The Senusiyya, Senussi or Sanusi are a Muslim political-religious Sufi order and clan in Libya and surrounding regions founded in Mecca in 1837 by the Grand Sanussi, the Algerian Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi.
Idris was King of Libya from 24 December 1951 until his ouster in the 1 September 1969 coup d'état. He ruled over the United Kingdom of Libya from 1951 to 1963, after which the country became known as simply the Kingdom of Libya. Idris had served as Emir of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania from the 1920s until 1951. He was the chief of the Muslim Senussi Order.
Omar al-Mukhtār Muḥammad bin Farḥāṭ al-Manifī, called The Lion of the Desert, known among the colonial Italians as Matari of the Mnifa, was a Libyan revolutionary and Imam who led the native resistance in Cyrenaica under the Senussids, against the Italian colonization of Libya. A teacher-turned-general, Omar was a prominent figure of the Senussi movement and is considered the national hero of Libya and a symbol of resistance in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Beginning in 1911, he organised and led the Libyan resistance movement against the Italian colonial empire during the First and Second Italo-Senussi Wars. Externally, he also fought against the French colonization of Chad and the British occupation of Egypt. After many attempts, the Italian Armed Forces managed to capture Al-Mukhtar near Slonta when he was wounded in battle by Libyan colonial troops, and hanged him in 1931 after he refused to surrender.
Hisham Matar is an American-born British-Libyan novelist, essayist, and memoirist. His debut novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, and his memoir of the search for his father, The Return, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and several other awards. Matar's essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New York Times, and many other publications. He has also written several other novels.
Hussein Yousef Maziq a Libyan politician was Prime Minister of Libya from 20 March 1965 to 2 July 1967. He was one of the most important men in the Kingdom era of Libya.
Mustafa Ahmed Ben Halim was a Libyan politician and businessman who served in a number of leadership positions in the Kingdom of Libya from 1953 to 1960. Ben Halim was the Prime Minister of Libya from 12 April 1954 to 25 May 1957. Through his political and private sector work, he supported the development of the modern Libyan state.
Ali Omar Ermes was a Libyan artist and author. His paintings make use of Arabic calligraphy, often superimposed on a rich-textured ground, and may incorporate fragments of Arabic or other poetry or prose. He had lived in the United Kingdom since 1981, and was the chairman of the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in Kensington in west London; he was also active in other intellectual and cultural institutions in that city.
The Kingdom of Libya, known as the United Kingdom of Libya from 1951 to 1963, was a constitutional monarchy in North Africa that came into existence upon independence on 24 December 1951 and lasted until a bloodless coup d'état on 1 September 1969. The coup, led by Muammar Gaddafi, overthrew King Idris and established the Libyan Arab Republic.
Italian Cyrenaica was an Italian colony, located in present-day eastern Libya, that existed from 1911 to 1934. It was part of the territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911, alongside Italian Tripolitania.
The Libyan resistance movement was the rebel force opposing the Italian Empire during its Pacification of Libya between 1923 and 1932.
Jean Babette Stein was an American author and editor.
Abu Salim prison is a maximum security prison in Tripoli, Libya. The prison was notorious during the rule of Muammar Gaddafi for alleged mistreatment and human rights abuses, including a massacre in 1996 in which Human Rights Watch estimated that 1,270 prisoners were killed.
Idris bin Abdullah al-Senussi is a member of the family of Idris, Libya's former UN-appointed king. While the family of Idris, appointed king of Libya by United Nations General Assembly, was under house arrest after Muammar Gaddafi overthrew his rule, Prince Idris al-Senussi began working on leading the family and uniting Libya, as this role was passed onto him by his late father. The position of heir to the short-lived Libyan throne is also claimed by his cousin Prince Mohammed El Senussi, the son and designated heir of the last Libyan Crown Prince.
Tarek Ben Halim was a Libyan investment banker who left banking in 2000 to pursue charitable work and promote justice and democracy in the Arab World. In 2004, he founded Alfanar, the first Arab venture philanthropy organisation aiming to introduce a more effective and sustainable approach to development in the Arab region.
Libyan nationalism refers to the nationalism of Libyans and Libyan culture. Libyan nationalism began to arise with the creation of the Senussi religious orders in the 1830s that blended North African Sufism with orthodox Islam. After colonization of Libya by Italy, opponents of Italian colonial rule from Tripolitania and Cyrenaica combined forces in 1922, with Senussi leader Omar Mukhtar leading the revolt against Italian forces in Libya. Libya became an independent state after World War II.
Mohamed Ben Ghalbon is the founder and chairman of the Libyan Constitutional Union, and one of Colonel Gaddafi’s staunchest political opponents in exile. He is the leading advocate for the call for adherence to constitutional legitimacy in confronting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
Syrians in the United Kingdom or Syrian Britons are people whose heritage is originated from Syria who were born in or who reside in the United Kingdom.
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between is a memoir by Hisham Matar that was first published in June 2016. The memoir centers on Matar's return to his native Libya in 2012 to search for the truth behind the 1990 disappearance of his father, a prominent political dissident of the Gaddafi regime. It won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the inaugural 2017 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the 2017 Folio Prize, becoming the first nonfiction book to do so.
Sidi Omar is an ancient Senussi tomb located in the Egyptian desert in the Matrouh Governorate. It serves as the demarcation of the border between Libya and Egypt since the Italo-Egyptian treaty called the Treaty of Jaghbub (1925).
