The Habt () is a historical and geographical region located in northwest

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

Toponymy

The

place name Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...

"Habt" means "descent" and probably dates back to

Idrisids The Idrisid dynasty or Idrisids ( ') were an Arab Muslim dynasty from 788 to 974, ruling most of present-day Morocco and parts of present-day western Algeria. Named after the founder, Idris I, the Idrisids were an Alid dynasty descended from Mu ...

., § 8

Geography

The Habt is characterized by the presence of

plain In geography, a plain, commonly known as flatland, is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and ...

s and

mountains A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher ...

. It comprises the plains of Rharb and Khlot and part of the

Rif The Rif (, ), also called Rif Mountains, is a geographic region in northern Morocco. It is bordered on the north by the Mediterranean Sea and Spain and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and is the homeland of the Rifians and the Jebala people ...

, a mountainous region.

Leo Africanus Johannes Leo Africanus (born al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Wazzān al-Zayyātī al-Fasī, ; – ) was an Andalusi diplomat and author who is best known for his 1526 book '' Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica'', later publish ...

, a diplomat and explorer of

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

in 15th and 16th centuries, wrote:

History

Because of its proximity to the territory of

al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...

, the Habt was one of the first

Arabized Arabization or Arabicization () is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language, culture, literature, art, music, and ...

areas in

. According to Leo Africanus, the province of Habt (''‘amalat al-Habt'') was founded during the

Wattassid The Wattasid dynasty (, ''al-waṭṭāsīyūn'') was a ruling dynasty of Morocco. Like the Marinid dynasty, its rulers were of Zenata Berber descent. The two families were related, and the Marinids recruited many viziers from the Wattasids. Th ...

dynasty. Two centuries later, under the Alaouites, the region of the Jebala and Faḥṣ (''nāḥiyat Jbāla wa al-Faḥṣ'') has supplanted administratively. After the

Battle of Sétif The Battle of Sétif () took place on April 27, 1153, AD, in the region of Sétif in present-day Algeria. it was a battle between a coalition of Riyah, Banu Riyah tribes and the Almohad Caliphate, Almohads led by the caliph Abd al-Mu'min. The re ...

in 1153, the victorious

Almohads The Almohad Caliphate (; or or from ) or Almohad Empire was a North African Berber Muslim empire founded in the 12th century. At its height, it controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa (the Maghreb). The Almohad ...

forced some of the defeated

Banu 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 I ...

tribes to move to

. During the 17th century, the sultan

Ismail Ibn Sharif Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif (, – 22 March 1727) was a Sultan of Morocco from 1672 to 1727, as the second ruler of the 'Alawi dynasty. He was the seventh son of Sharif ibn Ali, Moulay Sharif and was governor of the province of Fez and the north o ...

created a

guich ''Guich'' tribes, ''Gish'' tribes, or ''Jaysh'' tribes ( or ), or sometimes ''Makhzen'' tribes, were tribes of usually Arab origin organized by the sultans of Moroccan dynasties under the pre-colonial Makhzen regime to serve as troops and milita ...

army made up of warriors from the Banu Hilal.

Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldun (27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732–808 Hijri year, AH) was an Arabs, Arab Islamic scholar, historian, philosopher and sociologist. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest social scientists of the Middle Ages, and cons ...

, an historian of

, wrote:Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique septentrionale, Ibn Khaldûn,

Toponymy

Geography

History

See also

References

Sources

Further reading