The Sanussi Order

In the preceding article we devoted attention to the West African fitna of 1861 and 1862 and to its effect on the Senussi response in Cyrenaica, and we saw how the Senussi brotherhood undertook a spiritual and strategic reflection on the consequences of inter-Muslim conflict for its own work. This article returns to the chronological line of Umar al-Mukhtar’s ﵀ life and focuses on the year 1876, when he was eighteen years old, and on the place Jaghbub, where the Senussi brotherhood had in these years attained its greatest organisational extent under the leadership of Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀. It describes the Senussi brotherhood as it functioned in 1876, and it follows Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in his first arrival at the Jaghbub zawiya for his formal Senussi training, which in the years that followed would lead to his formation as a fully trained murid and ultimately as an ikhwan leader.

Jaghbub as headquarters

Jaghbub, an oasis town in the vast southeastern Sahara near the present Libyan-Egyptian border, at a distance of approximately two hundred and fifty kilometres south of the Mediterranean coast and set amid water sources and palm gardens that sustained a natural oasis economy, had been the headquarters of the Senussi brotherhood since 1856. The choice of this place for the headquarters was a strategic decision of Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi ﵀, which placed the brotherhood at a safe distance from the Ottoman authorities in Benghazi and Tripoli and which at the same time positioned it in a central location on the trans-Saharan caravan routes that connected the Senussi organisation internationally.

The town itself had by 1876 grown into an extensive settlement of several thousand inhabitants, with the central Senussi zawiya as the largest building of the complex, with adjoining quarters for the training of murids, with a library, with storehouses for the communal supplies, with craftsmen’s workshops for the local trades, with palm gardens and vegetable gardens for the community’s self-sufficiency, and with separate quarters for the extended Senussi family, which in these years exercised the spiritual leadership of the brotherhood as a clan organisation.

The architectural form of Jaghbub

The architecture of Jaghbub formed a town plan that united the spiritual, administrative and economic functions of the Senussi brotherhood. The central square of the town, surrounded by the central mosque on the eastern side, by the Senussi residential complex on the northern side, by the library and the scriptorium hall on the southern side, and by the communal buildings for administrative affairs on the western side, formed the heart of Senussi life. From this central square, extensive streets ran out to the outer districts of the town, where the ordinary Bedouin families and the Senussi students had their communal dwellings.

The buildings were constructed according to Saharan architecture, with thick earthen walls that naturally tempered the excessive heat of the Saharan climate, with flat roofs such as were common in North African architecture, and with inner courtyards that offered, at the centre of each building, the communal space for dwelling and meeting. For the ordinary visitor to Jaghbub, the sight of the town immediately gave the impression of a spiritual and administrative centre that set itself apart from the ordinary Cyrenaican villages from which the visitors came.

Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀

Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀, forty-nine years old in 1876, had exercised the general leadership of the Senussi brotherhood since 1859, when he had taken over the supreme leadership after the death of his father Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi ﵀. He was a scholar of exceptional eloquence and of deep spirituality, and in his years of leadership he developed the Senussi brotherhood to its greatest international expansion and its deepest organisational form. Under his leadership the Senussi brotherhood gradually extended its network of zawiyas, so that by 1876 it already stretched from Morocco in the west to the Lake Chad regions in the south, with several hundred zawiyas in a common organisation.

For the ordinary Senussi student in 1876, Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ was in his daily presence a figure of spiritual authority who embodied the brotherhood in his eloquence and in his personal piety. He delivered the Friday sermons in the central mosque of Jaghbub, in which the spiritual teaching of the brotherhood was expounded, and he received in separate audiences the pilgrim visitors and the local ikhwan for personal guidance. For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, who arrived in Jaghbub in 1876, the first meeting with Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ was an event that would occupy a lasting place in the course of his life to come.

The Senussi organisational structure

By 1876 the Senussi brotherhood had developed an organisation that placed the individual zawiyas in a connected whole under the central leadership in Jaghbub. It was built on a four-part structure in which each layer fulfilled its own specific functions.

At the top stood the Senussi headquarters in Jaghbub, with Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ as general leader and with an extensive Senussi council of close family members and fully trained ikhwan who together exercised the general strategic and spiritual leadership. Below the headquarters stood the so-called qutb zawiyas, approximately twenty in number, which were established in the regional capitals of the Senussi network and which each had an extensive area of subordinate zawiyas under their leadership. Below the qutb zawiyas stood the ordinary zawiyas, approximately one hundred and fifty in number in 1876, which carried out their spiritual work in the local villages and in the vast Bedouin grazing lands. And on the lowest layer stood the local murid circles, the ordinary Bedouin and urban Muslims who were attached to the brotherhood without holding a formal function in its organisation.

The formation of the ikhwan

The formation of the ikhwan, that is, the training of the leaders of the Senussi brotherhood, took place through study and spiritual discipline and lasted on average five to eight years. A young student who had been admitted to the Jaghbub training received in the first year an extensive education in classical Arabic grammar according to the Ibn Malik tradition, in the basic texts of Maliki law according to Khalil ibn Ishaq ﵀ and al-Dasuqi ﵀, in the foundations of Quran recitation in the Warsh transmission that was common in North Africa, and in the basic texts of Idrisi tasawwuf, from which the Senussi tradition derived its distinctive spiritual character.

In the years that followed, the training was extended with more specialised study of the science of hadith, with the study of the works of Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi ﵀ himself in a thorough exposition of fiqh and tasawwuf, with practical training in the administrative organisation of the zawiya, and with the gradual spiritual discipline of the Senussi dhikr practice. At the end of the training, the fully trained ikhwan received a formal ijaza by which he was recognised in the Senussi network as a fully formed leader and by which he could be placed, in a forthcoming appointment, as leader of a zawiya of his own.

Mukhtar’s arrival

In the autumn of 1876, according to the most common reconstruction, the eighteen-year-old Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ arrived in Jaghbub after a journey of several weeks from his parental Cyrenaican village. He was received in the Jaghbub zawiya by the local ikhwan responsible for new students, and he was, as was customary for a new Senussi student, lodged in a communal dormitory for the younger students. His arrival was celebrated simply with a communal meal at which the new students were introduced to the fully trained ikhwan.

For the young Umar, the arrival in Jaghbub meant a great transition from his parental Bedouin life to the learned milieu of the Senussi headquarters. In his preceding years, in his parental village and in the local al-Bayda zawiya, he had already received a basic education in Quran recitation and in the first Arabic letters, but the learned life of Jaghbub surpassed in its scope and in its depth everything he had experienced in his previous education. He devoted himself, according to what the Senussi tradition relates of his youthful years, with discipline to his new studies, and already in his early Jaghbub years he developed the combination of spiritual earnestness and practical capability that would distinguish him in his work to come.

The journey from Cyrenaica

The journey from his parental village in Cyrenaica to Jaghbub took place as an ordinary Bedouin journey through the vast Saharan interior, covering a distance of approximately four hundred kilometres that was completed in two to three weeks. The young Umar travelled in the company of his father Mukhtar ibn Umar al-Manifi ﵀ and of a smaller family escort who undertook the journey in a combination of spiritual support and practical protection. They travelled as a caravan with several camels for the transport of their belongings and with the ordinary Bedouin equipment for the Saharan travelling conditions, including waterskins, dry provisions and the necessary tents for the overnight stops along the way.

The journey led through vast sand plains in which the local geography gradually varied with the seasonal conditions, and it passed through several Senussi zawiyas along the way, where the company stayed for a few days for rest and for spiritual gatherings with the local ikhwan. For the young Umar this journey meant a first acquaintance with the Saharan Muslim community in its full extent, and during the journey he developed a spiritual preparation for his forthcoming stay in Jaghbub that would resonate recognisably in his coming years of study.

The daily rhythm

The daily rhythm of a Senussi student in Jaghbub followed a fixed pattern that continuously united spiritual discipline and learned study. The student rose for fajr and performed the morning prayer in the central mosque, followed by a first session of personal dhikr according to the Senussi wird. After breakfast, which consisted simply of dates and camel milk, the morning programme began with a lesson from one of the appointed teachers on the specific subject of the day. The morning lessons treated in succession Arabic grammar, Maliki fiqh, the science of hadith, and the literature of tasawwuf, and they took place in a form of discussion in which the students actively participated.

In the afternoon the students were employed in practical work in the zawiya economy, including work in the palm gardens for the communal provision, the copying of manuscripts in the scriptorium hall for the gradual expansion of the Senussi library, the care of the general household tasks in the community, and in a number of cases also the teaching of younger children from the local Bedouin communities who received their first education in the Jaghbub Quran school. After the evening prayer the communal dhikr gathering took place, in which all students and fully trained ikhwan participated, and it formed the spiritual high point of the day before the students withdrew to the communal dormitories for the night’s rest.

The conferral of the ijaza

The completion of the Senussi training took place in the solemn transfer of the ijaza, a formal letter of authorisation in Arabic by which the fully trained ikhwan was recognised as qualified to transmit the Senussi wird to other murids in his own work. The ijaza was conferred in the central mosque of Jaghbub in a ceremony in which the entire trained community participated, with the general blessing of Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀. For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, the conferral of the ijaza in 1884 or 1885, at the age of approximately twenty-six or twenty-seven, would mean the spiritual completion of his training phase.

The ijaza comprised the spiritual line of transmission that connected the recipient with Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀, through him with Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi ﵀, through him with Sayyid Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi ﵀, and through him with the succession of Idrisi teachers down to the ordinary chain of transmission reaching the Prophet ﷺ. For the fully trained ikhwan, the ijaza formed the spiritual authority with which he would be able to carry out his specific tasks in the ordinary Senussi work.

The Sanussi teaching

The Sanussi teaching, as it was taught to the students in Jaghbub, comprised a number of distinct elements that together gave the Senussi brotherhood its own specific spiritual character. First, the direct return to the Quran and the hadith as spiritual authority, without the intermediation of scholastic commentaries that often occupied a central place in the other Sufi brotherhoods. Second, the pronounced emphasis on the salat ʿala al-nabi, that is, the blessing upon the Prophet ﷺ in all dhikr formulas of the tarīqa, a practice that was rooted in the Idrisi heritage and that occupied a central place in the Senussi tradition.

Third, self-sufficiency in the zawiya economy, with the local community producing its own food, clothing and general maintenance in communal labour without dependence on external support. Fourth, spiritual neutrality towards the other Sufi brotherhoods, without claims of rivalry but with the preservation of its own specific character. And fifth, the gradual preparation for the coming circumstances in which the Muslim community would be placed, without a pronounced doctrine of jihad but with a general encouragement towards personal and communal earnestness in spiritual and social responsibility.

The Senussi economy

The Senussi economy was organised on the basis of self-sufficiency in a manner that had scarcely an equal in nineteenth-century North Africa. Each zawiya had at its disposal its own palm gardens for the production of dates, which in the Saharan climate formed a central part of the food supply, extensive vegetable gardens for supplementary nourishment, flocks of sheep and goats for milk and meat, its own forge for the production of ordinary tools, and a group of craftsmen who together practised the local trades. In addition, the zawiyas maintained extensive trading connections via the trans-Saharan caravans for the supply of textiles, salt, metal goods and other commodities that were not available from their own production.

This economy was independent of external financing or of political patronage, and it gave the Senussi brotherhood a spiritual and political independence that was uncommon. For the coming Cyrenaican resistance under Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, this economic self-sufficiency would prove to be of great importance, for the resistance would rest on the extensive food stores and on the general infrastructure of the Senussi zawiya network, which needed no external financing. The economy of the Senussi brotherhood thus formed the practical foundation on which the coming resistance could be built in its independent operation.

The absence of a direct jihad doctrine

A remarkable aspect of the Senussi teaching that distinguished it from many other Sufi brotherhoods of its time was the absence of a pronounced direct doctrine of jihad. In contrast to the Naqshbandi-Khalidiyya in the Caucasus under Imam Shamil ﵀, and in contrast to the Umarian-Tijani movement in Senegambia under al-Hajj Umar Tall ﵀, the Senussi brotherhood made in its original teaching no pronounced plea for an armed struggle against non-Muslim powers. Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi ﵀ had in his own work emphasised spiritual discipline and communal construction, and he had not explicitly advocated an armed jihad against non-Muslim powers in his works.

This absence of a direct jihad doctrine did not mean, however, that the Senussi brotherhood was pacifist in the ordinary sense of the word. It meant rather that the brotherhood concentrated on community building and on spiritual discipline, with the consideration that in the event of a direct attack on the Muslim community, the ordinary fiqh grounds of self-defence would have to be activated. For the coming Cyrenaican resistance under Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in the years 1911 to 1931, this stance would be of central significance, for the resistance would be presented as a defensive war against the Italian colonial invasion, not as an offensive jihad in the ordinary West African sense.

The first years in Jaghbub

In the first two to three years of his training in Jaghbub, Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ completed a basic formation that gave him a firm place within the Senussi tradition. He completed the study of Arabic grammar and of the basic texts of Maliki fiqh, he acquired a thorough knowledge of the science of hadith as the Senussi tradition taught it, and he developed in his personal discipline the Senussi dhikr practice that would give him a lasting spiritual foundation throughout the course of his life to come.

His teachers in these first years, insofar as they are mentioned by name in the Senussi tradition, included among others Sheikh Ahmad al-Mahdawi, who was in charge of the teaching of fiqh in Jaghbub, and Sheikh Muhammad al-Sharif al-Janzuri, who in these years acted as a specialist in the science of hadith. Under their guidance the young Umar gradually developed the scholarly foundation that in his coming life’s work would grant him the spiritual and juridical authority to lead the ordinary Cyrenaican Muslim population in the anti-colonial resistance.

The formation of his character

Alongside the scholarly formation, these years also saw the formation of the young Umar’s character, which would shape his coming leadership. He developed in his personal conduct a pronounced modesty that quickly earned him a respectful reception in the Senussi community, he maintained in his dealings with his fellow students a spiritual brotherhood that reflected the general Senussi attitude, and he showed in his studies an exceptional discipline that led his teachers in Jaghbub to remark that the boy from Cyrenaica was destined for an extraordinary leadership.

His relationship with Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ developed in these years gradually into a personal confidence in which the supreme leader of the brotherhood saw in the young Cyrenaican a future figure of particular importance. In a number of cases, as the Senussi tradition relates, Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ invited the young Umar to separate audiences in which he spoke with him personally about the general condition of the brotherhood and about the coming challenges it would face in the decades ahead. These conversations formed for the young Umar a spiritual preparation for his coming leadership, and they gave him a spiritual depth that was not present to the same degree in his fellow students.

The library of Jaghbub

One of the distinguishing features of the Senussi headquarters was the library that had been built up in Jaghbub over the course of two decades and that by 1876 already comprised several thousand manuscripts of classical Islamic scholarship. The library had been built up through a combination of direct purchases via trans-Saharan traders who acquired manuscripts in Morocco, in Egypt and in Mecca for the Senussi brotherhood, of gifts from visiting scholars who out of spiritual appreciation donated their own works to the library, and of extensive copying work by the local Jaghbub students who, in an organised scriptorium, multiplied the manuscripts in handwritten copies.

The contents of the library comprised the classical works of Maliki fiqh, the hadith corpus, an extensive collection of tasawwuf literature including the works of Imam al-Ghazali ﵀, of Sheikh ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Jilani ﵀ and of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi ﵀, the complete works of Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi ﵀ himself, and in a number of cases also exceptional manuscripts from the Andalusian and Egyptian heritage that had ended up in Jaghbub in the course of the brotherhood’s extensive trading connections. For the students, this library formed in daily use a scholarly environment in which they could continue their studies and in which they could gradually extend their own learning.

The pilgrim function of Jaghbub

Jaghbub also fulfilled in these years a specific function as a resting place for Muslim pilgrims travelling to Mecca via the Egyptian desert route, and the extensive hospitality that the Senussi brotherhood extended to these pilgrims formed part of the Senussi strategy of international spiritual connections. Pilgrims from Morocco, from West Africa, from Mauritania and from the vast Saharan interior stayed in Jaghbub for several days on their way to Mecca, and they received there lodging, food, and in a number of cases also spiritual guidance from the local ikhwan for their forthcoming performance of the hajj.

For the Senussi brotherhood, this hospitality to pilgrims brought about an extensive international exchange in which the visiting pilgrims functioned as connecting nodes between Jaghbub and the far-flung Muslim communities represented in their travels. Pilgrims who had been initiated into the Senussi tradition in Jaghbub, or who had received spiritual support during their stay, gradually carried the Senussi name back to their own communities upon their return. For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, who observed all this in the daily course of affairs in Jaghbub, the pilgrim function of the headquarters formed a lesson in the international character of the brotherhood and in its extensive network.

The tarbiya formation

Alongside the formal study of fiqh, hadith and tafsir, the Senussi training in Jaghbub also comprised the tarbiya, that is, the gradual spiritual formation of the murid under the personal guidance of his appointed teacher. The tarbiya took place in the Senussi tradition through a combination of personal scholarly conversations, of shared dhikr gatherings in smaller circles, and of gradual spiritual trials in which the student was led towards spiritual purification. The ordinary tarbiya comprised exercises in self-observation, in the muraqaba in which the student learned to observe his own inner movements, and in the application of the Senussi wird in the daily and weekly rhythm that deepened the spiritual life of the murid.

For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, this tarbiya formed the inner foundation in which his coming leadership was spiritually prepared. He developed in his years in Jaghbub a remarkable self-observation with which he learned to recognise and correct his own inner movements, and he acquired as a future ikhwan a spiritual steadfastness that would remain recognisable in his later work. The combination of formal scholarship and gradual tarbiya formed the specific Senussi training in which his coming role was prepared.

The community of the zawiya’s inhabitants

The community of inhabitants in and around the Jaghbub zawiya consisted of several distinct groups that together maintained the ordinary life of the Senussi headquarters. At the top stood the extended Senussi family itself, with Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ as supreme leader and with his close family members in various leading positions. Below them were the fully trained ikhwan, approximately two hundred in number in 1876, who carried out their specific responsibilities in the administrative, spiritual and economic work of the community. Below them stood the murid students, in 1876 approximately three hundred in number, who were gradually completing their training before they would be appointed as ikhwan. And in the outermost layer were the ordinary Bedouin families and craft communities who had their dwelling place in the town and in its immediate surroundings and who supported the general economy of the community.

For the young Umar, an understanding with all these groups gradually developed in his daily dealings. He met the extended Senussi family at the ordinary Friday prayers, he studied under the fully trained ikhwan in the training programme, he worked with his fellow students in the ordinary tarbiya gatherings, and he maintained in his practical work in the zawiya economy an understanding with the ordinary workers and craftsmen. It was a gradual formation of his place as a member of the Senussi community that would prepare his coming role as a local ikhwan leader in the community.

Towards the political training

In the years that followed, from approximately 1879 or 1880 onwards, the training of Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in Jaghbub would be extended in a more political direction, in a formation that would gradually prepare him for his coming role as a leader in the Senussi organisation. To this political training, and to the specific manner in which it prepared him for the coming colonial resistance, the next article devotes its attention. In this article we have seen how in 1876 the young Cyrenaican arrived at the Jaghbub headquarters for his formal Senussi training, how the brotherhood in these years had already become an international organisation, and how in the first years of his formation the foundation of his coming life’s work was gradually laid.

Sources

• Knut S. Vikør, Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge: Muhammad b. Ali al-Sanusi and his Brotherhood, Hurst (1995), pp. 214–272.
• E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Clarendon Press (1949), pp. 62–124.
• Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, The Making of Modern Libya, State University of New York Press (2009), pp. 66–112.
• Nicola A. Ziadeh, Sanusiyah: A Study of a Revivalist Movement in Islam, Brill (1958), pp. 56–124.
• B.G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa, Cambridge University Press (1976), pp. 178–214.
• Mark Sedgwick, Saints and Sons: The Making and Remaking of the Rashidi Ahmadi Sufi Order, 1799–2000, Brill (2005), pp. 124–168 [voor de Idrisi-erfenis].
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