The Maghrib: land and people

The choice of ‘Maghrib’ as a collective name for the four countries Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, whose history from the end of the seventh century the present book outlines, requires some explanation. This name has been preferred to ‘North Africa’, which includes Egypt, because Egyptian history falls outside the scope of this work. The French have made this last name additionally misleading by using its French equivalent ‘Afrique du Nord’ to refer to their former possessions on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, thus excluding Egypt and Libya from its connotation. The name ‘Maghrib’ itself, which means ‘Land of Sunset’ and was used by the Arabs to refer to the area to the west of Egypt into which they expanded from this country, also causes some difficulty. Cyrenaica, the eastern region of Libya, which is comprised in the connotation of the term as used here, was annexed administratively to Egypt in the pre-Islamic period and intermittently also during it. In spite of this difficulty, the name ‘Maghrib’ will be used for the entire area from the western borders of Egypt to the Atlantic partly for convenience and also in recognition of the dominant religious and cultural influence of Islam in it.

The geographical location of the Maghrib has had great significance for its history, because it exposed it to the covetousness of the major powers of the Mediterranean region.