page_title: Berbers
section_title: Middle Ages
hierarchical_section_title: Berbers / History / Middle Ages
context_page_description: Berbers, or Amazighs, are an ethnicity of several nations mostly indigenous to North Africa and some northern parts of West Africa.
  Berbers mostly live in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, northern Mali, northern Niger, and a small part of western Egypt.
  Berber nations are distributed over an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River in West Africa. Historically, Berber nations spoke the Berber languages, which is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family.
  There are about 25-30 million Berbers in North Africa who still speak the Berber languages, most living in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, northern Mali, and northern Niger. Smaller Berber-speaking populations are also found in Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa town. The majority of North Africa's population west of Egypt is believed to be Berber in ethnic origin, although due to Arabization and Islamization some ethnic Berbers identify as Arabized Berbers. There are large immigrant Berber communities living in France, Spain, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy and other countries of Europe.
context_section_description: Before the eleventh century, most of North-West Africa was a Berber-speaking Muslim area. The process of Arabization only became a major factor with the arrival of the Banu Hilal, a tribe sent by the Fatimids of Egypt to punish the Berber Zirid dynasty for having abandoned Shiism. The Banu Hilal reduced the Zirids to a few coastal towns and took over much of the plains; their influx was a major factor in the Arabization of the region and in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant.
  After the Muslim conquest, the Berber tribes of coastal North Africa became almost fully Islamized. Besides the Arabian influence, North African population also saw an influx via the Barbary Slave Trade of European peoples, with some estimates placing the number of European slaves brought to North Africa during the Ottoman period as high as 1.25 million. Interactions with neighboring Sudanic empires, traders, and nomads from other parts of Africa also left impressions upon the Berber people.
  According to historians of the Middle Ages, the Berbers were divided into two branches, Butr and Baranis (known also as Botr and Barnès), descended from Mazigh ancestors, who were themselves divided into tribes and subtribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (e.g. Sanhaja, Houaras, Zenata, Masmuda, Kutama, Awraba, Barghawata, etc.). All these tribes had independence and territorial hegemony. According to Al-Fiḥrist (Book I, pp. 35–36), the Barber (i.e. Berbers) comprised one of seven principal races in Africa. Medieval Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) brings down two opinions as to the Berbers' origin, writing that some say that the Berbers were descended from Canaan, son of Ham. Citing Abu Bakr bin Yahya al-Suli, Ibn Khaldun wrote that they are descended from Casluhim, the son of Mizraïm.
  Several Berber dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and al-Andalus. The most notable are the Zirids (Ifriqiya, 973–1148), the Hammadids (Western Ifriqiya, 1014–1152), the Almoravid dynasty (Morocco and al-Andalus, 1040–1147), the Almohads (Morocco and al-Andalus, 1147–1248), the Hafsids (Ifriqiya, 1229–1574), the Zianids (Tlemcen, 1235–1556), the Marinids (Morocco, 1248–1465) and the Wattasids (Morocco, 1471–1554).
  They belong to a powerful, formidable, brave and numerous people; a true people like so many others the world has seen – like the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. The men who belong to this family of peoples have inhabited the Maghreb since the beginning.
  — Ibn Khaldun, 14th century Tunisian historian
caption: Fernández de Lugo presenting the captured Guanche kings of Tenerife to Ferdinand and Isabella, 1497
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