Mzab

The Mzab or Me zab (مزاب) is an area of the center of the Algérie, located at 600 km in the south of Algiers, in the Wilaya of Ghardaïa.

Geography

Mzab is a rock plate whose altitude varies between 300 and 800 meters. This relief, which dates from the Crétacé superior, is appeared as a vast stony extent and brown rocks and noirâtres. The Oued Me zab crosses this plate of the North-West towards south-east.

In the beginning Mzab was a whole of 5 Oasis of 72 km ² to 600 km in the south of Algiers:

  • Ghardaïa
  • Blessed-Isguen
  • El-Ateuf
  • Mélika
  • Bou Noura
and of two oases isolated more in north:
  • Berrian
  • Guerrara .

History

The area was populated by communities troglodytes starting from the Neolithic era. These first inhabitants rather are known little about. In all, Mzab saw being born 25 cities now disappeared.

As from the 9th century, Mzab, up to that point little populated, becomes the refuge of the Ibadites Berbères called Mozabites.

Since the 18th century, the area accentuates its role of commercial crossroads caravaneer of Saharan Africa, around products such as dates, salt, the ivory, the weapons, but also the slaves. The presence of Mozabites installed in the cities of the North of the Maghreb such as Tunis and Algiers confirms their commercial capacities.

After the capture of El-Aghuat by the French, Mozabites conclude with the government from Algiers a convention which commits them to pay an annual contribution of 1800 francs to obtain autonomy. In 1853, the Federation of the seven cities of Mzab signs a treaty with the France, the text guarantees an autonomy with the area. But the repeated incursions of nomads push France to annex the territory in 1882. The French from this date developed a system of irrigation in the oases.

With the independence of Algeria in 1962 all the Juifs of Mzab present since centuries in the area were exiled in France.

See too

zab is to Me also an area of the Morocco, which is in the middle of the plate of the Chaouia to an about sixty kilometers of Casablanca, whose capital is the town of Ben Ahmed.

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