The Char Bouba war (variously transliterated as Sharr Bubba, Shar Buba, etc) or the Mauritanian Thirty Years War, took place between 1644-74 in the tribal areas of what is today Mauritania and Western Sahara. It was fought between the Sanhadja Berber tribes resident in the area, led by Lamtuna Imam Nasr ad-Din, and the Maqil Arab immigrant tribes, foremost of which was the Beni Hassan.

The war ended in defeat for the Berber tribes, and they were from that point on forced to surrender their arms and submit to the warrior Arab tribes, to whom they paid the horma tributary tax. They would remain in roles as either exploited semi-sedentary agriculturalists and fishermen (znaga tribes), or, higher up on the social ladder, as religious (marabout or zawiya) tribes. This division between Hassane Arab warriors and Berber marabouts, plus the subordinate znaga, existed in Mauritania up until the French colonization, when France imposed itself militarily on all tribes, and so broke the power of the Hassane. Still, the traditional roles of the tribes remain important socially in these areas.

Even more important was that the Arab victory brought about widespread cultural and linguistic arabization, with Berber tribes surrendering their Tamazight and other Berber tongues to the Arabic language, in the form of the Hassaniya dialect of the Beni Hassan. It is still spoken as the main language in Moorish Mauritania and Western Sahara, as well as in parts of Morocco and Algeria.

See also

• Moors and Sahrawi
• Mauritania
• Western Sahara
• Morocco

References and notes