The Zuwayya are an independent Murabtin tribe, one of the major 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...

 Bedouin

Bedouin

The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...

 tribes of Cyrenaica

Cyrenaica

Cyrenaica is the eastern coastal region of Libya.Also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, it was part of the Creta et Cyrenaica province during the Roman period, later divided in Libia Pentapolis and Libia Sicca...

, 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....

.

Traditionally practicing nomadic pastoralism

Nomadic pastoralism

Nomadic pastoralism is a form of agriculture where livestock are herded in order to find fresh pastures on which to graze following an irregular pattern of movement - in contrast with transhumance where seasonal pastures are fix. The herded livestock may include cattle, yaks, sheep, goats,...

 of sheep and camels in a triangular area with its apex at Ajdabiya

Ajdabiya

Ajdabiya was one of the districts of Libya. It lay in the northeastern part of the country. Its capital was Ajdabiya. As of 2007 it was subsumed within the enlarged Al Wahat District....

, the Zuwayya conquered the richest oasis of the interior, Kufra

Kufra

Kufra is a basin and oasis group in Al Kufrah District, southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. Kufra is historically important above all because at the end of nineteenth century it became the center and holy place of the Senussi order...

, in 1840, subduing the indigenous Toubou

Toubou

The Tubu are an ethnic group that live mainly in northern Chad, but also in Libya, Niger and Sudan....

 tribes. The Zuwayya tribe owns most of the date palm groves of the Kufra oases, employing the Toubou tribesmen as labourers.

The Zuwayya together with the Majabra tribe of Jalu

Jalu

Jalu, Jaloo, or Gialo is a town in the Al Wahat District in northeastern Libya in the Jalo oasis. From 2001 to 2007 it was part of Ajdabiya District. Formerly it was the administrative seat of Jalu District ....

 converted to the Senussi

Senussi

The Senussi or Sanussi refers to a Muslim political-religious order in Libya and the Sudan region founded in Mecca in 1837 by the Grand Senussi, Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi. Senussi was concerned with both the decline of Islamic thought and spirituality and the weakening of Muslim political...

 order in the late 19th century, allowing the spread of this ideology into Wadai and Chad

Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...

.

The Zuwayya tribe took part in the 2011 Libyan civil war

2011 Libyan civil war

The 2011 Libyan civil war was an armed conflict in the North African state of Libya, fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and those seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Benghazi beginning on 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security...

 on the side of the opposition.
The head of the tribe, Shaikh Faraj al Zuway, threatened to cut off Libyan oil exports unless the Gaddafi regime stopped the "suppression of protestors".