The Berbers (Amazigh)

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Bruce Maddy-Weitzman

Published:

2018

Publisher:

Routledge

A modern Berber identity movement has arisen in recent decades that challenges dominant national narratives and state-building projects that relegate Berbers to the realm of folklore. In foregrounding Berber language, culture, and history, it seeks to refashion the identity of North African states. The Berbers' geographical and anthropological origins are multiple, emanating from the north (Mediterranean), east (Nile valley), and south resulting in a composite population during Neolithic times. The pattern of variegated native responses to invaders repeated itself with the Arab-Islamic conquests that began in the mid-seventh century AD, ranging from initial resistance to a full embrace of the victors new religion. Ibn Khaldun's discussion of Berber origins essentially summed up the dominant thinking of 600 years of Muslim historiography on the subject. The teaching of Tamazight in Moroccan schools was inaugurated; to that end, and amidst considerable controversy, a modified version of the ancient and largely ceremonial Tifinagh script was adopted.

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