Amazigh, Kabyle

The Kabyles are the Amazigh (Berber) people of Kabylia, the mountainous coastal region east of Algiers, and the largest Berber-speaking people of Algeria. They call themselves Iqbayliyen (singular Aqbayli) and their language Taqbaylit; the name comes from Arabic qaba'il, 'tribes'. Older Arabic writers called the people of the Djurdjura the Zwawa (Igawawen). Kabylia is the old land of the Kutama, who carried the Fatimid caliphate to power in 909, and of the Hammadid capital Béjaïa (Bgayet); the kingdoms of Koukou and the Aït Abbas held out against the Ottomans, and Kabylia was the last part of northern Algeria taken by France (1857). The 1871 uprising led by El Mokrani and Cheikh Aheddad was crushed with land seizures that pushed generations of Kabyle men into labour emigration to France. Kabyles led the modern Amazigh movement: the 'Berber Spring' of 1980, the school boycott of 1994-95, the 'Black Spring' of 2001 (126 killed) and the recognition of Tamazight as a national (2002) and official (2016) language. Kabyle (kab) has Greater Kabylia (Djurdjura, Tizi Ouzou) and Lesser Kabylia (Soummam, Béjaïa) varieties and is written in a Latin alphabet. Estimates of speakers range from 3 to 6.4 million in Algeria, and about a million live in France. Many Kabyles in Algiers and other cities speak Arabic and French as well, but keep the Kabyle name and ties to their home village.

Kabyle life is organised around the village (taddart), perched on ridges and run by its assembly (tajmaat) and an elected village committee that manages water, roads, cleaning, festivals and the rules (qanun) that bind households; fines and exclusion still enforce them. Since 2006 Tizi Ouzou's 'cleanest village' contest has turned this self-help into a source of pride, with more than 80 villages competing each year. Families are patrilineal and grouped into lineages (adrum) and quarters. Olive oil from family groves, figs, couscous (seksu) with vegetables, and galette bread are the staples; the olive harvest in winter brings families back to the village. Women's crafts include painted geometric pottery, woven blankets and dresses (taqendurt) with bright braid, and the enamelled silver jewellery of the Aït Yenni. Song is central to identity: women's achewiq songs, wedding troupes with flutes and drums, and modern singers such as Slimane Azem, Idir, Lounis Aït Menguellet and Matoub Lounès (assassinated in 1998). Weddings last several days with henna, dances and gunfire. Yennayer, the Amazigh New Year on 12 January, is a family feast and since 2018 a national holiday.

Most Kabyles are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki school. Islam in Kabylia has long been shaped by marabout lineages (imrabdhen), holy families who live in their own villages, settle disputes and keep shrines, and by the Rahmaniyya Sufi order founded in the Djurdjura in the 18th century. Visits to shrines, vows, and protection against the evil eye and jinn are common, especially among women and older people. Kabylia is also the most secular region of Algeria: the Amazigh movement, emigration to France and distrust of the Islamist politics of the 1990s have made many young Kabyles indifferent to formal religion, while a Salafi current has also grown. Since the 1980s a Protestant movement has grown in Kabylia, the largest community of Christians from a Muslim background in North Africa; estimates for Algeria range from 20,000 to over 100,000 believers, most of them Kabyle. Many connect faith in Christ with a recovery of Amazigh identity and the memory of a Christian North Africa before Islam. Since 2017 the authorities have sealed the movement's churches, and believers meet in homes.

Kabyle has the fullest Scripture of any Berber language: JP records the complete Bible, a complete audio Bible is distributed on players by a Kabyle church in Ouadhia, and the JESUS film, Global Recordings Network audio in several dialects, worship music and Christian satellite television in Kabyle exist. Translation work continues (a Gospel of John pilot by the Trinitarian Bible Society, 2023-2025). The Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA), most of whose congregations were Kabyle, has had all its churches closed or sealed since 2017-2019, and its leaders have been convicted for 'unauthorised worship' and proselytism (2023). Believers continue in house fellowships and online.