Beni Ḥassan ( "sons of Ḥassān") is a Bedouin Arab tribe which inhabits Western Sahara, Mauritania, Morocco and Algeria. It is one of the four sub-tribes of the Banu Maqil who emigrated in the 11th century from South Arabia to the Maghreb with the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym Arab tribes. In the 13th century, they took the Sanhaja territories in the southwest of the Sahara. In Morocco, they first settled, alongside their Maqil relatives, in the area between Tadla and the Moulouya River. The Sous Almohad governor called upon them for help against a rebellion in the Sous, and they resettled in and around that region. They later moved to what is today Mauritania, and from the 16th century onwards, they managed to push back all black peoples southwards to the Senegal Valley river. The Beni Hassan and other warrior Arab tribes dominated the Sanhaja Berber tribes of the area after the Char Bouba war of the 17th century. As a result, Arabs became the dominant ethnic group in Western Sahara and Mauretania. The Bani Hassan dialect of Arabic became used in the region and is still spoken, in the form of Hassaniya Arabic. The hierarchy established by the Beni Hassan tribe gave Mauritania much of its sociological character.
Origin
Beni Hassan are one of the four sub-tribes of Beni Maqil who emigrated to the Maghreb in the 11th century. The exact origin of the Beni Maqil tribe is unknown, although it has been established that they most likely originated in South Arabia (Yemen). The Maqil claimed Hashemite descent from Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, while some Arabian genealogists categorized them as Hilalians. The Sahrawi nation includes the Beni Hassan as part of its founding peoples and Hassaniya Arabic as part of its national identity. There is also a Beni Hassan Bedouin tribe in northern Jordan. thumb|The [[Sahrawis|Sahrawi nation includes Beni Hassan as part of its founding people]]
History
thumb|300x300px|Saharan family in the 1970s
Migration to the Maghreb
Various sources point to the Maqil tribe as the origin from which the Beni Hassan tribe was formed. The Ma'qils entered the Maghreb during the wave of emigration of the Arabian tribes in the 11th century, and since then, they were situated in North Africa together with other Bedouin Arab tribes that migrated from the Arabian Peninsula such as the Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym, with whom they shared great skill as warriors and a destructive capacity for the nations they attacked. The Maqil later allied with the Banu Hilal and entered under their protection, which enabled them to wander in the Moroccan desert between the Moulouya River and Tafilalt oases.
In the 13th century, they occupied southern Algeria and dominated the oases of Tuat and Gourara. For some authors, at this point, the Maqil group had already disintegrated into different populations in the Maghreb and had given rise to the Beni Hassan along with other related groups.
Migration to Morocco
thumb|[[Oulad Delim is a sub-tribe of Beni Hassan]]
By the mid-15th century, the Beni Hassan controlled a large part of the oases and Western Sahara. They crossed into the Atlas after taking advantage of the weakening Marinid Sultanate around 1460 and then they dominated the Haouz region of Marrakesh by the beginning of the 16th century. At the same time, a part of the Beni Hassan made its way to Mauritania. Other groups migrated north through Tafilalt to Fez or up the Sebou and Bou Regreg rivers, where some settled south of Rabat.
The Beni Hassan were united in their opposition to Nasr al-Din.
Before French colonization
Following the pre-Islamic tradition of tribal warfare between clans in the Arabian Peninsula, the new Hassani emirates repeatedly went to war with each other.