Senusiyya
The Senusiyya, Senussi or Sanusi (Arabic: السنوسية, romanized: al-Sanūssiyya) are a Muslim political-religious Sufi order and clan in Libya and surrounding regions founded in Mecca in 1837 by the Grand Sanussi (Arabic: السنوسي الكبير as-Sanūssiyy al-Kabīr), the Algerian Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi.
Sanussi
السنوسية
During World War II, the Senussis provided vital support to the British Eighth Army in North Africa against Nazi and Fascist Italian forces.
The Grand Senussi's grandson became King Idris I of Libya in 1951. The 1969 Libyan revolution led by Muammar Gaddafi overthrew him, ending the Libyan monarchy.
The movement remained active despite sustained persecution by Gaddafi's government. The Senussi spirit and legacy continue to be prominent in today's Libya, mostly in Cyrenaica.
The zawiya system[edit]
The zawiya system and its influence. Although the zawiya system was mainly religious, in other states the zawiya system in the Senussi took place in being an economical, educational, and military building teaching tactics, fighting skills, using muskets, Arabic, economy and some types of work and the zawiya system was also opposed to some form of colonialism by making the sheikh (leader of the zawiya) and his Shura council being transferred from Libya with their family which sometimes rounded out to a hundred transferred into those regions under Senussi control. This system remained even up to the period of the Kingdom of Libya, until it was ended by Gaddafi.[17]
Idris of Libya[edit]
From 1917 to his death, in 1933, Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi's leadership was mostly nominal. Idris of Libya, a grandson of Muhammad 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 Senussi 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 the de facto control of the Senussis.[19] The resulting Accord 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 Senussi 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]
In 1931 Idris married his first cousin Fatimah el-Sharif, a daughter of his predecessor Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi.
During the Second World War, Senussi groups led by Idris formally allied themselves with the British Eighth Army in North Africa against the German and Italian forces. Ultimately, the Senussis proved decisive in the British defeat of both Italy and Germany in North Africa in 1943.[21] As the Senussi were leading the resistance, the Italians closed Senussi khanqahs, arrested sheikhs, and confiscated mosques and their land. The Libyans fought the Italians until 1943, with some 250,000 of them dying in the process.
As historian Ali Abdullah Ahmida remarked, the Senussi 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 Senussi 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 Senussi 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 towars 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 Senussi 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 Senussi 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]
Developments since 1969[edit]
Gaddafi banned the Senussi order, forced the Senussi circles underground, and systematically persecuted prominent Senussi figures, in an effort to remove Sufi symbols and to silence voices of the Senussi tradition from Libya's public life.[29] The remaining Senussi 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 Senussi history and legacy.[29][32] In fact, evidence of the Senussi presence and activism was recorded throughout the 1980s.[30]
Vocal anti-Gaddafi resistance emerged among the former Senussi tribes in Cyrenaica in the 1990s, which Gaddafi violently suffocated with his troops.
In 1992, Crown Prince Hasan as-Senussi died. The leadership of the Senussi order passed to his second son, Mohammed el Senussi, whom Hasan had appointed as his successor to the throne of Libya.[33]
Enduring relevance of the Senussi Order[edit]
The Sufi heritage and spirit remains prominent today, and its sentiment and symbols have inspired many during the 2011 Libyan revolution. The image of Omar Mukhtar and his popular quote "We win or we die" resonated in Tripoli and in the country as Libyans rose up to oust Gaddafi.[22] In July 2011 The 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 the Center 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, hardline Salafi extremists attacked and destroyed the shrine of al-Shaab al-Dahmani, a Sufi saint, in Tripoli.[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 the League 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]
