Banu Hilal - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Banu Hilal (Arabic: بنو هلال) was a group of Nomadic Arabs. In the 11th century they migrated from Upper Egypt into what is now Tunisia and eastern Algeria.^[1] They defeated the Berbers.^[2]

History

Oral tradition says that the tribe would have left Arabia to go to Egypt.^[3] According to their legend they rebelled against the Caliph of Baghdad in the second half of the 10th century.^[4] In 1049, when the Zirid ruler of Tunisia rebelled against Egypt, nomads were sent to punish them.^[4] Ibn Khaldun, an early Tunisian historian, said they were like "a cloud of locusts" when they invaded Tunisia.^[4] The Arab poets told of their many conquests as they moved west. They were defeated in a series of battles during the 12th century by the Moroccan dynasty.^[5] Even though it was an oral history, the Banu Hilal were a real tribe.^[5] They did come from the Arabian Peninsula.^[5] And the Banu Hilal did control much of North Africa for over a century.^[5]

↑ Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, eds. Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Second Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 360
↑ Allen James Fromherz, Ibn Khaldun: Life and Times (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ©2010), p. 142
↑ Medieval Islamic Civilization; an Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, eds. Josef W. Meri; Jere L. Bacharach (New York; Oxford: Routledge, 2006), p. 231
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, Volume 1, eds. Julie Scott Meisami; Paul Starkey (London; New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 133
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 ^5.2 ^5.3 Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World, The Poetics of Community, eds. Margaret Beissinger; Jane Tylus; Susanne Wofford (Berkeley; Los Angeles; Oxford: The University of California Press, 1999), p. 156