CHAPTER TWO 2. HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND CURRENT CHALLENGES 2.1 Historical origins of contemporary Algeria 44. Algeria is the second largest country on the African continent, covering an area of 2 381 741 km2. It is bordered by Morocco (1643 km), Mali (1376 km), Libya (982 km), Tunisia (965 km), Niger (956 km), Mauritania (463 km) and Western Sahara (42 km). 45. With its long, thousand-year heritage, Algeria covers the largest area in North Africa after Sudan. Profoundly marked by its rich past, the country bears witness to the wealth of civilisations and cultures, languages, skills, religions and beliefs that originated in the Mediterranean world. 46. Algeria‟s fertile and diverse soils have witnessed the arrival, settlement and departure of the armies of nascent or declining empires, which either reached the zenith or twilight of their power with their armies and adventurers. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, the Spanish and the French have crossed or penetrated this vast land in successive waves, either fleetingly or for long periods of time. 47. Historically, the earliest recorded inhabitants of Algeria were the Berberspeaking peoples who originated from various migrations during prehistoric times. In the first century, they were conquered by the powerful Roman Empire, which imposed Latin on the urban elite. Towards the third century Christianity extended into the North African region. In the seventh century, the Omeyyades, a conquering Arab dynasty whose capital was Damascus, added Algeria to the long list of countries over which it ruled. With their arrival came a new religion: Islam. For centuries the Berbers continued to fight the Arabs. In the 16th century, the Turkish pirate Barbarossa, then ruler of Algiers, placed the country under the protection of the Ottoman Empire of Istanbul. 48. Between the eighth and 15th centuries, autonomous states were created in Muslim Algeria: the Tahert 2 Kingdom, Hammadite3 State, followed by the 2 The Tahert Kingdom was governed by the Rostemid dynasty of 777–909. The town Tahert was created by Abder Rahman Ben Rostem in 767 and prospered due to slave trade and the sale of gold from the Sudan in the eighth century. It was ruined following the attack by mountain Berbers from Kutama, who were allies of Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi, the founder of the Fatimide dynasty of Kairouan. Tahert was destroyed and its inhabitants were massacred or went into exile. 3 From the seventh to eighth centuries, Northern Africa was integrated into the sphere of Muslim civilisation. Although the populations were won over by the new religion after resistance by the Berber leaders, Koceïla and La Kahina, Arabic only gained ground from the 11th century (due to the Banu Hillal invasions). The Ommeyad domination followed by the Abbassid rule was short-lived, for very soon the Berbers, who adopted the Khariji philosophy or Shiisim before opting for Sunnisim (the Islamic law system) as a sign of their ethnic identity, created their own states. In modern Algeria, the 39