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Italy and the Sanusiyya: Negotiating Authority in Colonial Libya, 1911-1931 Eileen Ryan Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 ©2012 Eileen Ryan All rights reserved ABSTRACT Italy and the Sanusiyya: Negotiating Authority in Colonial Libya, 1911-1931 By Eileen Ryan In the first decade of their occupation of the former Ottoman territories of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in current-day Libya, the Italian colonial administration established a system of indirect rule in the Cyrenaican town of Ajedabiya under the leadership of Idris al-Sanusi, a leading member of the Sufi order of the Sanusiyya and later the first monarch of the independent Kingdom of Libya after the Second World War. Post-colonial historiography of modern Libya depicted the Sanusiyya as nationalist leaders of an anti-colonial rebellion as a source of legitimacy for the Sanusi monarchy. Since Qaddafi’s revolutionary coup in 1969, the Sanusiyya all but disappeared from Libyan historiography as a generation of scholars, eager to fill in the gaps left by the previous myopic focus on Sanusi elites, looked for alternative narratives of resistance to the Italian occupation and alternative origins for the Libyan nation in its colonial and pre-colonial past. Their work contributed to a wider variety of perspectives in our understanding of Libya’s modern history, but the persistent focus on histories of resistance to the Italian occupation has missed an opportunity to explore the ways in which the Italian colonial framework shaped the development of a religious and political authority in Cyrenaica with lasting implications for the Libyan nation. As a latecomer to the European “Scramble for Africa”, the Italian occupation of the Libyan territories has received little attention in Italian historiography or in larger works on late European imperialism. The perception that the Italian colonial project in North Africa was too short and insignificant to merit serious analysis persists in Italian intellectual and public discourses, but the Italian occupation of the Libyan territories represented a critical moment of national formation in Italy. Coming just four decades after the territorial unification of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, the movement to invade the Libyan coast and subsequent debates concerning methods of colonial rule reflected conflicting visions of the type of nation Italy should become as it attempted to expand overseas. In the years leading up to the invasion of the Libyan coast in 1911 and for the following decade, the Italian colonial administration largely adhered to a liberal ideal of indirect rule by appealing to Muslim elites even while the Occupying Forces engaged in a frequently brutal repression of armed rebellion. The attempts of Italian administrators to negotiate a power-sharing system with Sanusi elites placed them in an international competition among imperial powers jockeying for influence in Muslim North Africa. A perception of the Sanusiyya as a highly centralized and powerful organization capable of calling on the loyalties of Muslims throughout the region inspired the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II to arm the Sanusi zawāyā or religious centers at the end of the nineteenth century in the hopes that the Sanusi elite would lead local populations against European expansion. Subsequent colonial administrations in the region courted the favor of the spiritual leader of the Sufi order, Ahmad al-Sharif, despite the widespread doubts concerning the extent and nature of his political authority among the region’s tribal leaders. When it became clear that the recognized head of the Sufi order, Ahmad al-Sharif, would not lend his support to pacifying the Cyrenaican interior, the Italian administration, with a strong push from British officials in Egypt, identified his cousin Idris al-Sanusi as an alternative intermediary who could generate consensus for Italian rule. From 1916 until 1923, the Italian state cultivated Idris al-Sanusi’s authority by providing him with armed forces and allowing him to adopt the symbols of government in a semi-autonomous emirate in the Cyrenaican interior. An invitation from a group of Tripolitanian notables for Idris al-Sanusi to extend his emirate into the western region precipitated the decision of the fascist Ministry of Colonies, Luigi Federzoni, to denounce previous negotiations with the Sanusiyya in 1923, and he expressed concerns that the Italian state had created a political authority where one did not exist, rewarded Italy’s enemies, and invested misplaced trust in a regional leader that proved unable or unwilling to generate consensus for Italian colonial rule. Idris al-Sanusi left the Libyan territories for Cairo where he remained in exile until the United Nations placed him on the throne of the independent Kingdom of Libya. With the departure of Idris al-Sanusi and the dissolution of the Sanusi emirate, Federzoni and his administration initiated a program of territorial expansion to fulfill the nationalist quest for land in the Libyan interior. In the late 1920s, Italy initiated a series of brutal military campaigns culminating in the capture and hanging of the Sanusi shaykh Omar al-Mukthar in 1931. This dissertation explores the Italian approach to colonial rule in eastern Libya as a reflection of internal national struggles over the relationship between religious and political authority and as a formative moment in the political history of the Libyan nation. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Historiography of Italian Colonialism 7 Libyan Historiography of Resistance 13 Historiographies in Conversation 16 Chapter 1: Remembering the Sanusiyya in Libyan National History 22 The Legacy of the Sanusiyya in Qaddafi’s Regime and the Oral History Project 27 Evans-Pritchard and The Sanusi of Cyrenaica 32 The Sanusiyya in the Nineteenth Century 37 French Encounters with the Sanusiyya 43 Sanusi Authority in the Ottoman Empire 47 French Aggression and the Spread of Arms 54 Conclusions 59 Chapter 2: Religion and Nationalism in the Italian Colonial Project 62 Early Italian Imperial Ambitions 65 Insabato and the “Pro-Islamic” Approach 68 Territorial Expansion in National Politics 75 Italian Expansion and the Catholic Financial Interests 77 Italian Expansionism and the Catholic Press 82 i Catholic Missionaries and Crispi’s Colonial Project 85 Missionaries in Libya and the Italian Occupation 91 Catholic Missionaries and the Pro-Islamic Approach 101 Conclusion 105 Chapter 3: The Italo-Turkish War and International Competition for a Sanusi Alliance 107 The Italian Invasion and the Production of Knowledge 110 Signs of Division and Weakness within the Sanusiyya 118 Ottoman-Sanusi Relations During the Italian Invasion 123 The Italian Ministry of Colonies and the Politica dei Capi 127 Pacification and the Act of Submission 130 International Competition for an Alliance with the Sanusi Elite 133 Conclusion 142 Chapter 4: WWI and the Period of Accords 144 The Failures of the Politica dei Capi 147 Arms Distribution and Military Training in the First World War 152 Identification of Idris al-Sanusi as an Alternative Intermediary 159 The Acroma Accords 162 Tripolitania and the Continued Influence of Ottoman Officers 167 Religious Authority in the Era of Negotiations 172 Religious Policies in the Post-War Era and the Catholic Mission 176 ii Economic Development and the Italian-Arabic Union 179 Conclusion 182 Chapter 5: The End of the Accords and the Fascist ‘Reconquest’ of the Interior 185 Railroads and Camels: Trade and Resistance to the Regima Accords 189 Pan-Islamic Networks and the Possible Return of Ahmad al-Sharif 198 Local Officials in Revolt against Rome: Volpi and Pintor vs. Amendola 205 The Fascist Administration and the End of Accords 211 Dividing Allies from Enemies: Forced Resettlement of the Coastal Tribes 216 Luigi Federzoni and the Italian ‘Reconquest’ of Libya 222 Fascism and the Catholic Church in the Libyan Territories 227 Conclusion 231 Conclusions 234 Strategies of the Sanusiyya 237 Italian Territorial Control and Idris al-Sanusi Abroad 240 The Sanusi Monarchy and the Imperfect Union 241 King Idris and the Sanusi Ṭarīqa 246 Bibliography 251 iii Abbreviations ACS: Archivio Centrale dello Stato ASMAI: Archivio Storico del Ministero di Africa Italiana FR CAOM: Centre des Archives d’Outre-Mer AUSSME: Archivio Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito BNA: British National Archives FO: Foreign Office iv Acknowledgements Researching and writing this dissertation has been an incredible adventure, and the generosity of my fellow scholars and my friends and family has been overwhelming. The advice and encouragement of Victoria De Grazia at Columbia University has sustained me through this long process and given me the courage to take risks with my work. My many conversations with Rashid Khalidi, Gregory Mann, and Mark Mazower also proved invaluable as I thought through the complexity of my dissertation research. Special thanks are due to Lisa Anderson for helping me get to Tripoli and Cairo and to Mia Fuller for taking me with her on an adventure from Tripoli to Ghadames. I would also like to thank Jean-Pierre Filiu, Catherine Brice, Giulia Barrera, Elizabeth Blackmar, Volker Berghahn, Richard Bulliet, Marwa Elshakry, Nicola Labanca, Steven Mintz, Christine Philliou, Jan Vansina, and Emma Winter for their support and advice. Conversations with my fellow graduate students at Columbia were always a joy.