rouighi 2011__the berbers of the arabs

7/27/2019 Rouighi 2011__The Berbers of the Arabs

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Studia Islamica, nouvelle dition/new series, 1, 2011, pp. 67-101

The Berbers o the Arabs

Moors and Berbers

The Arab conquest o northwest Arica is a major event in theeld o North Arican Studies. For scholars, its most lasting eectswere the Islamization and Arabization o the Berber populations.While historians oten disagree about the chronology, character,and extent o these processes, they all agree that they are essentialto understanding the medieval period.

In truth, the scholarly consensus is slightly more complicatedthan this more popular view. Specialists know that the categoryBarbar is o Arabic origin and thus that the Arabs could not

have conquered peoples called Barbar prior to the conquest.1

Fur-thermore, while Latin and Greek sources reer to some people innorthwest Arica as barbarians ( and barbari), the ideasassociated with these barbarians wil be shown to be so dierentrom the Arabic Barbar that it is dicult to conuse the two.Thus, in spite o the obvious linguistic similarity o the Greek,Latin, and Arabic terms, the Arabs did not apply the term Barbar

to describe the exact same groups o peoples called barbarians

1. Berber is the most common Romanization o the Arabic word. The morescholarly transliteration is Barbar. The term Barbar in this essay highlights themodernity o Berber, the category most scholars have used to produce pre-Islamic Berbers.


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in classical and late antique sources. So, who were the Barbar othe Arabs?

Encapsulating a widely held view among specialists, GabrielCamps explained, The Berbers o the Arabs are the Moors o theRomans.2 According to this understanding, instead o conquer-ing the Berbers, the Arabs conquered the Moors (Mauri,sing.Maurus) and just called them by a new name. The historianstask was simple: analyze the meaning o Moor in those Greekand Latin sources written just beore the Arab conquest and

compare them to the meanings o Barbar in the earliest Arabicsources. Unortunately, Latin and Greek sources on North Aricabegin to diminish in the sixth century, while Arabic sources on theBarbar only appear in the ninth century. In some respects, theequation Moor = Barbar attempts to resolve the problem posedby the record.3

Whether the sources call them Moors or Barbar, some scholarsbelieve the people were the same.4 Proceeding rom such a presup-position, historians have grown accustomed to using the categoryBerber to reer to northwest Aricans in general, in any period.For these scholars, the Berbers were the same indigenous peopleo northwest Arica conquered by the Arabs, Byzantines, Vandals,Romans, and Phoenicians.5

2. Gabriel Camps noted that En ait les Berbres des Arabes sont les Maures desRomains, in Paul-Albert Fvrier, La Mditerrane de Paul-Albert Fvrier, 2 vols.,(Rome: cole Franaise de Rome, 1996), 2: 305. The idea has permeated schol-arship. For a recent illustration, see Eduardo Manzano Moreno, Conquistadores,Emires Y Califas: Los Omeyas y la formacin de al-Andalus, (Barcelona, 2006), 29.3. For a thorough discussion o late antique sources, see Yves Modran, Les Maureset lAfrique Romaine (IVe-VIIe sicle), (Rome, cole Franaise de Rome, 2003).4. Historians sometimes extend the equation and use the term Berber to reer to

various ancient peoples in the region. For a recent example, see Elizabeth Fentress,Romanizing the Berbers, Past and Present, 190 (Feb. 2006), 3-33.5. See or example, A.H. Merills (ed.), Vandals, Romans, and Berbers: New Perspectiveson Late Antique North Africa, (Aldershot, 2004); David L. Stone and Lea M. Stirling,Funerary Monuments and Mortuary Pratices in the Landscapes o North Arica,in idem (eds.), Mortuary Landscapes of North Africa, (Toronto, 2006), 3-31.


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The Berbers of the Arabs

In his recent study o the Moors, historian Yves Modranthoroughly examined the use o the term in late antique sourc-

es.6

His goal was to determine the role o the populations namedMoors then Berbers in the evolution o Roman Arica in the threecenturies preceding the Arab conquest.7 Noting the dicultiesinherent in the use o Berber to analyze the pre-Islamic peri-od, Modran commented on the scholarly practice o translatingMoor as Berber:

[It] imposed itsel immediately to the rst historians o lateantique Arica without any justication, and has remained un-changed until the present. In act, as we shall see, i in the sixthcentury the Moor was still an indigenous (or autochthonous)

Arican (autochtone) whom the Romans considered to be non-Romanized, he could possess a cultural complexity that is arrom the pure Berber dear to nineteenth-century scholars.8 In

order to respect the sources, and avoid any anachronism andall ideological ambiguities [inherent] in the word Berber, wewill mostly speak here o Moors. But as we will see, obviousstylistic reasons make it so that we could not avoid Berber insome sentences.9

In spite o Modrans anachronistic and ideologically ambigu-ous use o Berber in some instances, it is important to note that

6. Since Arabic sources had little use or the category Moor, Modrans studyeectively ends in the seventh century. His analysis o Arabic texts is problematicbecause o its liberal use o much later medieval sources such as Ibn Khaldn (d.1406). Additionally, Modran utilizes dated French translations, which introducedecidedly modern concepts such as race.

7. Yves Modran, Les Maures, 811. Modrans study is both a recent and serious ar-ticulation o this position. In addition to critical historiographic essays, it includesa rich bibliography, which lists all the major works on this issue.8. The idea o a culturally complex Moor does nothing to eliminate the idea othe pure Berber.9. Modran, Les Maures, 11.


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his ability to do so rests on the idea that both Moors and Berberswere indigenous.10

In this essay, I will reassess the validity o the equation o Berberswith Moors, which underlies scholarly research, by ocusing on therepresentation o the Barbar in early medieval Arabic sources. Inparticular, I will concentrate on the extent to which these sourcesconceived o the Barbar as the indigenous inhabitants o the region.In this way, I hope to outline research possibilities about the Arabconquests, conversion to Islam, and Arabization.11

Pre-Islamic Barbar?

Did pre-Islamic Arabic authors employ the category Barbar? Ithey did, did it correspond to the Roman Moors?

The rst century author o the GreekPeriplus of the ErythraeanSea described a region named Barbaria south o the Egyptian

10. For the Berbers as indigenous North Aricans, see or example, Jamil M. Abun-Nasr,A History of the Maghrib, (Cambridge, 1975), 1;Michael Brett and ElizabethFentress, The Berbers, (Oxord & Cambridge MA: Blackwell, 1996), 10; MaribelFierro, Abd al-Rahman III: The First Cordoban Caliph, (Oxord, 2005), 11; Helenade Felipe, Identidad y onomstica de los berebres de al-Andalus, (Madrid, 1997),

18; Heinz Halm, Das Reich des Mahdi: der Aufstieg der Fatimiden (875-973), (Mu-nich, 1991), 95-6; Eduardo Manzano Moreno, Conquistadores, Emires Y Califas:Los Omeyas y la formacin de al-Andalus, (Barcelona, 2006), 29.11. The scholarship on these subjects is dense and I can only suggest a ew notableinterventions. See Richard Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: anEssay in Quantitative History, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1979);Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: the Evolution of the Islamic Polity, (New York:Cambridge University Press, 1980); Fred Donner, Early Islamic Conquests, (Princ-eton: Princeton University Press, 1981); Thomas F. Glick, Irrigation and Society inMedieval Valencia, (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press o Harvard University Press,1970); Walter Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests, (New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 1992); Michael Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest,(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); Chase Robinson, Empire and Elitesafter the Muslim Conquest: the Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia, (New York:Cambridge University Press, 2000).


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town o Berenike on the Red Sea coast.12 A century later, the a-mous geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus (ca. 90 ca. 168) located

the Barbarian Sea across rom the Bay o Arabia, the Red Sea, andthe Barbarian Bay. The latter led to the city o Rhapta, which hedescribed as the metropolis o Barbaria.13 In the Periplus of theOuter Sea, Marcianus o Heraclea Pontica (f. 400) used the nameto describe an ethnos and a sea.14 In the sixth century, CosmasIndicopleustes, amed or his sea travels to India, located Barbariaright across the Arabian Gul, as did his contemporary, Stepha-

nus o Byzantium.15 Clearly, or six centuries Greeks and Romansconsistently and regularly described a Barbaria on the east coasto Arica.

The pre-Islamic Arabs also knew about this Barbaria and Bar-bar on the other side o the Red Sea acing Arabia. Excerpts romearly authors, known through later recensions, contain reerencesto them. The amous poet Imruu al-Qays (6th c.) mentions theBarbar and their horses in one o his poems.16 Another pre-Islamicpoem attributed to Uday b. Zayd (d. 587) mentions in the same

12. Periplus Maris Erythri, in Geographi Graeci Minores, ed. Karl Mller, (Paris:Firmin Didot 1855), 1: 258.13. Claudii Ptolemaei, Geographia, ed. C.F.A. Nobbe, (Hildesheim: G. Olms,1966), I, 17, 6; IV, 7, 28. This Barbaria was thus located on the Red Sea coast o

modern Somalia.14. Marciani Heracleensis ex Ponto, Periplus Maris Exteri, in Geographi Graeci Mi-nores, ed. Karl Mller, 1:523.15. Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topographie Chrtienne, ed. Wanda Wolska-Conus,(Paris: ditions du Cer, 1968), II:26; II:29; II:30; II:45; II:48; II:49; II:50; II:61;II:64. Stephani Byzantii, Ethnicorum Quae Supersunt, ed. A. Meineke, (Berlin,1849), 158. See Barbaria in Georg Wissowa, Paulys Real-Encyclopdie der clas-sischen Altertumswissenschaft, (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1896). In addition to the east

Arican Barbar, one notes the existence o a Barbar in the Persian Gul. See the sug-

gestive article by G.W. Bowersock, Tylos and Tyre: Bahrain in the Graeco-RomanWorld, in Bahrain through the Ages: the Archaeology, Shaikha Haya Ali Khalia andMichael Rice eds., (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 399-406.16. Medieval authors made repeated reerences to this act. For example, see IbnKhaldn (d. 1406), The Muqaddimah, an Introduction to History, Franz Rosenthaltrans., 3 vols., (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967), 1:99.


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line the people o Barbar (l barbar) and al-Yaksm (Axum).17 Thisuse o Barbar corresponds to the one ound in Graeco-Roman geo-

graphic texts. It does not reer to a particular people like the Arabsor the Abyssinians but rather to the inhabitants o a region or cityon the east coast o Arica called Barbar.18

Furthermore, the historian Ibn Abd al-akam (d.871) men-tioned a Barbar market (sq Barbar) in the Egyptian city oFus.19The absence o the denite article indicates that it was the market othe people o Barbar (l barbar) not theBarbar (al-barbar). Again,

the Barbar in question is the east Arican region to the south o thecity oFus. Thus, one may saely conclude that the name pre-dated the Arab conquest o northwest Arica.

Unlike the barbarians o ancient and late antique sources, whichreer to uncivilized peoples ound just about anywhere in theknown world, the Barbar o the pre-Islamic Arabs appear in a spe-cic geographical area. Thus, it is sae to conclude that in pre-Is-lamic times, the Arabs reerred to some people as Barbar and thatthey imagined them as the inhabitants o eastern, not northwestern,Arica. Since these Barbar were not also Moors, it is necessary tond out whether the Arabs gave up this older conception and tookon a new one once they invaded northwest Arica.

17. Ibn Hisham, Das Leben Muhammeds nach MuhammedIbn Ishk, (Kitb sratrasl Allah), ed. Ferdinand Wsteneld, (Frankurt am Main: Minderva, 1961),45. Note that in his translation o the work A. Guillaume incorrectly translatesl Barbar as barbarians. See A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 2nd ed.,(Lahore, 1967), 33.

18. See al-Bukhr, Tarkh al-rusul wa al-mulk, Muammad Ab al-FalIbrhm ed., 11 vols., (Cairo: Dr al-Marif, 1960), 8: 450. In an enumeration opeoples, the Barbar are situated between the Nba and al-Sdn.19. Ibn Abd al-akam, The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa, andSpain, Charles Torrey ed., (New Haven: Yale Oriental Series, 1922), 111, 115,119.


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Conquest and politics

The earliest Arabic sources describing the Muslim conquesto northwest Arica and al-Andalus were composed in the ninthcentury, more than a century ater the rst raids. In these texts,Barbar reers to northwest Aricans. As they tend to take thecategory or granted, these texts need to be critically reassessed inlight o the political events they recount.A synoptic narrative o

the Arab conquest o northwest Arica and the politics that ensuedwill set the stage or a discussion o early Arabic sources and theirportrayal o the Barbar, and how the term, originally applied toeast Aricans, came to be applied to northwest Aricans.

The Arab conquest occurred in stages.20 In the 640s, Arab gen-erals based in Egypt led armies westward in search o booty andhonors, and initiated a gradual conquest that lasted decades. Overtime, the incursions, raiding, and settlements led to a slow and pro-gressive reorientation o politics in northwest Arica, closely relatedto the new important centers o power in the Mashriq. Politicalstruggles taking place in the east had a great impact on the ormula-tion o a course o action, the leadership o the military campaigns,as well as shaping the terms o the opposition. The garrison town

oal-Qayrawn, established in 670, became the capital o Arab pres-ence in the west.The articulation, and thus terminology, o political struggle

between Muslims in the Maghrib owed a great deal to develop-ments in the Mashriq. In this regard, it may seem as i eastern

20. My description o the events owes a great deal to the work o Jamil Abun-Nasr,A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period, (Cambridge & New York:Cambridge University Press, 1987) andA History of the Maghrib, (Cambridge &New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fen-tress, The Berbers, (Oxord & Cambridge MA: Blackwell, 1996); Hugh Kennedy,Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus, (New York: Longman,1996); and Abdallah Laroui, LHistoire du Maghreb: un essai de synthse, (Paris:Maspero, 1970).


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politics were transplanted in the west, or that the west reproducedthe politics o the east. Yet, and this is crucial, the parties that won

battles in the east did not necessarily or automatically win in thewest as well.By the early eighth century, the Arabs had ended eastern Roman

rule in Ifrqiy and more or less controlled that region. The masterso al-Qayrawn tried to expand their control beyond Ifrqiy. Asthey raided, imposed tributes and taxes, and accumulated captives,the Arabs came up against a number o political ormations, which

had emerged rom the reordering o power subsequent to the deeato the Byzantines. The ability o these groups to raise armies madethem ormidable opponents and useul allies. Ater a protracted se-ries o battles, intrigues, alliances, victories, and reversals o ortune,some northwest Aricans, mostly rom areas near Ifrqiy, joinedwith the Arabs oal-Qayrawn. Although their social background isnot known, many o them became clients or mawl(sing. mawl) oArab leaders, a status that gave them new political and legal stand-ing. These clients ought alongside the Arabs and came to espousesimilar eastern ideologies.

In the rst decade o the eighth century, an Arab orce reachedthe shores o the Atlantic. Arab orays into the pre-Saharan andSaharan regions were limited and, in any case, not as spectacular as

their capture o the Mediterranean city o Tangier.In Damascus, the Umayyads (661-750) chose this juncture tomake the Maghrib into a single province (wilya). For the rst time,the entirety o northwest Arica became an administrative unit. Thisact o government made the Maghrib more than just a generalterm or the geographic west.

In 711, the new governor o Tangier, the mawlriq b. Ziyd,

crossed the Mediterranean into Iberia with an army predomi-nantly composed o northwest Aricans. A ew months later theArab Ms b. Nuayr ollowed him and took over the command othe Muslims there. In subsequent years, they accumulated urther


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victories and pushed their raids ar into the northern regions. Al-Andalus was born.

In the west, the Arab elite put in place a system o precedencethat guaranteed them preerential treatment. The Arab elite oughthard to establish and maintain the mechanisms that distinguishedbetween Muslims, and which alienated their relatively recent north-west Arican allies.21

By the 730s, many groups challenged Umayyad rule in the eastand the west. The grievances o opponents included the nepotism,

rapaciousness, and arbitrary brutality o Umayyad ocials. In thisregard, the discontent o those who had reasons to expect some-thing rom the government in al-Qayrawn did not dier greatlyrom that o non-Arab, and Arab, Muslims in other regions. In 739and 740, rebellions rom al-Qayrawn to Tangier seriously threat-ened Umayyad rule in the region. Unsurprisingly, anti-UmayyadArabs, some o whom had fed Umayyad police in the east, ormedalliances with various groups o northwest Aricans.

In the early 740s, anti-Umayyad movements seriously conront-ed the Arabs o al-Andalus. However, unlike the Maghrib, al-Anda-lus was a more recently conquered territory. Because the leaders othe conquest were Umayyad generals, Arab elites o al-Andalus werepredominantly pro-Umayyad. This did not prevent the articulation

o anti-Umayyad sentiment in ways that echoed eastern politics. Itdid mean, however, that the most serious threat to their predomi-nance came rom an alliance o anti-Umayyad Arabs and northwestAricans. For the most part, and given the overwhelming numericalsuperiority o the Aricans among the discontented, the latter ledthe uprisings in al-Andalus.

In al-Andalus, a similar rebellion in 741-2 showed that disunity

among Arabs could seriously challenge the status quo. Inter-Arab

21. The sources distinction between northern and southern Arabs (Adnn v.Qatn) is complicated by the pre-Islamic migration and settlement o Yemenisin Syria (al-Shm), and the later migration o southerners ollowing the Muslimconquest.


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strie was resolved by the landing o an army o Syrians (Shmiyyn).An Umayyad-infected Arabism overwhelmed the rivalries and jeal-

ousies between northern and southern Arabs, newcomers and old-er amilies. In this respect, al-Andalus was dierent rom the resto the Maghrib where Islam, rather than Arab predominance, wasthe more dominant ideology.

When the Abbsids and their supporters in the east put an endto Umayyad rule in 750, al-Qayrawn hailed the new rulers. Al-An-dalus took another route. The pro-Umayyad camp welcomed the

arrival o the sole surviving member o the Umayyad dynasty and in756, ater routing a vigorous opposition, declared an independentUmayyad emirate in al-Andalus.

The frst western Barbar?

TheArab-Byzantine Chronicle of 741 22is the earliest extant his-torical source written ater the Muslim conquest o the Maghriband al-Andalus. Its author was Iberian, and its language was Latin.Unortunately or historians o the Maghrib, the anonymous au-thor was more interested in Byzantine imperial politics and barelymentioned events in al-Andalus. One o his contemporaries liv-

ing in al-Andalus possibly used the same sources to pen a richerchronicle.23 This author oThe Chronicle of 754, also anonymous,is more inormative and describes political events in Iberia rom611 to 754.24

22. Juan Gil, Corpus scriptores muzarabicorum, 2 vols., (Madrid: Instituto Antoniode Nebrija, 1973).23. See Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It, (Princeton NJ: Darwin

Press, 1997), 611-630. In addition to translating the chronicle, Hoyland highlightsparts that correspond to earlier texts he identies.24. Crnica Mozrabe de 754, ed. Jos Eduardo Lpez Pereira, (Zaragoza: AnubarEdiciones, 1980). An English translation is available in Kenneth B. Wol, Conquer-ors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press,1990), 111-58.


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Although neither o these authors reers to the Barbar, the authoro theArab-Byzantine Chroniclereers to the Moors (Mauri) once to

describe the battle that ended Byzantine rule in Arica (698).

Thereore the conrontation was prepared, whereupon, thebattle line o the Moors turned in fight and all the nobility o

Arica, along with count Gregory, was destroyed to the point oextinction.25

The description o the Moors is rather vague and does little toidentiy them. The author described the soldiers as Moors, anddistinguished them rom the nobility o Arica.26

In contrast to the imprecisely dened Moors, the authors reerto the inhabitants o the old Roman province o Arica as Aricans(Africani).27 Arabic authors also noted their distinctiveness and re-erred to them as Afriq. As they integrated into the Muslim pol-ity, they came to constitute a distinctive social group in the newIfrqiy. However, the continuity in the usage o this category romGreek and Latin to Arabic does not necessarily mean that theAfriqwere the same amilies that had been considered Aricans (Africani)under Roman rule. As the Chronicle indicates, the old Aricanswere destroyed to the point o extinction. Consequently, the Af-

ricani o the mid-eighth century translated the Arabic Afriq,which reerred to a sociopolitical group specic to Arab dominationin Ifrqiy.

While it is not clear i the author o theArab-Byzantine Chroniclecollected any inormation in Iberia, his contemporary, the author oThe Chronicle of 754, did. In act, he seems to have used even Arabic

25. 24: Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 618; Juan Gil, Corpus, 1: 10.26. It ts the general use o the term in the late antique period. See Yves Modran,Les Maures, 11, 448-50.27. In the late antique period, Arica was applied to the province o Arica Pro-consularis, or to the area encompassing Proconsularis, Byzacena, and Tripolitaniaprior to Diocletians reorms in the third century. See Modran, Les Maures, 169.


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sources.28 This makes his chronicle the more important as it relieson Arabic sources now lost.

A passage about the rebellion against Arab rule in both theMaghrib and al-Andalus in 741-2 suggests that the author mayhave gleaned more than dates and names rom Arabic sources. Forinstance, he reers to the western region, which is the translationo the Arabic Maghrib. In addition, he describes the Moors asnaked, girded only with loin-cloths covering their shameul parts.When they battled the Arabs, the Egyptian horses immediately re-

coiled in fight, as the Moors on their beautiul horses revealed theirrepulsive color and gnashed their white teeth.29

This story oers a very dramatic prelude to the landing o theSyrians in al-Andalus and explains their zeal and expertise in crush-ing the rebellion there. The description o the events in al-Andaluspossesses concreteness and specicity missing rom the narrationo Arican aairs. This suggests that the Arabic sources in questionwere either Andalusi or had an Andalusi connection. For instance,as he mentions Baljs good lineage, the author not only demon-strates intimate knowledge o politics in al-Andalus at the time othe Umayyad victory, but also positions himsel in relation to it.

Distinguishing himsel rom the author o the Arab-ByzantineChronicle, this author provides much more inormation about poli-

tics in Iberia. More importantly or the purposes o this essay, heintroduces two new categories: the Moors o Spain and the Sa-racens o Spain.

The Moors and Saracens o Spain reer to groups who had privi-leges as Muslims that set them apart rom Christians:

28. Wol, Conquerors, 29-30.29. 84: Wol, Conquerors, 147-8; Lpez Pereira, 107-8. Lpez Pereiras translationintroduces the concept o the race o the Arabs (la raza de los rabes) which doesnot appear in the Latin text. For Ibn Abd al-akam (d. 871), the episode is told interms o the struggles between Arab generals which resulted in the poor decision tosend Arab horsemen against naked Barbar oot-soldiers. The Egyptian horses arethe horses oKulthm the general who arrived rom Egypt. The naked Barbar aredescribed as ufr khrijites. See Ibn Abd al-akam, 219-20.


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A Saracen by the name o Yaya succeeded at once by orders

o the princes. He was a cruel and terrible despot who ragedor almost three years. With bitter deceit, he stirred up the Sa-racens and Moors o Spain by conscating property that theywere holding or the sake o peace and restoring many things tothe Christians.30

However, the Moors o Spain became threatening when their

ties to their people in Arica led them to revolt against the Sara-cens o Spain.

Although he was preeminent in courage and ame, a Moornamed Munnuza, hearing that his people were being oppressedby the harsh temerity o the judges in the territory o Libya,quickly made peace with the Franks and organized a revolt

against the Saracens o Spain.31

The anonymous author cast the revolts o the 730s and early740s in terms that mark them as a traumatic experience. Inter-Arab strie had prevented Umayyad troops rom coming to therescue and encouraged the Moors o Spain to rebel endangering

the status quo.

When [in 742, Abd al-Malik] discovered that the third part othe army under Balj had arrived at the port, he denied thema crossing, withholding the ships. When the Moors o Spainrealized this, they assembled or war, wanting to subject Abdal-Malik to themselves and, crossing over the sea in ships, o-

er his conquered kingdom to their allies on the other side othe sea.32

30. 75: Wol, Conquerors, 140; Lpez Pereira, 90.31. 79: Wol, Conquerors, 142; Lpez Pereira, 96.32. 85: Wol, Conquerors, 148; Lpez Pereira, 109-10.


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Clearly, the rebellions o the Moors against the Arabs in al-Andalus produced conditions requiring a distinction between the

Moors o Iberia and those o northwest Arica. In this regard, onemay see the generic use o the term Moor as stemming rom theanxiety o the dominant Arab minority about a possible alliancebetween Arican and Iberian Moors. While Arabs may have had thesense that their rule throughout the region was unstable, northwestAricans do not seem to have ormulated a collective political pro-gram against them.

The Moors o Spain did not deeat Abd al-Malik and didnot oer his kingdom to their allies. Yet, this is what the authorclaimed was their plan. The generic Moors was denitely not anethnographic concept. Instead, it was a political category, muchlike the enemy o military schools whose plans are, by denition,always nearious.33

As ar as this source was concerned, the Moors o Spain per-tained to a specic political orce in al-Andalus. In act, every timethey appear in the text, the context is military or political. Obvi-ously, since the chronicle is primarily a record o important politicalevents, this is hardly a surprise. The association could not have beenmerely ortuitous, however, as the Moors o Spain reerred to aparticular action or party and did not reer to members o a guild,

a monastic order, or a heretical sect.Similarly, the Saracens o Spain reers to a new group o Sa-racens. The author recognized their ties with eastern Saracens, butviewed them as a distinct group.34 As was explained above, the strug-gles that eventually led to the victory o the Umayyads in al-Andaluswere cast in terms o the lineages claimed by each o the contend-ers. In act, the authors categories and distinctions are consonant

33. The description o the generic Moor recalls late antique conceptions discussedby Modran. Yet, as the appearance o the Moors o Spain demonstrates, theolder conceptions were adapted to the new political situation.34. See or example 78: Wol, Conquerors, 141; Lpez Pereira, 92 and 82: Wol,Conquerors, 145; Lpez Pereira, 104.


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with the struggles that led to the oundation o an independentUmayyad emirate in al-Andalus in 756. This political polarization

in al-Andalus marked the author oThe Chronicle of 754, ramedhis vision o politics, and inormed his recollection o the conquestand its atermath.

The sociopolitical specicity o the Moors o Spain, theirrebellion and deeat at the hand o the Umayyads and their sup-porters, and their subsequent integration into the Umayyad orderas both subaltern and distinct, illuminates the production o the

generic Moors o northwest Arica. As was seen, the politics in al-Andalus in the 730s and 740s accounts or the emergence o twotypes o Moors: a concrete political orce in al-Andalus, and itsobscure natural allies in the Maghrib. One was a social group, theother a political construct.

The Moors o Spain did not appear in Latin and Greek sourc-es prior to the process o sociopolitical dierentiation linked to theormation o the Umayyad emirate in 756. While Arabic sourcesused by the anonymous author are neither known nor extant, it isunlikely that they contained the expression barbar al-Andalus.I they did, the expression disappeared without trace. It is morereasonable to believe that Arabic authors in al-Andalus started em-ploying the term Barbar to describe both the social group and

the political construct.Once established, Andalusi conceptions o Barbar, ground-ed in the social and political realities o the peninsula, circulatedbroadly in the Maghrib and the Mashriq, and inevitably shapedwritings about the Barbar.


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Dynasties in the Maghrib

The victory o the Umayyads in al-Andalus was not the rsttime a dynasty had claimed independence rom al-Qayrawn. Inthe western Maghrib, the Barghawa (744/5-1058) were able toachieve their independence rom the governor o the Maghrib be-ore the all o Damascus.35 Another new polity emerged in 788near the ancient town o Volubilis in the western Maghrib. The

Idrsids (788-959) rallied supporters and claimed legitimacy as de-scendants o the prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fimaand her husband Al b. Ab lib (d. 661). The basis o their powerbecame obvious when other Alid Arabs immigrated to the Idrsidcapital rom al-Andalus and Ifrqiy and attempted to seize the reinso power. The locals rebelled immediately and made their militarysuperiority elt.36 The Maghrib was no Andalus.

Other northwest Aricans seized power in the Maghrib underthe banner o Khrijism, a political idea that had been especiallyimportant in organizing anti-Umayyad orces. The Khrijites, ufrand Ib, insisted that legitimate rule did not belong to any partic-ular group and that any pious Muslim could assume the leadershipo the community. In the southern city oSijilmsa, the Midrrids

ruled or two centuries as ufr Khrijites. Further north and east,the Ibs (778-908), ruled rom the city o Thart over most o thecentral Maghrib.

The early tenth-century chronicle o the Rustamid dynasty writ-ten byIbn al-aghr only uses the term Barbar once.37 Basing his

35. See John Iskandar, Devout Heretics: the Barghawaa in Maghribi Historiogra-phy, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 12, 1 (2007), 37-53.

36. See Isml al-Arab, Dawlat al-adrisa: mulk tilimsn wa fs wa qurtuba,(Beirut: Dr al-Gharb al-Islm, 1983).37. Ibn al-aghr,Akhbr al-Aimma al-Rustamiyn, Muhammad Nir and IbrhmBaz, eds., (Beirut, Dr al-Gharb al-Islm, 1986), 52; and Chronique dIbnSaghir sur les Imams Rostemides de Tahert, Cahiers de Tunisie, 23 (1975), ed.Mohamed Talbi, 331.


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inormation mostly on the oral reports o Ib scholars, Ibn al-aghir recounts a complex political history rom 778 to 900 AH.

The major groups he identies are the Arabs, the Ajam (i.e. Per-sians), and a number o Maghrib groups such as the Nafsa andHawwra.

Although the author had many occasions to employ the termBarbar in a generic sense, his single reerence may be only therefection oIbn al-aghrs usage, rather than that o his inorm-ants. Even so, it remains impressive to see that more than a century

ater the so-called Barbar revolts, a Maghrib author relying onhis inormants categories has very little use or the term Barbar.The degree o specicity achieved by giving tribal names makes thegeneric superfuous. In addition, the absence o a Barbar partyin Rustamid politics and the predominance o struggles betweenidentiable tribes (Hawwra, Zanta, Luwa) help to explain Ibnaghrs choices.38

The Aghlabids were the rst independent dynasty to emerge inIfrqiy, the region where Arab infuence was greatest in the Magh-rib. In 800, Ibn al-Aghlab seized power in al-Qayrawn and soonater the Abbsids in Baghdad recognized him as a legitimate vassal.The Aghlabids (808-909) were in a state o constant warare withtheir Khrijite neighbors. They also conquered and supported set-

tlements in Sicily. Aghlabid politics in the island greatly resembledthose o Umayyad al-Andalus. Importantly, as a privileged source oinormation or the Abbsid court, the elite oal-Qayrawn played akey role in shaping eastern ideas about the Maghrib and its peoples.

Ibn aghrs IbdcontemporaryIbn Sallm (d. ater 887) com-posed the earliest extant text in Arabic written by a non-Arab north-west Arican.39 As an Ib scholar writing in Ifrqiy, Ibn Sallm

38. Assuming a very dierent audience, al-Bukhr distinguishes between theIbs and the Barbar. See al-Bukhr, Tarkh al-rusul wa al-mulk, 8: 42.39. Ibn Sallm al-Ib, Kitb Ibn Sallm, Eine Ibaditisch-Magribinische Geschichtedes Islams aus dem 3./9/ Jahrhundert, Werner Schwartz and al-Shaykh Slim IbnYaqb eds., (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986).


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oered an Ibperspective on Islamic tenets, legitimate rule, andMuslim learning. Naturally, as a member o a group which opposed

the Umayyad and Abbsid dynasties, he restated arguments show-ing the closeness o his ideas to the original prophetic message. As atext, his Kitb compiled written and oral sources.

Incidentally, all the reerences to the Barbar are based on oralreports collected byIbn Sallm. Most are concentrated in only oneout o the twenty-one sections or chapters that constitute the book.When he copied rom earlier written material, Ibn Sallm did not

reer to the Barbar. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that Bar-bar was not yet a category hallowed by tradition and usage. Moststrikingly, Ibn Sallm reports a number o narratives (akhbr) whichpraise the Barbar (fail al-barbar).40 Prominent among these is areport about the prophet Muhammad in which the angel Jibrl tellshim that Islam will grow in the Maghrib and that the Barbar willbe its supporters.41 Another report contrasts the Arabs who ght ormoney (al-dnr wa al-dirham) and the Barbar who ght to establishthe true aith.42 Overall, his narrative depicts the Barbar as devoutMuslims. They were one o the many non-Arab peoples who ac-cepted Islam. Their participation in Islam, constitutes them as anethnographic object clearly distinguishable rom the generic con-ceptions tied to the military conquest.43

In this light, Ibn Sallms most explicit statement about the po-litical language o the Ibs comes in the orm o a report abouttheir early leader Ab al-Khab. When the Ibs prepared to ghtthe Arab general Ibn al-Ashath, a man called on the people oHawwra (l Hawwra) to rally. Ab al-Khab immediately or-

40. Ibn Sallm, Kitb, 121-25.41. Ibn Sallm, Kitb, 122.

42. Ibn Sallm, Kitb, 124.43. Although clearly beyond the scope o this essay, one can see that the re-deni-tion o Arabness, spurred by the migration o southerners into the Shm in the pre-Islamic period, continued in novel ways under the Umayyads and the Abbsids.The discourse on universal integration within Islam assumed an ethnology,which was perorce shaped by events in both the Mashriq and Maghrib.


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dered the man fogged or using a tribal rallying call purportedlyassociated with the pre-Islamic period (jhiliya). He urged his sup-

porters to call on all good Muslims instead.44

Clearly, Ibpoli-tics sought to minimize tensions between those northwest Aricanswho supported them by insisting on their new identity as Muslims.Yet, despite their eorts, the Ibs were not able to eliminate tribalcategories and politics.

However laudatory his comments may be, Ibn Sallms Barbardo not explain political or social processes. Instead, his Barbar

are a signal or tag repeatedly appended to the names o groups orpeoples such as Hawwra, Zanta, Nafsa and Luwa, as i to inormthose who are ignorant o such distinctions.45

Furthermore, on more than one occasion, Ibn Sallm translatesArabic into barbariya, the language o the Barbar, which he obvi-ously speaks. It is not surprising to see someone who was educatedin the culture and language o the Arabs and whose grandather wasan early supporter o the IbArabs use the language o the Arabsto describe his language in Arab terms. This shows that elite north-west Aricans had absorbed the categories o the Arab elite.46

Medieval Arabic authors did not distinguish between the socio-political Andalusi Barbar and the generic and tended instead toconfate and juxtapose them. Once they integrated the body o

learned knowledge, however, the narratives had a more tenuous andless obvious connection to their own historicity.

44. Ibn Sallm, Kitb, 84.45. The Arabs lack knowledge about the Barbar. The prophet Muhammad andhis caliph Umar b. al-Khab are described as inquiring about them. Ibn Sallm,Kitb, 122-3.46. Ibn Sallm, Kitb, 118.


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The Barbar in the east

In comparison with the scarcity o extant sources rom theMaghrib, ninth-century Arabic sources rom the Mashriq are plen-ty. Writing in multiple genres and disciplines, some o which werelong established, and others yet in ormation, authors combinednarrative modes, strategies, and procedures to compose multiac-eted works.

The older idea that Barbar reers to people who live across theRed Sea rom Arabia persisted alongside the newly emerging knowl-edge about MaghribBarbar. As I showed above, poems collected byIbn Hishm (d. 834) mention the Red Sea Barbar. In act, they ap-pear in an even earlier source written byal-Wqid(747-823). ThisAbbsid judge o Baghdad is known or his book about the earlyMuslim conquests entitled Fut al-Shm (Conquest of Syria).

Describing the Arab raids in the Egyptian region o al-ad(Upper Egypt), al-Wqidenumerated the orces acing the Muslimsduring the caliphate o Umar b. al-Khab (d. 644).

In the ad there were Nba, Barbar, Daylam, aqliba, Rm,and Qib; and the Rm were dominant.47

Although it is not certain where these Barbar are located, theirappearance in company o such groups situates them in northeastArica.48

Additional reerences in the text put them in the company oBajwa, Nba, and Falln, and describe them with the Sdn aspeople who use elephants in warare.49

47. Al-Wqid, Fut al-Shm, Abd al-Laf Abd al-Ramn ed., 2 vols., (Beirut:Dr al-Kutub al-Ilmiya, 1997), 2:203. The Barbar do not appear in his Kitbal-Maghz.48. Al-Wqid, Fut al-Shm, 2: 212.49. Al-Wqid, Fut al-Shm 2: 214.


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It is possible that these Barbar are barbarians in the Graeco-Roman sense. However, such an assumption would require over-

coming a ew logical diculties. First, al-Wqiddoes not use thisterm to reer to people anywhere but in southern Egypt. Second,their location so close to the ancient in the Red Sea areawould have to be merely accidental.

Notably, unlike pre-Islamic authors who reer to the peopleo the region o Barbar (l barbar), al-Wqidpreers theBarbar(al-barbar). Without having to exaggerate the signicance o a

phenomenon that could be peculiar to this author, this shit al-lows theBarbar to be imagined as a distinct people.

Sometimes an author used the category without the denitearticle (barbar), but then put it alongside other categories that re-erred to known peoples. This is the case o the amous litterateural-Jiz (d. 869) who listed Barbaramong the Sdn (people withdark skin), in company o other east Aricans.50

Among the Sdn are the Zanj, the abasha, the Fazzn,Barbar, the Qib, the Nba, Zaghwa, Marw, the Sind, theHind, the Qumr, the Dabla, the n and Mn.51

Elsewhere, the historian al-Baldhur(d. ca. 892) reers to a story

about the practices o the early Muslims about the imposition o thepoll tax (jizya) on non-Muslims. It says: the prophet Muhammadtook thejizyarom the Zoroastrians o Hajar, [his caliph] Umar (d.644) took it rom the Zoroastrians oFris (Persia), and [the caliph]Uthmn (d. 656) took it rom Barbar (barbar).52 Since both Hajar

50. I preer people with dark skin to Black people or Blacks because o the pon-derous connotations carried by such categories in the modern period.

51. Al-Jiz,Rasil al-Jiz, Abd al-Salm Muammad Hrn ed., 4 vols., (Cai-ro: Maktabat al-Khnj, 1964), 1: 216. See also Ibn Khorddhbeh (d. 912), al-maslik wal mamlik, 155. One notes the appearance o the Chinese (n) amongthe Sdn.52. al-Baldhur(d. 892), Kitb fut al-buldn, 3 vols., al al-Dn al-Munajjided., (Cairo: Maktabat al-Naha al-Miriya, 1956-7), 1: 97-8.


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and Fris are toponyms, it is reasonable to iner that the Barbarmeant here is the east Arican region.

Furthermore, knowledge about a dened entity o theBarbarseems to have had an additional impact on the narratives. The verbBarbara, which means to speak unintelligibly in a language otherthan Arabic, came to be associated with theBarbar. Al-Wqidusesthe verb in its common meaning to describe the speech o non-Arab Byzantines.53 In this case, the barbarians spoke Greek

His near contemporary, the Andalusi Abd al-Malik b. abb

(d. 852 or 853), reported a very interesting variant. In the rst ex-change between God and Moses, God spoke to Moses in the lan-guage o the Barbar (lisn al-barbar) and identied himsel as thedeity in that language, apparently with little success.54 God thentried all the languages until Moses nally was able to understandhim. This story demonstrates that by the ninth century, the Bar-bar had become an identiable people with a respectable Biblicalpast. In addition, unlike the generic babble (barbara) described byal-Wqid, Ibn Habbs adaptation relies, at least partially, on theavailability o empirical knowledge about theBarbar as a particularpeople with a language o their own.

The association between the verb and the Barbar still providedthe occasion or learned punning. Al-Baldhur(d. ca. 892) reports

one such instance: Ibn al-Kalb[(d. ca. 819)] said: Ifrqush b. Qaysb. Sayf al-Himyar conquered Ifrqiy in the pre-Islamic periodand so it was named ater him. He was the one who killed Jirjr(Gregory) its king. He said about the Barbira (sing. Barbar): howpredominant is the babble o these people. So, they were namedBarbira.55

53. Al-Wqid, Fut al-Shm, 1:5 and 1: 19.

54. Abd al-Malik b. abb, Kitb al-Tarj, ed. Jorge Aguad, (Madrid: ConsejoSuperior de Investigaciones Cientcas, 1991), 136, 58.55. Al-Baldhur, Kitb fut al-buldn, 1: 270. In act, Ibn al-Kalbs text is slight-ly dierent. It reads: Ifrqush b. Qays b. Sayfis the one who conquered (iftataha)Ifrqiy, and it was named ater him. He also killed its kingJirjr. And it is thenthat the Barbar were named [or] he told them How plentiul is your babble!


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Obviously, this story projects the presence o the Yemenis in theMaghrib to the period beore the Arab conquest and the arrival o

the Syrians, with clear political implications. The Yemeni schoolproduced many such stories, which seemingly attest their presencein the Maghrib in pre-Islamic times.56

Medieval authors tended to be very selective and avored reportswhose authority they trusted or supported. Consequently, they in-used their learned narratives with political concerns that are notalways easily identiable. Even i one cannot always decipher their

signs, the early medieval sources were not conused about the lo-cation or origin o the Barbar. Instead, they incorporated hetero-geneous material put together under dierent circumstances, orreasons that oten remain obscure, and with varying eects.

Western Barbar

The earliest extant historical narrative written in Arabic by awesterner is Ibn HabbsKitb al-Tarkh (Book o History). The au-thor traveled to the east in the 820s where he culled inormationabout the past rom historians and storytellers, many o whom hadties to Egypt. His history, a universal chronicle beginning beore the

creation o the world, ollows a loose chronological organization. Itincludes entries on a number o topics, like the desire to accumu-late wealth, which are not related to the succession o events, rul-ers, and governors. Furthermore, Ibn abb (d. 852/853) tended toreport inormation on the authority o eastern, rather than westernsources; understandably, there is little in the book that distinguishesit rom the eastern narratives.

Ibn al-Kalb, Nasab Maad wa al-Yaman al-Kabr, Nj asan ed., 2 vols., (Bei-rut: Maktabat al-Naha al-Arabiya, 1988), 2: 548. See also al-Bukhr (d. 870),Tarkh al-rusul wa al-mulk, 1: 442.56. See Ibn Qutayba (d. ca. 889), Kitb al-Marif, Saroite Okacha ed., (Cairo:Mabaat Dr al-Kutub, 1960), 627-8.


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As was already mentioned, the Barbar appear in Ibn abbs sto-ry o the exchange between Moses and God. They are absent rom

the rest o his history until the conquest o al-Andalus. Ibn Habbrecounts that beore the Arabs crossed into Iberia, the governorMs b. Nuayr sent out men to the Mediterranean coast with or-ders to capture Roman ships and maybe nd an older Roman manwith some knowledge that could acilitate the conquest. When theyound just such a man, the Roman captive told them that the Bar-bar would be the ones to conquer al-Andalus and that they would

be Muslims.57 While it is possible that this indeed occurred, it is atleast reasonable to see it as a sanctication o the sense o inevitabil-ity and preordained course o history.

Whatever the intention o its producer, this story clearly estab-lishes the Islam o the Barbar. In act, this becomes the case withall the subsequent reerences to the Barbar, and over time developsinto a recurring moti.58 This is not surprising since Ibn abb doesnot mention the Barbar in his brie description o the conquest onorthwest Arica. His Barbar are in al-Andalus, where they play apolitico-military role.59

In one o the many anecdotal stories, the author compares themartial attitudes o the Barbar to those o various other groups.Among them, the Barbar are most similar to the Arabs in terms

o bravery. However, they are also markedly dierent, as they arereputedly most deceitul, disloyal, and unlikely to respect any pre-viously agreed pact. Alongside the Barbar, the story reers to thepeople o al-Andalus (ahl al-Andalus), who are the Arabs o al-Andalus, and are certainly not the Barbar.

Furthermore, mentioning the qualities that make Arabs andBarbar mirror images, simultaneously similar and dierent, may

57. Ibn abb, 394, 136.58. See al-Bukhr, Tarkh al-rusul wa al-mulk, 4: 255. The argument againstthe kidnapping o emales was set in typically Islamic terms: We ound that [thispractice] is not condoned by book [Qurn] or Sunna. And we are Muslims!59. Ibn abb,137.


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have something to do with politics closer to Ibn abbs time. In-deed, the author includes an apocalyptic prediction, according

to which the Barbar will come to replace the Umayyad rulers oal-Andalus. The apocalyptic Barbar rebellion triggers a series oothers, which eventually lead to the end o times.60 The Barbar areclearly dangerous and the idea o an overthrow o the Umayyads isall the more abhorrent because it seems plausible.

Possibly, someone added this last account to the chronicle ater

the death o the author, at a time o serious challenge to Umayyadrule in al-Andalus. Even so, it does not break rom the ormulaicrepresentation o the Barbar. The negative sentiments o the An-dalusi author toward a rival political action are probably to be ex-pected, and hence they are less notable than the generic and vagueinormation he actually oers. As was demonstrated by MamdMakk, however, Ibn abbs relative silence about the situation inthe Maghrib and al-Andalus stems rom his travel east, his intel-lectual inclinations, and his Egyptian sources.61 In this regard, hisKitb al-Tarikh was the product o the same milieu that a genera-tion later produced the richer Kitb fut Mir written by the Egyp-tian Ibn Abd al-akam (d. 871).

Ibn Abd al-akam begins his tale o the conquest o the Magh-

rib by explaining that the Barbar migrated to the Maghrib romPalestine ater the deeat o their kingJlt (Goliath) at the hands othe prophet Dwd (David). Eectively, the story accounts or thegeographic location o various Barbar in the Maghrib as well as theservility o the Afriq vis--vis the Romans and anyone who takesover their land, which is a barely veiled reerence to the Arabs.62

60. Ibn Habb, 452, 153.

61. See Mamd Al Makk, Egypt and the Origins o Arabic Spanish Histori-ography: a Contribution to the Study o the Earliest Sources or the History oIslamic Spain, in The Formation of al-Andalus, Part 2: Language, Religion, Cultureand the Sciences, Maribel Fierro and Julio Sams eds., (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998),173-233.62. Ibn Abd al-akam, 170.


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The story anchors the narrative o the conquest o the Magh-rib by identiying the main characters that will play a role in the

unolding o the events. As or character development, Ibn Abdal-akams Barbar resemble those oIbn abbs. They attack, ormalliances, rebel, or all under the command o a particular leaderor authority.63 They are typecast as angry adversaries, irrationalrebels, and renegades who cannot be trusted, even i they becomeMuslim. These Barbar are products o tales by the veterans o thewestern conquests, as they play the part o the antagonists in the

stories o the heroic Arab generals such as Uqba b. N and Msb. Nuayr.

On two occasions, Ibn Abd al-akam reers to specic Barbarsubgroups: the Luwa and the Anbiya.64 The author gives no spe-cic inormation about them beyond their approximate location inthe southern regions. It is dicult to know rom the text whetherBarbar was added to their name because o some socioculturalcharacteristic, because they were seen as an adversarial politico-mil-itary orce, or merely as a way o identiying them to his audienceas such. Ultimately, adding the Barbar tag onto the names o north-west Arican tribes identies them without explanation.

Barbar captives and slaves

Many northwest Aricans in the Maghrib integrated dominantArab amilies as clients (mawl). As client, they came to accept theways o those Arabs who settled in the region. Naturally, Arabicsources tend to mention the names o clients who were closer tothe Arabs and their politics. However, as the continued existence o

powerul non-Arab tribes in the Maghrib clearly shows, clientage

63. Ibn Abd al-akam, 198 13; 199 3, 9, 15; 200 2, 14; 201 12, 17; 204 16; 2051; 207 17; 208 12; 213 17; 214 3, 14; 217 22; 218 2, 4, 5, 8 (unclear), 20; 219 1(copyist addition?), 13, 17; 220 5, 11; 222 10, 223 1, 8; 225 2, 5.64. Ibn Abd al-akam, 170, 198.


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was not the only type o relation that developed between the Arabsand those they conquered.

Medieval Arabic sources agree that the Arab conquests also in-volved the enslavement o a great number o northwest Aricans.Ibn Abd al-akam is very consistent in mentioning the number ocaptives and slaves the victorious Arabs obtained rom the deeat-ed. I one assumes that the numbers given are accurate representa-tions, they would be staggering indeed. For example, the authorcites this report:

We were told by Abd al-Malik b. Maslama, and al-Layth b.Sad that when Ms b. Nuayr [d. 716-7] raided the Maghribhe sent his son Marwn at the head o an army and [Marwn]captured 100,000. Then he sent his nephew at the head o an-other army and he too captured 100,000. And so al-Layth wasasked, who are they? and he answered: the Barbar.65

From the inception o the conquests, Arab generals such as Amrb. al-s required that the deeated pay the tax imposed on non-Muslims (jizya) by selling their sons and daughters.66 The status othese slaves as non-Muslims was crucial since, at least in theory, noMuslim was to be enslaved.

Many o these Barbar were sent to Egypt and then onwardto other regions. Reerences to Barbar slaves or servants abound.However, given the gradual and slow imposition o Arab domina-tion in the Maghrib and the conversion o at least some Barbar, theslave moment would have begun ater the all o Carthage in 698and ended around the rebellions o the 730s and 740s. Ibn Abdal-akam mentions that during the rule o the Umayyad Umar b.

Abd al-Azz (r. 717-20), there remained [in Ifrqiy] not a single

65. Ibn Abd al-akam, 204. More conservatively, al-Ufurreports that the numbero captives was 20,000. See Khalfa b. Khayy al-Usfur(d. 854), Tarkh Khalfa b.Khayy, Akram iy alUmared., (Beirut: Muassasat al-Risla, 1977), 278-9.66. Ibn Abd al-akam, 170. See also al-Baldhur, Kitb fut al-buldn, 1: 265.


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Barbar who had not become Muslim.67 One may see the eventso the 730s as a rebellion triggered by the illegal raiding by Arabs

as well as an indication o the importance o the slave trade to thedominant Arabs in the Maghrib.68

One wonders about the impact o the slave trade between theMaghrib and the Mashriq on the production o the chronicles, es-pecially since these most oten include reerences to the enslavemento thousands o Barbar ater a battle, a seditious act, or betrayal oa legal agreement. All o these were valid reasons to enslave them,

because they demonstrated their true character, belying their super-cial conversion.69

In the Mashriq, the naming o slaves rom the Maghrib involvedthe addition o their origin (nisba). The preerred nisbaseems tohave been al-Barbar. When used to reer to individuals in theMaghrib, al-Barbar was appended to a tribal nisba, unctioninglike a signal or tag to an eastern, rather than western, audience. Thedierence is worth emphasizing here because medieval authors tendto take it or granted.

Like modern labels, which identiy commodities, Barbar de-scribed the slave, implied that he or she had certain qualities, andinfuenced the price. For instance, legal sources have recorded caseswhere the buyer o a slave girl complained that he had purchased

her with the understanding that she was a Barbariya but then dis-covered that she was not. The opinions o the prominent juristsMlik b. Anas (d. 795) and Sahnn b. Sad (d. 854-5) demonstratethe existence o a ount o common knowledge about the di-

67. Ibn Abd al-akam, 213. See also al-Baldhur(d. 892), Kitb fut al-buldn,1: 265; al-Ufur, Tarkh, 323. Umar b. Abd al-Azz asked the Arabs who hada emale slave rom the Luwa to ask or her hand rom her ather or return her

to him according to the treaty signed by both sides. Umar b. Abd al-Azzs scalpolicy eliminated dierences between Arabs and non-Arabs.68. The explicit link between slavery and rebellion is made byal-Usfur, Tarkh,380.69. The use o conversion as a concept to characterize earlier political alliancesmay itsel be anachronistic.


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erentiation between slaves in the markets. They also show that theArabs who purchased slaves had a predilection or the Barbar.70 In

describing the case, the author describes the thet and illegal en-slavement o reed Barbar in the Mashriq, perhaps because o theirhigher price they commanded.

Furthermore, these mercantile Barbar identiy the origin o thecommodity but say little about the social or tribal aliation o theindividual. No slave was described as belonging to the Zanta orLuwta, or instance. By denition, slaves did not have tribes.

Moreover, Arab men had an incentive to have children rom non-Arab slaves who lacked tribal aliation because they had no kinwho could claim part o the inheritance. Men who attempted toguarantee that the property they accumulated would remain withtheir kin group preerred slaves or those reasons.71 Obviously, themajority o Arabs had ewer means. Their relations with northwest-ern Aricans, although less clearly known, did not necessarily ex-clude ormal marriage.

I slaves did not have tribal aliations, at least some had mar-ketable skills, such as writing and accounting, which allowed themto gain social prominence as individuals. The infuence oHammdal-Barbar at the court o the Abbsid caliph Hrn al-Rashd (r.786-809) exemplies this phenomenon.72 The Barbar origin, and

thus special slave status (umm walad), o the mother o the Abbsidal-Manr (r. 754-775) is also remembered in the chronicles. Thesocial visibility o these amed slaves, or ormer slaves, accounts orthe repeated reerences to them as Barbar; hence, the application othis label was not automatically a way to disparage someone. Cer-tainly, the slave merchants could only benet rom the existence o

70. Sann b. Sad, al-Mudawwana al-kubr li al-Imm Mlik b. Anas, (Beirut:Dr S dir, 19--?),10:309.71. Sann b. Sad, al-Mudawwana, 10:309.72. See Al-Yaqb, Amad b. Ab Yaqb, Trkh, 2 vols., M. Th. Houtsma ed.,(Leiden: Brill, (1883) 1969), 2: 498, 499; al-Baldhur (d. 892), Kitb futal-buldn, 1: 58, 61.


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such stellar exemplars that ultimately proved and conrmed thehigh quality o Barbar slaves.

The memory o these individuals Barbar origin also points tothe more systematic orgetting o the lineages o tens o thousandso people living in the Mashriq. In other words, this points to theabsence o specically Barbar political parties and communities,such as armies or separate neighborhoods, in the east, contrary tothe social conditions in al-Andalus and perhaps in Aghlabid Sic-ily and Ifrqiy as well. The dierence is crucial. The conversion

o the Barbar slaves to Islam in the east led to their gradual socialdisappearance there, whereas the politics in the west led to theirconstitution as a dierentiated social group.73

In the same light, legal sources such as al-Muwaa bySahnn b.Sad (d. 854) are richer than scholars have realized. They includeinormation about the legal dierence between the Arabs who areknown by their athers and tribes (nasab) and non-Arabs who arenot. Such an idea takes or granted the integration o the non-Arabsinto the Muslim polity and their legal standing as clients (mawl)or ormer slaves. Examples o deamation suits demonstrate the le-gal dierence between a Barbar slave and a Barbar ree Muslimwho can press charges.74 They also show how the preerential treat-ment o Arabs created distinctions between new Muslims and thus

conerred a new meaning upon the category Barbar.The lack o tribal aliation o the Barbar in the east could nothave been meaningless given that the issue o the lineages o theArabs were o utmost political importance given Umayyad and an-ti-Umayyad, and subsequentlyAbbsid and anti-Abbsid politics.As explained previously, this period witnessed coalitions o variousgroupings. Some o them were prevalently Arab, or conversely,

mostly anti-Arab in character. Others, however, were based on al-liances o Arabs and non-Arabs. The various ideological positions

73. Evidently, they did not completely disappear rom learned knowledge.74. See 227 and 232 in vol. 15.


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they supported shaped the political scene and inormed intellectu-al production. These struggles, known collectively as shubiya,

also explain why early Arabic authors have the tendency to inormtheir readers that the Kutma or Sanhja were Barbar. The ad-dition o the moniker, or tagging, is part o shubiya politics.It played a crucial part in reinorcing the Arab way o classiyingpeoples and tribes.

Furthermore, since the conversion o the slaves led to their im-mediate reedom, slave owners were not always eager to accept the

conversion o their slaves. Hence, while the Barbar were valuedslaves, they were also disparaged lest they claim equal status. Al-Bukhr (810-870) included in his collection o statements anddeeds o the prophet Muammad (adth) a number o unreliableand spurious ones. Among these, one captures the anxieties o slaveowners in the early Islamic period: I heard the prophet say thatthe aith o al-Barbar does not go beyond his throat.75

Another aspect o the slave status o the Barbar in the Mashriqis the attitude o the learned and pious men who wrote many o thesources still extant. Another spurious adth states that the prophetsaid that there are seventy parts to oul; sixty nine belong to theBarbar, and one to thejinnand men.76 These types o statementsabout the low moral qualities o the Barbar, denitely espoused by

Ibn Abd al-akam,77

are complementary to the descriptions o Bar-bar slave girls as being the best entertainers. The price o a singleBarbar slave girl was reported to be 1,000 dinars.78 Slavery and ideasabout slaves among Arabs o property shaped the Arabs attitudestowards the Barbar, especially in this early period.

75. Al-Bukhr, Kitb al-tarkh al-kabr, (Haydarabad: Mabaat Jamiyat Diratal-Marif al-Uthmniya, 1941) 4 vols in 8, vol. 4, part 2, 3389, 878.76. Ibn Abd-al-akam, 287.77. In the rst page o his Futuh, the author cites a statement which describes theworld as a bird and the Maghrib as its ugliest part, the tail.78. Ibn Abd al-akam, 220.


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More generally, preerences among wealthy Arabs or slavesrom particular regions led to the ormulation o a specic ideol-

ogy tied to this activity and this period. The slave trade stemmingrom the conquests brought to the Mashriq individuals and groupsnew to the region. Their integration into the society produced ide-as about human dierence according to which the Arabs, as slaveowners, belonged to the top o the social hierarchy. It is importantnot to conuse this ideology associated with medieval slavery withthe modern concept o race. As I have also shown, the eventual

integration o the descendants o slaves and their melting awayinto the general populace, as well as the drying up o the slavetrade ater the conversion and independence o slave-producing re-gions, are some obvious dierences between modern and medievalpractices. The incorporation o modern racial ideologies into theinterpretation o medieval processes is suciently problematic towarrant separate treatment.

Ancestors twice removed

As mentioned above, medieval authors tted eastern and thenwestern Barbar into a discourse o origins which assumed a biblical

vision o the world.79

Following this established practice, Ibn Abdal-akam (d. 871) recounts one o the most popular origin storiesassociated with the Barbar by tting his narrative into a biblicalreerential universe:

The Barbar were in Falasn (Palestine) and Jlt (Goliath)was their king. When the prophet Dwd (David) killed the

79. A more thorough examination is ound in Maya Shatzmiller, Le Mythedorigine Berbre: Aspects historiographiques et sociaux, Revue de lOccidentMusulman et de la Mditerrane, No. 35, (1983), 147. C. al-Bukhr, Tarkh al-rusul wa al-mulk, 1: 206, 207, 210, 604; Ibn Khorddhbeh (d. 912), al-maslikwal mamlik, 80, 91.


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latter, the Barbar let in direction o the Maghrib until theyreached Lbiya and Marqiya80

The melting away o the distant past into mythological time andthe concomitant collapse o linear time typically mark these originstories. More importantly, medieval origin stories assume a biblicalchronology, which organizes time rom Adam to the present withNoah being an important node, a second genetic moment. Accord-ing to this view, Noah was a true patriarch.

In asserting such a view, medieval authors could not, and didnot, believe that any particular people were indigenous to a par-ticular geographic region. The idea was not germane to their vi-sion o the world and its past. The earth was empty beore thesettlement o known peoples, and thus all o them were migrantswho came to the land ater the Biblical food. As a rule, ninth-century authors did not diverge rom this general view: all o hu-manity was native to heaven, then ater the all came to possessguardianship o the earth. In other words, the question o originswas answered ully by the story o the genesis. Interestingly, IbnAbd al-akams story does not link the Barbar genealogically toGoliath. He was not their ather but their king. In act, his ac-count assumes that the Barbar exiles ound Romans and Afriq

already settled in northwestern Arica.As ar as northwest Aricans own genealogies, the historianal-Yaqb (d. 897) mentions that some groups o Barbar andAfriqa believed they were descendents oBar b. Nizr, while oth-ers believed they belonged to Judhm (Yemenis who migrated tothe Shm) and Lakhm (northern Arabs), or Yemeni exiles.81 Al-Yaqbalso includes genealogies that tie the Barbar to Noah, then

enumerating known Barbar tribes, and explaining that each hadsettled in that particular region o the Maghrib coming rom the

80. Ibn Abd al-akam, 170.81. Al-Yaqb, Trkh, 1: 215-6.


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east. While these genealogies are not too dierent rom those givenby the Arabs, they denitely agree that the Barbar had migrated to

the region rom the east.

Ancient and indigenous Berbers

Categories such as the Berbers and the Arabs are histori-cal. Their production, maintenance, and reproduction occur un-

der particular circumstances. As circumstances change, so do thesecategories. Their representation as everlasting and immutable ispart o ideological procedures rooted in a present.

In the early medieval period, the Arabs began a process oBerberization o northwest Arica, its peoples, and their pasts.Diverse social and political conditions in al-Andalus, al-Maghrib,and the Mashriq, as well as the evolution o literate writing inArabic in the early medieval period, account or the multiplicityand heterogeneity o the Barbar in Arabic sources. The categorywas certainly not born ully ormed. In act, two centuries ater therst raids, it was not stable, consistent, or uniorm.

One o the ways early medieval authors secured the Berberiza-tion o northwest Aricans was through tagging. This procedure

classied the Kutma, Zanta, and Sanhja as Barbar. Interestingly,modern historians have also used this technique to produce Ber-bers in ancient times. It is easy enough to show that ancient authorsnever described the Libyans, Numidians, or Mauretanians as Ber-bers, and that modern historians have done so rom the nineteenthcentury and still do today. This should invite an examination o thespecic concerns o modern historians.

While historians have ocused on the similarity between Moorsand Berbers, the medieval authors recognition o the similarity be-tween Arabs and Barbar requires urther attention. Indeed, the pos-


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sibility that the Arabs may have made the Barbar in their own imageis replete with historiographic consequences.

The analysis o the historical sources also shows that as late asthe ninth century the idea that the Barbar were the original inhab-itants o northwest Arica was not rmly established. Hence, theidea was not the immediate product o the conquest, but rather othe gradual process o Berberization. When modern scholars useconcepts such as indigenous to reer to the Berbers, they partici-pate in a related, yet dierent and particularly modern Berberiza-

tion o northwest Arica and its peoples. The success o this proc-ess explains, in part, why historians continue to imagine that theArabs conquered a specic Arican people called the Berbers.

Ramzi Rouighi(University o Southern Caliornia)


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