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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
The Sanusi movement was a religious revival adapted to desert
life. Its zawaayaa could be found in Tripolitania and
Fezzan, but Sanusi influence was strongest in Cyrenaica. Rescuing
the region from unrest and anarchy, the Sanusi movement gave the
Cyrenaican tribal people a religious attachment and feelings of
unity and purpose.
The Sanusis formed a nucleus of resistance to the Italian
colonial regime
(see Italian Colonialism
, ch. 1). As the
nationalism fostered by unified resistance to the Italians gained
adherents, however, the religious fervor of devotion to the
movement began to wane, particularly after the Italians destroyed
Sanusi religious and educational centers during the 1930s.
Nonetheless, King Idris, the monarch of independent Libya, was the
grandson of the founder of the Sanusi movement, and his status as
a Sanusi gave him the unique ability to command respect from the
disparate parts of his kingdom.
Despite its momentary political prominence, the Sanusi movement
never regained its strength as a religious force after its
zawaya were destroyed by the Italians. A promised restoration never fully took place, and the Idris regime used the Sanusi
heritage as a means of legitimizing political authority rather than
of providing religious leadership.
After unseating Idris in 1969, the revolutionary government
placed restrictions on the operation of the remaining
zawaya, appointed a supervisor for Sanusi properties, and
merged the Sanusi-sponsored Islamic University with the University
of Libya. The movement was virtually banned, but in the 1980s
occasional evidence of Sanusi activity was nonetheless reported.
Data as of 1987
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