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(see also North Africa, Sahara desert and west of the Nile - specifically, the modern countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and to a lesser extent Libya and Mauritania. Its mixed Arab-Berber inhabitants were traditionally called Moors by Europeans.
From the end of the Ice Age, when the Sahara Desert dried up, contact between the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa was extremely limited by the difficulty in crossing the desert. This remained the case until after the time of the Arabic expansion and the spread of Islam; even then, trade was restricted to costly (but often profitable) caravan expeditions, trading such goods as salt, gold, ivory, and slaves.
Though Maghreb culture as well as its people have both African and Middle Eastern roots, most Maghrebis are either Arabic- or Berber_speaking Muslims of predominantly Middle Eastern ancestry, while a few are of predominantly African ancestry, and the corsairs brought in significant amounts of Italian, Spanish, and Turkish ancestry in the big coastal cities. The Arabic dialects of the Maghreb share many common characteristics (like a first person singular present with n-) that set them apart from the dialects of the Middle East and most of Egypt; Berber languages, of course, are almost exclusively spoken in the Maghreb, and were originally spoken throughout it. It largely shares a common culinary tradition; indeed, the Maghreb was jocularly defined by Habib Bourguiba as the part of North Africa where couscous is the staple food.
The Arab Maghreb Union (Union du Maghreb Arabe) is an effort to coordinate political and economic policies across this region; disagreements among its members and security problems in Algeria have posed it serious setbacks.
Modern territories of the Maghreb
Medieval regions of the Maghreb
History Originally, the Maghreb was inhabited by "white" Cro-Magnoids (Iberomaurusians) in the north and by "black" peoples in the Sahara. Later, about 8000 BC, there came from the east "white" speakers of northern Afro_Asiatic languages such as Berber at least since the Capsian culture.
Many ports along the Maghreb coast were occupied by Phoenicians, particularly Carthaginians; with the defeat of Carthage, many of these ports naturally passed to Rome, and ultimately it took control of the entire Maghreb north of the Atlas Mountains, apart from some of the most mountainous regions like the Moroccan Rif.
The Arabs reached the Maghreb in early Umayyad times, but their control over it was quite weak, and various Islamic "heresies" such as the Ibadis and the Shia, enthusiastically adopted by some Berbers, quickly threw off Caliphal control in the name of their interpretations of Islam. The Arabic language became widespread only later, as a result of the invasion of the Banu Hilal (unleashed, ironically, by the Berber Fatimids in punishment for their Zirid clients' defection) in the 1100's. Throughout this period, the Maghreb fluctuated between occasional unity (as under the Almohads, and briefly under the Hafsids) and more commonly division into three states roughly corresponding to modern Morocco, western Algeria, and eastern Algeria and Morocco. After the 19th century, it was colonized by France, Spain and later Italy.
See also
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