Murzuk

Murzuk, Murzuq, Murzug or Merzug () is an oasis town and the capital of the Murzuq District in the Fezzan region of southwest Libya. It lies on the northern edge of the Murzuq Desert, an extremely arid region of ergs or great sand dunes which is part of the greater Sahara Desert.

==History== Murzuk developed around an oasis which served as a stop on the north-south trade route across the Sahara Desert. From the 5th century BC to the 5th century AD, Marzuk was home to the Garamantian Empire, a city state which operated the Trans-Saharan trade routes between the Carthaginians—and later the Roman Empire—and the Sahelian states of West and Central Africa. By 1300, the area was ruled by the Arab Banu Sulaym tribe. According to Helmuth Kanter, a Moroccan tribe overran the area in 1310 and established Murzuk as the capital of their sultanate. The fortress, now in ruins, was built around this time. By 1400 the city was ruled by the Bornu Empire, and the legacy of Kanem-Bornu sovereignty is still evident, as some streets have names in the Kanembu and Kanuri languages. In the later half of the 15th century, the area became a tributary of the Hafsid dynasty in Tunis.