A Ribat (From the Arabic رباط ribāṭ, hospice, hostel.) is an Arabic term for a small fortification as built along a frontier during the first years of the Muslim conquest of North Africa to house military volunteers, called the Murabitun. These fortifications later served to protect commercial routes, and as centers for isolated Muslim communities.
In time, ribats became hostels for voyagers on major trade routes (Caravanserai) and refuges for mystics. In this last sense, the ribat tradition was perhaps one of the early sources of the Sufi mystic brotherhoods, and a type of the later zaouia or Sufi lodge, which spread into North Africa and from there across the Sahara to West Africa. Here the homes of marabouts (religious teachers, usually Sufi) are termed ribats. Such places of spiritual reteat were termed Khanqah in Persian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribat
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"Zawia" redirects here. For the town in Libya, see Az Zawiyah.
ReplyDeleteZaouia (Arabic زاوية "corner"), also spelled zawiya, zawiyah, zaouiya, zaouïa zwaya, etc, is a Maghrebi and West African term for an Islamic religious school or monastery, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term "madrassa". The zawiya often contains a pool, and sometimes a fountain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaouia
The Maghreb (Arabic: بلدان المغرب , Berber: Tamazgha), also rendered Maghrib, refers to the five countries constituting North Africa (not to be confused with Northern Africa). It is an Arabic word, literally meaning "place of sunset" or "the west" (from an Arabian perspective). The term is generally now used, mainly by Arabs, to refer collectively to the African countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and the disputed territory of the Western Sahara. However, before the establishment of modern nation states in the region in the 20th century, "Maghreb" signified the smaller area that lies between the high ranges of the Atlas Mountains in the south, and the Mediterranean Sea in the north, thus excluding most of Libya and all of current Mauritania. Sometimes, after Islam entered the region, the term has included the previously Muslim Andalusia, Sicily, and Malta.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb