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Travel Outside and Inside: Maghrebi Sufi Response to Foreign Invasion
Abstract
The majority of 19th century North African resistance movements against foreign occupations were led by Sufi figures, or occasionally by Mahdist (Millenarian) figures who later sought the support of one or more Sufi fraternity (Clancy-Smith, 1994). While Clancy-Smith’s brilliant historical study of this phenomenon narrates the varied responses of different Algerian and Tunisian Sufi leaders to colonization, no study has yet elaborated on how Maghrebi Sufi literature registered the 19th century threat of invasion. This study examines how inner and outer travel show up as responses to occupation in the works of two prominent Sufi resistance figures from the period: Emir Abd-el-Kader in Algeria and al-Sheikh Ma’ al-Aynain in what is now Morocco and Mauritania. Although Sufi texts often focus on the soul traveling through various stages (maqamat) or states (ahwal), physical travel is also a strong element of the Sufi narrative, as one makes pilgrimage to Sufi tombs and graves (ziyara) in addition to the hajj to Mecca. The legendary Emir Abd-el-Kader wrote a epistle on hijra in which he emphasized the duty of each Muslim to emigrate to Dar al-Islam from Dar al-Harb, and the Saharan resistance figure al-Sheikh Ma’ al-Aynain left behind both a description of his journey to Mecca and a guide to dealing with foreign occupiers. How does Ma’ al-Aynain’s "Hida?yat man h?a?ra? fi? amr al-Nas?a?ra" and Emir Abd el-Kader’s "H?isa?m al-di?n li-qat?? shibh al-murtaddi?n" treat actual travel and the alternative of inkimash, or turning within? How does this compare with their most famous works dealing with general Sufi practice? Do they depict Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb in concrete or abstract terms? Does the actual historical event of colonization make their arguments or references differ from Sufi texts written in different historical contexts, or does the basic Sufi parlance remain the same in the face of massive social upheaval? This paper aims to answer these questions by analyzing referents to place and travel and contextualizing them within the larger Sufi tradition.
Discipline
Literature
Geographic Area
Maghreb
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries