Banu Hilal
The Banu Hilal (Arabic: بنو هلال, romanized: Banū Hilāl) was a confederation of Arab tribes from the Najd region of the central Arabian Peninsula that emigrated to the Maghreb region of North Africa in the 11th century. Masters of the vast plateaux of the 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. When the Fatimid Caliphate became the rulers of Egypt and the founders of Cairo in 969, they hastened to confine the unruly Bedouin in the south before sending them to Central North Africa (Libya, Tunisia and Algeria) and then to Morocco.
Banu Hilal
بنو هلال
al-Hilālī
Hilal bin 'Amir bin Sa'sa bin Mu'awiya bin Bakr bin Hawazin
4,000,000 (1573)[1]
Shia Islam (originally)[2]
Sunni Islam (later)[3]
Historians estimate the total number of Arab nomads who migrated to the Maghreb in the 11th century to be to 500,000[4] to 700,000[5] to 1,000,000.[6] Historian Mármol Carvajal estimated that more than a million Hilalians migrated to the Maghreb between 1051-1110, and estimated that the Hilalian population in the Maghreb at his time in 1573 was at 4,000,000 individuals, excluding other Arab tribes and other Arabs already present.[1]
History[edit]
Pre-Islamic Arabia[edit]
Its original habitat, like that of its related tribes, was the Najd, and its history during pre-Islamic times is bound with other tribes of BanuʿĀmir ibn Ṣaʿṣaʿa, especially in Ayyām al-ʿArab and in affairs related to the rise of Islam in the region, such as that of Biʾr Māʿūna.[3] Banu Hilal likely did not accept the rule of Islam until after Muhammad's victory at the Battle of Hunayn in 630, but like other Āmirid tribes, they also did not join in the Ridda Wars that followed Muhammad's death in 632.[3]
Migration to Egypt, Iraq and the Levant[edit]
The tribe does not appear to have played any significant role in the early Muslim conquests, and for the most part remained in the Nejd.[3] Only in the early 8th century did some of the Banu Hilal (and the Banu Sulaym) move to Egypt. Many followed, so that the two groups became numerous in Egypt.[3] During the Abbasid Caliphate, the Hilal were known for their unruliness.[3] In the 9th century, Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym migrated from Najd to Iraq, and later to the Levant, before migrating to the Maghreb in the 11th century.[11]
In the 970s, the Hilal and the Sulaym joined the radical sect of the Qarmatians in their attacks on the Fatimid Caliphate, which had just conquered Egypt and was pushing into Syria.[3][12] As a result, after his victory over the Qarmatians in 978, the Fatimid caliph al-Aziz (r. 975–996) forcibly relocated the two tribes to Upper Egypt.[3][12] As they continued to fight among themselves and pillage the area, they were prohibited from crossing the Nile River or leaving Upper Egypt.[3]
Social organization[edit]
Originally, the Banu Hilal embraced a nomadic lifestyle, rearing cattle and sheep. Despite several tribes living in arid and desert areas, they became experts in the field of agriculture. The Banu Hilal were conservative and patriarchal, and were tolerant Shi'ites.[23] They were initially Isma'ili Shia, but after their conquest of the Sunni Maghreb, the vast majority of Banu Hilal progressively adopted the Maliki school of Sunni Islam, following the Malikization of the Maghreb in the twelfth century and later centuries.[23][24]