History
According to tradition the Ibadites, after their overthrow at Tiaret by the Fatimites, took refuge during the 10th century in the country to the southwest of Ouargla, where they founded an independent state.
In 1012, owing to further persecutions, they fled to their present location, where they long remained invulnerable.
After the French capture of Laghouat, the Mozabites concluded a convention with them in 1853, whereby they accepted to pay an annual contribution of 1,800 francs in return for their independence. In November 1882 the Mzab country was definitely annexed to French Algeria.
Ghardaia (pop. 104.645) is the capital of the confederacy, followed in importance by Beni-Isguen (4916), the chief commercial centre.
Since the establishment of French control, Beni-Isguen has become the depot for the sale of European goods. The Mozabite engineers built a system of irrigation works that made the oases much more fertile than they used to be.
Read more about this topic: Mozabite People
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“A people without history
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—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)