Le Sahara libyen médiéval

Abstract

It is interesting to determine how far the medieval Libyan Sahara participated in the history of North Africa, why it separated from the Mediterranean world and what wrought its decay. The extremely high level of the jizya and the unbearable conditions accompanying it caused numerous conversions to the invaders’ religion among the Berbers, and this only led to an increase of the tax on the converted populations. Not being able to fight against Islam, the Berbers chose to make use of Islam by joining the kharijï movement. Thanks to their knowledge of the desert and their position at the ends of the Südan routes, the Berbers initiated the transsaharan gold and slave trade; Fazzan was of course favoured by its rich track network and all its oases became important caravan relay stations and commercial centres. Contrary to what has been asserted for almost a hundred years, the so-called “invasion” of the already declining North Africa by the Hilal and Sulaym tribes in the XIth century brought about no changes whatsoever in Libyan commercial and agricultural activities. The disaster struck in the XIIth and XIIIth centuries with the conflicts on Libyan soil involving the Spanish Almoravids and Qaraqüsh a Turco-Egyptian adventurer, on the one hand, and the North African Almohads on the other; these ruined the country, jeopardised the Südan routes and forced the Kanimi ruler to intervene and annex the whole Libyan Sahara, which thus dropped out of the Mediterranean orbit.