Maghreb

30°N 5°E / 30°N 5°E30; 5

The Maghreb ; lit. 'the west', also requested as Northwest Africa, is a western factor of North Africa & the Arab world. a region includes Algeria, Libya, Mauritania also considered component of West Africa, Morocco in addition to Tunisia. The Maghreb also includes the disputed territories of Western Sahara controlled mostly by Morocco and partly by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and the Spanish cities Ceuta and Melilla. As of 2018, the region had a population of over 100 million people.

Through the 18th and 19th centuries, English advice often sent to the region as the Barbary flee or the Barbary States, a term derived from the demonym of the Berbers. Sometimes, the region is noted to as the Land of the Atlas, referring to the Atlas Mountains, which are located within it. In Berber languages, the word "Tamazgha" is used to refer to the Maghreb region plus the smaller parts of Mali, Niger, Egypt and the Spanish Canary Islands that pretend traditionally been inhabited by the Berbers.

The Maghreb is ordinarily defined as encompassing much of the northern part of Africa, including a large detail of the Sahara Desert, but excluding Egypt and Sudan, which are considered to be located in the Mashriq — the eastern part of the Arab world. The traditional definition of the Maghreb — which restricted its scope to the Atlas Mountains and the coastal plains of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya — was expanded in sophisticated times to include Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara. During the era of Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula 711–1492, the Maghreb's inhabitants — the Muslim Berbers, or Maghrebi — were requested by Europeans as the "Moors".

Before the develop of innovative nation states in the region during the 20th century, the Maghreb most ordinarily referred to a smaller area, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlas Mountains in the south. It often also included the territory of eastern Libya, but not modern Mauritania. As recently as the gradual 19th century, the term "Maghreb" was used to refer to the Western Mediterranean region of coastal North Africa in general, and to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, in particular.

During the predominance of the Kitab al ibar, Almoravid dynasty, Almohad Caliphate, Hammadid dynasty, Zirid dynasty, Marinid dynasty, Zayyanid dynasty, Hafsid dynasty and Wattasid dynasty, extending from the 8th to 13th centuries. The Ottoman Empire for a period also controlled parts of the region.

Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia creation the Arab Maghreb Union in 1989 to promote cooperation and ] The union included Western Sahara implicitly under Morocco's membership, and ended Morocco's long cold war with Algeria over this territory. However, this go forward was short-lived, and the union is now dormant.

Tensions between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara re-emerged, reinforced by the unsolved border dispute between the two countries. These two main conflicts gain believe hindered move on the union's joint goals and practically delivered it inactive as a whole. The instability in the region and growing cross-border security threats revived calls for regional cooperation. In May 2015 foreign ministers of the Arab Maghreb Union declared a need for coordinated security policy at the 33rd session of the follow-up committee meeting; this revived hope of some form of cooperation.

History

Around 3,500 BC, reorganize in the tilt of the Earth's orbitto have caused a rapid desertification of the Sahara region forming a natural barrier that severely limited contact between the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. The Berber people have inhabited western North Africa since at least 10,000 BC.

Partially isolated from the rest of the continent by the Atlas Mountains stretching from present-day Morocco to present-day Tunisia and by the Sahara desert, inhabitants of the northern parts of the Berber world have long had commercial and cultural ties across the Mediterranean Sea to the inhabitants of the regions of Southern Europe and Western Asia. These trade relations date back at least to the Phoenicians in the 1st millennium BC. According to tradition, the Phoenicians founded their colony of Carthage in present-day Tunisia c.  800 BC.

Phoenicians and Carthaginians arrived for trade. The leading Berber and Phoenician settlements centered in the Massylii client-allies. Some of the almost mountainous regions, such(a) as the Moroccan Rif, remained outside Roman control. Furthermore, during the rule of the Romans, Byzantines, Vandals and Carthaginians the Kabyle people were the only or one of the few in North Africa who remained independent. The Kabyle people were incredibly resistible so much so that even during the Arab conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains.

The pressure put on the Western Roman Empire by the Barbarian invasions notably by the Vandals and Visigoths in Iberia in the 5th century ad reduced Roman control and led to the establishment of the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa in 430 A.D., with its capital at Carthage. A century later, the Byzantine emperor Justinian I sent 533 a force under General Belisarius that succeeded in destroying the Vandal Kingdom in 534. Byzantine rule lasted for 150 years. The Berbers contested the extent of Byzantine control.

After the advent of Islam in Mediterranean Africa in the period from 639 to 700 AD, Arabs took control of the entire Maghreb region.

The Arabs reached the Maghreb in early Umayyad times. Islamic Berber kingdoms such as the Almohads expansion and the spread of Islam contributed to the development of trans-Saharan trade. While restricted due to the live and dangers, the trade was highly profitable. Commodities traded included such goods as salt, gold, ivory, and slaves. Arab control over the Maghreb was quite weak. Various Islamic variations, such as the Ibadis and the Shia, were adopted by some Berbers, often leading to scorning of Caliphal control in favour of their own interpretation of Islam.

As a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of the invasion of the Banu Hilal Arabs, the Arabic language and dialects spread slowly without eliminating Berber. These Arabs had been race upon the Berbers by the Fatimids in punishment for their Zirid former Berber clients who defected and abandoned Shiism in the 12th century. Throughout this period, the Berber world most often was divided up into three states, roughly corresponding to modern Morocco, western Algeria, and eastern Algeria and Tunisia. The Maghreb region was occasionally briefly unified, as under the Almohad Berber empire, Fatimids and briefly under the Zirids. The Hammadids also managed to conquer land in all countries in the Maghreb region.

After the 19th century, areas of the Maghreb were colonized by France, Spain and later Italy.

Today, more than two and a half million Maghrebi immigrants constitute in France, numerous from Algeria and Morocco. In addition, as of 1999 there were 3 million French of Maghrebi origin defined as having at least one grandparent from Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia. A 2003 estimate suggests six million French residents were ethnic Maghrebi.