[Sca-cooks] Near and Middle East, was plantain, bananas, herbals

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Daniel wrote:
>  Then there is the term the "Maghreb" which itself varied over time.

Indeed, Maghrib, or rather al-Maghrib, is now name for Morocco in 
Arabic, its primary language. But at other times al-Maghrib 
encompassed what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, at least parts of 
Libya, and probably some areas south. At some point much of what is 
now Mali was primarily Berber/Amazight, and there were important 
Berber/Amazight cities there. It was only after wars and migrations 
taking place south drove certain populations of black Africans north 
and west.

There's a certain, somewhat romanticized myth of the Berbers/Amazigh 
people being nomads (clearly by people who've never lived such a 
life). In fact, before Islam and quite some time after, they were 
both settled in cities and agricultural areas (as many still are 
today). Some may have appeared to be nomads because of their 
involvement in pastoralism, which requires moving the animals to a 
stable setting during the rainy or snowy season, and taking them to 
literally greener pastures as the seasons pass.

But i digress... to the best of my knowledge, Egypt, which is also in 
North Africa like the Maghrib, is not a part of the Maghrib. After 
all, the root of Maghrib is "gharb" which means "west", and Egypt, 
being in eastern North Africa, is not in the west. And, as i said, 
since al-Maghrib is in the west of North Africa, and with its west 
coast on the Atlantic Ocean, i have trouble considering to be in the 
Middle East. It is part of Dar al-Islam, but it sure isn't in the 
Middle of the East.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
whose father is from the Maghribi city of Fas (known to some as Fez)