Political Training in Al-Jaghbub

In the preceding article we followed the arrival of the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ at the Senussi headquarters of Jaghbub in the autumn of 1876, and we described the spiritual and scholarly training he received in this place in his first years. We saw how in his studies the combination of Arabic grammar, Maliki fiqh, the science of hadith and Senussi tasawwuf gradually brought about his formation as a fully trained Senussi student. This article follows the second phase of his training in Jaghbub, from approximately 1880 to 1888, in which his formation was extended in a more political and administrative direction and prepared him in a specific manner for his coming leadership.

The political broadening of the training

From his twenty-third or twenty-fourth year, when he had completed the basic training of a Senussi student and was recognised in the Jaghbub community as an advanced student, Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ received a broadening of his training in a political and administrative direction. The Senussi brotherhood maintained for its most promising students an extensive formation in which the general condition of the Muslim world, the specific geopolitical challenges with which the brotherhood would be confronted in the coming decades, and the practice of administrative leadership were taught.

For the young Cyrenaican, this second phase of his training formed an extensive intellectual broadening in which he gradually came to know the Muslim world as a whole in its nineteenth-century condition. He studied the European colonial expansion in its various regional forms, with the French presence in Algeria and in Tunisia, with the British presence in Egypt and in India, and with the coming Italian colonial aspirations towards Libya, which in these years were already becoming visible in their preparatory form. He learned to understand the Ottoman Sublime Porte in its gradual weakening, and he developed a general awareness of the broader geopolitical forces that in the coming decades would touch his own work.

The scholarly form of the political training

The political training did not take place separately from the ordinary spiritual formation, but was woven into the general Senussi discipline. In the Friday sermons of Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀, in the scholarly conversations in the Jaghbub library, in the correspondence with other Sufi brotherhoods in North Africa and in the Middle East that was read through by the students, and in the separate audiences that Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ received in these years in increasing measure with the supreme leader of the brotherhood, a political formation took place that was unmistakable in its effect without being placed in a formal category of instruction.

For Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ personally, the political training of his most promising students formed a central part of his work, for he understood that the coming decades of the Senussi brotherhood would require a leadership capable of acting in the combination of spiritual earnestness and political capability. He devoted attention in these years to the formation of a new generation of Senussi leaders, and the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ occupied a central place in this new generation, in which the supreme leader placed his particular hope.

The Italian aspirations in the eighteen-eighties

In the years between 1880 and 1890 there developed within the Italian state the colonial aspirations that, in the early twentieth century, would give rise to the Italo-Turkish war. Italy, which had received the French protectorate over Tunisia in 1881 with considerable irritation, undertook in these decades a gradual preparation of its own colonial aspirations, which would find their outcome in a combination of diplomatic negotiations with the European powers, of economic penetration into Libya via the Banco di Roma and other enterprises, and of a public opinion campaign for the Fourth Shore.

In the Senussi learning circle of Jaghbub these developments were followed via the trans-Saharan trading connections, via the extensive exchange of pilgrims, and via the specific informants that Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ maintained in the port cities of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. The reports on the Italian aspirations were discussed in separate meetings of the Senussi council, and they gradually led to a strategic reflection on the coming forms of Senussi response. For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, who was in increasing measure admitted to these meetings as an advanced student, these discussions formed a practical training in geopolitical decision-making that would occupy a central place in his coming work.

The Egyptian understanding

Alongside the Italian and Ottoman connections, the Senussi brotherhood also maintained in these decades spiritual and political understandings with the learned community of Cairo and with the administrative authorities of the Egyptian khedivate. Egyptian scholars of al-Azhar conducted extensive correspondence with the Senussi leaders in Jaghbub and in Kufra, and they supported the general cause of the Senussi brotherhood as a spiritual community in its Saharan position. Egyptian pilgrims who travelled yearly via Cyrenaica to Mecca carried spiritual messages and local news exchanges in both directions, and they gave the Senussi brotherhood an extensive information base on the general condition of the nineteenth-century Muslim world.

For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in his position as a fully trained ikhwan, this Egyptian understanding formed a practical training in international Muslim exchange, and in studying it he acquired a picture of the broader Muslim Ummah that would resonate recognisably in his coming work. The Egyptian connection was no marginal element of the Senussi strategy but a central aspect of its international work, and it formed an important foundation on which the coming Senussi response to the Italian colonial threat could be built.

The Egyptian connection

Egypt fulfilled in the years between 1880 and 1911 a specific role as a connecting node between the Senussi brotherhood in Libya and the broader international Muslim world. The Egyptian al-Azhar university received a number of Senussi students for supplementary scholarly training, the Egyptian press carried reports on the Libyan situation to the broader Arabic-speaking Muslim world, and the Egyptian administrative authorities received in the coming war years the streams of refugees from Libya. For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, the Egyptian connection formed a strategic foundation that would offer him extensive international support in his coming position as leader of the Cyrenaican resistance.

In his years of training and his later years as ikhwan, Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ undertook several journeys to Egypt for extensive scholarly exchanges with the local Senussi representatives in Cairo and in Alexandria. He acquired in his Egyptian visits a practical experience in international Muslim diplomacy, and he gradually developed personal connections with Egyptian scholars and administrators that would resonate in his coming work. The Egyptian connection was no marginal element of his formation but a central aspect of the international framework in which his coming work would be placed.

The Senussi strategy towards Italy

The Senussi strategy towards the coming Italian colonial threat proceeded in these years along three main lines. First, the gradual strengthening of its own organisation, with the expansion of the zawiya network in the Saharan zone in order to be able to operate from a safer position in the event of a direct Italian confrontation. Second, the gradual purchase of weapons via Egyptian and Ottoman intermediaries, which would prove to be of great importance in the coming Italo-Turkish war. Third, the diplomatic exchange with the Ottoman Sublime Porte, with the Egyptian khedive, and in a number of cases also with British representatives in Egypt who could support the broader geopolitical connections of the Senussi brotherhood.

This threefold strategy was gradually carried out in the course of the eighties and nineties under the general leadership of Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ and, from 1902, under his successor Sayyid Ahmad al-Sharif al-Sanusi ﵀. For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, who was in increasing measure involved in the practical execution of this strategy, it formed a practical training in Senussi statecraft that would prove indispensable to him in his coming leadership.

The weapons purchases in these decades

The weapons purchases that the Senussi brotherhood undertook in the years between 1880 and 1910 took place via an extensive network of intermediaries who carried out their work in a combination of caution and secrecy. The principal suppliers were Egyptian traders in Cairo and Alexandria who, in the ordinary practice of trade, acquired European firearms via the ordinary international trade routes and who transported their stocks to Cyrenaica via the customary Saharan caravan routes. In addition, the Senussi brotherhood maintained connections with Ottoman military units in Tripolitania that could resell older weapons of the Ottoman army to the local ikhwan.

The weapons acquired in these decades comprised a collection of ordinary European muskets, a number of more modern Lee-Enfield rifles that were acquired in later phases, and a stock of ammunition that was stored in the extensive storehouses of the local zawiyas for possible future deployment. By 1911, when the Italian colonial invasion began, the Senussi brotherhood had at its disposal a weapons stock that, according to the estimate of European military observers, amounted to between five thousand and ten thousand firearms, a stock that would prove indispensable for the coming resistance.

The expansion of the Senussi zawiya network

In the years between 1880 and 1900 the Senussi brotherhood carried out an expansion of its zawiya network that in its full extent was unprecedented in the broader Muslim world. By 1900 the network comprised approximately one hundred and fifty active zawiyas, spread over a geographical area from Morocco in the west to Chad in the south to Egypt in the east, and united in a common organisation under the central leadership in Jaghbub and later in Kufra. Each zawiya carried out the ordinary tasks of a Senussi community, with education, juridical adjudication, economic self-sufficiency and an active presence in the local community.

For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, this network in its full extent formed a practical training in the general working of a large-scale spiritual organisation. In his years of training and his later years as ikhwan he undertook journeys through various zawiyas that gradually made him familiar with the extensive organisation of the brotherhood, and in them he acquired a practical knowledge of Senussi statecraft that would support him in his later work.

The relocation to Kufra

In the year 1895 the Senussi brotherhood carried out a decision whose consequences would prove to be of great importance for the coming Senussi work. Under the leadership of Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀, the headquarters of the brotherhood was relocated from Jaghbub to Kufra, an extensive oasis town in the southern Saharan zone of Libya which, by its geographical position, lay at an even greater distance from the Ottoman authorities and from the coming Italian colonial presence. The relocation comprised the transfer of the extensive Senussi library, of the central family community, and of a considerable part of the fully trained ikhwan to the new capital in the southern desert.

For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, who in these years functioned as an advanced ikhwan in the Senussi organisation, the relocation meant a logistical undertaking in which he personally participated with active administrative responsibility. In 1895 or early 1896 he accompanied one of the caravan sections of the relocation from Jaghbub to Kufra, and in it he acquired a practical training in Saharan caravan organisation that would prove indispensable to him in his coming work as a military leader against the Italians.

Kufra as the new capital

Kufra, in its geographical position an extensive oasis conglomeration in the vast sand plains of the southern Sahara, at a distance of approximately seven hundred kilometres south of the Mediterranean coast, was in its origin a centre of indigenous Tubu population who made their living in a combination of trade and local agriculture. The Senussi presence in Kufra had grown gradually since the eighties, and in 1895 it was consolidated into a new capital under Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀.

The relocation to Kufra placed the Senussi brotherhood in an even more independent position with regard to the Mediterranean political currents, and it gave the brotherhood an extensive geographical space for its coming organisation and strategic preparation. For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, Kufra formed a central place in his coming work as an ikhwan leader, and in the years that followed he moved between Cyrenaica and Kufra in practical activity for the Senussi brotherhood.

The Mahdiyya and the Senussi response

An event that had its full effect in the broader Muslim world in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century and that was followed with considerable attention in the Senussi learning circle, was the Mahdiyya movement in Sudan under the leadership of Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi ﵀ and in the years that followed under his successor ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ﵀, the so-called Khalifa. The Mahdiyya, which was proclaimed in 1881 and which achieved its greatest victory in 1885 in the capture of Khartoum by Muhammad Ahmad ﵀, formed an anti-colonial undertaking against the joint British-Egyptian rule over Sudan.

For the Senussi brotherhood, the Mahdiyya had a spiritual and political significance that was treated with considerable caution. Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ maintained in his statements a distant attitude towards the Mahdi claims of Muhammad Ahmad ﵀, for he regarded the Mahdi category in its ordinary Sunni understanding as juridically limited and he refused to accept the Sudanese claims fully. But in practice the Senussi brotherhood supported the general cause of the Sudanese anti-colonial resistance, and it conducted spiritual exchanges with the Mahdiyya representatives in which the general unity of the Muslims was placed at the centre.

The fall of Khartoum and its effect

The fall of Khartoum in January 1885 and the death of the British General Charles Gordon in the capture of the city by the Mahdiyya troops formed an international event that was celebrated in the Muslim world as a great anti-colonial victory. In the Senussi learning circle of Jaghbub the event was discussed at length, and it led to a reflection on its significance for the coming Senussi position. For the young Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, who in 1885 was twenty-seven years old and advanced in his training, the fall of Khartoum formed a practical lesson in the possibilities of anti-colonial resistance, and in studying it he acquired a spiritual preparation for his own coming work.

The subsequent fall of the Mahdiyya in 1898 under the British-Egyptian troops of General Herbert Kitchener in the Battle of Omdurman formed a second learning process in the opposite direction, in which the outcome of an anti-colonial resistance without political and military preparation was shown. For the Senussi strategists, this second learning process formed a warning about the necessity of careful strategic preparation for a coming resistance, and it confirmed the Senussi strategy of gradual organisational strengthening and expansion of the weapons stock that was carried out in these decades.

The marriage bonds

In his years in Jaghbub, marriage bonds also took place in the personal life of Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ that would become of practical importance in his coming position as ikhwan in the Senussi organisation. In 1885 or early 1886 he married his first wife, Fatima bint Ahmad al-Manifi, a relative from his parental clan in Cyrenaica who had been proposed to him by his father in the ordinary course of Bedouin marriage negotiations. The marriage was celebrated in Jaghbub, with the presence of a number of his closest fellow students and with the broader Senussi family in spiritual brotherhood.

From this first marriage several children were born in the years between 1887 and 1900, sons and daughters who would stand at their father’s side in familial and spiritual connection. The household of Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, in its combination of Cyrenaican Bedouin tradition and Senussi discipline, formed a gradual preparation for his coming general leadership, in which the familial dimension would function centrally.

The role of women in the Senussi organisation

The Senussi brotherhood also devoted attention to the spiritual formation of women in the local communities, with appointed female muqaddamas in the ordinary zawiyas and with separate female dhikr gatherings in which the general Senussi discipline was carried out in an adapted form. For Fatima bint Ahmad al-Manifi, the young wife of Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀, this meant that she was attached to the Senussi tarīqa in her own spiritual capacity without being placed in a subordinate position to her husband. It was a relationship that was uncommon in the ordinary Cyrenaican Bedouin tradition of her time, and it gave the household of Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ a specific character in which his wife functioned with a spiritual authority of her own.

The role of the pilgrim traders

The pilgrim traders who travelled yearly via Jaghbub to the Hejaz formed a central channel of international exchange to which Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ devoted attention in his years of training. They came from Morocco, from Tunisia, from West Africa via the trans-Saharan caravan routes, and they met in Jaghbub an extensive Senussi hospitality. For the young Cyrenaican these encounters formed a learned experience in which he gradually came to know the broader Muslim world in its nineteenth-century condition.

In the evening hours, after the communal prayers, Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ conducted extensive conversations with the visiting pilgrim traders about the general condition of their own communities, about the European colonial expansion in their own regions, and about the coming circumstances they would face upon their return. He received from Moroccan pilgrims reports of the French penetration into the Maghreb, from Tunisian pilgrims reports on the French protectorate since 1881, and from West African pilgrims accounts of the colonial expansion in Senegambia, in Nigeria and in the coming Chad-Niger zone.

The spiritual exchange with the Tijaniyya

Among the visiting pilgrim traders were also scholars from the Tijani tradition of the West African Umarian heritage, who carried the continuation of the Umarian work after the death of al-Hajj Umar Tall ﵀ in 1864 and who in their connection with the Senussi brotherhood maintained a common Muslim brotherhood. For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ these encounters formed a spiritual exchange in which he came to know the Tijani tradition in its West African form, and he acquired a deep appreciation for the common Muslim undertaking that transcended the differences specific to each tarīqa.

The general nature of his training in Jaghbub was thus not merely an ordinary Senussi formation but an international Muslim formation in which the broader Muslim Ummah was daily present. For his coming work as leader of the Cyrenaican resistance, this broad international formation would form a foundation, and it would place him in a framework in which he would be able to maintain the general unity of the Muslims at the centre of his own work.

The Ottoman-Senussi understanding

The understanding between the Ottoman Sublime Porte and the Senussi brotherhood developed in the years between 1880 and 1900 in a gradual evolution in which the initial tensions were replaced by strategic cooperation. The Ottoman authorities, who in the first decades of the Senussi presence in Libya had viewed the brotherhood with distrust as a possible rival claim to local sovereignty, revised their position in the course of the eighties and nineties, so that the Senussi brotherhood came to be seen as a partner in the coming resistance against the European colonial expansion.

This new understanding developed under Sultan Abdulhamid II, who held the Ottoman supreme leadership from 1876 to 1909, in a pan-Islamic strategy in which the Ottoman Sublime Porte presented itself as the general spiritual leader of the Muslim world and in which the connections with the Sufi brotherhoods were given a central place. For the Senussi brotherhood, this new Ottoman strategy meant a spiritual and political support, and it gave the Senussi undertaking an extensive foundation of international legitimacy.

The visit of Ottoman envoys

In the years between 1885 and 1900 several official Ottoman envoy missions took place to Jaghbub and later to Kufra, in which the gradual cooperation was laid down. For Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ in his years of training and his later years as ikhwan, the presence of these Ottoman envoys meant a diplomatic exchange that he could observe and study, and in it he acquired a practical training in diplomatic negotiations that would prove indispensable in his coming position as leader of the resistance.

In the development of the Ottoman-Senussi understanding, the two parties conducted discussions on a possible common resistance against the coming Italian colonial expansion, and they carried out a number of practical steps, including the gradual Ottoman delivery of weapons to the Senussi brotherhood via the ordinary course of Ottoman military exchange. For the Italo-Turkish war in 1911, this preparation formed an extensive foundation on which the common Senussi-Ottoman defence could be conducted.

Towards his first leadership position

In the years around 1900, when Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ was forty-two years old, a gradual increase of responsibility in the Senussi organisation took place in his personal career. In 1900 or early 1901 he was appointed by Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi ﵀ as ikhwan leader for a specific zawiya in Cyrenaica, in an appointment by which the supreme leader expressed his confidence in the formation of his former student. The appointment meant that Umar al-Mukhtar ﵀ would return to Cyrenaica for his first independent leadership position in the Senussi brotherhood, and it formed the first phase of what in the coming decades would grow into his general position as leader of the Cyrenaican resistance.

In this article we have seen how the young Umar, in the years between 1880 and 1900, received in Jaghbub and at a later stage in Kufra a political and administrative formation that gradually prepared him for his coming leadership. The Senussi strategy towards the coming Italian colonial threat, in its threefold design of organisational strengthening, expansion of the weapons stock and diplomatic exchange, was prepared in these years. And the relocation of the headquarters from Jaghbub to Kufra in 1895 gave the brotherhood an extensive geographical space for its coming work. To his first leadership position as ikhwan in Cyrenaica, and to the manner in which it gradually prepared him for his coming role as leader of the Cyrenaican resistance, the next article will devote its attention.

Sources

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