Cultural Tours and Desert Adventures - tailor-made holidays

A Brief Libyan History

Tripolitania and the Phoenicians

Many North African cities and towns originated as Phoenician trades posts, where the merchants of Tyre ( in present – day Lebanon ) eventually devoloped commercial relations with the Berber tribes and made treaties with them to ensure their cooperation in the exploitations of raw materials. By the 5th Century B.C., Carthage , the greatest of the overseas Phoenician colonies, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa , where a distinctive civilisation, known as Punic, came into being. Punic settlement on the Libyan coast included Oea ( Tripoli ), Lebdah ( Leptis Magna ), and Sabratha, in an area that came to be known collectively as Tripolis, or the Three Cities . Governed by a mercantile oligarchy Carthage was essentially a maritime power whose expansion along the western Mediteranean coast drew into a confrontation with Rome in the 3rd Century. Defeated in the long Punic Wars ( 264-241 and 218-201 B.C.), however Carthage was destroyed in 146 B.C. Tripolitania was assigned to Rome ’s ally, the Berber king of Nomidia. A century later, Julius Caesar deposed the reigning Numidia king, who had sided with Pompey ( Roman statesman, rival of Julius Caesar ).

Cyrenaica and the Greeks

Like the Phoenicians, Minoan and Greeks seafarers had for centuries probed the North Africa coast, which at the nearest point lay 300 Km from Crete , but systematic Greek settlement there began only in the 7th B.C. . Immigrants from the crowded island of Thera were commanded by the oracle at Delphi to seek a new home in North Africa , where in 631 B.C., they founded the city of Cyrene . Within 200 years of Cyrene’s foundation,four more important Greek cities were established in the area: Barce ( Al Marj ); Euhesperidis ( later Berenice, present-day Benghazi );Teuchira ( later Arsinoe, present-day Tokra ); and Apollonia ( Susah ), the port of Cyrene. Together with Cyrene , they were kown as the Pentapolis ( the five cities ).

The region grew rich from grain, wine, wool, and stockbeeding and from silphium, an herb that grew only in Cyrenaica and was regarded as an aphrodisiac. Cyrene became one of the greatest intellectual and artistic centres of the Greek world, famous for its medical school, learned accademies, and architecture, which included some of the finest examples of the Hellinistic style.

Fezzan and the Garamantes

Throughout the period of Punic and Greek colonozation of the coastal plain, the area known as Fezzan was dominated by the Garamantes a tribal people who entered the region sometime before 1000 B.C. In the desert they established a powerful kingdom astride the trade route between the western Sudan and the Mediteranean coast.

The Garamantes political power was limited to a chain of oasis about 400 Km long in the Wadi Ajal, but from their capital Germa they controlled the desert caravan trade from Ghadamis south of the Niger River, eastward to Egypt, and west to Mauretania. The Carthaginians employed them as carriers of goods ( ivory and gold purchased in exchange for salt ) – from the western Sudan to their depots on the Mediterranean coast. Their wealth and technical skills are also attested to by the remains of their towns, which were built of stone, and more than 50.000 of their pyramidal tombs.

Libya and the Romans

For more than 400 years Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were prosperous Roman provences and part of a cosmopolitan state whose citizens shared a common language, legal system, and Roman identity. Merchants and artisans from many parts of the Roman world established themselves in North Africa , but the character of the cities of Tripolitania remained decidedly Punic and, in Cyrenaica Greek. Tripolitania was a major exporter of olive oil, as well as being the entrepot for the gold and slaves convoyed to the coast by the Garamantes, while Cyrenaica remained an important source of wines, drugs, and horses.

Islam and the Arabs

In 642 Amr ibn al As, an Arab general under Caliph Umar inb al Khattab, conquered Cyrenaica , establishing his headquarters at Barce. Two years later he moved to Tripolitania , where, by the end of the decade, the isolated Byzantine garrisons on the coast were overrun and the Arabs control of the region consolidated. Uqba inb Nafea, an arab general, invaded Fezzan in 663, forcing the capitolation of Germa.

Fatimids

In the last decade of the 9th 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 Aghlabidis. Kairouan fell in 909, and the next year the Katuma installed the Ismaili grandmaster from Syria Ubaidallah Said, as Imam of their movement and ruler over the territory they had conquered which included Tripolitania . The Imam founded the Shia dynasty of the Fatimidis, named for Fatima, daughter of Prophet Mohammed and wife of Ali, from whome the Imam claimed descent.

Hilalians

In Cairo the Fatimid caliph reacted by inviting the Bani Hilal and Bani Salim, beduin tribes known collectively as the Hilalian, to migrate to thr Maghrib and punish his rebllious vassals, the Zirids.

The Hilalians impact on Cyrenaica and Tripolitania was devastating in both economic and demographic terms.

The Bani Salim seem to have stopped in Libya, while Bani Hilal continued across the Maghrib until they reached the Atlantic coast of Marocco and completed the arabization of the region, imposing their social organization, values, and language on it. The Norman rulers of southern Italy took advantage of the Zirids distress in North Africa to invade Sicily in 1060 and bring it back under Christianity control. By 1150 the Normans held a string of ports and fortresses along the coast between Tunis and Tripoli , but their interests in North Africa were commercial rather than political.

Hafsids

The 11th and the 12th centuries witnessed the rise in Marocco of the two rival Berber tribes dynasties - the Almoravidis and Almohads. Ibn Tumart gave Almohads a hierarchical and theocratic centralized government, the sultan Abdal Mumin ( 1130-63 ), subdued Marocco, extended the Muslim frontier in Spain, and by 1160 had swept eastward across the Maghrib and forced the withrawal of the Normans from their strongholds in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania, which were added to the Almohads empire.

Ottoman Regency

Throughout the 16th century, Hapsburg Spain and the Ottoman Turks were pitted in a struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean . Spanish forces had already occupied a number of other North Africa ports when in 1510 they captured Tripoli , destroyed the city, and constructed a fortified base from the rubble. Tripoli was of only marginal importance to Spain , however, and 1524 the king-emperor Charles V entrusted its defence to the Knights of St. John of Malta.

Khair ad Din, called Barbarossa, who in 1510 seized Algiers on the pretext of defending it from the Spaniards. Barbarossa subsequently recognized the sovereignty of the Ottoman sultan over the territory that he controlled and was in turn appointed the sultan’s regent in the Maghrib. Using Algiers as their base, Barbarossa and his successors consolidated Ottoman authority in the central Maghrib, extended to Tunisia, Triplitania, and threatened Marocco.

Karamanlis

In 1711 Ahmed Karamnli, a popular khouloughli cavalry officer, seized Tripoli and then purchased his confirmaton by the sultan as pasha-regent with the property confiscated from Turkish officials he had massacred during the coup. Intelligent and resourceful as well as ruthless, he increased his revenues from piracy, pursued an active foreign policy with the European powers, used a loyal military establishment to win the allegiance of the tribes, and extended his authority into Cyrenaica . The Karamanli regime, however, declined under Ahmed’s successores. Then in 1739, a Turkish officer, Ali Benghul, overthrew the Karamanlis and restored Tripoli to Ottoman rule.

The Sanusi Order

The founder of the Sanusi religious Order, Muhammad ibn Ali as Sanusi (1787-1859 ) possesed both the popular appeal of a marabout and the prestige of a religious scholar. Born near Oran in Algeria , he had traveled widely, studying and teaching at some of the outstanding Islamic centres of learning of his day, and his reputation as a scholar and holy man had spread throughout North Africa . On the basis of his perception of the state and needs of Islam, the Grand Sanusi organized a religious order, founding its first lodge Zawiya near Mecca in 1837. He had originally intended to return to Algeria , but the expansion of the french occupation there determined that he settle in Cyrenaica . The tribesmen of the interior were particularly receptive to his ideas, and in 1843 he founded the first Cyrenaican lodge at Albyda. To the single lodge at Albyda in 1843 was eventually added a network of lodges throughout Cyrenaica that bound together the tribal system of the region. Before his death in 1859, the Grand Sanusi established the order’s centre at Al Jaghbub. The Grand Sanusi ‘s son Muhammad, succeeded him as the order’s leader.

Italian Colonialism

In September 1911 Italy had engineered a crisis with Turkey charged that the Turks commited a hostle act by arming Arab tribesmen in Libya . When Turkey refused to respond to an ultimatum calling for Italian military occupation to protect italians interests in the region, Italy declared war. After a preleminary naval bombardment, Italian troops landed and captured Tripoli on October 3, encountering slight resistence. Italian forces also occupied Tobrouk, Alkhoms, Derna, and Benghazi .

When Italy joined the allied powers in 1915, the first Italo-Sanusi war in Cyrenaica became part of the world war. Germany and Turkey sent arms and advisers to Ahmed, who aligned the Sanusi with the central powers with the objective of tying down Italians and British troops in North Africa . In 1916, however, Turkish officers led the Sanisis on a campaign into Egypt , where they were routed by British forces. Ahmed gave up Sanusi political and military leadership to Idris and fled to Turkey aboard a German submahrine. The pro-British Idris opened negotiation with the allies on behalf of Cyrenaica in 1917. Britain and Italy recognized Idris as amir of interior Cyrenaica , with the condition that Sanusi attacks on coastal towns and into Egypt cease. The provences of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania were treated as separate colonies, and Fezzan was organized as a military territory. In 1920 an accord was reached between Italy and the Sanusi leaders that confirmed Idris as amir of Cyrenaica and recognized his vertual indipendence in an immense area in the interior that encompassed all the principal oasis. In 1934 Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were divided into four provences – Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi and Derna – which were formally linked as a single colony Libya, thus officially resurrecting the name that Diocletian had applied nearly 1500 years earlier.

Independence

As Europe prepared for war, libyan nationalists at home and in exile perceived that the best chance for liberation from colonial domination lay in Italy ’s defeat in a larger conflict. Such an opportunity seemed to arise when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, but Mussolini’s defiance of the league of nations and the feeble reaction of Britain and France dashed libyan hopes for the time being.

In February 1941, the Italian Tenth Army surrendered, netting Wavell 150.000 prisoners and leaving all of Cyrenaica in British hands. The liberation of Cyrenaica was completed for the second time in November. Tripoli fell to the British in January 1943, and by mid-Febuary the last Axis troops had been driven from Libya.

Independent Libya

Under the construction of October 1951, the federal monarchy of Libya was headed by King Idris as a chief of state, with succession to his designated heirs. Benghazi and Tripoli served alternately as the national capital.

The September 1969 Revolution

On September the 1st The Free Officers Movement, led by the young lieutenant Muammar Alghad daf i, carried out a coup d'etat. The 12 member directorate that designated itself the Revolutionary Command Counsil (RRC), the RRC declared the country to be a free and sovereign state called the Lbyan Arab Repuplic which "will proceed, with the help of God in the path of freedom, unity, and social justice, guaranteeing the right of equality to its citizens, and opening before them the doors of honorable work ". The rule of the Turks and the Italians and the regime just overthrown were characterized as belonging to the dark ages, from which the Libyan people were called to move forward as free brothers to new age of prosperity, equality, and honor.

The RRC advised diplomatic representatives in Libya that the revolutionary changes had not been directed from outside the country, that existing treaties and agreements would remain in effect, and the foreign lives and property would be protected. Diplomatic recognition of the new state came quickly from countries throughout the world.

The Solcialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahirya

The remaking of Libyan society that the now Colonel Ghaddafi envisioned and to which he devoted his energies after the early 1970s formally began in 1973 with the Cultural Revolution. To instill revolutionary fervor and to involve them in political affairs, he urged them to challenge traditional authority and to take over and run government organs themselves. The instrument for doing this was the people’s committee. The new political order took shape in March 1977 with the declaration of the Establishment of the People Authority and proclaimed the Socialist People Libyan Arab Jamahirya, which means state of the masses.

Post-Ghaddafi Libya

2011 saw the new Arab Spring (which swept Tunisian and Egyptian leaders out of power) come to Libya and a rebellion quickly established itself in the east of the country in Benghazi. It was not until September, though, with the intervention of NATO (backed by the UN) that the capital of Tripoli came into the control of the new Transitional Council for Libya.

We wish the people of libya all the best for a peaceful and hopeful future.