Zaër

The Zaër (Arabic: زعير, romanized: Zaʿīr) are an Arab tribal confederacy of Maqil origins. For centuries, the Zaër practiced semi-nomadic pastoralism, traveling with the seasons to tend to the tribe's massive herds. The Zaër were divided between two tribal groups, the Kefiane in the west of the Zaër rangeland and the Mzar'a to the east. Despite the separation between the Zaër groups, their shared culture was nonetheless very isolated from other neighboring tribes due to their distinct linguistic, societal, and geographical differences.

According to tribal lore, the Zaër originally formed in what is now modern-day Mauritania, in the Red River region. However, pressure from larger tribes expelled the Zaër from their ancestral home into central Morocco. Following several decades of searching for a permanent home, one of the Zaër's more prominent leaders, Sidi Muhammad bin Ez-Za'ri, finally established the Zaër in the Korifle Gorge region adjacent to the Atlantic coastal plain, an area along in the highlands, the northern edge of the Sahara, and the southern High Atlas. Leo Africanus wrote in the early sixteenth century that they settled in the region of Khenifra, and later continued on to the north to the Rabat region.

The Zaër culture was almost completely demolished in the early twentieth century by the French protectorate in Morocco, which divided up the lands used by the Zaër for grazing and converted it for agricultural purposes. Infrastructure development of roads, highways, and towns for European settlers disrupted grazing routes, preventing the Zaër from making their traditional living. The French also sold land rights of Zaër rangeland to the highest bidder, resulting in thousands of acre of fertile Zaër land being sold to European agriculturalists. While many descendants of the Zaër still exist today, the Zaër are not a recognized ethnic group or tribe by the Moroccan government and do not exist as they did in their previous history.