Kingdom of Beni Abbas

Common card · No. 461483

The Kingdom of Beni Abbas or Sultanate of Beni Abbas (Arabic: سلطنة بني عباس, romanized: Salṭanat Bani ʿAbbās) was a state in North Africa, then a fief and a principality, controlling Lesser Kabylie in Kabylia and its surroundings from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. It is referred to in the Spanish historiography as "reino de Labes". Sometimes more commonly referred to by its ruling family, the Mokrani dynasty (Arabic: أولاد مقران, romanized: Awlād Muqrān). Its capital was the Kalâa of Ait Abbas, an impregnable citadel in the Biban mountain range. The kingdom was for a long time a bastion of resistance to the Spanish Empire, then to the Regency of Algiers. Strategically located on the road from Algiers to Constantine and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sahara, the Kalâa of Ait Abbas, attracted Andalusians, both Christians and Jews, in the sixteenth century, fleeing Spain or Algiers. Their know-how enriched a local industrial fabric whose legacy is the handicraft of the...

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