Tabelbala

Tabelbala (Arabic: تبلبالة‎, Korandje: tsawərbəts) is an oasis between Béchar and Tindouf in southwestern Algeria, notable for being the only town in Algeria to speak a language neither Arabic nor Berber, Korandje.^[1]

Tabelbala is divided into four settlements. The administrative and commercial centre, "le Village" or "le Quartier", officially Haï El Wasat (Arabic: حي الوسط‎), is a relatively recent settlement which first grew up around the French fort in the colonial period. It is flanked by three older villages, or ksars: Cheraïa (Arabic: الشرايع‎, Ifrenyu in Korandje) to the west, Zaouia Sidi Zekri (Arabic: زاوية سيدي زكري‎, Kwara) and the tiny hamlet of Makhlouf (Arabic: مخلوف‎, Yami) to the east. The total population is about 6,000; of these, only about 3,000 speak Korandje,^[2] most of the rest being the descendants of twentieth century immigrants to the oasis. Its only significant transport link to the outside world is a paved road connecting it to the main Bechar-Tindouf highway some seventy kilometres away.

The oasis occupies a band of land between a stone mountain to the south and a large sand dune field, the Erg Er Raoui, to the north. The water table of the latter is relatively high, making irrigation agriculture possible. The foggara system was traditionally used, but has been in decline since the early twentieth century.

From at least the 13th to the 19th century, Tabelbala was a stop on the caravan routes linking southern Morocco (notably Sijilmasa) to the Sahel, in particular Timbuktu.

Tabelbala is the capital, and only significant settlement, of the Daïra of that name, embracing most of the southern half of Béchar Province.

A number of reputed walis (saints) are buried in Tabelbala. In the main cemetery of Zaouia, imamaden, these include Sidi Zekri (the village's namesake), Sidi Larbi and Sidi Brahim (each said to be the ancestor of a family found there today), and a group of seven unnamed men, the seb`atu rijal (Arabic: سبعة رجال‎). The sixteenth-century Islamic scholar Sidi Makhluf al-Balbali is buried in the hamlet named after him, Makhlouf.

Much of the Korandje-speaking population of Ifrenyu claims descent from the Ait Isfoul sub-branch of Ait Atta; there are also a few Tamazight-speaking families from the Ait Khebbach, another Ait Atta sub-group.

According to oral tradition in both places, the founders of Melouka, near Adrar, Algeria, were emigrants who escaped Tabelbala when one of its ksars was destroyed by Arab nomads, the Rehamna, for non-payment of tribute.^[3] The Idaw Ali of Mauritania also claim to have lived in Tabelbala at an early period.

References

1. ^ Une oasis du Sahara Nord-Occidental : Tabelbala by Francine Dominique Champault, Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1969
2. ^ Grammatical Contact in the Sahara: Arabic, Berber, and Songhay in Tabelbala and Siwa, Lameen Souag, PhD thesis, SOAS, 2010
3. ^ Champault, op. cit., p. 31