The Mozabites are the Ibadi Muslim Berber population of the M'zab valley in the northern Algerian Sahara. They speak Tumzabt, an eastern Tamazight variety classified within the Zenati branch, with around two hundred thousand speakers concentrated in the five fortified cities of Ghardaïa, Beni Isguen, Melika, Bounoura, and El Atteuf.
The community traces its present settlement to the eleventh century, when Ibadi refugees from the Fatimid conquest of Tahart, their earlier capital in western Algeria, founded the M'zab as a spiritual and political reservation. The pentapolis preserves Ibadi Islam — a third branch of Islam distinct from Sunni and Shi'a — together with a distinct theology, customary law, and social code organised around the council of the halqa al-azzaba.
Mozabite communal life is regulated by a strict customary code on dress, marriage, hospitality, public space, and the use of leisure time. The cities are organised concentrically around a fortified mosque whose minaret functions as a watchtower; cemeteries, markets, and public squares are sharply demarcated.
Beyond the M'zab, Mozabite traders form one of the most distinctive merchant networks in Algeria, historically dominant in the textile and grocery trades of Algiers, Oran, and Constantine.