Al-Khums الخمس Khoms | |
|---|---|
 "17 February Martyrs Monument" in Khums center | |
 Seal | |
  Al-Khums Location in Libya | |
| Coordinates:32°38′59″N14°15′52″E / 32.64972°N 14.26444°E /32.64972; 14.26444 | |
| Country |  Libya |
| Region | Tripolitania |
| District | Murqub |
| Settled byBerbers andPhoenicians | around 1000BC (as Lpqy) |
| Government | |
| • Governing body | Al-Khums Municipal Council |
| • President of the Municipal Council | Khalid Bennour |
| Elevation | 7 ft (2 m) |
| Population (2004)[1] | |
• Total | 201,943 |
| Demonym | Khumsi |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| Area code | 31 |
| License Plate Code | 6 |
| Website | http://khoms.gov.ly/ |
Al-Khums orKhoms (Arabic:الخمس) is acity, port and thede jure capital of theMurqub District on theMediterranean coast ofLibya[2] with an estimated population of around 202,000.[1] The population at the 1984 census was 38,174.[3] Between 1983 and 1995 it was the administrative center ofal-Khums District.
The nameal-Khums orKhoms (Arabic:الخُمس)[4] translated literally to "the quintile" in Arabic.[5]The origin of the name is not clear. Several hypotheses include:
During theItalian occupation of Libya, the city was called Homs in official Italian sources.
The city was founded by thePhoenicians around 1000 BCE, who gave it the nameLpqy. Written LPQ (Punic: 𐤋𐤐𐤒) or LPQY (𐤋𐤐𐤒𐤉). This has been tentatively connected to theSemiticroot (present inArabic) LFG, meaning "to build" or "to piece together", presumably in reference to the construction of the city.[6][7]
The town did not become prominent untilCarthage became a major power in theMediterranean Sea in the 4th century BCE. It nominally remained part of Carthage's dominions until the end of theThird Punic War in 146 BCE and then became part of theRoman Republic.
SoonRoman merchants settled in the city and started a profitable commerce with the Libyan interior.[8] The republic of Rome sent some colonists together with a small garrison in order to control the city. Since then the city started to grow and was even allowed to mint its own coins.[citation needed]
Leptis Magna remained as such until the reign of the Roman emperorTiberius, when the city and the surrounding area were formally incorporated into the empire as part of the province ofAfrica. It soon became one of the leading cities of Roman Africa and a major trading post.[citation needed]
Leptis achieved its greatest prominence beginning in 193 CE, when the ethnicallyPunic LuciusSeptimius Severus becameemperor. He favored his hometown above all other provincial cities, and the buildings and wealth he lavished on it made Leptis Magna the third-most important city in Africa, rivaling Carthage andAlexandria. In 205 CE, he and the imperial family visited the city and received great honors.[citation needed]
Among the changes that Severus introduced were to create a magnificent new forum and to rebuild the docks. The natural harbour had a tendency to silt up, but the Severan changes made this worse, and the eastern wharves are extremely well preserved, since they were scarcely used.[citation needed]
Leptis over-extended itself at this period. During theCrisis of the 3rd Century, when trade declined precipitously, Leptis Magna's importance also fell into a decline, and by the middle of the 4th century, even before it was completely devastated by the365 tsunami, large parts of the city had been abandoned.Ammianus Marcellinus recounts that the crisis was worsened by a corrupt Roman governor named Romanus during a major tribal raid who demanded bribes to protect the city. The ruined city could not pay these and complained to the emperor Valentinian. Romanus then bribed people at court and arranged for the Leptan envoys to be punished "for bringing false accusations". It enjoyed a minor renaissance beginning in the reign of the emperorTheodosius I.[citation needed]
In 439 CE, Leptis Magna and the rest of the cities ofTripolitania fell under the control of theVandals when their king,Gaiseric, captured Carthage from the Romans and made it his capital. Unfortunately for the future of Leptis Magna, Gaiseric ordered the city's walls demolished so as to dissuade its people from rebelling against Vandal rule. The people of Leptis and the Vandals both paid a heavy price for this in 523 CE when a group ofBerber raiders sacked the city.[citation needed]
Belisarius recaptured Leptis Magna in the name of Rome ten years later, and in 534 CE, hedestroyed the kingdom of the Vandals. Leptis became a provincial capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (seeByzantine Empire) but never recovered from the destruction wreaked upon it by the Berbers. It was the site of a massacre of Berber chiefs of theLeuathae tribal confederation by the Roman authorities in 543 CE.[9] HistorianTheodore Mommsen wrote that under Byzantine rule the city was fully Christian.[10] During the decade 565-578 CE Christian missionaries from Leptis Magna even began to move once more among theAmazigh tribes as far south as theFezzan in the Libyan desert and converted theGaramantes.[11] But the city's decline - linked even to the Sahara'sdesertification - continued, even though new churches were built,[12] and by the time of the Arab conquest of Tripolitania in the 650s, the city was nearly abandoned except for a Byzantine garrison force.
The progressive growth of arid land around Leptis reduced its importance and the port was blocked by the accumulation of sand. As a consequence, when Arabs arrived around 640 CE and later conquered Leptis, they found only a little garrison and a small city of less than 1,000 inhabitants. Due to further decline, Leptis disappeared: by the 10th century the city was forgotten and fully covered by sand.[13]
Leptis Magna andTripolitania were conquered byAmr ibn al-Aas and soon after that, a lot of Arabs settled in the city near the ruins of Leptis Magna while most of the nativeBerber tribes living there converted toIslam.[14]
For the next few centuries the control of the city shifted betweenRashidun Caliphate,Umayyad Caliphate,Abbasid Caliphate,Fatimid Caliphate,Zirids,Kingdom of Africa,Almohad Caliphate andHafsids before falling under the control of theOttomans in the 1550s.
The city became the capital of The FifthSanjak (which included the cities ofMisurata,Sirte,Zliten,Bani Walid andMsalata), an administrative division ofOttoman Tripolitania untilWorld War I and thedefeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
The Italians colonized Libya in 1911, and on 10 October of the same year a major battle between natives and Italian Army occurred inMurqub Castle in Khums and another on in the same place on 27 February 1912. Both battles namedBattle of Murqub are considered as two of the most important battles during the Italian colonizing of Libya.Muammar Gaddafi later claimed that his grandfather died in one of the two battle.[15] Libya remained under Italian rule untilWorld War II.
During World War II Khums was occupied bythe Allies and from 1942 until 1951, when Libya gained independence, Tripolitania and the region of Cyrenaica were administered by the British Military Administration. Italy formally renounced its claim upon the territory in 1947.
Bashir Saadawi, born in Khums, was one of the major figures who contributed to Libyan independence. He was the founder of theNational Congress Party which supported aRepublic instead of aMonarchy. WhenKing Idris I was crowned as King of Libya, all political parties were disbanded and Saadawi was exiled toBeirut where he remained until his death on 17 January 1957.
Khums remained part of Tripolitania province until 1962 when theFederal system canceled and replaced byMuhafazah governorates system (muhafazah) system, and this system remained even after the1969 coup d'état and through theLibyan Arab Republic, until superseded by the 1983Baladiyat districts system. The baladiyat system was itself dropped in 1995 and replaced by thirteen districts named shabiyat. Despite the changes, Khums remained as a separate district under the name of al-Khums or Murqub.
Khums remained under control of Gaddafi forces through most of the war until rebels fromMisrata entered and captured the city on 23 August before moving on to Tripoli.[16]
Al-Khums has ahot desert climate (Köppen climate classificationBWh).
| Climate data for Al-Khums, Libya (1996–2008) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 17.9 (64.2) | 18.7 (65.7) | 21.4 (70.5) | 24.0 (75.2) | 27.1 (80.8) | 29.6 (85.3) | 31.7 (89.1) | 32.0 (89.6) | 30.9 (87.6) | 29.0 (84.2) | 24.2 (75.6) | 19.4 (66.9) | 25.5 (77.9) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 13.5 (56.3) | 14.0 (57.2) | 16.6 (61.9) | 18.8 (65.8) | 22.4 (72.3) | 24.6 (76.3) | 26.9 (80.4) | 27.5 (81.5) | 26.5 (79.7) | 23.9 (75.0) | 19.2 (66.6) | 15.0 (59.0) | 20.7 (69.3) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 9.3 (48.7) | 9.4 (48.9) | 11.5 (52.7) | 13.6 (56.5) | 16.9 (62.4) | 19.3 (66.7) | 22.3 (72.1) | 22.9 (73.2) | 21.9 (71.4) | 19.3 (66.7) | 14.6 (58.3) | 10.2 (50.4) | 15.9 (60.6) |
| Average precipitation days(≥ 0.1 mm) | 6.0 | 4.0 | 2.8 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 3.1 | 4.8 | 6.4 | 30.9 |
| Mean monthlysunshine hours | 179.8 | 200.6 | 257.3 | 240.0 | 310.0 | 330.0 | 378.2 | 337.9 | 276.0 | 238.7 | 219.0 | 179.8 | 3,147.3 |
| Mean dailysunshine hours | 5.8 | 7.1 | 8.3 | 8.0 | 10.0 | 11.0 | 12.2 | 10.9 | 9.2 | 7.7 | 7.3 | 5.8 | 8.6 |
| Source:Deutscher Wetterdienst[17] | |||||||||||||
Al-Khums municipality was once part ofMurqub District and its capital, since 2013 the22 Shabiya divided into90 Municipalities; and so al-Khums was separated fromZliten.[18]
As of 2019[update], al-Khums Municipality consists of some small towns on the outskirts of al-Khums Centre, including Lebda, Al-jahawat, Seleen, El-Sahel and Suuq El-Khamis.
The city's mainfootball club isal-Khums SC which currently plays inLibyan Premier League.
Al-Khums has a small port forbulk carriers,containers andcar carriers. It has an entrance channel of depth 13 metres and ananchorage with a depth 10 meters. The port itself consists of nine medium-sized berths (numbers 12 to 19) with lengths ranging from 75 to 530 meters and maximumdrafts ranging from 8 to 12 meters depending on the berth.[19]
In June 2018, the container shipMaersk Alexander rescued 113 refugees in the Mediterranean sea during her voyage en route from al-Khums toMalta.[20] The ship had been directed to do so byMRCCRome after adistress message was received from the boat with 113 refugees.[21] After an initial refusal of permission to berth atSicily, the refugees were subsequently disembarked at the Italian port of Pozallo.[22]
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