146 THE PROGRESS THROUGH EGYPT li. 1. xiv
along the North African coast-line pushed their conquests eastA\^ards
over Eg}'pt and Syria, and by 991 a.d. they had brought under their
rule all the country lying between the eastern border of Morocco and the Syrian desert and the Orontes^
Almost immediately after the conquest of Syria the Khalifa el
'Aziz Abu Mansur (975-996 a.d.) moved the Beni Sulaym and Beni HiLAL to Upper Egypt and settled them there^. The chief divisions
of the latter were the Athbeg, the Ri'ah, the Zoghba, the Ma'akL;
the GiSHM and the Kurra^.
About fifty years later, in 1045, when the power of the Fatimites was beginning to decline, JMu'izz the chief of the Sanhaga Berbers
at Kairuan became disaffected, and the Khalifa el Mustansir Abu Tamim (103 6- 1094) eventually sent word, in 1049, to the Beni HiLAL saying "I make you a gift of Maghrab and the kingdom of Mu'izz son of Balkin the Sanhagi, the runaway slave*."
Thus was ushered in the period of permanent Arab domination
in that part of North Africa which lies west of Egypt^. The tribes of Beni Hilal, accompanied by other Beni Kays, chiefly Beni Sulaym and Fezara^, under their leadership'^, swarmed "like locusts" to the
north-west in 105 1, joined forces with their kinsfolk the Beni Kurra who with the aid of the Ketama Berbers had already established
themselves about forty-six years before at Barka, and overran the
provinces of Tunis and Tripoli^. Mu'izz enlisted the aid of the Zenata Berbers, but his resistance w^as weak, disafi'ection was rife,
such of his troops as accepted battle were defeated, and the country
passed under the denomination of the Beni Hilal. This great
expedition and the desultory warfare with the Zenata that followed
it gave rise to the famous cycle of legends in honour of the hero "Abu Zayd el Hilali" which was rife, at least until lately, all over
^ Van Dyck, p. 150.
* Some of the Beni Sulaym appear also to have entered Egypt some seventy years earlier (109 A.H.) and to have been settled round Balbays, where subsequently they were joined by others of their tribe. These all, at a later date, moved with the main tribe to the Berber country in the west. (Quatrem^re, 11, 212-215.)
* Ibn KhaldQn, i, 28 (ed. de Slane), and ed. ar. Vol. 6, p. 15, Bk. Ii.
* Ibn KhaldQn, ed. ar. Vol. 6, p. 14.
* Previous to this of course the Arabs had made numerous expeditions west- wards from Egypt and no doubt some permanent settlements had been made, but there had been no general arabicization.
® The bulk of the Fezdra were still in Arabia at this time (see Ibn KhaldQn, ed. de Slane, i, 118 note).
' Several of the sub-tribes mentioned by Ibn KhaldQn were, as he particularly points out, and as Wustenfeld's table shews, not Beni Hilal proper, though they were of kindred origin in nearly every case, e.g. Ghatafsin (including F"ezdra) and other branches of Kays 'Aylan. (See Ibn KhaldQn, ed. ar. Vol. 6, pp. 5, 16, 17.)
* Cp. Lane-Poole, Hist. p. 128.