Commercial Activity in the Fezzan Region: The Banu Al-Khattab Family as a Model(306 AH - 568 AH / 918 CE - 1172 CE)

Abstract

The Fezzan region is one of the Libyan regions that played an important role in desert trade and its prosperity during the Middle Ages.

This study will address a model of one of the families that contributed to the commercial advancement of this region during the fourth century AH/tenth century AD, which is the Bani Al-Khattab family that made the city of Zuwayla in Fezzan the capital of its state, and highlight its role in caring for trade in this region, as the researchers used scientific methods in writing the research such as the analytical inductive method that helps in describing and analyzing the events that occurred during this period, explaining the reasons and motives behind this family's interest in trade and reaching important results that clarify the role it played in this field, and predicting and extrapolating the historical developments that the subject of the study went through.

The researchers also used the descriptive method to describe the historical problem as it existed in reality, and to analyze and interpret it in a scientific way that helps in understanding its events, with the use of some other scientific methods if necessary