Maghreb

Marrakech, Morocco, in front of Atlas mountains in Maghreb

The Maghreb (المغرب العربي al-Maġrib al-ʿArabī; also rendered Maghrib or (uncommonly) Moghreb), meaning " western" in Arabic, is the region of Africa north of the Sahara Desert and west of the Nile — specifically, coinciding with the Atlas Mountains. Geopolitically, the area is reckoned to include Morocco, Western Sahara, Algeria, Tunisia, sometimes Libya, and rarely Mauritania. Apropos, the Arab Maghreb Union includes all of the territories listed above except, due to its political status, Western Sahara.

From the end of the Ice Age, when the Sahara Desert dried up, contact between the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa was extremely limited by the difficulty in crossing the desert. This remained the case until after the time of the Arab expansion and the spread of Islam; even then, trade was restricted to costly (but often profitable) caravan expeditions, trading such goods as salt, gold, ivory, and slaves.

Though Maghreb culture has both African and Middle Eastern roots, Maghrebis are of mixed origins, they are either of Arabic, Berber, Moriscos or convert Jews ancestry in some old cities like Fes, Sale, Rabat or Tlemcen, a few are of predominantly African ancestry brought in by the trans-Saharan trade, the corsairs brought in significant amounts of French, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish ancestry in the big coastal cities. The Arabic dialects of the Maghreb share many common characteristics (like a first person singular present with n-) that set them apart from the dialects of the Middle East and most of Egypt; Berber languages, of course, are almost exclusively spoken in the Maghreb, and were originally spoken throughout it. It largely shares a common culinary tradition; indeed, the Maghreb was jocularly defined by Habib Bourguiba as the part of North Africa where couscous is the staple food.

The Arab Maghreb Union (Union du Maghreb Arabe) is an effort to coordinate political and economic policies across this region; disagreements among its members and security problems in Algeria have posed it serious setbacks.

The western Islamic world (northwest Africa); distinguished from the Mashriq, or eastern Islamic world (the Middle East). Literally, "the time and place of the sunset--the west." For its Arab conquerors, the region was the "island of the west" (jazirat al maghrib), the land between the "sea of sand" (the Sahara) and the Mediterranean Sea. Traditionally includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania (in Libya); more recently some sources have treated Mauritania as part of the region.

Modern territories of the Maghreb

Medieval regions of the Maghreb

Ifriqiya
Djerid
Sus/ Sousse
Zab
Hodna
Rif
Maghreb al-Awsat (Central Maghreb)
Morocco (Maghreb al-Aqsa)
Tamesna

History

Originally, the Maghreb was inhabited by " white" Cro-Magnoids ( Iberomaurusians) in the north and by " black" peoples in the Sahara. Later, about 8000 BC, there came from the east "white" speakers of northern Afro-Asiatic languages such as Berber at least since the Capsian culture.

Many ports along the Maghreb coast were occupied by Phoenicians, particularly Carthaginians; with the defeat of Carthage, many of these ports naturally passed to Rome, and ultimately it took control of the entire Maghreb north of the Atlas Mountains, apart from some of the most mountainous regions like the Moroccan Rif.

The Arabs reached the Maghreb in early Umayyad times, but their control over it was quite weak, and various Islamic "heresies" such as the Ibadis and the Shia, adopted by some Berbers, quickly threw off Caliphal control in the name of their interpretations of Islam. The Arabic language became widespread only later, as a result of the invasion of the Banu Hilal (unleashed, ironically, by the Berber Fatimids in punishment for their Zirid clients' defection) in the 1100's. Throughout this period, the Maghreb fluctuated between occasional unity (as under the Almohads, and briefly under the Hafsids) and more commonly division into three states roughly corresponding to modern Morocco, western Algeria, and eastern Algeria and Tunisia.

After the Middle Ages, the area was loosely under the control of the Ottoman Empire, except Morocco. After the 19th century, it was colonized by France, Spain and later Italy.