The Tuareg are an almost semi-legendary people most recognizable forby their indigo robes and men who wear veils. They have recently gained greater prominence the western public sphere through films such as “Sahara”, “Sheltering Sky” and more recently “Timbuktu”. However, as with a number of trading tribes across Africa they are probably one of the most well documented peoples in history. There has been a lot of mythmaking with regard to Africa and the Middle East in particular making it rather difficult to unravel and unearth the submerged heritage of these enigmatic people.

Never-the- less we do have medieval sources which state that a “Moorish” dynasty of Iberia was under the control of various clans of the Tuareg or Tawarek, who were known in that day to be rather austere, yet tolerant Muslims, in control of much of the trade in gold ans silver that went on in the Sahara and between Africa and the Mediterranean.

The period of the rule of the in Iberia was known as “the Philistine dynasty” in Spanish Hebrew sources in part because they many were well over 7 feet in height or giants in stature. In the Hebrew commentaries they are in fact equated with “Dedan” a son of Keturah. Josephus also mentions the Getulian inhabitants of Numidia which include modern Tuareg occupied towns of Ghadames, Zawilah and Fezzan were the people of Havilah who once traded between South Arabia and Somalia. But the merchants of “Dedan”, “Havilah” and “Sheba” and “Madian” once traded in a vast region spread between the Fezzan of Libya. Northwest Africa and many areas of the Sahara and Sahel, South Arabia (India Minor) , and the Horn (Central India) and “Tarshish” (thought to be in continental India or else somewhere in the Mediterranean).

Certain, Tuareg clans like the Idak Sahak claim to be from “Isaac” the brother of Jacob. Others such as the Banu Ifren were claimed to be descendants of the Israelite clans “Ephrain” or “Ephraim” whose roots were in Amalek. Today the Iferouane clan of the Tuareg occupies Niger and but are the known inhabits of Sijilmassa Fez and other towns of Morocco 1000 years ago. This may also explain why in some early medieval Berber sources the Berbers are called Amalekites.

In any case it is certain the Tuareg who now live mainly in countries of Sahara, Sahel and Sudan were original domiciled in the coastal area spreading between Libya and Algeria in aread once called Tripolitania and the Gulf of Sidra. They were said to be from Goliath’s kin and to have come across Northern Africa chasing the Canaanite ancestors of the other “Mauri”. They are associated with the founding and settlement of many of the pre-Islamic towns and sites of North Africa that were west of what’s today called Egypt and the Nile. Some of these geographical areas include the ancient Phoenician centers of Carthage (Kharet or Harith Haddesh), Libda or Leptis Magna and Tripolitania or (Tarabolus) along the North African coast

The Tuareg told colonialists they were the Canaanites, and which might explain why their script resembling the ancient Punic, is called TiFinagh, and is said to mean “belonging to the Phoenicians”. Some of the marks or designs found on Tuareg faces are similar to those on Carthaginian masks.

So, for what it’s worth, the traditions surrounding Tuareg origins have it that they’ve been merchants and traders for a long time, since the time of Ephraim “whose roots were in Amalek”, since the time Phoenicians made trading missions to Tarshish. After building their civilization beginning over 3,000

years ago in league with their vassals, they are considered to have been pushed southward by the Romans and Byzantines and finally bringing their customs to areas south of the Sahara. They are accustomed to using artisans or smiths of their vassal clans, many of which were from the Soninke peoples spread from Algeria called Jana or Djanawa and Gnawa. The latter were those that customarily mined metals and salt and made jewels and utensils from silver and gold. This however began apparently in the time Soomon was the regions of Ophir and Tarshish. There is a belief that Ophir was also called Parvaim or the historical al-Farwa, which was in the neighborhood of Khawlan or “Havilah” and Beish or Beishan – or “Pison”- in the Yemen where was also a historically documented Kush, Midian, “Jerusalem” or Dhar es- Salem, “Og” or “Akk”’ and Canaan (Kanauna) and other people of Nu’ah spoken of in the chapter of the Torah called Genesis. At this time it is important to keep in mind that much of the Arabian peninsula was considered India or Ethiopia by the early Greeks and Romans because the large number of people of Central Asian origin that had come into the peninsula during the early Islam were not yet present or numerous as they became.

Similarly everything east of the Nile was said to be Arabia or occupied by Sabaeans or Arabians according to early Greeks like Strabo and Diodorus.

In fact, by tradition, this was the original world of Solomon and Sheba, “Kush”, and Hiram, the Phoenician – the “Canaanites”, and “Mizra’im” and the Exodus. Mizra’im was a tribe that brought their name into the Nile valley among whom silver and goldsmiths and miners known as Qani or Ka’in and Hamadah mined in secret.

Qani or Kanneh is associated with the biblical or Hebrew word “Kenites” from the house of “Rechab” and “Hammath” in Canaan. It is not unusual to find individual members of the Tuareg smith castes still calling themselves Kane . https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxYMUBbggQvlgqDSnVkKFf61zx-7ZFBY7v

These smiths have retained masonic traditions related to their knowledge of the cosmos, the planets and stars and early phenomena in relation to the soul or inner man, i.e. the microcosm. This knowledge and totemic framing of the earth consciousness in connection to the soul helped develop ancient masonry, agriculture, and navigation and came to be expressed as early esoteric religion or mystic paths – called by such names as Kabbalah, gnosticism, sufism, Vedanta, astrology, numerology and sacred geometry. Although the Tuareg and their different clans and vassal clans have long ago for the most part been converted to Islam, the mystic symbolism of three thousand years and more have been kept alive in the inscribed designs of the Tuareg jewelers, smiths, and craftsmen.