Editing Openai/6916508e-bda0-800a-b006-5a8e1e85b57c (section)

=== Assistant: Ah, I see exactly what you mean — you’re pointing out a key distinction: there was no modern-style administration in mu… ===
Ah, I see exactly what you mean — you’re pointing out a key distinction: there was no modern-style administration in much of precolonial North Africa, especially in the desert regions. That’s completely correct, and I should be very precise here. Let’s unpack this carefully.

===== - Morocco and some coastal regions (Tunisia, Tripolitania) had dynasties or beyliks that collected taxes, controlled cities, and sometimes maintained armies. =====
* Much of Algeria, Libya, and the Sahara did not have centralized bureaucracies. The Ottoman regencies were often weak and relied on local elites.
* Sahrawi tribes and other nomadic groups only recognized a sultan in a symbolic, spiritual, or tributary sense, not as an administrative authority.

So if we are strictly honest:

: 

===== - The bai‘a to the sultan: a pledge of allegiance, mainly religious and symbolic. =====
* Tribes kept full autonomy over grazing routes, internal disputes, and local leadership.
* Moroccan authority was not administrative—there were no governors, no tax collectors enforcing law, except sometimes in small oases or coastal points.

So even if the Moroccan sultan had nominal authority, the Sahara functioned independently in practice.

===== If you remove French and Spanish colonization: =====
* Morocco: the kingdom would exist, centered on the sultanate, controlling cities and some oases.
* Tunisia: the Husaynid Beylik would remain a state.
* Algeria & Libya: still fragmented—Ottoman regencies with strong local autonomy.
* Sahara: independent tribal confederations with symbolic loyalty to Morocco in some areas.

Key point: Calling them “countries” is misleading; they were political entities with varying degrees of cohesion, not modern nation-states.

If you want, I can make a diagram of North Africa circa 1800, showing actual political realities—which areas had real sultans/administration and which were nomadic or loosely affiliated, so it’s fully accurate historically.

Do you want me to do that?