda , was a talented man of letters and chronicler. Ibn Ras̲h̲īḳ acknowledges that he had a certain poetic gift, although his style was rather that of a secretary, and Yāḳūt ( Muʿd̲j̲am , i, 217-26) has preserved some long fragments from his poems. There also survives his Ḳuṭb al-surūr (MS Paris B.N. nos. 4829, 4830 and 4831; for the other MSS, see Brockelman…

, Abū Yaḥyā and Abū Ṭāhir al-Ṣanhād̲j̲ī , the fifth Zīrid ruler in Ifrīḳiya, b. Ṣabra 422/1031, d. after an exceptionally long reign covering 454-501/1062-1108. ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, in his K̲h̲arīdat al-ḳaṣr , Tunis 1966, i, 141-2, makes him a Ḳaḥṭānī Arab, with a genealogy back to Noah and Adam, see also Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī, Nud̲j̲ūm , Cairo n.d., v, 198. He inherited a kingdom dislocated by the invasions of the Banū Hilāl [ q.v.], and after almost half-a-century of effort, did not succeed in “restoring Ṣanhād̲j̲ī power in its state of disarray” (H.R. Idris, Zīrīdes …

(“the Sorceress”) was the guiding spirit of Berber resistance to the Arab invaders led by Ḥassān b. al-Nuʿmān [ q.v.] after the collapse of Byzantine power marked by the fall of Carthage (73/692-3). ¶ Her true personality—which must have been highly complex—is very difficult to discern, for only the distorted reflections of her real features can be detected behind the legend. There is no agreement even on her real name, for al-Kāhina is only a nickname given to her by the Arabs. It is said that she was named Dihya—Ibn K̲h̲aldūn (tr. de Slane, Berbères , i, 172) mentions a Berber tribe know…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. S̲h̲addād b. Tamīm b. al-Muʿizz b. Bādīs (d. after 582/1186), sometimes also called Abu ’l-G̲h̲arīb ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Ṣanhād̲j̲ī, chronicler of Zīrid descent, being the grandson of Tamīm (454-501/1062-1108) and the nephew of Yaḥyā b. Tamīm (501-9/1108-16). He lived at first in the entourage of the last Zīrid of Mahdiyya, al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī, and seems to have gone with him, at least for some time, to the Almohad ʿAbd al-Muʾmin whose support he was seeking. It …

, an Umayyad general who played a decisive part in the consolidation of the conquest of Ifrīḳiya by storming Carthage and finally defeating al-Kāhina [ q.v.]. It is difficult, however, to trace the course of his actions on account of the uncertainty of the chronology and a host of discrepancies. The dates given for his arrival in Ifrīḳiya are Muḥarram 68/July-August 687, 69/688-9, 73/692-3, 74/693-4, 78/697-8; and for his fall 76/695-6, 77/696-7, 78/697-8, 79/698-9, 82/701-2, 84/703-4 and 89/707-8. The chronology given by the earliest chroniclers, i.e. by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and t…

b. Ḳabīṣa b. al-Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra (d. 18 Ramaḍān 174/28 January 791) was the fourth governor from the Muhallabids [ q.v.] of Ifrīḳiya, where there preceded him successively a distant cousin, ʿUmar b. Ḥafṣ b. ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Ḳabīṣa (151-4/768-71), his brother Yazīd (19 D̲j̲umādā II 155-18 Ramaḍān 170/27 May 772-13 March 787) and his nephew Dāwūd b. Yazīd who, on his father’s death, took over in the interim until the arrival of his uncle Rawḥ on 1 Rad̲j̲ab 171/16 December 787. Rawḥ had first served in the army before rejoining, in 159/776, the group of governors. He is mention…

, the eastern part of the Mag̲h̲rib, whence the name adopted by some modern historians for Eastern Barbary. The term Ifrīḳiya is undoubtedly—whatever the Arab writers say—borrowed from the Latin Africa, so the origin of the Arabic word must be sought in the etymology of the Latin term, a question which, from the most ancient times to today, has continued to defeat scholars. What is certain is that the term Africa, and the other forms derived from the same radical Afer (pl. Afri ), are attested in the Latin ¶ sources well before the fall of Carthage; it is known in particular that th…

, or also Madīnat ʿIzz al-Islām , a royal city founded between 334 and 336/945-8, at half-a-mile to the southeast of Ḳayrawān, by the Fāṭimid caliph al-Manṣūr— whence its name—in order to commemorate his victory over the rebel Abū Yazīd [ q.v.], on the very spot, so we are told, of a decisive battle. The name. Ṣabra means "a very hard stone" ( LʿA , Beirut 1955, iv, 441, 442). Like ṣak̲h̲r "rock", the term is attested as a personal name (al-Ṭabarī, index; al-Mālikī, Riyāḍ , Beirut 1983, i, 250) or as that of a clan (Kaḥḥāla, Muʿd̲j̲am ḳabāʾil al-ʿArab , Beirut 1968, ii, 6…

, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ag̲h̲lab b. Ibrāhīm b. al-Ag̲h̲lab , born 10 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 235/27 June 850, was, after Ibrāhīm I, the most outstanding personality of the Ag̲h̲labid dynasty, being distinguished as much for his exceptional qualities as for his barely credible crimes. Raised to power by the enthusiasm of the people, in place of the legitimate successor who was still a minor and of whom he was to have been the regent, he began his reign (261/875) with just measures and …

(a.), the Arabs and Arabised peoples of the East ( Mas̲h̲riḳ ) in contrast to those of the West ( Mag̲h̲rib ) called Mag̲h̲āriba [ q.v.]. The history of the Mas̲h̲āriḳa in the East, a history which is inseparable from the region itself, will not be treated here. The concern here is rather with the Mas̲h̲āriḳa who were perceived as such in the West by the Mag̲h̲āriba. The distinction between the two great groups, with a certain specificness proper to Muslim Spain, becomes perceptible less than half-a-century after the expansion of the Arabs in the West, i.e. around 122/740 [see mag̲h̲āriba ]. It …

, (El-Kef), a town in Tunisia (pop. 18,000), capital of an administrative district with a population of 306,000 (census of 3 May 1966), situated in the region of Haut-Tell about 30 km. from the Algerian border; the altitude varies from 700 to 850 m. Since 1962, an effort has been made to replace the traditional cereal cultivation with a greater agricultural diversification, although the attempt at co-operative collectivization of the land was abandoned in September 1969. The town has also benefit…

b. ʿIyād b. ʿAmrūn al-Yaḥṣubī al-Sabtī al-Ḳāḍī (476/1088-544/1149) was one of the most celebrated figures of Mālikism in the Muslim West. His existence coincided almost exactly with that of the Almoravid dynasty to whom throughout his life he remained inflexibly attached. His family, of Yemeni origin through the Yaḥṣub, emigrated to the West very early and finally settled at Ceuta, after residing in Basta [ q.v.], in Muslim Spain, in Fez, and also in Ḳayrawān at some indeterminate date. His great grandfather ʿAmrūn was the first of the family to win fame, by …

, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Salām b. Saʿīd b. Ḥabīb b. Ḥassān b. Hilāl b. Bakkār b. Rabīʿa al-Tanūk̲h̲ī (160-Rad̲j̲ab 240/777-December 855) (nicknamed Saḥnūn, it is said, on account of his shrewdness, or from the name of a bird), a Kairouan faḳīh who played a decisive role in the conversion to the Mālikiyya [ q.v.] of Muslim Spain and of the entire Mag̲h̲rib where, even today, there exist only a few Ibāḍī pockets (the island of D̲j̲erba and Mzab), and a small number of Ḥanafīs. The question as to whether Saḥnūn was an Arab by ¶ pedigree or by virtue of clientship was sometimes asked, and was res…

Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī al-Usaydī , b. 605/1208-9, d. 699/1300, was, according to the eyewitness and probably interested testimony of al-ʿAbdarī, the unique true scholar in al-Ḳayrawān of his time. If one can believe an anecdote which states that he owed his cognomen of al-Dabbag̲h̲ to the fact that his great-grandfather disguised himself as a tanner in order to avoid the office of ḳāḍī , he must have stemmed from an ancient family of Ḳayrawānī faḳīhs . Al-ʿAbdarī, who visited him in 688/1289 and received from him a general id̲j̲āza for the transm…

, written by Yāḳūt, Buldān , Beirut, ii, 13, as Tabissa , the Theveste of classical times, a town of eastern Algeria, situated 235 km/146 miles south of ʿAnnāba or Bône and 19 km/13 miles west of the modern Tunisian frontier (lat. 35° 21′ N., long. 8° 06′ E., altitude 850 m/2,790 feet). The site of the town, on an elevated plain, has been inhabited since prehistoric times, as the dolmens at Gastel, petrographs on the rocks of Saf-Saf, inter alia, show, and legend attributed the foundation of the town to Hercules. It was a dependency of Carthage from the 7th century B.C. and…

or Sabratha , one of the three ancient cities (Leptis Magna = Lebda; Oea = Tripoli; and Sabratha or Sabrata = Ṣabra) which made up Tripolitania. Ṣabra Manṣūriyya [ q.v.], another town ¶ 33 km/20 miles to the west of Tlemcen in Algeria bore (Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn, ʿIbar , Beirut 1959, vii, 524), and still bears today, this same name, after having assumed that of Turenne in the colonial period. The homonomy here is fortuitous. Ṣabrāṭa—now a tourist town and the centre of an archaeological zone along the littoral some 75 km/48 miles west of Tripoli and 35 km…

b. Lamzam, or Kasīla was, in the tradition of the Massinissa and of Jugurtha, one of the most eminent figures in the struggle of the Berbers to preserve their independence. In 55/674, at the time when the mawlā Abu ’l-Muhād̲j̲ir Dīnār came from Egypt to replace ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ as governor of the recently-conquered province of the Mag̲h̲rib, Kusayla was certainly “king” of the Awraba, a broad alliance of tribes of the Barānis group, for the most part sedentary. The territory of the Awraba w…

(gafsa), a town in Tunisia 360 km. south-west of Tunis, 200 km from Ḳayrawān, and 100 km from Gabès [see ḳābis ], population 30,000; the chief town of an administrative region with a population of 300,000 whose principal mineral resources ¶ consist of the phosphate deposits of M’Dilla, Metlaoui, Redeyef, and Moularès, which were discovered in 1885. The oasis of Ḳafsa contains about 100,000 palm trees producing dates of second-rate quality, to which must be added orchards of orange trees, lemon trees, apricots and figs, vineyards and, …