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 Libya Travel Tips |
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Libya History |
Until Libya achieved indipendence 1951, its history was essentially that of tribes, regions, and cities, and of the Empires of which it was a part. Deived from the name by which a single Berber tribe was known to the Egyptians, the name Libyawas subsequently applied by the Greeks to most of the North Africa and the term Libyan to all of its inhabitants. Although ancient in origin, these names were not used to designate the specific territory of modern Libya nd its peopole until the twentieth century, nor ndeed was the whole area formed into a coherent political unit until then. Hence, despite the long and distinct histories of its regions, modern Libya must be viewed as a new country still devoloping national consciousness and institutions.
Geography was the principal determinant in the separate historical devolopment of Libya’s three traditional regions – Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan. Cut from each other by formidable deserts, each retained its separate identity into the 1960s. At the heart of Tripolitania was its metropolis, Tripoli for centuries a terminal for caravans plying the Saharan trade routes and a port sheltering pirates and slave traders.
In contrast to Tripolitania, Cyrenaica historically was oriented toward Egypt and Mashrik ( East ). with the exception of some of its coastal town, Cyrenaica was relatively untouched by the political influence of the regimes that claimed it but were unable to assert their authority in the hinterland. An element of internal unity was brought to the region’s tribal society in the nineteenth century, a Muslim religious order the Sanusi, and many Cyrenaicans demonstrated a determination to retain their regional autonomy even after Libyan independence and unification.
Fezzan was less involved with either the Maghrib ( the West ) or the Mashrik ( the East ). Its nomads traditionally looked for leadership to tribal dynasties that controlled the oasis astride the desert trade routes. Throughout its history, Fezzan maintained close relations with sub-Saharan Africa as well as with the coast.
The most significant milestones in Libya’s history were the introdution of Islam and the Arabization of the country in the Middle Ages, and within the last two generations, national indepenence, the discovery of petroleum, and September 1969 Revolution that brought Muammar Alghaddafi to power. The revolution has made the first attempt to unify Libya’s diverse peoples and to create a distinct Libyan state and identity. It has created new political structures and made a determined effort at diversified economic devolopment financed by oil revenues. Although the merits of the revolution and its policies were much debated by Libyans and foreigners alike, there was no question that Libya in the 1980s was a significantly different country from the one it had been only two or three decades earlier.
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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 BC, 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 BC), however Carthage was destroyed in 146 BC. 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 BC, 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.
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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.
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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.
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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. |
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. |
Hilalian
sIn Cairo the Fatimid caliph reacted by inviting the Bani Hilal and Bani Salim, beduin tribes known collectively as the Hilalian, to migrate to the 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.
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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. 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. |
Independance |
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.
Independant 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 Revolution of September 1969
On September the 1st The Free Officers Movement, led by the young lieutenant Muammar Alghaddafi, carried out the September Revolution. The 12 member directorate that designated itself the Revolutionary Command Counsil ( RRC ), the RRC declared the country to be 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 reactionary regime just overthrown were characterized as belonging to 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 Jamahiry
The remaking of Libyan society that the Leader envisioned and to which he devoted his energies after the early 1970s formally began in 1973 with the Cultural Revolution. To instill revolutionary fervor into his compatriots 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. |
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