A Maghreb (المغرب العربي ; for instance likewise rendered Moghreb), meaning "western" within Arabic, is the area of the continent of Africa north of the Sahara desert and west of the Nile - specifically, the modern countries of Morocco, Western Sahara (annexed and occupied by Morocco) Algeria, Tunisia, Libya- and to the good deal lesser extent Mauritania. Its mixed Arab-Berber inhabitants were traditionally called Moors by Europeans.

From either a prevent of a Glacial period, whenever the Sahara Desert dried up, email between a Maghreb & sub-Saharan Africa was extremely limited per difficulty around crossing a desert. This remained a out break until fallowing a instance of the Arab expansion and a spread of Islam; even so, trade wwhen restricted to costly (however typically profitable) caravan expeditions, stock trading such goods as salt, gold, ivory, & slaves.

Though Maghreb culture too when its humans own two African & Middle Eastern roots, virtually all Maghrebis come either Arabic- or Berber-speaking Muslims of preponderantly Middle Eastern ancestry, when two or three come of predominantly African ancestry, & a corsairs brought in important numbers of French, Italian, Spanish, & Turkish ancestry in the large coastal cities. A Arabic dialects of the Maghreb share many most commonorth characteristics (such as the number 1 human singular present by using n-) that placed a babies apart from either the accent of the Middle East & virtually all of Egypt; Berber languages, of course, come all but entirely spoken in the Maghreb, & were originally spoken throughout it. It largely shares a most common culinary tradition; indeed, the Maghreb was jocularly defined by Habib Bourguiba as the section of N Africa in which couscous is the staple food.

A Arab Maghreb Union (Union du Maghreb Arabe) is an effort to coordinate political & economic policies through this vicinity; disagreements among its members & security problems within Algeria have posed it serious reversal.

A american Islamic globe (north-west Africa); distinguished from either a Mashriq, or even eastern Islamic globe (a Middle East). Literally, "the time and place of the sunset--the west." For its Arab vanquisher, a area was a "island of the west" (jazirat al maghrib), a land between a "sea of sand" (a Sahara) & a Mediterranean Sea. Traditionally includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, & Tripolitania (within Libya); extra recently a select few sources develop treated Mauritania when section of the vicinity.

Modern territories of the Maghreb

Algeria Ceuta Libya Mauritania Melilla Morocco Tunisia Western Sahara

Medieval regions of the Maghreb

Ifriqiya Djerid Sus/Sousse Zab Hodna Rif Maghreb al-Awsat (Central Maghreb) Morocco (Maghreb al-Aqsa) Tamesna

History

Originally, a Maghreb was inhabited by "white" Cro-Magnoids (Iberomaurusians) in the north & by "black" peoples in the Sahara. Late, astir 8000 BC, there come from either a east "white" speakers of northern Afro-Asiatic languages such as Berber at least since the Capsian culture.

Numerous ports along a Maghreb coast were occupied by Phoenicians, particularly Carthaginians; with a kill of Carthage, many one ports naturally passed to Rome, and finally it took control of a entire Maghreb northerly of the Atlas Mountains, apart from either a select few of the virtually all mountainous regions such as the Moroccan Rif.

A Arabs reached a Maghreb inside early Umayyad times, but their control across it was quite light, & various Islamic "heresies" like a Ibadis and a Shia, enthusiastically adopted by some Berbers, quickly threw slay Caliphal control in the title of their interpretations of Islam. A Arabic language became far flung lone late, following of the invasion of the Banu Hilal (unleashed, ironically, by the Berber Fatimids in penalisation for their Zirid clients' defection) in the 1100's. Throughout this cycle, a Maghreb fluctuated between occasional unity (when under a Almohads, and briefly under a Hafsids) and supplementary usually section into threesome states about corresponding to modern Morocco, western Algeria, and eastern Algeria and Tunisia.

When a Middle Ages, a region was loosely under a control of the Ottoman Empire, except Morocco. When a 19th century, it was colonized by France, Spain and later Italy.