BERBERI, RELIGIONE of the. — The present-day B., concerning whose origins scholars disagree (Asian origin according to some, African or mixed origin according to others), are descendants of those Libyan tribes known to the ancients by the names Getuli, Libyans, Numidians, etc., who occupied the vast expanse of territory extending from the Mediterranean to the Sudan and from the Atlantic to Egypt, without ever managing, throughout their history, to organize themselves into large political units. In examining their religion, it is appropriate to distinguish between a pre-Islamic period and an Islamic period.
I. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD
The great particularism characteristic of the B. is also reflected in their religion. The individual tribes practised naturalistic cults about which our information is rather scanty and fragmentary. Herodotus (IV, 188) speaks of the worship of the sun and moon. Ibn Haldûn mentions B. who, still at the time of the Islamic conquest, worshipped the sun and moon, while, on the other hand, the Guanches of the Canary Islands, now extinct, likewise venerated the sun until a relatively recent period. This cult seems to be confirmed by rock engravings in which a ram appears with its head surrounded by a disk: an influence of the Egyptian Amôn-Râ' seems probable. In addition to the worship of the heavenly bodies, the documents reveal interesting phenomena of zoolatry. Corippus (6th cent.) speaks of a Gurzil, born of the god Ammon and a cow, worshipped by the Lagutan (inhabitants of present-day Tripolitania). Al-Bakri (11th cent.) mentions the worship of rams. Diodorus Siculus (XX, 58) refers to a “Libyan” country where monkeys were considered sacred and lived together with human beings. Traces of totemism can be discerned in the legendary alliance, mentioned by Aelian (Nat. Anim., I, 57), between the Psilli (a people of the Syrtis) and horned vipers (κεράσται), whose venom was supposedly powerless against them. The worship of stones, and especially of caves (still practised today), and of mountains (particularly the Atlas) must also have been widespread. Magical practices were widespread: classical authors speak of rites for bringing about rain, still in use today. Interesting is Herodotus’s (IV, 172) reference to the custom of the Nasamones, who went to sleep on the tombs of their ancestors after praying, and then conformed to what they had seen in a dream (a similar custom is documented among the present-day Tuareg of the Sahara and elsewhere). The present-day beliefs in genies and goblins also have, in part, extremely ancient origins. Information on the rites is scanty. Herodotus (XIV, 188) speaks of sacrifices supposedly offered exclusively to the sun and moon: before the victim was killed, a piece of its ear was cut off and thrown into the air. The inhabitants of the shores of Lake Tritonis (central Tunisia), according to the same author, celebrated an annual festival in honour of Athena (an indigenous goddess identified with the Greek Athena), during which, after an often bloody contest among young women, one of them was carried in procession on a cart. Ritual gestures also seem to be indicated by rock engravings showing people with raised arms, disguised as animals, and so forth. Some caves perhaps served as temples.The influences of the Punic and Roman religions on the indigenous religion were considerable: in some cases it is difficult to determine whether these were indigenous deities assimilated to foreign ones or the reverse.
Judaism was widespread among the B.: many of the present-day Jews of North Africa are descended from pre-Islamic Jews.
There is no precise information concerning the very earliest preaching of Christianity among the B.; in any event, the new religion must have provided an excellent anti-Roman pretext for this people so devoted to independence. The Church of Africa entered history in 180 with the martyrs of Scilli and Madaura. While the traditions concerning an apostolic origin of African Christianity are probably spurious, it seems certain that Christianity entered Africa through Carthage and that those first Christians always maintained excellent relations with Rome. The Donatist militants (v. DONATISMO) Circumcellions (v.) were recruited especially among the b. population: social or national tendencies concealed themselves beneath these heretical movements. Dynasties of b. Christian princes existed in western Algeria. With the Islamic invasion (7th cent. A.D.), African Christianity was not completely destroyed: as late as 1076, two bishops still existed in Africa.
II. ISLAMIC PERIOD
Even after the Islamic conquest, Berber nationalism found a way to support heretical movements: significant is the fact that large Berber groups embraced heresies that were even diametrically opposed to one another, such as democratic ḥarīgism and legitimist al'ism. The Almohad movement (A.D. 1121) destroyed, together with the last remnants of Christianity, almost every trace of Islamic heresy: at present the Berbers are Sunnis of the mālikīra rite, except for some groups of Ibāḍī ḥarīgites in the Mzāb, the Ġebel Nefūṣah, and Ġerba.On Berber soil two interesting attempts at religious reform arose, that of Ṣāliḥ ibn Ṭarīf (8th century A.D.) and that of Ḥāmim al-Muṭṭarī (10th century A.D.). Only the first seems to present some dogmatic divergence from Islam; in both, however, there are many ritual differences (abolition of certain prayers, alteration of the period of fasting, abolition of certain dietary prohibitions, recitation of prayers in Berber rather than in Arabic, etc.). Both reformers wrote their own sacred book in Berber. Interesting is the prohibition of eggs, common to both religions and still practiced in a Tuareg tribe. The religion of Ṣāliḥ ibn Ṭarīf, which fully developed only long after his death, was annihilated when the Almohad dynasty established itself in 1148; the other ended with its founder in 931 or 941.