Zawila

Zawila is an oasis town in the Fezzan region of south-western Libya, east of Murzuq. In the early Islamic period it was the chief town of the Fezzan and a major station on the caravan route between Lake Chad and the Mediterranean, through which enslaved people were brought north. From about 918 it was the seat of the Ibadi Banu Khattab dynasty, until Sharaf al-Din Qaraqush conquered it in the 1170s.