The brotherhood of Es Sanousiya |
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Collection title
Collection EPTV
First broadcast date
03/09/2007
Abstract
Schools par excellence of the Koran, religious studies and initiation to Tawassuf, the Algerian Zaouias had to get involved, during the long history of the country, in both the expansion of Islam and the struggle for the independence of Algeria.
Among the many Zaouias that have done remarkably well, there is that of Ben Senoussi. The Brotherhood of Es Sanousiya, established mainly in western Algeria, in the Wilaya of Mostaganem, was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Charef Ben Tekouk.
Audiovisual form
Portrait
Primary theme
Education, teaching
Secondary themes
- Historical heritages / Arab and muslim worlds
- Society and way of life / Religious Practices
Credits / Cast
- Bayou Ramdane Djazia - Journalist
Map locations
- Algeria - West - Mostaganem
Context
The Brotherhood of as-Senussi
Yvan Gastaut
This short presentation, broadcast on Algerian television in 2007 as part of a series of programmes made for educational purposes, reminds us of the importance of the legacy of the order of as-Senussi.
Born in Mecca in 1837, this Muslim order took root and spread like wildfire across Libya, Algeria, Egypt, but also further south, in Chad, Sudan and Niger.
Its founder, Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali al-Senussi (1791-1859), was born in Wâsitâ, near Mostaganem in Algeria, to a family descended from the dynasty of the Idrissides which had ruled over Morocco and western Algeria between 789 and 974AD. With a mystical mind, al-Senussi studied with the ulemas of Mostaganem and Fez. In 1829 he moved to Laghouat, which he left when the French invaded Algeria, moving on to Mecca. A decade later, eager to preach his own vision of a faith “purified” of the conventional teachings of Islam which he considered “deviant”, he declared himself a “Mahdi” (guide) and returned to North Africa. First he went to Cairo, where he studied at the University of Al-Azhar; then to Cyrenaica, where he founded a Sufi brotherhood in the oasis at Jaghbub which took the name of Senussi. In this place of study, he organized an increasingly intense way of life as the number of followers grew rapidly.
Senussi imposed the strictest precepts of religion: in particular everyone must meet their needs by working rather than begging. The brotherhood, which was against both France and the Ottoman authorities, was forced into a semi-clandestine existence, a sort of underground resistance. In 1848, they managed to raise the tribes of southern Algeria, which, fuelled by rumour, caused near-panic among the colonial authorities. After the death of Muhammad bin Ali al-Senussi the order continued to grow the whole length of the southern shore of the Mediterranean, from Fez to Constantinople, now under the leadership of his young son Mohammed, born in 1845.
Throughout the 20th century, right up to the present, the Senussi have been a military force, hostile to all forms of colonization, capable of taking up arms against the French, Italians and British. To the point that when Libya gained independence in 1951, a descendant of Muhammad bin Ali al-Senussi acceded the throne: Idriss 1st, born in Jaghbub (1899-1983).
Still active in the southern Mediterranean, the Senussi remains a major religious movement in Libya and across the Arab world.
Bibliography:
Jean-Louis Triaud, La légende noire de la Sanûsiyya. Une confrérie musulmane saharienne sous le regard français (1840-1930), Paris, Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, et Aix-en-Provence, Institut de recherches et d’études sur le monde arabe et musulman (IREMAM), 1995, 2 volumes, 1151 p.
