Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi

Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi (1787 – 1859) was the founder of the Senussi order. The order was founded in 1837.

Al-Senussi was born in al-Wasita near Mostaganem, Algeria,^[1] and was named al-Senussi after a venerated Muslim teacher. He was a member of the Walad Sidi Abdalla tribe, and was a sharif tracing his descent from Fatimah, the daughter of Mohammed. He studied at a madrassa in Fez, then traveled in the Sahara preaching a purifying reform of the faith in Tunisia and Tripoli, gaining many adherents, and thence moved to Cairo to study at Al-Azhar University. Unable to cross Algeria because of the French occupation, the beginning, the centre of Imam Mohammed Ali El Senussi’s call was Jebel Akhdar and he built a mosque in Bayda of Cyrenaica and named it after himself, then he moved to Jaghbub in Cyrenaica from where the mosques spread to the remaining cities of Barqa and Tripoli.^[2] He built a great mosque and a university which came to rival Al-Azhar, but which was shut down on the orders of Muammar al-Gaddafi in 1984; at the same time, the graves and remains of the Senussi family were desecrated. After the death of Muhammad as-Sanussi his son Sayyid Muhammad al-Mahdi bin Sayyid Muhammad as-Senussi (1859–1902) became the new leader of the Senussi order, and moved it south from Jaghbub to Kufra.^[1] His grandson through Muhammad became King Idris, the only King of Libya.

See also

• Senussi

References

• S. Khuda Bukhsh, Studies Indian and Islamic, Routledge 2001, p. 28 ISBN 0415244641 [1] (retrieved 26-09-2011)

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Shillington, Kevin (2005) "Libya: Muhammad Al-Sanusi (c.1787-1859) and the Sanusiyya" Encyclopedia of African History Fitzroy Dearborn, New York, p. 830-831, ISBN 1-57958-245-1
2. ^ The Senussi Family Retrieved 1 October 2011.