Tunisia is a
North African country with a predominantly Arabic-speaking population. The country is best known for
malouf, a kind of music imported from
Andalusia after the Spanish conquest in the 15th century. Though in its modern form, malouf is likely very dissimilar to any music played more than four centuries ago, it does have its roots in Spain and Portugal, and is closely related to genres with a similar history throughout North Africa, including malouf's Libyan cousin, Algerian
gharnati and Moroccan
ala or
Andalusi. During the Ottoman era, malouf was highly influenced from Turkish music. Even now most of malouf examples are very similar to Turkish classical music.