Tunisian

The Tunisian are the Arabic-speaking, largely Arabized people of Ifriqiya in the northeastern Maghreb around Tunis, whose speech has a Berber, Latin and Neo-Punic substratum beneath Hilalian Arabic. The Arabs founded Kairouan in 670, and Ifriqiya became the seat of the Aghlabids and then of the Fatimid caliphs at Mahdia; when the Zirids renounced Cairo, the Fatimids loosed the Banu Hilal, whose Haydaran victory in 1052 broke the old order, spreading Bedouin Arabic.

Under the Almohads Tunis became the provincial capital, and in 1229 Abu Zakariya Yahya founded the Hafsid kingdom there, which welcomed Andalusi refugees, built the Maghreb's first madrasas and patronized the Zaytuna. Ibn Khaldun, born in Tunis in 1332, wrote the Muqaddimah in this milieu.

The Ottomans took Tunis in 1574, and after deys and Muradid beys, Husayn ibn Ali founded the Husainid beylik in 1705, keeping its own army and currency under loose Ottoman suzerainty.