Sanhaja

The Sanhaja (Arabic صنهاجة, DMG Ṣanhāǧa, sometimes Ṣinhāǧa ) were next to the Zanata and Masmuda one of the major tribal groups of the Berbers in the Maghreb.

History

Some strains of Sanhaja migrated from the 3rd century AD in batches probably from the east or northeast of the continent, where they are likely to have introduced the camel. They settled first in the northern Sahara. After the takeover of Islam they spread this also in the Sudan to Senegal and the Niger. Since the 8th or 9th century tribes of Sanhaja began in the Middle Atlas, the Rif Mountains to settle on the Moroccan Atlantic coast and in Mauritania. Part of the Sanhaja settled in eastern Algeria ( Kutamaberber ) and was an important support for the rise of the Fatimids. Until the 12th century controlled by the Zirids and Hammudiden dynasties of Sanhaja the field of Ifriqiya.

The Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) distinguished two groups of Sanhaja: the nomads of the desert and the inhabitants of Kabylia and the Middle Atlas. There is some debate among experts as to whether both ethnic groups have a common origin or whether the different cultures shared only the same name. The only certainty is that a Sanhaja - tribal society must have developed between the introduction of the camel and the first mention of her name in the 9th century. The criterion for the allocation of certain tribal groups to the Sanhaja remains as elsewhere, only the consideration of the kinship structures that are often constructs formed by those concerned about the identity foundation itself.

Beginning of the 9th century was formed in what is now Mauritania Tilantan († 826), a tribal kingdom of Masufa and Lamtuna, which controlled the western route of the Trans-Saharan trade, and fought against the kingdoms in the Sudan. While this empire fell apart at the beginning of the 10th century, but succeeded in the missionary and theologian Ibn Yasin to unite in the mid-11th century the tribes to fight covenant of the Almoravids. These conquered in the aftermath Morocco, western Algeria and Andalusia.

Sanhaja were named after the descriptions of medieval Arabic geographers such as the Tuareg " loop end earnings " ( Mulaṯṯamūn ) because they covered his face with a cloth ( Liṯām ). Since the invasion of the Arab Banu Hilal in the Maghreb in the 11th century, the Sanhaja were increasingly Arabized, took off this custom and took it partially Arab irrigation methods, such as on the northern edge of the Sahara Norias and the black tent made of camel hair ( Haima ).

In Algeria, the Berber Kabyles descendants of the Kutama strains. In Mauritania and Mali, especially in the outskirts of Timbuktu, today Kunta are established, which are also considered to be descendants of the Sanhaja, although they are in their own genealogies liked by Uqba ibn Nafi († 683 ), the conqueror of North Africa inferred.