History
Bayda's history stretches back to Ancient Greece, when it was known as Balagrae.The 2000 year old ruins of the ancient Greek colony Cyrene are located nearby in Shahad.
One of the greatest attractions in the city today is the tomb of a famous companion of the Prophet Muhammad, Ruwaifi bin Thabit al-Ansari. For that reason, the city was known as Sidi Rafaa after him. After the arrival of Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi in the area in the 19th century, and the construction of a zawiya, the city was renamed Az Zawiya Al Bayda. The modern city was built in the 1950s. It was originally intended to be the new capital of Libya, and most of the necessary government buildings were constructed there. Eventually, the plan to move the capital from Tripoli to Bayda was dropped. Bayda is the administrative seat for Jabal al Akhdar District today.
Read more about this topic: Bayda, Libya
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)