Mahdia, Quoted In The Glorious Past
Mahdia is an ancient city whose roots extend along history. Although it has known historical milestones (Punic counter, Fatimid Capital, fortress of the Corsairs and the Ottoman Empire), the confusion continues to envelop part of the history of the city, the one that precedes the era Fatimid In particular. This despite the numerous traces revealed by excavations and studies, maritime or terrestrial, which testify to the passage of the Phoenicians, the Punic and the Romans in the city and its surroundings.
The historical period that most distinguished the city was the one that presided over its founding by the Fatimids in 920 to make it the capital of their caliphate. The founding Caliph, Abdullah-El-Mehdi of his real name, had chosen it for its strategic location, since it overlooks the sea on three sides, and constitutes thus a well protected fortress, capable of standing up to all the invaders. As a result, Mahdia had become a very important trading counter in the Mediterranean.
At the departure of the 4th Caliph Fatimid, El-Mouez-li-Din-Allah, for the conquest of Egypt and his establishment in the new city which he built in 972: Cairo, he had delegated his political and administrative powers to the Sanhajites, which quickly Returned against the Fatimids and were punished by the dispatch in Tunisia of hordes of hilaliennes tribes from Lower Egypt with the aim of destroying the foundations of the nascent sanhajite power. It was the time of the invasion of Tunisia by the Beni-Hilal.
Since then, Banu, Christians, Spaniards and Turks have in turn occupied or liberated the city then it was the turn of the Spaniards to destroy its ramparts and put it to fire and blood in 1555. The city had lost its military and commercial importance in particular in the Turkish and Hussein era.