The Shilha people (Berber languages: ⵉⵛⵍⵃⵉⵢⵏ, romanized: išelḥiyen, Arabic: الشلوح, romanized: aš-šlūḥ), or Schleuh or Ishelhien, are a Berber subgroup primarily inhabiting the Anti-Atlas, High Atlas, Sous valley, and Soussi coastal regions of Morocco.

[9] The Shilha people are a part of Morocco's Berber-speaking community, and the southernmost residing Berber population.

They established the ancient kingdom of Mauretania, which fell under Roman rule in 33 CE, before eventually being reunited under Berber sovereignty.

[12] During the 7th century, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Berber and Byzantine strongholds in the Northwest Africa, seizing Carthage in 698 AD.

[5] The Ishelhien communities in the southwestern mountains of Morocco cooperated with each other in terms of providing reciprocal grazing rights as seasons changed, as well as during periods of war.

The first appearance of this name in a western printed source is found in Mármol's Descripcion general de Affrica (1573, part I, book I, chapter XXXIII): ...y entre los Numidas, y Getulos dela parte occidental de Affrica se habla Berberisco cerrado, y alli llaman esta lengua, Xilha, y Tamazegt, q̃ son nõbres muy antiguos.

"...and among the Numidians and Getulians of the western part of Afri-ca, they speak Berber with marked local features,[24] and there they call this language Xilha [ʃilħa] and Tamazegt [tamaziɣt], which are very old names.

Some people and sources say that it is exonymic in origin, as the nominal stem šlḥ goes back to the Arabic noun šilḥ "bandit" (plural šulūḥ).

[27] He also added that there is no meaning and no use in resorting to searching for the significance of the word shalh and shluh in other languages, which is not crippling.