Tlemcen

Tlemcen ( ; ) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran and the capital of Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the port of Rachgoun. It had a population of 140,158, as of the 2008 census. A major centre of the Central Maghreb, the city is a mix of Arab, Berber, Andalusi, Ottoman, and Western influences. From this mosaic of influences, the city derives the title of capital of Andalusian art in Algeria. Various titles are attributed to the city including "the Pearl of the Maghreb", "the African Granada".

Tlemcen ( ; ) is the second-largest city in northwestern Algeria after Oran and the capital of Tlemcen Province. The city has developed leather, carpet, and textile industries, which it exports through the port of Rachgoun. It had a population of 140,158, as of the 2008 census. A major centre of the Central Maghreb, the city is a mix of Arab, Berber, Andalusi, Ottoman, and Western influences. From this mosaic of influences, the city derives the title of capital of Andalusian art in Algeria. Various titles are attributed to the city including "the Pearl of the Maghreb", "the African Granada". ===Antiquity=== In AD 17, Tacfarinas led the Gaetuli to revolt against the Romans. Tlemcen became a military outpost of Ancient Rome in the 2nd century CE under the name of Pomaria. It was then an important city in the North Africa see of the Roman Catholic Church, where it was the center of a diocese. Its bishop, Victor, was a prominent representative at the Council of Carthage (411), and its bishop Honoratus was exiled in 484 by the Vandal king Huneric for denying Arianism. It was a center of a large Christian population for many centuries after the city's Arab conquest in 708 AD. ===Zayyanid period=== of the Sidi Bel Hasan mosque, built by the Zayyanids After the end of Almohad rule in the 1230s, Tlemcen became the capital of one of the three successor states, the Zayyanid Kingdom of Tlemcen (1236–1554). The Zayyanid ruler Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan succeeded in merging Agadir and Tagrart into a single city and gave it the name Tlemcen. Initially, Yagmurasen resided in the Qasr al-Qadim but he soon moved the seat of power to a new citadel, the Mechouar, towards the mid 13th century. The city was thereafter ruled for centuries by successive Zayyanid sultans. During this era it was one of the most important economic and cultural centers in the region, alongside other political capitals like Fez, Tunis, and Granada. During the Middle Ages, Tlemcen not only served as a trading city connecting the "coastal" route across the Maghreb with the trans-Saharan caravan routes, but also housed a European trading center, or funduk which connected African and European merchants. African gold arrived in Tlemcen from south of the Sahara through Sijilmasa or Taghaza and entered European hands. Consequently, Tlemcen was partially integrated into the European financial system. For example, Genoese bills of exchange circulated there, at least among merchants not subject to (or not deterred by) religious prohibitions. At the peak of its success in the first half of the fourteenth century, Tlemcen was a city of perhaps 40,000 inhabitants¹. It housed several well-known madrasas and numerous wealthy religious foundations, and became the principal centers of culture in the central Maghreb. The Zayyanids were the first to sponsor of the construction of madrasas in this part of the Maghreb, and among the most famous in Tlemcen was the Tashfiniya Madrasa founded by Abu Tashfin I (r. 1318–1337). At the souk around the Great Mosque, merchants sold woolen fabrics and rugs from the East, slaves and gold from across the Sahara, local earthenware and leather goods, and a variety of Mediterranean maritime goods "redirected" to Tlemcen by corsairs—in addition to imported European goods available at the funduk. Merchant houses based in Tlemcen, such as the al-Makkari, maintained regular branch offices in Mali and the Sudan. Later in the fourteenth century, the city twice fell under the rule of the Marinid sultan, Abu al-Hasan Ali (1337–1348) and his son Abu 'Inan. Both times the Marinids found that they were unable to hold the region against local resistance. Nevertheless, these episodes appear to have marked the beginning of the end. Over the following two centuries, Zayyanid Tlemcen was intermittently a vassal of Ifriqiya (then governed by the Hafsid dynasty), Maghrib al-Aqsa (then governed by the Marinid dynasty), or Aragon. When the Spanish took the city of Oran from the Zayyanids in 1509, continuous pressure from the Berbers prompted the Spanish to start a campaign against Tlemcen in 1543, which ended in the capture of the city and in the installation of a vassal king on the throne. The ruler of Tlemcen is reported to have been advised by a Jewish viceroy named Abraham, who, in the time of the Inquisition of Torquemada, opened the gates of Tlemcen to Jewish and Muslim refugees fleeing Spain. Abraham is said to have supported them with his own money and with the tolerance of the king of Tlemcen. ===Regency of Algiers=== In 1551, Tlemcen came under Ottoman rule after the Campaign of Tlemcen. Tlemcen and the Algerian provinces regained effective independence in their own affairs in 1671, although Tlemcen was no longer a government seat as before. The Spanish were evicted from Oran in 1792, but thirty years later, they were replaced by the French, who seized Algiers. A French fleet bombarded Algiers in 1830, at which point the dey capitulated to French colonial rule; a broad coalition of natives continued to resist, coordinated loosely at Tlemcen. At the beginning of the 19th century, Tlemcen had only 10,000 inhabitants¹, the majority of whom were Kouloughlis. The collapse of Turkish power in Algiers had a negative impact on the urban fabric, particularly due to endemic conflicts between the urban population, from the various Berber and Arab tribes, and that of the Kouloughlis8, hence the ruin of a large part of the urban fabric. ==Climate== Tlemcen has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh). ==Notable people== Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari (1591–1632), historian Eugénie Buffet (1866–1934), French singer Messali Hadj (1898–1974), nationalist politician Abdelhalim Hemche (1908–1979), painter Paul Bénichou (1908–2001), French writer and historian Mohammed Dib (1920–2003), writer Benaouda Benzerdjeb (1921–1956), physician and martyr Bachir Yellès (1921–2022), painter Sid Ahmed Inal (born 1931¹), activist Mourad Medelci (1943–2019), politician Rachid Baba Ahmed (1946–1995), singer and composer Sami Naïr (born 1946), political philosopher Latifa Ben Mansour (born 1950), writer Patrick Bruel (born 1959), French actor and singer Mohamed Zaoui (born 1960), boxer Kheireddine Kherris (born 1973), international footballer Anwar Boudjakdji (born 1976), international footballer Kamel Habri (born 1976), international footballer

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