Please provide footnote text

CHAPTER 9 A Female Icon of Muslim “Emancipation” for the Conquest of Ethiopia (1936–1941)

Building Mosques: Muslim Policies from to Ethiopia

During a visit to in 1937, Mussolini presented himself to the Libyan people as the “Founder of the Empire” and “Defender of the Prestige of Rome, the Common Mother of all Mediterranean Peoples”.1 As Wright has pointed out, his visit reached its pinnacle of euphoria when the declared himself the “Sword of Islam” at a ceremony during which, as a symbolic gesture, two Libyan soldiers who had participated in the Ethiopian campaign offered him the Islamic sword.2 The purpose of this flagrant act of propaganda was to allow Fascist Italy to display its support for Muslim peoples internationally, in par- ticular in the context of its Mediterranean policy.3 Italian Muslim policy had a long history in : it had already been in effect during the governorship of Ferdinando Martini (1897–1907) as a means of achieving local consensus and preserving the pax colonial. This policy of sponsoring Islam was perpetuated during the Fascist period—as is well-documented in the IsIAO photographic archives—when a number of mosques were built around the country in the 1930s.4 Great “works of assistance and protection” for Muslims in Eritrea in- cluded the Mosque of Massawa (which was destroyed in the 1923 earthquake), the Islamic Court in Asmara, the Salvago Raggi School of Arts and Crafts in Keren and the Italo-Arabic school in Massawa. In Ethiopia, a number of inau- guration ceremonies were celebrated during the occupation at the mosque and Qur’anic school in Harar and the Islamic schools in Jimma and Addis Ababa, but mosques and Qur’anic schools were also built and renovated in Libya.5 It

1 Wright 2005: 121. See Governor-General Italo Balbo’s Proclamation to the Libyan people, March 10, 1937. Cit. by J.L. Wright. 2 Wright 2005: 124. 3 On Fascist policy in the Middle East, see De Felice 1988; Arielli 2011: 385–407; Baldinetti 2011: 408–436; MacDonald 1977: 195–207. 4 A histographical overview of Italian Muslim policies in Eritrea is provided by Miran 2005: 195–203. See in particular Romandini 1984, Romandini 1985; Marongiu Buonaiuti 1982: 249–291. 5 See R. d. C, L’Italia per i suoi sudditi musulmani, in “Rivista delle Colonie”, September 1938— XVI; Photographic evidence of the Italian enterprise of building or renovating mosques in

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi ��.��63/9789004356160_011 188 CHAPTER 9 was mostly during the term of office of Italo Balbo, who was Governor-General from 1934 to 1940, that an explicit Muslim policy was implemented in Libya, but it was merely nominal, and it was not sufficient to counteract the depriva- tion suffered by the Libyan population during and after the brutal “pacifica- tion campaign”.6 It was also clear that the policy was not aimed at assimilating Muslim communities, but rather at creating a parallel status for them within the Fascist system.7 The political strategy of “fascistizing” Arabs was promoted through education, “special citizenship”, and the Muslim Association of the Lictor, but ultimately the “Fascist political indoctrination project” proved to be a failure.8 Conversely, religion and religious elites played a crucial role not only in the context of the resistance movement, but also as an element of colonial policy itself. In Libya, as in other African countries in the colonial context, the boundaries between collaboration and resistance were ambiguous. Beyond the well-known resistance movement, which was led mainly by the Sanūsiyya Islamic brotherhood, lays a complex web of negotiations with the colonial powers, so it is far more accurate to describe the relationship between most Muslim notables and the Italian colonial authorities as ambivalent.9 Pan-Islamism was an argument that was used extensively in Fascist propa- ganda during the Ethiopian war. Military cooperation between the Italians and Muslims, mainly the Oromo, Danakil, Eritreans and Somalis, was a question of strategy: Muslim soldiers were seen as being more loyal, and their recruit- ment into the colonial army was portrayed as a sign of trust. Entirely Muslim battalions were employed against Amhara resistance because they were con- sidered to be a political and military deterrent, and besides, the war offered Muslims a chance to declare a holy war against the Amhara regime, which had persecuted them, and they were rewarded with concessions after the war, some attaining positions of honour at official ceremonies. After the war ended, they were granted religious freedom, qāḍīs replaced Amhara judges, Arabic was taught in Muslim schools, and a number of newspapers began to publish an Arabic section. Mosque building was pursued throughout the oc- cupation (1936–1941),10 and the construction of a new mosque in Addis Ababa by the Italians, ordered by Mussolini himself, stands as a symbol of a policy of

Eritrea in the 1930s is available on Asmara, Massawa, Keren, Assab, Agordat and Barentu. See: Sezione 1 (Ex Armadi)—Eritrea—E 6 B Culto musulmano, IsIAO Archive (Rome). 6  See Cresti 2011. Regarding the early Italian Islamic policy in see Baldinetti 1997. 7  Goglia 1988: 35–53; Di Pasquale 2012. 8  Di Pasquale 2012: 5. 9 Baldinetti 2009. 10 Sbacchi 1985: 162–163.