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Berber origin is unknown but thought to be southwest Asian caucasian of Mediterranean stock. Berber tribes spread from Egypt to the Niger basin around 3000BC. Egyptian Old Kingdom records (2700-2200BC) document Berber invasions of the "Levu" or Libyans in the Nile Delta. Egyptian Middle Kingdom (2200-1700BC) pharoahs conquered the eastern Berber tribes and extracted tribute and military service. One Berber official siezed power in Egypt in 950BC and ruled as pharoah Shishink I. His successors, the twentysecond and twentythird Egyptian dynasties of 945-730BC are believed to be of Berber descent as well. (1)
Three important Berber tribes in the west were the Sanhaja, Masmouda, and Zenata. The Sanhaja berber nomads settled in the deserts south of the Atlas mountains around 1200BC, while the farming Masmouda lived to the north and west and in the Atlas mountains in present day Morocco, and the tough horse-riding Zenata nomads occupied the southern desert areas. (7)
Around 1200BC, Phoenician traders from Tyre in Lebanon had established maritime colonies and relations with local cultures throughout North Africa. Between 500-400BC, the Phoenician colony of Carthage, near Tunis in present day Tunisia, developed the Punic civilization that dominated northwest Africa, also referred to as the Maghrib. The Punic settlements in Libya: Oea, Labdah, and Sabratah became known as Tripolis (Three Cities) and later Tripolitania. Punic settlements in the western Mediterranean came into conflict with Roman expansion. The Punic Wars of 264-241BC and 218-201BC reduced Carthage to a small and vulnerable state. (1) Despite a strong resistance led by the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca during the second Punic War, and even his invasion of Italy through the famous elephant company crossing of the Swiss Alps (2), Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146BC. Triplotania was assigned to Rome's ally, the Berber king of Numidia (1). Numidia was formed when the Berber cheiftan Massinissa organized the Berbers of present day Algeria during the Punic Wars. Numidia remained a sovereign kingdom until 106BC when it was annexed by Rome (6). However, in 47BC (4) Julius Ceasar deposed the Numidian king for siding with the Roman general Pompey during the Roman civil wars, and reorganized Tripolitania as a Roman province. Most rural Berber peasants and nomads still retain decidedly Punic customs to this day.
In 631BC, Greeks from the crowded island of Thera were prompted by the Oracle at Delphi to establish the northeastern city of Cyrene. Within 200 years, 4 more Greek cities developed: Barce (Al Marj); Euhesperides (later Berenice, present-day Benghazi); Teuchira (later Arsinoe, present-day Tukrah); and Apollonia (Susah), at the port of Cyrene, known collectively as the Pentapolis (Five Cities) and later Cyrenaica. In 525BC, Cambyses, son of Persian King Cyrus the Great, conquered Cyrenaica after Egpyt. Then Alexander the Great entered Cyrenaica in 331BC. At Alexanders death in 323BC, Cyrene went to his general Ptolemy, along with Egypt, while the other 4 cities remained autonomous. However, the inability of the cities to maintain stable governments led to a federation of the Pentapolis with a king chosen from the Ptolemaic royal family. Ptolemy Apion, the last Greek ruler, bequethed Cyrenaica to Rome in 74BC.
The Fezzan in the south was home to the Garamentes tribe from sometime before 1000BC. Little is known of the Garamentes, some from the writings of the Greek Herodotus and inscriptions written in "tifinagh", an ancient Berber form of writing still in use by the Tuareg of northern Niger. The Garamentes' strength centered around a chain of oases about 400 kilometers long in the Wadi Ajal. But from their capital at Germa, they controlled desert trade from Ghadamis south to the Niger River, eastward to Egypt, and west to Mauretania (classical name for the Berber kingdoms of northwest Africa). They succeeded in irrigating portions of their lands by using "foggares", vast underground networks of stone-lined water channels. Rome sent several expeditions against the Garamentes before concluding a lasting commercial and military alliance with them late in the first century A.D.
Under Roman rule, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria prospered. Roman armies defeated and pacified the Sirtica region of north-central Libya in the late first century AD to allow overland communication between Tripolis and Cyrenaica. However, Cyrenaica became home to a large Jewish population under Ptolemaic rule, followed by a massive Jewish population increase after deportation of the Jews of Palestine following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. The Jews converted many Berber tribes, and revolted from Rome in 115AD in Cyrenaica, sacking Cyrene and killing over 200,000 until their defeat in 118AD. Then in 395AD, Cyrenaica became part of the new eastern Rome and Tripolitania part of the west. However, in 429AD the German Vandal tribe entered north Africa from Spain and siezed power from Rome under their leader Gaiseric establishing their capital at Carthage, which included control of Tripolitania. The Vandals conquered Sardinia and Corsica and sacked Rome in 455AD. Then in 533AD, the Byzantine general Belisarius recounquered north Africa for Rome, but maintained only coastal control of Tripolotania and control of Cyrenaica only through severe martial law and heavy taxation.
In 642AD, Arab general Amr ibn al As under Caliph Umar I (bin al Khattab of Medina), conquered Cyrenaica, then Tripolitania in 644AD. The Arab general Uqba bin Nafi invaded Fezzan and defeated Germa (1). Stiff Berber resistance in present-day Algeria, under the leadership of a Jewish high-priestess named Kahina (6) halted Arab expansion until 670AD when Uqba conquered the Roman province of Africa (Ifriqiya in Arabic), present day Tunisia. The city of Kairouan in Tunisia, present day Al Qayrawan, was used as the Arab staging point for the defeat of Byzantine-held Carthage in 693AD, Morocco in 710AD, and finally all the way to mountainous northern Spain in 712-715AD. Throughout the Maghrib, the Arabs intermarried with local Berbers to spread Islam despite a resistance to Arab politics. (1)
Idriss Ben Abdallah arrived in Morocco (from Egypt and Kairouan after fleeing from the Abbassids) in 788AD and established the Idrissides dynasty. Then the Almoravides, Sanhaja berber descendants who had spent years converting black Saharan tribes to Islam in an effort to locate the source of the gold flowing into Morocco from the Niger River area, conquered Morocco and even Spain under Ibn Tachafine. (7) The Almoravides ruled from 1055-1147AD. (8)
Eventually Muslim Berbers in Libya established a schismatic Muslim sect known as the Kharijites around the time the Abbasids of Baghdad overthrew the Umayyids of Damascus. Of the many shortlived Khajirite kingdoms, a successful Kharijite kingdom, founded by Bani Khattab, developed roots in the Fezzan with it's capital at Zawilah. Then in 800AD, Abbasid caliph Harud ar Rashid appointed amir Ibrahim ibn Aghlab who established a hereditary dynasty in Kairouan to rule Ifriqiya. The Aghlabids frequently contested control of the Central Meditteranean with the Byzantine Empire, even conquering Sicily at one time, and they allowed Jewish citizens to flourish. However, in 909AD, the Aghlabid's control of Kairouan fell to a group of converted Shiite Muslim Berbers led by missionaries of the Ismaili sect of Shiite Muslims from Syria. Ubaidalla Said, Syrian Ismaili grandmaster became the new imam and established the Fatamid dynasty in Kairouan. Although often threteaning Morocco with invasion, the Fatamids conquered Egypt in 969AD, leaving Kairouan to Berber vassals, the Zirids. The Zirids plundered and neglected Tripolitania, and eventually broke from the Fatamid rulers in 1049AD to reestablish a Sunni government to maintain support from local educated Arab Sunni's.
As punishment for the Zirid revolt, the Fatamid caliph in Cairo invited the Bani Hilal and Bani Salim, known as the Hilalian beduins from Arabia, to invade the Maghrib. An estimated 200,000 Arab families migrated to the region and destroyed Cyrene and sacked Tripoli. The Bani Salim stopped in Libya, returning a thouroughly Arab culture to the region, and the Bani Hilal moved all the way to Morocco, completing the Arabization of the whole Maghrib. The Normans of southern Italy took advantage of the situation to invade and recapture Sicily in 1060AD, even establishing coastal fortresses in Tunis and Tripoli by 1150AD. (1)
Before 1130AD, Ibn Tumart, a Sunni Berber religious reformer of Masmouda descent (7), established the Almohad dynasty in Morocco. Between 1130-1160AD, his succesor Abdal Mumin had subdued all of Morocco, conquered most of Spain, pushed the Normans out of their Ifriqiya and Tripolitania strongholds, and declared a caliphate at Cordoba, Spain ruling over the Almohad's empire in the Maghrib.
By 1270AD, the Almohads in Morocco had succumed to tribal warfare while those in Spain were losing ground to the Castile's. (1) This allowed the Beni Marin, a Zenata berber tribe from between Taza and Algeria, to establish the Merinide dynasty in Morocco, which ruled from 1258-1465AD. (8) Morocco flourished culturally under the Merinides, who saw the establishment of Jewish quarters in most major cities, and who supported the well-known traveler Ibn Batuta from 1304-1378AD who wrote stories about his travels to the Black Sea and Tambouktoo (Timbuktu in Mali). (7)
In 1207AD, a descendant of one of Ibn Tumart's companions, Muhammad bin Abu Hafs established a hereditary line in Tunis known as the Hafsids, who declared a caliphate at the demise of the Almohad dynasty. They traded with European powers, forging close links with the Aragons of France and the Italian maritime states. Although the Hafsids gradually lost power due to internal struggles, even allowing Tripoli's merchant oligarchy to delcare independence in 1460AD, the rise of the new Moorish culture in North Africa and Spain came about during the Hafsid era.
Between the time Saladin displaced the Fatamids in Egypt in 1171AD, to Ottoman occupation in 1517AD, Cyrenaica (referred to as Baraqah by the Arabs) remained a subject of the Mamluk dynasties of Egypt. Meanwhile the Bani Khattab controlled the oases and trade routes of the Fezzan. Between 1200-1300AD, the king of Bornu, a Muslim state in the Chad river basin, invaded the Fezzan and contolled the trade routes for a time. Then between 1500-1600AD, the Moroccan Muhammad al Fazi displaced the last of the Bani Khattab and established the Marzuq line that ruled throughout the time of Ottoman control of the Fezzan. (1)
As Merinide power weakend in Morocco, between 1465-1520AD, a treaty was signed with the Portugese which allowed them to invade and control the coastal towns of Morocco. Then in 1520AD, the Saadians, 12th century Arabian immigrants, replaced the Merinides and defeated the Portugese in the Oued Al Makhazine Battle, or Battle of the Three Kings, in 1578AD. In 1660AD, the Alaouites, 9th century Arabian immigrants, displaced the Saadians and established a dynasty that rules to the present. (7 & 8)
In 1510AD, Spain captured Tripoli, however king-emporer Charles V entrusted it's control to the Knights of St. Malta in 1524AD. Also in 1510AD, Khair ad Din, later known as Barbarossa, siezed what is now Algiers on the pretext of defending it from Spain. Barbarossa soon came to recognize Ottoman authority and was subsequently declared the sultan's regent in the Maghrib. From Algiers, Barbarossa and his sucessors consolidated control of the Maghrib under Ottoman rule, extending it to Tunisia and Tripolitania, even threatening Morocco. The Knights of St. Malta were expelled from Tripoli in 1551AD by the Turkish admiral Sinan Pasha. In 1552AD, Draughut Pasha, a Turkish pirate captain, was declared govenor of Tripoli by the sultan and subdued the Arab nomads. Finally around 1580AD, the rulers of the Fezzan declared allegiance to the sultan, although the Turks refrained from exercising any real power there.
The Ottoman Maghrib was divided into three regencies: Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Tripoli was ruled as a regency by a pasha appointed by the sultan, with support from a corp of jannissaries, who were Turkish peasants committed to a lifetime of military service, lead by a dey. The pasha soon became a figurehead with real power in the military. In 1611AD, a coup forced the pasha to appoint Suleiman Safar as head of the government, retaining the title dey. Succession of power among the dey leaders was often through coups, violence, and intrigue. The Tripoli social caste was lead by a Turkish governing elite, then the khouloughlis who were sons of Turkish soldiers and Arab women, then by the Moors who were the city dwelling Arabs. Slaves were common at this time, European slaves captured through piracy, and mainly black slaves transported from Sudan.
Up until 1711AD, lacking direct Ottoman control, Tripoli lapsed into a period of severe military anarchy with regular coups (1), while Hussein ibn Ali established the Husseinite dynasty in Tunis in 1705AD (4). In 1711AD, Ahmad Karamanli, a khouloughlis calvary officer, led a coup to sieze power in Tripoli. He purchased the title of pasha with confiscated property, used pirate revenues, extended control over Cyrenaica, and established a hereditary monarchy (1). Meanwhile, Algiers attempted to invade and control Tunis between 1740-1781AD (4). Then in 1793AD, Turkish officer Ali Benghul overthrew the Karamanli's in Tripoli and returned power to the Ottomans. Then in 1795AD, with aid from the bey of Tunis, Yusuf ibn Ali Karamanli established himself as pasha in Tripoli, and aided Napolean Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign in 1799AD.
Tripoli's pirate ships, or corsairs, had a reputaiton sufficient to extract tribute from most European nations to avoid being attacked in Tripoli's waters. In 1799AD, after several American ships were captured and enslaved off the Barbary coast, the United States agreed to pay a tribute of US$18,000 per year to avoid being bothered. Similar agreements were made with Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. However in 1815AD after the Napoleanic wars, Europe put an end to the pirate tributes, depriving Tripoli of most revenue. This caused a deterioration into civil war and caused Yusuf to abdicate to his son Ali II. However, the Ottoman sultan sent troops to the region who sent Ali into exile in 1835AD and reinstated Ottoman rule.
Under reinstated Ottoman rule, Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica were collectively renamed the Tripolitania vilayet (province) with local power distributed among many Turkish govenors and sub-govenors. However, the system soon lost favor among the rural beduins who quickly turned to the Sanusi order of Islam under Muhammad bin Ali as Sanusi in 1830AD who possessed the popular appeal of a wandering beduin marabout (traditional mystics and seers known as holy guides and tribal religious leaders that predated Islam) and the respect of an Islamic scholar. The Sanusi order spread throughout the Cyrenaican and Fezzan beduins. Eventually the founder's grandson's cousin Ahmad ash Sharif inherited the title Grand Sanusi in 1902AD and ruled for his young cousin Muhammad Idris as Sanusi, who later became King Idris. (1)
Tunisia signed a peace treaty with France in 1824AD, and was declared a French protectorate in 1881AD (4). In 1904AD, France and Spain signed a secret treaty to split control of Morocco into a Spanich north and Spanish south, and France attacked Casablanca in 1907AD. (7 & 8) Then in 1911AD, Italy invaded North Africa. (1) A formal protectorate treaty was signed with Morocco, France, and Spain in 1912AD. (8) With Turkey facing a war in the Balkans, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were declared indpendent followed by a quick Italian declaration of control. However, Turkey retained spiritual authority, which under the Islamic social order, allowed the Turks to retain considerable influence. Through lack of real strength anywhere other than Tripolitania, Italy recognized Muhammad Idris as a virtually independent amir in Cyrenaica and the Fezzan. Then in 1922AD, due to severe rivalries between Italian govenors and Tripolitanian nationalists, Idris accepted the amirship of Tripolitania as well. However Idris fled to Egypt when Mussollini came to power in Italy in 1922AD and re-established Italian military authority over all three areas, although Sanusi strength in Cyrenaica put up the largest resistance to the occupation until 1931AD with the hanging of resistance leader Umar al Mukhtar. Italy renamed the colony "Libya" in 1943AD, after investing considerable resources throughout the 1930AD's to modernize the area, but only for the purposes of supporting Italian resettlement and colonialization. (1)
Libya was able to declare it's independence, after Italy's defeat in World War II, in 1951AD under King Idris I as a constitutional and hereditary monarchy that lasted until 1969AD. A military coup lead by Colonel Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi of the Revolutionary Command Council has maintained power in Libya from 1969AD to the present. The discovery of oil in 1959AD has allowed Libya to remain one of Africa's wealthiest nations in terms of per-capita GDP. Libya remains a strongly pro-Arab African nation. (3)
Tunisia was liberated from Italian and German occupation in 1943AD, and declared it's independence from France in 1956AD under president Habib Bourguiba. France withdrew it's last troops from Tunisia in 1963AD. Bourguiba ruled until 1987AD, when he was relieved by Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who was then elected president in 1994AD. (5)
Morocco declared it's independence from France in 1956AD under the Celle-Saint Cloud agreement, and independence from Spain the same year. The Madrid Accord was signed in 1975AD restoring Moroccan control of it's Sahara region. (8)
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