APPENDIX B 



NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF THE SENUSSI 

 CONFRATERNITY 



SiDi Mohammed ben Ah es Senussi was born near Mastaghanem 

 in Algeria in 1787. He was of the Ulad Sidi Yusuf, Berbers, yet 

 descendants of the prophet through Idris, founder of the Moroc- 

 can dynasty. It is generally supposed that the grandfather of 

 Ben AJi derived his name from a holy man who died in 1490 — Sidi 

 Mohammed ben Yusuf ben Arar ben Shat es Senussi of the Beni 

 Snus — but it has also been stated that it referred merely to the 

 Gebel Snus where his family lived. Mohammed Ben Ali, having 

 quarrelled seriously with a cousin, went to Fez in 1821 and studied 

 at the famous Karuim University. Morocco in those days was the 

 birthplace of many religious confraternities and, during the seven 

 or eight years he spent there, Ben Ali joined those of el Gadria, 

 esh Shadelia, ej Yazula, en Nasria and ed Dergania, while at the 

 same time he seems to have won some renown as an ascetic who 

 wished to amalgamate every Moslem sect on a basis of a pure and 

 simple Islam in strict conformity with the teachings of the Koran, 

 but shorn of every modem digression and addition. 



Mulai Suleiman, Emperor of Morocco, offered him preferment, 

 but he refused it and, returning to Algeria in 1829, he taught 

 grammar and jurisprudence at Laquat. At Mesad he married a 

 woman of the Beni Tuaba, a gift from the faithful, which would 

 prove that already he had gathered a certain number of disciples. 

 He left Algeria on the eve of the French occupation and, undoubt- 

 edly, his fanaticism was strengthened by the sight of his native 

 land in the hands of unbelievers, for, though technically Turks and 

 Christians were equally condemned by his teaching, he reserved his 

 fiercest hatred for the latter. 



Having divorced his wife at Bu Saada, he wandered along 

 North Africa preaching his mystic doctrine of a purer Islam till 

 he reached Cairo, where he proposed to continue his studies at the 

 El Azhar University. Here, however, his asceticism, intolerance 

 and hatred of innovation made liim many enemies among the 



323 



