Jihad against the Berbers - The 4 Freedoms Library2024-03-29T14:55:29Zhttp://4freedoms.com/forum/topics/jihad-against-the-berbers?groupUrl=Africa&feed=yes&xn_auth=noA tombstone from Carthage w…tag:4freedoms.com,2009-10-01:3766518:Comment:19072009-10-01T18:33:49.000ZCharles Martelhttp://4freedoms.com/profile/LutonEnglish
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A tombstone from Carthage with the symbol of the pre-Islamic Berber goddess Tanit.<br />
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The goddess Tanit was brought to Africa by the Phoenicians, in about 800 BC. Tanit was a moon goddess, maybe the same as Ishtar or Astarte. She also seems to have absorbed an older Berber goddess. People thought of Tanit as being married to another Phoenician god, Baal. Tanit's symbol appears on gravestones and temples all over North Africa, not just during the…
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A tombstone from Carthage with the symbol of the pre-Islamic Berber goddess Tanit.<br />
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The goddess Tanit was brought to Africa by the Phoenicians, in about 800 BC. Tanit was a moon goddess, maybe the same as Ishtar or Astarte. She also seems to have absorbed an older Berber goddess. People thought of Tanit as being married to another Phoenician god, Baal. Tanit's symbol appears on gravestones and temples all over North Africa, not just during the Carthaginian period but all through the Roman Empire too, until most people converted to Islam about 700 AD. Then Tanit faded away.<br />
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Another dramatic foreign event ended the long Jewish presence in North Africa. The establishment of Israel in 1948 caused a rise in active anti-Semitism in North Africa. This, combined with the retreat of European colonialism and the independence of Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and finally Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s, led to a mass emigration of Jews. For the first time in about 2000 years, North Africa had almost no Jews.<br />
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Today even ruins associated with Jews can be a magnet for violence in North Africa. On April 11, 2002 a truck bomb loaded with fuel exploded outside an ancient, abandoned synagogue on the tourist island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia. Besides the suicide bomber, twenty people were killed, most of them German tourists. German investigators said the attack was the work of al-Qaida.<br />
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The Algerian civil war was in a way a Berber-Arab war<br />
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The Berbers are still a major presence in North Africa and are still often at odds with their rulers. An Associated Press article published June 1, 2002 ("Algerian prime minister's party wins election majority") reported that Berbers are about one-third of Algeria's population and that about sixty people had been killed in riots between Berbers and police in the Kabyle region in 2001 and early 2002.<br />
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Most North African Jews went to Israel, where they are a significant part of the population and the armed forces. Memories are long in the Middle East. Perhaps some Israelis from North Africa consider Israel's victories a long-delayed revenge for the Arab conquest of the Berbers and the death of Kahina . The Berbers who once occupied…tag:4freedoms.com,2009-10-01:3766518:Comment:19042009-10-01T18:32:13.000ZCharles Martelhttp://4freedoms.com/profile/LutonEnglish
The Berbers who once occupied the entire stretch of land along the coast of Libya, Tunisia through Algeria up to Morocco, have today been pushed into the fastness of the Sahara desert, indicated here by the blue blob in Southern Algeria, North-eastern Mali and North-Western Niger. The Berbers still continue to cling on in small clusters along the fertile coast, which has been largely occupied by the Arab Muslim invaders. Today most of the Berbers have been converted to Islam. But some continue…
The Berbers who once occupied the entire stretch of land along the coast of Libya, Tunisia through Algeria up to Morocco, have today been pushed into the fastness of the Sahara desert, indicated here by the blue blob in Southern Algeria, North-eastern Mali and North-Western Niger. The Berbers still continue to cling on in small clusters along the fertile coast, which has been largely occupied by the Arab Muslim invaders. Today most of the Berbers have been converted to Islam. But some continue to practice their pre-Islamic nature worshipping religious practices in the remote fastness of the Sahara desert.<br />
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There are several references to the nature of Berber resistance in the translation by Franz Rosenthal. Ibn-Khaldun notes that the Berbers were given to rebellion and heresy under the Muslims, just as they had been under the Christian Byzantines, before the Muslim conquest. The Berbers continued to rebel and apostatized time after time. The Muslims massacred many of them. Centuries after Islam had been established among the Berber tribes, they continued reverting to their animistic practices and continued revolting and seceding. To merge Islam with their native animism, they adopted dissident [Kharajite] opinions many times.<br />
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Ibn Abi Zayd said that the Berbers in the Maghrib [North Africa] revolted twelve times and that Islam become firmly established among them only during the governorship of Musa ben Nusayr and thereafter. That is what is meant by the statement reported on the authority of 'Umar, that "Ifriqiyah [Africa] divides the hearts of its inhabitants." The statement refers to the great number of tribes and groups there, which causes them to be disobedient and unmanageable.<br />
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The Berber tribes in the West are innumerable. All of them are nomads and members of different tribal groups and families. Whenever one tribe is destroyed, another takes its place and is as refractory and rebellious as the former one had been. Therefore, it has taken the Arabs a long time to establish their dynasty in the land of Ifriqiyah. (Rosenthal translation, p. 333)<br />
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Berber resistance to Islam<br />
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The story of the Berber resistance to Islam begins after the Arab defeat of the Byzantines and conquest of Carthage. With the defeat of the Byzantines, they were expelled, but the Arabs were not yet the masters of the country. In the interior provinces the Berbers maintained a disorderly resistance to the religion and power of the Arabs.<br />
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The colorful liberated existence of the Berber women reflects the pre-Islamic culture of the Berbers that has more in common with that of African womanhood, rather than the cloistered hijab-enclosed one of the Arab Muslim women.<br />
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In the face of repeated Berber counterattacks, the cruel gangsters of the Muslim marauder Hassan were inadequate to hold North Africa peacefully. During some Berber counterattacks, the Arab conquests of many years were lost in a single day; and the Arab chieftains, overwhelmed by the Berber torrent, repeatedly retired to the confines of Egypt, and appealed for succor from the caliph.<br />
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The same rebellious Berber spirit was revived under the tyranny of Musa, the successor of Hassan; it was finally quelled by the repeated waves of bloodletting by Musa and his two sons; but the number of the rebels may be presumed from that of three hundred thousand Berber captives; sixty thousand of whom, the caliph's fifth, were sold for the profit of the public treasury. Thirty thousand of the Berber youth were forcibly conscripted in to the Muslim army to be used for the invasion of Spain.<br />
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In their climate and government, their diet and habitation, the wandering Berbers resembled the Arabs of the desert. And gradually the Berbers, accepted Islam and with the religion they also accepted the Arabic as a second language, Arabic names, and also the history of Arabs. This way the blood of the Arab strangers and Berber natives was insensibly mingled; and the impression was created that from the Euphrates to the Atlantic the same nation was diffused over the sandy plains of Asia and Africa.<br />
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Yet in spite of this dissolution of Berber identity in that of the Arabs, some of the Berber tribes still retain their original language, with the appellation and character of White Africans. (Gibbon, v. 2, p. 279-280)<br />
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A Berber male. In spite of being Arabized the Berbers, have retained their original African ethnicity. The tradition of painting their faces is one such element. This is not prevalent among the Arabs.<br />
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After the defeat of the Berbers, the ancient polytheistic religions of North Africa disappeared. Most Berbers became Muslims (with a persistent taste for heresy). Many Berbers became Arabic-speakers; while some retained their own languages to be spoken in the privacy of their homes. Berbers were prominent among the Muslim conquerors of Spain. Christianity almost disappeared in North Africa west of Egypt. The Jews were more stubborn and persisted in a few areas, especially in the Atlas Mountains.<br />
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The Jewish presence in North Africa was revived by a tragedy in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries. After the completion of the Christian Reconquest of Spain in 1492, the Inquisition gave the Muslims and Jews of Spain the alternatives of conversion to Catholicism or expulsion. Large numbers of Spanish Jews, as well as most Spanish Muslims, immigrated to Africa.<br />
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