Libya's history involves its rich mix of ethnic groups, including the indigenous Berbers/Amazigh people. Amazigh have been present throughout the entire history of the country. For most of its history, Libya has been subjected to varying degrees of foreign control, from Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Tripoli is the capital and largest city of Libya, with a population of about 1.183 million people in 2023. It is located in the northwest of Libya on the edge of the desert, on a point of rocky land projecting into the Mediterranean Sea and forming a bay. It includes the port of Tripoli and the country's largest commercial and manufacturing center. It is also the site of the University of Tripoli. The vast Bab al-Azizia barracks, which includes the former family estate of Muammar Gaddafi, is also located in the city. Colonel Gaddafi largely ruled the country from his residence in this barracks.
The Senusiyya, Senussi or Sanusi are a Muslim political-religious Sufi order and clan in colonial Libya and the Sudan region founded in Mecca in 1837 by the Grand Sanussi, the Algerian Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi. Sanusi was concerned with what he saw as both the decline of Islamic thought and spirituality and the weakening of Muslim political integrity.
Dey, from the Turkish honorific title dayı, literally meaning uncle, was the title given to the rulers of the Regency of Algiers (Algeria), Tripoli, and Tunis under the Ottoman Empire from 1671 onwards. Twenty-nine deys held office from the establishment of the deylicate in Algeria until the French conquest in 1830.
Muhammad Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi was a Libyan political and religious leader who was King of Libya from 24 December 1951 until his overthrow on 1 September 1969. He ruled over the United Kingdom of Libya from 1951 to 1963, after which the country became known as simply the Kingdom of Libya. Idris had served as Emir of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania from the 1920s until 1951. He was the chief of the Senussi Muslim order.
The Barbary Coast was the name given to the coastal regions of central and western North Africa or more specifically the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, as well as the Sultanate of Morocco from the 16th to 19th centuries. The term originates from the exonym of the Berbers.
Occhiali was an Italian farmer, then Ottoman privateer and admiral, who later became beylerbey of the Regency of Algiers, and finally Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet in the 16th century.
Tripolitania, historically known as the Tripoli region, is a historic region and former province of Libya.
The Regency of Algiers was an autonomous eyalet of the Ottoman Empire in what was known as the Barbary coast of North Africa from 1516 to 1830. It was an early modern tributary state founded by the corsair brothers Oruç and Hayreddin Barbarossa, which was then ruled by viceroys, and later became a sovereign military republic. The Regency was infamous for its Barbary corsairs, and a formidable pirate base for maritime holy war and plunder against Christian powers. It was also the strongest Barbary state.
The Karamanli dynasty was an autonomous dynasty that ruled Ottoman Tripolitania from 1711 to 1835. Their territory comprised Tripoli and its surroundings in present-day Libya. At its peak, the Karamanli dynasty's influence reached Cyrenaica and Fezzan, covering most of Libya. The founder of the dynasty was Ahmed Karamanli, a descendant of the medieval Karamanids. The most well-known Karamanli ruler was Yusuf ibn Ali Karamanli who reigned from 1795 to 1832, who fought a war with the United States between 1801 and 1805. Ali II was the last of the dynasty.
Yusuf Karamanli, Caramanli or Qaramanli or al-Qaramanli, (1766–1838) was the longest-reigning Pasha of the Karamanli dynasty of Tripolitania. He is noted for his role in the Barbary Wars against the United States.
Ahmed or AhmedKaramanli or Qaramanli or al-Qaramanli, (1686–1745) was of Janissary origin and a Member from the Karamanids. He founded the Karamanli dynasty (1711–1835) of Tripolitania or Tripoli. He reigned (1711–1745), as the first Karamanli ruler of Tripolitania.
Salah Rais was the 7th King of Algiers, an Ottoman privateer and admiral. He is alternatively referred to as Sala Reis, Salih Rais, Salek Rais and Cale Arraez in several European sources, particularly in Spain, France and Italy.
Kouloughlis, also spelled Koulouglis, Cologhlis and Qulaughlis, but the translation of the word "kul" as slave is misleading since in the Ottoman context, it referred to one's special status as being in the special service of the sultan. It was a term used during the period of Ottoman influence in North Africa that usually designated the mixed offspring of Ottoman officials and janissaries, and local North African women.
Italian Cyrenaica was an Italian colony, located in present-day eastern Libya, that existed from 1911 to 1934. It was part of the territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911, alongside Italian Tripolitania.
The Tripolitanian Republic, was an Arab republic that declared the independence of Tripolitania from Italian Libya after World War I.
The Tripolitanian civil war was a conflict from 1790 to 1795 which occurred in Tripolitania – inside what is today the country of Libya. It involved a war of succession between leading members of the Karamanli dynasty, an intervention by Ottoman officer Ali Burghul who claimed to be acting on the sultan's orders and controlled Tripoli for 17 months, and an intervention by the bey of Tunis Hammuda ibn Ali to restore the Karamanlis to power.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Tripoli, Libya.
Ottoman Tunisia, also known as the Regency of Tunis, refers to the Ottoman presence in Ifriqiya from the 16th to 19th centuries, when Tunis was officially integrated into the Ottoman Empire as the Eyalet of Tunis. The Ottoman presence in the Maghreb began with the takeover of Algiers in 1516 by the Ottoman Turkish corsair and beylerbey Aruj, eventually expanding across the entire region except for Morocco. The first Ottoman conquest of Tunis occurred in 1534 under the command of Khayr al-Din Barbarossa, the younger brother of Aruj, who was the Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman Fleet during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. However, it was not until the final Ottoman reconquest of Tunis from Spain in 1574 that the Turks permanently acquired the former territories of Hafsid Tunisia, retaining it until the French occupation of Tunisia in 1881.
The al-Jawazi massacre is a name given to a massacre committed against the Arab tribe of al-Jawazi of Banu Sulaym in the city of Benghazi in Cyrenaica in eastern Ottoman Tripolitania, on 5 September 1816, in which over 10,000 members of the tribe were killed. The site of the massacre was a Turkish castle in the city. It was done in retaliation for the revolt that broke out against the rule of the Karamanli dynasty and their refusal to pay the imposed taxes. The pasha Yusuf Karamanli claimed to pacify the al-Jawazi tribe by inviting 45 of its notables and sheikhs, accompanied with hundreds of other members of the tribe, to the castle for the purpose of requesting peace with them. As soon as they sat down, the Pasha's guards and janissaries attacked them and slaughtered them; while members of the tribe who were stationed outside the walls of the castle were attacked and large numbers of them were massacred, including women, old men, and children, killing over 10,000 of them. The tribe members who survived fled Tripolitania and left for neighbouring countries such as Egypt, Tunis, and Algiers.
