Amazigh, Jabal Nafusah

The Nafusa Amazigh (Nefusa Imazighen; Infusen in their own speech) are the Berber people of the Nafusa Mountains (Jabal Nafusa, Adrar n Infusen), the limestone escarpment that rises above the Jifara plain south-west of Tripoli and runs some 340 km toward the Tunisian border. They speak Nafusi (Tanfusit), an Eastern Zenati Berber language, with dialects that differ between Yefren in the east and Jadu, Nalut and Wazin in the west, and nearly all are bilingual in Libyan Arabic. Most are Ibadi Muslims, members of the small school of Islam that is neither Sunni nor Shia, which makes them, with the M'zab of Algeria, Djerba in Tunisia and Oman, one of the last Ibadi homelands.

The mountain has been Amazigh since antiquity. Ibadi teachers reached it in the 8th century, and in 757 the Nafusa under Imam Abu al-Khattab al-Ma'afiri took Tripoli and Kairouan before an Abbasid army defeated them at Tawergha in 761; the mountain then stayed Ibadi under the Rustamids of Tahert and long after. Its communities were governed by councils of religious scholars (the azzaba) and town assemblies. Under Qadhafi (1969-2011) the language was banned from schools and public life, Amazigh names could not be given to children and activists were jailed. The Nafusa towns rose against him in February 2011 and became a rebel stronghold, and since then Tamazight has been taught in their schools, written in Tifinagh, and celebrated at festivals.

Their neighbours on the mountain are Arab towns such as Zintan, Rujban, Riyayna and Tiji, with which relations have swung between alliance and conflict. The Amazigh of Zuwara on the coast speak a related Berber dialect and share the Ibadi faith but form a community of their own; the related Berber speech of Djerba and southern Tunisia belongs to Tunisia's own Amazigh peoples. The name "Nafusa" is that of the medieval Berber tribe that held the mountain.

Mountain villages perch on the edge of the escarpment around a fortified communal granary, the qasr, in which each family kept its grain and oil in stacked vaulted cells; the qasr of Nalut and the qasr of Kabaw, several storeys high and centuries old, are the best known, and Qasr al-Haj is a famous example. Older houses were dug into the soft rock or built half underground around a sunken courtyard, and olive oil was pressed in underground presses turned by camels or donkeys. Terraced groves of olives, figs, almonds and barley, and goats and sheep, sustained the villages.

Families are patrilineal and marriage within the Ibadi Amazigh community is preferred. Weddings last several days, with women's songs in Tamazight and henna nights. Women's woollen wraps and jewellery carry geometric designs shared with weaving and pottery. The Amazigh New Year, Yennayer, in mid-January, is now the main public festival: in 2025 the High Council of the Amazigh of Libya declared it a holiday in every Amazigh-speaking town. Nalut has held a spring festival since 2012, and since 2011 the towns have reopened Tamazight classes, local radio, a weekly newspaper and Tifinagh street signs. Couscous, bazeen and olive oil are the staple foods.

Ibadi practice is plain and strict. Ibadis pray with their arms at their sides, keep their mosques undecorated, elect their imams on piety rather than descent, and hold that a Muslim who dies in unrepented grave sin is not saved. Shrines and Sufi orders play little part in Ibadi life, unlike among the Maliki Arabs around them, though the tombs of early Ibadi scholars on the mountain are honoured and folk beliefs about the evil eye, jinn and protective signs persist, and Yennayer keeps its roots in the old farming calendar. The councils of scholars that once ran community life have weakened, but religious learning still passes through families and local mosques.

Since 2011 Ibadis have faced open hostility from Salafi (Madkhali) clerics and armed groups. In July 2017 a fatwa committee of the eastern government called Ibadis "a misguided and aberrant group", and in June 2024 the religious authority in Tripoli (Dar al-Ifta) called Ibadi Amazigh "people of caprice and heresy". For the Nafusa Amazigh, defending Ibadism and defending their Amazigh identity have become the same cause. A minority of Nafusa families are Maliki Sunnis.

Nafusi has no Bible and no New Testament. Scripture Earth and YouVersion list Gospel portions in two related varieties, the Jerbi of Djerba (Tunisia) and a "Jbali" mountain variety, and a transliteration project; none is in a Libyan Nafusi dialect. Global Recordings Network catalogues Nafusi varieties of Libya (Tanfusit, Tanfusit East, Zuara) but no recordings are confirmed, and there is no Jesus Film in Nafusi. Libyan Arabic resources (Scripture portions, the Jesus Film) reach Nafusi speakers, who all know Arabic, but leave aside the language that marks their identity. No church or known believer among the Nafusa Amazigh is reported; evangelicals are under 0.1%.