 The traditional banner of the Sanusi order, later used as inspiration of the flag ofCyrenaica and eventually incorporated into theflag of Libya | |
| Formation | 1837; 189 years ago (1837),Mecca |
|---|---|
| Type | Sufi order |
| Headquarters | Libya |
Key people |
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TheSanusi order orSanusiyyah[1] (Arabic:السنوسية,romanized: as-Sanūssiyya) are aMuslim political-religiousSufi order (tariqa) inLibya and North Africa founded inMecca in 1837 byMuhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi.
DuringWorld War I the Senusi order fought against bothItaly andBritain. DuringWorld War II, the order provided support to theBritish Eighth Army inNorth Africa againstNazi andFascist Italian forces. The founder's grandson becameKingIdris I of Libya in 1951. The1969 Libyan revolution led byMuammar Gaddafi overthrew him, ending theLibyan monarchy. The movement remained active despite persecution by Gaddafi's government, and its cultural legacy continues to this day in Libya, centered onCyrenaica.
The Sanusi order has been historically closed to Europeans and outsiders, leading reports of their beliefs and practices to vary immensely. Though it is possible to gain some insight from the lives of the Sanusisheikhs[2] further details are difficult to obtain.
Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi (1787–1859), the founder of the order,[2] was born in Algeria nearMostaganem and was namedAl-Sanusi after a venerated Muslim teacher.[2] He was a member of the Awlad Sidi Abdalla tribe and was aSharif.
In addition toIslamic sciences, Al-Sanusi learned science and chivalry in his upbringing. He studied at theUniversity of al-Qarawiyyin inFez, then traveled in the Sahara, preaching a purifying reform of the faith in Tunisia andTripoli, gaining many adherents, and then moved toCairo[2] to study atAl-Azhar University in 1824.
Al-Sanusi was critical of the government ofMuhammad Ali of Egypt. The pious scholar was forceful in his criticism of the EgyptianUlama. Not surprisingly, he was opposed by the Ulama.[2] He left Egypt forMecca, where he spent 15 years as a student and teacher until 1843.[3]
Al-Sanusi went to Mecca, where he joined Ahmad ibn Idris al-Qadiri, the head of theQadiriyya, a renowned religious fraternity. Al-Sanusi furthermore acquired several of his ideas while under his education from 1825-1827/28.[4] On the death of ibn Idris, Al-Sanusi became head of one of the two branches into which the Qadiriyya divided, and in 1835 he founded his first monastery orZawiya, atAbu Qubays near Mecca.[2] After being forced to leave by theWahhabis,[5] he returned to Libya in 1843 where in the mountains near Sidi Rafaa' (Bayda) he built theZawiya Bayda "White Monastery".[2] There he was supported by the local tribes and theSultan of Wadai and his connections extended across theMaghreb.
The Sanusi order did not tolerate fanaticism and forbade the use ofstimulants as well as voluntary poverty. Lodge members were to eat and dress within the limits offiqh and, instead of depending on charity, were required to earn their living through work.
Bedouins had shown no interest in the ecstatic practices of the Sufis that were gaining adherents in the towns, but they were attracted in great numbers to the Sanusi order. The relative austerity of the Sanusi message was particularly suited to the character of the Cyrenaican Bedouins.[6]
In 1855, the Sanusi order moved farther from direct Ottoman surveillance toJaghbub, a small oasis some 30 miles northwest ofSiwa.[2] He died in 1860, leaving two sons, Mohammed Sherif (1844–95) and Mohammed al-Mahdi, who succeeded him.
Muhammad al-Mahdi ibn Muhammad al-Sanusi (1845 – 30 May 1902) was fourteen when his father died, after which he was placed under the care of his father's friends Amran, Rifi, and others.[2] At age 18, he left their care and moved to Fez to further his knowledge of the Qur'an and Sufism.[7]
The successors to the sultan ofAbu Qubays, Sultans Ali (1858–74) and Yusef (1874–98), continued to support the Sanusi. Under al-Mahdi, the zawiyas of the order extended to Fez,Damascus,Istanbul, andIndia.[2] In theHejaz, members of the order were numerous. In most of these countries, the Sanusi wielded no more political power than other Muslim fraternities, but in the eastern Sahara and central Sudan, things were different.[2] Muhammed al-Mahdi had the authority of a sovereign in a vast but almost empty desert. The string of oases leading fromSiwa toKufra andBorkou were cultivated by the Sanusi order, and trade withTripoli andBenghazi was encouraged.[2]
Although named "al-Mahdi" by his father, Muhammad never claimed to be the actualMahdi. However, he was regarded as such by some of his followers.[2] WhenMuhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the Mahdi in 1881, Muhammad Idris decided to have nothing to do with him.[2] Although Muhammad Ahmed wrote twice asking him to become one of his four great caliphs, he received no reply.[2]
In 1890, theAnsar forces of Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi advancing fromDarfur were stopped on the frontier of theWadai Empire, Sultan Yusuf proving firm in his adherence to the Senussi teachings.[2]
Muhammed al-Mahdi's growing fame made the Ottoman regime uneasy and drew unwelcome attention. In most ofTripoli andBenghazi his authority was greater than that of the Ottoman governors.[2] In 1889 thesheikh was visited atJaghbub by thepasha ofBenghazi accompanied by Ottoman troops.[2] This event showed the sheik the possibility of danger and led him to move his headquarters to Jof in the oases of Kufra in 1894, a place sufficiently remote to secure him from a sudden attack.[2]
The Sanusi order hadSomali contacts inBerbera and consistently tried to rally Somalis to join their movement alongside their rivals, theMahdists. SultanNur Ahmed Aman of theHabr Yunis, himself a learnedsheikh, regularly received Sanusi emissaries and housed them. Sultan Nur would go on to play a critical role in the subsequentSomali Dervish Movement starting in 1899.[8]
By this time a new danger to Sanusi territories had arisen from theFrench colonial empire, who were advancing from theFrench Congo towards the western and southern borders of the Wadai Empire.[2] The Senussi kept them from advancing north ofChad.
In 1902, Muhammad Idris died and was succeeded by his nephew,Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi, but his adherents in the deserts bordering Egypt maintained for years that Muhammad was not dead.[2] The new head of the Sanusi order maintained the friendly relations of his predecessors with SultanDud Murra of Wadai,[2] governing the order as regent for his young cousin, Muhammad Idris II, the future KingIdris of Libya, who signed the 1917Treaty of Acroma that ceded control of Libya from theKingdom of Italy[9] and was later recognized by them asEmir ofCyrenaica[10] on October 25, 1920.
The Sanusi order, encouraged by theGerman and Ottoman Empires, played a minor part in theWorld War I, during theSenussi campaign, utilisingguerrilla warfare against theItalian colonization of Libya and the British in Egypt from November 1915 until February 1917, led by Sayyid Ahmed, and in the Sudan from March to December 1916, led by Ali Dinar, the Sultan of Darfur.[11][12] In 1916, the British sent an expeditionary force against them known as theSenussi Campaign led by Major GeneralWilliam Peyton.[13] According to Wavell and McGuirk, Western Force was first led by General Wallace and later by General Hodgson.[14][15]
Italy took Libya from the Ottomans in theItalo-Turkish War of 1911. In 1922,Italian Fascist leaderBenito Mussolini launched his infamousRiconquista of Libya — theRoman Empire having done the original conquering 2000 years before. The Sanusi order led the resistance and Italians closedkhanqahs, arrestedsheikhs, and confiscated mosques and their land. The resistance was led byOmar Mukhtar who used his knowledge of desert warfare and guerrilla tactics to resist Italian colonization. After his death the Senussi resistance faded, and they were forced to renounce their land for compensation.[16] Overall, Libyans fought the Italians until 1943, with 250,000–300,000 of them dying in the process.[17]
From 1917 to his death, in 1933, Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi's leadership was mostly nominal.Idris of Libya, a grandson ofMuhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi, the Grand Senussi, replaced Ahmed as effective leader of the Order in 1917 and went on to play a key role as the Sanusi leader who brought the Libyan tribes together into a unified Libyan nation.[18]
Idris established a tacit alliance with the British, which led to two agreements with the Italian rulers, one of which brought most of inland Cyrenaica under thede facto control of the Senussis.[19] The resultingAccord of al-Rajma, consolidated through further negotiations with the Italians, earned Idris the title of Emir of Cyrenaica, albeit new tensions which compromised that delicate balance emerged shortly after.[20]
Soon Cyrenaica became the stronghold of the Libyan and Sanusi resistance to the Italian rulers. In 1922, Idris went into exile in Egypt, as the Italian response to the Libyan resistance grew increasingly violent.[20]
During theSecond World War, Sanusi groups led by Idris formally allied themselves with the British Eighth Army in North Africa against the German and Italian forces. Ultimately, the Sanusi order proved decisive in the British defeat of both Italy and Germany in North Africa in 1943.[21] The Libyansfought the Italians until 1943, with some 250,000 of them dying in the process.[citation needed]
As historian Ali Abdullah Ahmida remarked, the Sanusi order was able to transcend "ethnic and local tribal identification", and therefore had a unifying influence on the Libyans fighting the Italian occupiers. A well-known hero of the Libyan resistance and an ally of Idris,Omar Mukhtar, was a prominent member of the Sanusi order and a Sufi teacher whom the Italians executed in 1931.[22]
After the end of the war in 1945, the Western powers pushed for Idris, still leader of the Sanusi order, to be the leader of a new unified Libya. When the country achieved independence under the aegis of the United Nations in 1951, Idris became its king, and Fatimah his Queen consort.[23]
Although it was instrumental in his accession to power, according to the Islamic scholar Mohammed Ayoob, Idris used Islam "as a shield to counter pressures generated by the more progressive circles in North Africa, especially from Egypt."[23]
Resistance towards Idris' rule began to build in 1965 due to a combination of factors: the discovery of oil in the region, government corruption and ineptness, and Arab nationalism.[24] On September 1, 1969, a military coup led by Muammar Gaddafi marked the end of Idris' reign. The king was toppled while he was receiving medical treatment in Turkey. From there he fled to Greece and then Egypt, where he died in exile in 1983. Meanwhile, a republic was proclaimed, and Idris was sentenced to death in absentia in November 1971 by the Libyan People's Court.[25]
In August 1969, Idris issued a letter of abdication designating his nephew Hassan as-Senussi as his successor. The letter was to be effective on September 2, but the coup preceded Idris' formal abdication.[26] King Idris' nephew and Crown Prince Hasan as-Senussi, who had been designated Regent when Idris left Libya to seek medical treatment in 1969, became the successor to the leadership of the Sanusi order.[27]
Many Libyans continue to regard Idris with great affection, referring to him as the "Sufi King". In May 2013, Idris and Omar Mukhtar were commemorated for their role as Sanusi leaders and key players in Libya's independence in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the African Union in Addis Ababa.[28]
Gaddafi banned the Sanusi order, forced the Senussi circles underground, and systematically persecuted prominent Sanusi figures, in an effort to remove Sufi symbols and to silence voices of the Sanusi tradition from Libya's public life.[29] The remaining Sanusi tribes were severely restricted in their actions by the revolutionary government, which also appointed a supervisor for their properties.[30]
Ironically, Omar Mukhtar became one of Gaddafi's most inspiring figures, whose speeches he frequently quoted, and whose image he often exhibited in official occasions.[31]In 1984, Libya's distinguished Senussi University was closed by Gaddafi's order, although international scholars continued to visit the country until the beginning of the civil war to study the Sanusi history and legacy.[29][32] In fact, evidence of the Sanusi presence and activism was recorded throughout the 1980s.[30] Vocal anti-Gaddafi resistance emerged among the former Sanusi tribes in Cyrenaica in the 1990s, which Gaddafi suppressed with his troops.[citation needed]
In 1992, Crown Prince Hassan as-Senussi died. The leadership of the Sanusi order passed to his second son, Mohammed el Senussi, whom Hassan had appointed as his successor to the throne of Libya.[33]
The Sufi heritage and spirit remains prominent today, and its sentiment and symbols have inspired many during the2011 Libyan revolution. The image of Omar Mukhtar and his popular quote "We win or we die" resonated inTripoli and in the country as Libyans rose up to oust Gaddafi.[22] In July 2011The Globe and Mail contributor Graeme Smith reported that one of the anti-Gaddafi brigades took the name of "Omar Mukhtar Brigade".[34]
Stephen Schwarz, executive director of theCenter for Islamic Pluralism, reflected on the "Sufi foundation" of Libya's revolution in his August 2011 piece for the Huffington Post.[35] Schwarz observed that Libya continued to stand "as one of the distinguished centers of a Sufism opposed both to unquestioning acceptance of Islamic law and to scriptural absolutism, and dedicated to freedom and progress." He wrote: "With the fall of the dictatorship, it will now be necessary to analyze whether and how Libya's Sufi past can positively influence its future."[35]
In August 2012, hardlinerSalafi extremists attacked and destroyed the shrine of al-Shaab al-Dahmani, a Sufi saint, inTripoli.[36] The tombs of Sufi scholars were systematically targeted by extremists as well.
The sustained attacks were consistently denounced by Sufi scholars as well as by theLeague of Libyan Ulema, a group of leading Libyan religious scholars, calling the population to protect the religious and historical sites by force and urging the authorities to intervene in order to avoid further escalations of violence and new attacks by Salafi groups.[37]
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