Kabyle

The Kabyle, Iqbayliyen, are a Berber people of Kabylia, the mountainous region of northern Algeria east of Algiers, and the largest Berber-speaking population in the country. Their language, Taqbaylit, belongs to the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family and has carried a modern written literature and a political movement for its own recognition since the twentieth century. Most Kabyle people are Sunni Muslim, a minority is Christian, and a tradition of venerating local saints inherited from before Islam still shapes devotional practice within Kabyle Islam today.