Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: John Kingsley Birge, The Bektashi 

Order of Dervishes (London: Luzac & Co., 1937); F. 

W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929); Frances Trix, 

Spiritual Discourse: Learning with an Islamic Master

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993).

Berber

Berber is a term for the most ancient known 

culture, people, and language in North Africa. 

Berbers, or Imazighen, once lived from south of 

the Sahara all the way from the Mediterranean and 

from e

gypt

 in the east to the Canary Islands in the 

far west. During their long history, Berber-speak-

ing peoples have been influenced by a number of 

religious traditions, including paganism, Christi-

anity, and Judaism, but the most profound debt is 

to i

slam

. Today Berbers are overwhelmingly Sunni 

Muslims.

Berbers were introduced to Islam in the eighth 

century when some joined a

rab

 Muslims in 

conquering Spain (a

ndalUsia

), but the conver-

sion of more remote Berbers took hundreds of 

years. Relations between Arabs and Berbers were 

not always harmonious, particularly when Arabs 

treated Berber speakers as inferiors. In the 12th 

century, Berber groups formed the core of the 

Almoravid and then the a

lmohad

 

dynasty

 that 

ruled much of Spain and North Africa, and Ber-

bers were central to the Marinid (1196–1464) and 

Fatimid dynasties (909–1171) also. Today Berbers 

continue to inhabit small communities in e

gypt

, 

l

ibya

, and t

Unisia

, but most live in a

lgeria

, Mau-

ritania, Niger, and especially m

orocco

, where 

they are thought to constitute 40 percent of the 

population. There are also large communities of 

migrant Berbers in Europe, especially in Belgium, 

the Netherlands, and France.

The term Berber relates to the Greek and 

Roman word for barbarian, and thus many con-

temporary scholars and activists prefer the terms 

Amazigh (singular) or Imazighen (plural) to 

describe what most English speakers know as Ber-

bers. One thing that makes Imazighen distinctive 

is their language, which seems to be remarkably 

similar over a vast territory and has persisted for 

a very long time despite the political dominance 

of written languages such as Latin, French, and 

Arabic. Today Berber usually refers to someone 

who speaks some variety of Berber (Tamazight) 

as their first or only language, though there are 

Imazighen who do not speak the language but 

remain passionately attached to Amazigh culture 

and identity.

See also a

lmoravid

 

dynasty

; F

atimid

 

dynasty

.

David Crawford