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Libya
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By the seventh century, a conflict had developed between
supporters of rival claimants to the caliphate that would split
Islam into two branches--the orthodox Sunni and the Shia--which
continued thereafter as the basic division among Muslims. The Shia
(from Shiat Ali, or Party of Ali) supported the claims of
the direct descendants of Ali, the fourth caliph and son-in-law of
the Prophet Muhammad, whereas the Sunni favored that of Ali's
rival, the leader of a collateral branch of Muhammad's tribe, and
the principle of election of the fittest from the ranks of the
shurfa (see Glossary).
The Shia had their greatest appeal
among non-Arab Muslims, who, like the Berbers, were scorned by the
aristocratic desert Arabs.
In the last decade of the ninth century, missionaries of the
Ismaili sect of Shia Islam converted the Kutama Berbers of the
Kabylie region to the militant brand of Shia Islam and led them on
a crusade against the Sunni Aghlabids. Kairouan fell in 909, and
the next year the Kutama installed the Ismaili grandmaster from
Syria, Ubaidalla Said, as
imam (see Glossary)
of their movement and
ruler over the territory they had conquered, which included
Tripolitania. Recognized by his Berber followers as the
Mahdi ("the
divinely guided one"--see Glossary), the imam founded the Shia
dynasty of the Fatimids, named for Fatima, daughter of Muhammad and
wife of Ali, from whom the imam claimed descent.
Merchants of the coastal towns were the backbone of the Fatimid
state that was founded by religious enthusiasts and imposed by
Berber tribesmen. The slow but steady economic revival of Europe
created a demand for goods from the East for which Fatimid ports in
North Africa and Sicily were ideal distribution centers. Tripoli
thrived on the trade in slaves and gold brought from the Sudan and
on the sale of wool, leather, and salt shipped from its docks to
Italy in exchange for wood and iron goods.
For many years the Fatimids threatened Morocco with invasion,
but they eventually turned their armies eastward, where in the name
of religion the Berbers took their revenge on the Arabs. By 969 the
Fatimids had completed the conquest of Egypt and moved their
capital to the new city that they founded at Cairo, where they
established a Shia caliphate to rival that of the Sunni caliph at
Baghdad. They left the Maghrib to their Berber vassals, the Zirids,
but the Shia regime had already begun to crumble in Tripolitania as
factions struggled indecisively for regional supremacy. The Zirids
neglected the economy, except to pillage it for their personal
gain. Agricultural production declined, and farmers and herdsmen
became brigands. Shifting patterns of trade gradually depressed the
once-thriving commerce of the towns. In an effort to hold the
support of the urban Arabs, in 1049 the Zirid amir defiantly
rejected the Shia creed, broke with the Fatimids, and initiated a
Berber return to Sunni orthodoxy.
Data as of 1987
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