maghreb |
english |
Difino
| • | The Maghreb (المغرب العربي ; sometimes also rendered Moghreb), meaning "western" in Arabic, is the region of the continent of Africa north of the Sahara desert and west of the Nile — specifically, the modern countries of Morocco, Western Sahara (annexed and occupied by Morocco), Algeria, Tunisia, Libya — and to a much lesser extent Mauritania. 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 Arab 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 French, 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. The western Islamic world (northwest Africa); distinguished from the Mashriq, or eastern Islamic world (the Middle East). Literally, "the time and place of the sunset--the west." For its Arab conquerors, the region was the " Source: [wikipedia: maghreb] |
african:world_literature
| An Introduction to the Literature of the Maghreb | ||
| literature of morocco, algeria, and tunisia, including literature in french, arabic, tamazight and english translation. | ||
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