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Khalifa Al-Zanati
Khalifa al-Zanati (Arabic: خليفة الزناتي) one of the main characters in the Bani Hilal epic, where he appears as the Berber king of Tunis. The epic says that during the siege of Bani Hilal to Tunis he asked their knights for duels every day and killed many of them, not even Abu Zayd al-Hilali was able to defeat him. His destiny was to be killed by Dhieb bin Ghanim who thrust a spear into his eyes. The epic also says that one of the reasons of his defeat was the betrayal of his daughter Sadaa who fell in love with Maree, a Hilalian prince held captive in her fathers prison. The historical Khalifa Al-Zanati may have been a general serving the ruler of Tlemcen Tlemcen (; ) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran and is the capital of Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the port of Rachgoun. It had a population of ... in present-day Algeria. References History of North Afric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taghribat Bani Hilal
Al-Sirah al-Hilaliyyah (), also known as the Sirat Bani Hilal (سيرة بني هلال ''Sīra Banī Hilāl'') or the al-Hilali epic, is an Arabic epic oral poem that recounts the tale of the journey of the Bedouin tribe of the Banu Hilal from Najd in Arabia to Tunisia and Algeria via Egypt. It is built around historical events that took place in the 11th century. The Banu Hilal were dominant in central North Africa for over a century before their annihilation by the Almohads. The epic is folkloric and oral, not having been committed to writing until relatively recent times, and doesn't have a well-defined date of creation. Of the dozen odd major oral epic poems that developed within the Arab folk tradition between the Middle Ages and the 19th century, ''Sirat Bani Hilal'' is today the only one that is still performed in its integral musical form. The longest notable version contains 1,000,000 lines, the poet could sing this version about 100 hours. The epic, once widespread ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epic Poetry
In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition, epic poems consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, and are contrasted with narratives that consist of everyday speech where the performer has the license to recontextualize the story to a particular audience, often to a younger generation. Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and culture include Homer's ''Iliad'' and '' Odyssey''; Virgil's '' Aeneid''; and the anonymous '' Beowulf'' and '' Epic of Gilgamesh''. The genre has inspired the adjective '' epic'' as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics. Etymology The English word ''epic'' comes from Latin , which itself comes from the Ancient Greek adject ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berbers
Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connections are identified by their usage of Berber languages, most of them mutually unintelligible, which are part of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They are indigenous peoples, indigenous to the Maghreb region of North Africa, where they live in scattered communities across parts of Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Mauritania, northern Mali and northern Niger. Smaller Berber communities are also found in Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa Oasis. Descended from Stone Age tribes of North Africa, accounts of the Imazighen were first mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Ancient Egyptian writings. From about 2000 BC, Berber languages spread westward from the Nile, Nile Valley across the northern Sahara int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunis
Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casablanca and Algiers) and the List of largest cities in the Arab world, eleventh-largest in the Arab world. Situated on the Gulf of Tunis, behind the Lake of Tunis and the port of La Goulette (Ḥalq il-Wād), the city extends along the coastal plain and the hills that surround it. At its core lies the Medina of Tunis, Medina, a World Heritage Site. East of the Medina, through the Sea Gate (also known as the ''Bab el Bhar'' and the ''Porte de France''), begins the modern part of the city called "Ville Nouvelle", traversed by the grand Avenue Habib Bourguiba (often referred to by media and travel guides as "the Tunisian Champs-Élysées"), where the colonial-era buildings provide a clear contrast to smaller, older structures. Further east by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bani Hilal
The Banu Hilal () was a confederation of Arab tribes from the Najd region of the central Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to the Maghreb region of North Africa in the 11th century. They ruled the Najd, and campaigned in the borderlands between Iraq and Syria. When the Fatimid Caliphate became the rulers of Egypt and the founders of Cairo in 969, they confined the Bedouin in the south before sending them to Central North Africa (Libya, Tunisia and Algeria) and then to Morocco. Historians estimate the total number of Arab nomads who migrated to the Maghreb in the 11th century to be to 500,000 to 700,000 to 1,000,000. Historian Mármol Carvajal estimated that more than a million Hilalians migrated to the Maghreb between 1051 and 1110, and estimated that the Hilalian population in the Maghreb at his time in 1573 was at 4,000,000 individuals, excluding other Arab tribes and other Arabs already present. Origin The Banu Hilal originated in Najd in the central Arabian Peninsula, some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abu Zayd Al-Hilali
Abū Zayd Barakāt ibn Rizq al-Hilalī () was an 11th-century Arab leader and legendary hero of the Banu Hilal and a character of the Sirat Bani Hilal. His father was ''Rizq'' who was the ruler of the ''Bilād al-Sarw'' and his mother was ''Khadrāʾ'' who was daughter of the Sharif of Mecca. He had dark skin. On the orders of the Ismaili Fatimid caliph, Abu Zayd moved his tribe to Ifriqiya to punish the Zirids for adopting Sunniism. The Banu Hilali weakened largely the Zirid state and sacked Kairouan. The event was fictionalized in the epic '' Taghribat Bani Hilal''. In the epic it is said that he was murdered by his rival Dhieb bin Ghanim. In a modern context, the events experienced by Bani Hilal and their cousins Bani Sulayma at the time of Abu Zayd have been portrayed in two Arabic TV shows. The first modern drama discussing these events is the 1997 Egyptian show "Al-Seera Al-Hilalia", composed of three 38-episode seasons following Abu Zeyd throughout the migration fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tlemcen
Tlemcen (; ) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran and is the capital of Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the port of Rachgoun. It had a population of 140,158, as of the 2008 census. A major centre of the Medieval Muslim Algeria, Central Maghreb, the city is a mix of Arabs, Arab, Berbers, Berber, al-Andalus, 'Āndalusī, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman, and Western influence on Africa, Western influences. From this mosaic of influences, the city derives the title of capital of Andalusian art in Algeria. Various titles are attributed to the city including "the Pearl of the Maghreb", "the African Granada" and "the Medina of the West". Etymology The name Tlemcen (''Tilimsān'') was given by the Zayyanid King Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan. One possible etymology is that it comes from a Berber languages, Berber word ''tilmas'' 'spring, water-hole', or from the combination of the Berber words ''tala'' 'fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
