Taghribat Bani Hilal - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Taghribat Bani Hilal is an Arabic epic

Arabic epic literature

Arabic epic literature encompasses epic poetry and epic fantasy in Arabic literature. Virtually all societies have developed folk tales encompassing tales of heroes...

recounting the Banu Hilal

Banu Hilal

The Banu Hilal were a confederation of Arabian Bedouin tribes that migrated from Upper Egypt into North Africa in the 11th century, having been sent by the Fatimids to punish the Zirids for abandoning Shiism. Other authors suggest that the tribes left the grasslands on the upper Nile because of...

's journey from Najd

Najd

Najd or Nejd , literally Highland, is the central region of the Arabian Peninsula.-Boundaries :The Arabic word nejd literally means "upland" and was once applied to a variety of regions within the Arabian Peninsula...

to Tunisia

Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

via Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

and conquest of the latter. It is built around historical events that took place in the 11th century. The epic is folkloric and oral, not having been committed to writing until relatively recent times, and doesn't have a well-defined date of creation. It was declared one of Mankind's Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

The Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity was made by the Director-General of UNESCO starting in 2001 to raise awareness on intangible cultural heritage and encourage local communities to protect them and the local people who sustain these forms of cultural...

by the UNESCO in 2003.

Historical background

The event of Taghribat Bani Hilal has a basis in history, when Tunisia

Tunisia

broke away from the Fatimid

Fatimid

The Fatimid Islamic Caliphate or al-Fāṭimiyyūn was a Berber Shia Muslim caliphate first centered in Tunisia and later in Egypt that ruled over varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz from 5 January 909 to 1171.The caliphate was ruled by the Fatimids, who established the...

empire in the 11th century.

A famine

Famine

A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...

hit Egypt for seven years; a similar famine hit Arabia, and entire tribes moved with their families and animals from there to Egypt

Egypt

in search of food and pasture. AsAl-Mustansir of Cairo

Al-Mustansir of Cairo

' ‎ , was born in Cairo on 16th Jumada II, 420 AH and eight months afterwards was declared to succeed his father. His name was Ma'd Abu Tamim, surnamed al-Mustansir bil-Lah "The Asker Of Victory From God". He ascended on 15th Shaban, 427/June 13, 1036 at the age of . During the early years, the...

, the Fatimid

Fatimid

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...

in Egypt

Egypt

, did not have enough resources to retake Tunisia

Tunisia

, he directed the tribes from Arabia to take Tunisia

Tunisia

on his behalf.

In that way no financial or human resources needed to be put in by Egypt

Egypt

direct, nor would they support the Banu Hilal

Banu Hilal

. If inhabitants of oases

Oasis

In geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...

between Egypt

Egypt

and Tunisia

Tunisia

became angry, their anger would not be directed at al-Mustansir

Al-Mustansir of Cairo

Effects

This crude political act had two major effects, one cultural, and the other literary.

As a result of 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...

-speaking tribes settling Tunisia

Tunisia

, this region became mainly Arabic speaking, and not Berber

Berber languages

The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...

Epic

The epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

was inspired by these historic events.

In it the Hilali leader Abu Zayd al-Hilali

Abu Zayd al-Hilali

Abu Zayd Ibn Rizq Al-Hilali was a 11th century Arab leader and hero of the 'Amirid tribe of Banu Hilal.On the orders of the Ismaili Fatimid caliph, Abu Zayd moved his tribe to Tunisia via Egypt to punish the Zirids for adopting Sunniism. The Banu Hilali weakened largely the Zirid state and sacked...

's rival is Khalifa al-Zanati

Khalifa al-Zanati

Khalifa al-Zanati was the Berber king of Tunis and one of the main characters in the Bani Hilal epic. The epic says that during the siege of Bani Hilal to Tunis he asked their knights for duels every day and killed many of them, not even Abu Zayd al-Hilali was able to defeat him. His destiny was...

, the hero of the tribe of Zenata

Zenata

Zenata were an ethnic group of North Africa, who were technically an Eastern Berber group and who are found in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco....

. The war between the Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

Banu Hilal

and the 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...

Zenata

Zenata were an ethnic group of North Africa, who were technically an Eastern Berber group and who are found in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco....

is the main theme of the Sira named after Abu Zeid. Another character featured in the epic is Shehta (شحتة).

The Sira was initially carried orally

Oral literature

Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do...

and handed down from generation to generation often in poem form via bard

Bard

In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...

s and then recorded later in many variants.

The Egypt

Egypt

ian poet and writer Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi has made an exhaustive collection of the Sira, travelling from Egypt

Egypt

to Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

to Tunisia

Tunisia

to document the variants of the epic.

The epic was narrated by storytellers in cafés well into the 20th century, much like the Baibars

Baibars

Baibars or Baybars , nicknamed Abu l-Futuh , was a Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. He was one of the commanders of the forces which inflicted a devastating defeat on the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX of France and he led the vanguard of the Egyptian army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, which marked...

biography.

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