The Mozabite people are a Berber

Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...

 ethnic group living in M'zab

M'zab

The M'zab or Mzab, , is a region of the northern Sahara, in the Ghardaïa wilaya, an administrative division similar to a province, of Algeria...

 in the northern Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...

. They speak Tumzabt

Tumzabt language

Mozabite, or , is a dialect of the Berber language spoken by the Mozabites, an Ibadi group inhabiting the seven cities of the M'zab in the northern Saharan Algeria. It is also spoken by small numbers of Mozabite emigrants in the cities of Algeria and elsewhere...

. Most of them are Ibadi

Ibadi

The Ibāḍī movement, Ibadism or Ibāḍiyya is a form of Islam distinct from the Sunni and Shia denominations. It is the dominant form of Islam in Oman and Zanzibar...

 Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s. Nearly all of them read and write Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, though they use the Zenata dialect of the Berber language, for which they have no surviving written form.

Mozabites live in five oases, namely, Ghardaia

Ghardaïa

Ghardaïa is the capital city of Ghardaïa Province, Algeria. The commune of Ghardaïa has a population of 104,645, with 82,500 in the main city according to 2005 estimates. It is located in northern-central Algeria in the Sahara Desert and lies along the left bank of the Wadi Mzab...

, Beni-Isguen, El-Ateuf, Melika and Bounoura

Bounoura

Bounoura is a city in Bounoura District, Ghardaïa Province, Algeria. As of 1998 it had a population of 27,800.-References:...

 and two other isolated oases farther north, Berriane

Berriane

Berriane is a medium-sized town in the south of Algeria and the capital of the district of the same name in the province of Ghardaïa . It is located in the north of the Sahara desert, in the extreme North of the wilaya of Ghardaïa, 554 km south of Algiers and 43 km north of Ghardaïa City...

 and Guerrara.

History

According to tradition the Ibadites, after their overthrow at Tiaret by the Fatimites, took refuge during the 10th century in the country to the southwest of Ouargla

Ouargla

Ouargla is the capital city of Ouargla province, in the Sahara Desert, in southern Algeria. It has a flourishing oil industry, and hosts one of Algeria's universities. The city had a population of 129,402 in 1998 ....

, where they founded an independent state.

In 1012, owing to further persecutions, they fled to their present location, where they long remained invulnerable.

After the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 capture of Laghouat

Laghouat

Laghouat is the capital city of the Laghouat Province, Algeria, 400 km south of the Algerian capital Algiers in the Atlas Mountains. As of 2005, the population of the city was 126,291 inhabitants. Nearby, in Hassi R'Mel, there is the largest natural gas reserve in Africa.The city was founded in...

, the Mozabites concluded a convention with them in 1853, whereby they accepted to pay an annual contribution of 1,800 francs in return for their independence. In November 1882 the Mzab country was definitely annexed to French Algeria

French Algeria

French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...

.

Ghardaia

Ghardaïa

Ghardaïa is the capital city of Ghardaïa Province, Algeria. The commune of Ghardaïa has a population of 104,645, with 82,500 in the main city according to 2005 estimates. It is located in northern-central Algeria in the Sahara Desert and lies along the left bank of the Wadi Mzab...

 (pop. 104.645) is the capital of the confederacy, followed in importance by Beni-Isguen (4916), the chief commercial centre.

Since the establishment of French control, Beni-Isguen has become the depot for the sale of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an goods. The Mozabite engineers built a system of irrigation

Irrigation

Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

works that made the oases much more fertile than they used to be.