Maqil

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The Maqil or Maquil were a collection of Arab Bedouin tribes of Yemeni origin who migrated westwards via Egypt during the 13th century. The Beni Hassan tribes claim to be descendants of Maqil, once living in Tunisia. Maqil had two sons Suhair and Mohammed. This Mohammed was the father of Muhtar, who was the father of Sabbana and Hassan, the Hassan from which the Beni Hassan took their name. The Maqil strongly contributed to the arabization and islamization of the western Maghreb, which was until then dominated by Berber tribes, which were in many areas only superficially converted, despite the arrival of Islam already in the 7th century.

One of the largest Maqil tribes was the Beni Hassan, a tribe that came to form the ruling nomad warrior class in the Saharann territories of Mauritania and Western Sahara, and to have a great cultural impact upon their populations. These, the Moors and Sahrawis, still speak Hassaniya, the Arabic dialect of the Beni Hassan. Almost all of these tribes, after the war of Char Bouba (1644-74), consider themselves descendants of the Maqil, even if scientific evidence suggest a Sanhaja Berber background for most, and strongly mixed bloodlines in any case. A few of the ancient Maqil tribes (such as the Oulad Delim, a subtribe of the Beni Hassan), still exist under their proper name in the area, even if intermarriage and cultural diffusion has added a Berber element to their Arab origins.