People & Society

The earliest inhabitants of Tunisia were the Berbers. After them came the merchants and traders from Phoenicia, the conquering armies of Rome and Byzantine, the Vandals and the Visigoths. Some of these people put down roots and mingled with the local Arab/Berber population. With the arrival of the Ottomans in the 7th century came the Islamic way of life that established itself permanently in Tunisia.

The nomadic Bedouins joined by their Berber cousins further reinforced the Arabic language and Moslem religion. The Berbers reacted to the influx by retiring to their desert citadels where they lived in splendid, albeit lonely isolation till the arrival of the French colonizers.

Tunisia has an estimated population of around nine million people. The contemporary Tunisian is a result of the intermingling of all these cultural influences and stands apart from other Arabs in his political and religious moderation and tolerance. Tunisia’s rural populace is however, still very orthodox in their ways. Though a majority of the Jewish population moved out of Tunisia after creation of Israel, a very small number of Jews still live in Tunis and Jerba.