The Arab tribes: Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym, 1 January 1200

From Barqa to the high plains of Constantine the open country belongs to the Arab tribes, the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym, who came west a century and a half before and broke the old Zirid state.

They are not a realm with a ruler but a world of clans, each under its shaykhs, who meet in tribal councils, move with the seasons between the steppe and the edges of the Tell and the oases, and live by herding, by escorting and robbing caravans, and by the dues and grants that towns and princes pay them. In the winter of 1199-1200 most of the Sulaym of Tripolitania and southern Ifriqiya (the Dabbab and the Awf with their Ka'ub), and the Dawawida of the Riyah, are Yahya ibn Ghaniya's allies and the backbone of his armies; the Sulaym of Barqa (the Hayb and Labid) stand apart in their own country; the Hilali Riyah and Athbaj of the Constantinois and the Zab are partly with the Almohads, partly with Yahya (central Maghreb sheet).

Who rules

Name: The shaykhs of the clans (names mostly not known for 1200); in Ifriqiya the best known is Muhammad ibn Mas'ud of the Dawawida (Riyah), whose father Mas'ud al-Ballat died at the taking of Tripoli in Qaraqush's service
Title: No single ruler: each tribe and clan answers to its own shaykhs
Since: The Hilal and Sulaym came west from Upper Egypt from 1050-1052; the Sulaym moved from Barqa and Tripolitania into Ifriqiya proper with Qaraqush and the Banu Ghaniya in the 1180s and 1190s
Born: Not applicable
Family: The Banu Hilal in the east of the Maghreb: the Riyah (with the Dawawida) and the Athbaj in Ifriqiya and the Constantinois, the Zughba further west. For siding with the Banu Ghaniya al-Mansur moved the Jusham and the Asim and Muqaddam of the Athbaj to the Tamesna and the Riyah to the Habt (1188); of the Athbaj the Iyad and the Dahhak stayed in the east; the Zughba, who had sided with the Almohads, moved west to the Mzab and the Jabal Rashid (Ibn Khaldun vol. 1, pp. 175-186). The Banu Sulaym: the Dabbab (from Gabes to Tripoli and beyond), the Awf with the Mirdas and the Allaq clans (Ka'ub and others) moving into the Tunisian steppe, the Zughb, and the Hayb with the Labid in Barqa.
Confidence: medium

Ibn Khaldun's account of the tribes is written for the fourteenth century; for 1200 only the tribes' sides in the Ghaniya war and a few chiefs are attested.

Overlord

None. They serve the Banu Ghaniya, the Almohads or Qaraqush as paid or plundering allies and take protection dues (khifara) from towns and villages.

What the realm holds

Barqa (Cyrenaica): the plains, the Jabal Akhdar's grazing and the coast to the Egyptian frontier (the Hayb and Labid of the Sulaym)
The Sirt and the steppe of eastern Tripolitania
The steppe of Tripolitania and the Tunisian Jifara (the Dabbab)
The Tunisian high steppe between the Jarid and the Tell (the Awf, Ka'ub and Mirdas; the Athbaj near Tebessa)
In the central Maghreb (cmg sheet): the Riyah of the Zab and the Constantinois, the Athbaj of the Hodna and the Aures fringes, the Zughba of the high plains

How it was acquired

By the migration of 1050-1052 and the wars that followed; in Ifriqiya the Sulaym won ground in the 1180s and 1190s as allies of Qaraqush and the Banu Ghaniya, after al-Mansur deported many Hilali clans to Morocco (1188).

Allies and rivals

With Yahya ibn Ghaniya that winter: the Dabbab, the Awf and Ka'ub, the Dawawida of Mas'ud ibn Zimam. With the Almohads: the Arab contingents in Morocco and some Hilali clans of the Constantinois (central Maghreb sheet). Feud: the Dabbab and Ka'ub against Qaraqush, who murdered about seventy of their chiefs at Gabes in 1190. The rebel of Mahdia made his name fighting the Sahel's Arab raiders.

The realm that morning

The tribes graze the steppe in their winter quarters (the Sirt, the southern Tunisian steppe and the edges of the oases). No battle of theirs is pinned to that winter. Barqa is theirs without a rival: no Ayyubid or Almohad governor sits in its towns.

Wealth

Camels, sheep and horses; protection dues from towns and oases; pay and booty from the princes they serve; control of the caravan roads from Egypt and the Fezzan to Tripoli and Ifriqiya.

Military

Tribal horsemen, the main field force of every army in Ifriqiya. No numbers.

Threats

An Almohad army from Morocco (al-Mansur deported whole clans in 1188)
Feuds among the clans
Drought

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1200-1203The Sulaym and the Dawawida ride with Yahya ibn Ghaniya to Mahdia, Beja, Kairouan and Tunis.Depends on: Booty and pay. Stopped by: Almohad bribes or defeat.
606 AH (1209); outside 1200The Arabs desert Yahya before Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs near Tunis.Depends on: The Almohad recovery. Stopped by: Yahya keeping the upper hand.

Where the sources disagree

The branch names and their ranges come from Ibn Khaldun's fourteenth-century account; their positions in 1200 are inferred and marked so in each record.

Evidence: The tribes' sides in the Ghaniya war are attested; their chiefs and ranges in 1200 mostly are not.

On the map: Drawn through the lord and province records of the separate tribes; the realm record has no outline of its own.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

History of the Two Dynasties, the Almohad and the Hafsid, al-Zarkashi (Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Lu'lu'i al-Zarkashi) (about 1490 to 1495, at Tunis). A short Hafsid-era chronicle whose Almohad opening gives, in a few lines a reign, the succession of al-Mansur and al-Nasir, the Banu Ghaniya's seizure of Ifriqiya and its recovery, and the sending of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs to Tunis, which the Hafsids counted as the start of their house. Read online
The Complete History: the passages on the Maghreb and al-Andalus, Ibn al-Athir (about 1220 to 1231, at Mosul). The year entries for 595 to 597 of the Hijra (late 1198 to 1201) record the death of Yaqub al-Mansur, the accession of al-Nasir and the opening of Yahya ibn Ghaniya's war in Ifriqiya; the following years follow Yahya and the Ghuzz captain Qaraqush through Tripoli, Gabès and Mahdia to al-Nasir's reconquest in 1206, with the best eastern account of Qaraqush's career. Read online
The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
The Book of Examination of the Wonders of the Cities (1191). The nearest geographical survey to 1200: a description of the Almohad lands written nine years earlier, town by town, from Alexandria and Barqa through Tripoli, Gabès, Mahdia, Tunis, Bougie, Tlemcen, Fez, Marrakesh and Sijilmasa, with a section on the Sahara routes and the Sudan (Ghana, Zafun, Kawkaw). Read online
The Book of Routes and Realms: the Description of North Africa, al-Bakri (Abu Ubayd Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Bakri) (1068, at Cordoba). Old by 1200 but still the standard description of the Sahara and the Sudan that the Almohad-period writers copied: Ghana under Tunka Manin with its twin towns and its Muslim quarter, Awdaghust, Tadmakka, Kawkaw, Takrur and Sila, the gold trade and the routes from Sijilmasa and the Dar'a; the Ibadi towns of the Jarid and the Fezzan; the Berber peoples of the Maghreb. Read online
The Journey of al-Tijani, Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Tijani (after 1309 and before 1318, at Tunis). A Hafsid chancery official's travel book, which at each town stops to tell its history, and so preserves accounts of the Banu Ghaniya war and of Qaraqush in southern Ifriqiya and Tripolitania around 1200 (Gabès, Djerba, Tripoli, the Jarid oases) from lost Almohad-period sources. Read online
The Pleasure of One who Longs to Cross the Horizons (the Book of Roger), al-Idrisi (Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Sharif al-Idrisi) (completed in 1154 at Palermo, for Roger II of Sicily). The fullest geography of Africa a generation before 1200: the Maghreb and Ifriqiya town by town with distances and products; the Sahara routes through Sijilmasa, Awdaghust, Ghadames and Zawila; the Sudan with Ghana, Takrur, Sila, Barisa, Kawkaw (Gao) and Kugha, and Kanem with its towns Manan and Njimi; Nubia and Dongola, the Beja and the Red Sea ports; Zeila and Berbera; and the Zanj coast with Malindi, Mombasa, Qanbalu and Sofala with its gold, the earliest systematic notice of the Swahili towns. Read online

Sources and studies

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.