Banū Hilal

The Banu Hilal (Arabic: بنو هلال or الهلاليين) was a confederation of tribes of Arabia from the Hejaz and Najd regions of the Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to North Africa in the 11th century. Masters of the vast plateaux of Najd, they enjoyed a somewhat infamous reputation, possibly owing to their relatively late (for the Arabian tribes) conversion to Islam and accounts of their campaigns in the borderlands between Iraq and Syria. With the revolutionary movement of the Qarmatians in Bahrain and Oman, they participated in the pillage of Mecca in 930 in their fight against the Fatimid Caliphate. When the latter became masters of Egypt and the founders of Cairo in 969, they hastened to confine the unruly Bedouin in the south before sending them to the Maghreb.

According to Ibn Khaldun, the Banu Hilal were accompanied by their wives and their children when they came to the Maghreb. They settled in North Africa after repeatedly winning battles against the Berbers, eventually going on to cohabitate with them. Ibn Khaldun described their genealogy, which consisted of two mother tribes: themselves and the Banu Sulaym. They lived on the Ghazwan near Ta'if while the Banu Sulaym attended nearby Medina, sharing a common cousin in the Al Yas branch of the Quraysh. At the time of their migration, Banu Hilal comprised six families: Athbadj, Riyah, Jochem, Addi, Zughba, and Rbia. Today, it is almost impossible to trace a purely Arab lineage due to intermarriage between Arabs and Berbers, though some historians have attempted to do so.

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