The importance of customary law in the oasis space in Algeria (Case of the Touat region)

Abstract

Touat s interest as a hub of secular communications between the Maghreb and Sudan has long been known. Its location in this strategic commercial space has long been an important element in the socio-economic prosperity of this region. The latter was not only linked to these external factors, but also a fertile land, full of diverse agricultural products and ancestral know-how. Indeed, the Touat brings together a series of oases, based on an original traditional hydraulic system, known as foggara. It is ultimately the source of life for the Sahara, which has dragged on for eleven century, to satisfy peasants, with a right of ownership, registered in a document called Zemam. Our intention here is to go back in the historical evolution of this ancestral heritage of the foggaras in the region of Touat, a system which consists of a traditional exploitation of water and soil, based on an ingenious method of collecting and sharing water. , exemplary social justice and rigor in the various tasks of maintaining and preserving the oasis way of life in the Sahara.