Zaër

The Zaër is an Arab tribal confederacy of mixed Maqil-Arab origins.

The confederacy is composed of two tribal groups : Kefiane and Mzar'a. The Kefiane group is settling the western and southern part of the Confederacy's territory and is made of 7 tribes: Beni Obeid, Slamna, Uled Zeid, Uled Daho, Hlalef, Ruashed, and Mkhalef. The second group, Mzar'a, is settling in the eastern part of the territory and is made of 6 tribes: Nejda, Uled Ali, Gsisset, Brashua, Uled Ktir, and Uled Khelifa.[1]

According to local lore, the Zaër originally formed in what is now modern-day Mauritania, in the Red River region. However, pressure from larger tribes expelled the Zaër from their ancestral home into central Morocco. Following several decades of searching for a permanent home, one of the Zaër's more prominent leaders, Sidi Muhammad bin Ez-Za'ri, finally established the Zaër in the Korifle Gorge region adjacent to the Atlantic coastal plain,[2] an area along in the highlands, the northern edge of the Sahara, and the southern High Atlas. Leo Africanus wrote in the early sixteenth century that they settled in the region of Khenifra, and later continued on to the north to the Rabat region.[3]

Despite their claim on the highlands of Morocco, the Zaër would throughout their history engage in frequent conflicts with neighboring tribes, primarily the prominent Amazigh tribes the Zemmour and the Zaian, as the area of their occupation was highly coveted.[2]

In the early 1910s a brief conflict would break out between French colonial forces and Zaër tribesmen following the death of a French lieutenant. France would emerge victorious following this brief period of violence and subsequently seize Morocco as a protectorate in 1912.[4]