وصف المصادر المحلية للمدن الساحلية الجزائرية خلال العهد العثماني

Abstract

The strategic position of Algeria and its opening on the Mediterranean sea is one of the most important factors that influenced the history of the country and was one of the big deciding factors of its future and destiny. During the ottoman existence in Algeria -1519 to 1830-, the Algerian coastal cities were at the heart of the historical events that occurred in the region such as the Andalusian migration and the clash of civilizations between the Ottoman empire and the occidental alliance under the leadership of Spain and the Portugal. That has urged the local historians to consider the Algerian cities as metropolitan cities and military defense lines and so they documented and reported the historical attempts to the conquest of the region and its consequent liberation. The chroniclers and traveling scholars wrote work poems also referred to as rajaz poems, which have been commented, leaving a valuable literary and historical heritage, as the works of Ahmad al-Maqarrî al-Tilimsânî, Hasan al-Wazzân, Al-Tamagrûtî, etc. We attempt in the current study to analyze those works and discover the identity of the chroniclers and travelers in question. We also aim to answer the following questions: What was the relationship between those authors and the cities they dealt with in their works? The reasons that drove them to write about them? How they described them? The aspects they focused on? How we evaluate the informations they have provided?