Adidabiya

Adidabiya is a town of Cyrenaica on the coast, now in the district of Benghazi. It was once a military station and a great commercial centre at the gate of the desert.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), unsigned, describes Adidabiya as a town of Cyrenaica that was conquered and subjected to poll-tax, and that became during the following three centuries a military station and a great centre of commercial traffic. It stood at the gate of the desert on stony ground, whence the Arabic name "the sterile" is probably derived. In the 5th/11th century it had a citadel and a substantial mosque, built about 300/912 by the Fatimid prince Abu 'l-Qasim, son of 'Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi, with a fine octagonal minaret. Wells cut in the rock gave good water, and the town had orchards and houses built as brick vaults, supplied from the hinterland, especially the Jabal Akhdar. Its small port, six miles away on the Gulf of the Great Syrtis, served ships bound for the town. The inhabitants were mainly Luwata Berbers, with Arab settlers such as the Azd and Lakhm after the conquest. Its prosperity was lost after the great Hilali and Sulami invasion of the 5th/11th century, and travellers in later centuries describe it as a long-ruined town. ¹