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Berbers were positioned in many of the most mountainous regions of Spain, such as Granada, the Pyrenees, Cantabria, and Galicia. Collins suggests this may be because some Berbers were familiar with mountain terrain, whereas the Arabs were not. [111]: 49–50 By the late 710s, there was a Berber governor in Leon or Gijon.
Following a period of Islamization, the highly-influential Arab mediaeval writer Ibn Khaldun considered "Berbers" to be their own "race" or "great nation." This idea fell out of use as indigenous North Africans were increasingly marginalized, but was revived by French colonists in the nineteenth century in hopes of dividing the population. [8 ...
In the past, it would have been very difficult to decide whether these Jewish Berber clans were originally of Israelite descent and had become assimilated with the Berbers in language and some cultural habits or whether they were indigenous Berbers who in the course of centuries had become Jewish through conversion by Jewish settlers.
Berber tribes are tribes of Berber descent inhabiting the Maghreb region. They are traditionally divided into three large tribal confederations: Masmuda , Zenata and Sanhaja . [ 1 ] [ 2 ] They often form smaller confederations of tribes together (for example the Haha or the Ait Yafelman ).
Between the 11th and 12th centuries, the Islamized Berber dynasty of the Almoravids (Lempta tribe) spread in western North Africa. They veiled their faces and were feared as skilled camel riders for their extremely quick robberies. They forced Islam on the people of Western Sahara, who were rooted in traditional religious traditions. [5]
The evidence supported the notion that the Guanches were descended from a Berber-like population who had migrated from mainland North Africa. Among modern populations, Guanches were also found to be genetically similar to modern Sardinians. Some models found the Guanche to be more closely related to modern Sardinians than modern North Africans.
The people commonly known today as the Berbers were anciently more often known as Libyans. Yet many "Berbers" have for long self-identified as Imazighen or "free people" (etymology uncertain). [83] Mommsen, a widely admired historian of the 19th century, stated:
The Masmuda settled large parts of Morocco, and were largely sedentary and practised agriculture. The residence of the Masmuda aristocracy was Aghmat in the High Atlas mountains. From the 10th century the Berber tribes of the Sanhaja and Zanata groups invaded the lands of the Masmuda, followed from the 12th century onwards by Arab Bedouins (see ...