Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904) (Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies)

321 Pages·1997·2.25 MB·English

by  Julia A. Clancy-Smith

Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904)
Rebel and Saint
Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters
(Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904)
Â
Julia A. Clancy-Smith
Suggested citation:
Clancy-Smith, Julia A. Rebel and Saint: Muslim
Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria
and Tunisia, 1800-1904). Berkeley : University of
California Press, 1994.
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4b69n91g/
Contents
l P reface
l A cknowledgments
l N ote on Transliteration
Search this Book: l C hronology
l In troduction
l 1 Â A Desert Civilization:Â The Pre-Sahara of
Algeria and Tunisia, c. 1800–1830
l 2 Â Saint and Sufi:Â Religious Notables of the
Pre-Sahara
l 3 Â Hedging Bets in a Time of Troubles:Â
Algeria, 1830–1849
l 4 Â Mahdi and Saint:Â The 1849 Bu Ziyan
Uprising
l 5 Â Baraka and Barud:Â Sidi Mustafa's
Emigration to Tunisia
l 6  The Sharif of Warqala's Jihad, 1850–1866
l 7 Â The Shaykh and His Daughter:Â Implicit
Pacts and Cultural Survival, c. 1827–1904
l C onclusion
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4b69n91g/ (1 of 2) [2/10/2003 1:20:48 AM]
Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904)
l N otes
l A bbreviations
l G lossary
l S elect Bibliography
Comments? Questions?
See the XML upon which this page is based.
University of California Press eScholarship Editions are published by eScholarship, the California
Digital Library
© 2002 The Regents of the University of California
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4b69n91g/ (2 of 2) [2/10/2003 1:20:48 AM]
Rebel and Saint
Home | Show Table of ContentsSearch for Customize | Help
Julia A. Clancy-Smith
Rebel and Saint
Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800(cid:19)1904)
Preface
Preface
Al-mashakil jayya min al-Jaza'ir.
There is a popular saying in the Jarid (Djerid), the oasis region adjoining the borders with Algeria,
regarding Tunisia's historically more powerful neighbor: "Al-mashakil jayya min al-Jaza'ir"
("problems come from Algeria"). This proverb, which repeatedly came up in conversations with the
Jarid's people, assumed a new significance after the Algerian FIS's (Islamic Salvation Front)
triumph in the first round of legislative elections held on 26 December 1991. While many Tunisians
of different classes, educations, or backgrounds believe that the Tunisian Islamic party (al-Nahda)
could never score an electoral victory similar in scale to that of the FIS, still people fret about the
possible across-the-border effects from the Algerian elections. Aside from the renewed vigor, or at
least hope, that events in Algeria might instill in Tunisia's Islamic parties, the average inhabitant of
the Jarid worries about the repercussions on tourism, which now forms the basis of the area's fragile
economy. Concerns about the tourist industry, which fluctuates in accordance with global political
and economic changes, are shared widely in a Tunisia dependent upon the income generated by
foreign visitors, mainly from Europe.
Deep social discontents now beset the three Maghribi nations. Islamist parties and platforms serve
more as powerful stimuli for larger and as yet uncharted movements whose complex origins lie in
both the colonial and independence eras. After religiously based populist protest was ground under
the heel of modern European armies and bureaucracies by the early part of this century, religious
figures retreated into ostensibly nonpolitical attempts at cultural salvation. This was true both in
Algeria during the interwar period, where the Reformed Ulama of Shaykh 'Abd al-Hamid b. Badis
(died 1940) wielded cultural weapons to redeem and renew Muslim society, and in Tunisia, where
the Khalduniyya and other reform groups
(cid:21) xii (cid:21)
sought to regenerate quietly from within. In this same period, the political torch passed to more or
less secular nationalists who, while deploying Islamic symbols and discourse, made use of Western
ideologies and institutions to expel, with great violence in Algeria's case, France from North Africa.
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/...style=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e33 (1 of 3) [2/10/2003 1:23:22 AM]
Rebel and Saint
These political arrangements fought for, worked out, and negotiated over from the 1930s on are now
being contested in city streets, campuses, mosques, and other forums, old and new. After a hiatus of
many decades, religious notables cum political actors are once again on center stage(cid:20)or at least
trying to reach that stage(cid:20)in the Maghrib's capitals as well as in many places in the Islamic world.
Yet the question remains of how religious militants of the late twentieth century, like Abbasi
Madani, for example, relate to the Bu Ziyans or 'Abd al-Qadirs of the century past, the age of early,
heroic resistance. And can this heroic age, however imagined, be recovered or redeployed to meet
the moral and social challenges of the present and future?
Numerous Tunisians voiced another worry stemming from Algeria's painful, fledgling experiment in
democracy, one that relates directly to a second, related theme of this study(cid:20)the potential mass
movement into Tunisia of Algerians unwilling to live under an Islamic regime which has announced
its intent to impose substantial modifications in dress, food, and living habits upon its citizens. With
the doors to Europe closed ever more firmly to North Africans, and with growing uncertainty about
Algeria's political future, many Algerians with financial and family connections in Tunisia are
openly talking about emigration.
In the nineteenth century, subjects of the fallen Turkish regime fled eastward as individuals or
groups to Tunisia soon after France's 1830 occupation of Algeria. Even after 1881, when Tunisia
unwillingly became a French protectorate, this current of emigration persisted, although on a
somewhat reduced scale. While there is a certain parallelism in the movements of people between
the two countries in the nineteenth century and the final decade of the twentieth, a fundamental
difference also exists. Those Algerians who took flight from the French army came to Tunisia
principally to escape life under a Christian power which regarded Islam, its beliefs, practices, and
institutions, as the single greatest obstacle to France's imperial agenda(cid:20)to make Algeria French. Due
to the centuries-old ties between the two Ottoman regencies, the advent of the Europeans with their
imposing armies, weapons, technologies, and land-hungry settlers had a prodigious impact upon
Tunisia. Conversely, that Tunisia welcomed the emigrants from next door, affording a refuge for
dissidents, had an enormous influence upon the evolution of politics in Algeria and the political
behavior of Algerian dissidents.
(cid:21) xiii (cid:21)
The Tunisian beylik provided assistance to beleaguered fellow Muslims from Algeria in numerous
ways. Being respected Muslim princes, the rulers (beys ) of the Husaynid dynasty (c. 1715(cid:19)1957)
were looked to for deliverance(cid:20)as potential rescuers from the humiliations and travails of foreign
occupation. The Tunisian provinces along the borders with Algeria and their towns, such as Nafta
(Nefta), Tala (Thala), and al-Kaf (el-Kef), served as temporary or permanent havens for migrants or
bases of militant action for rebels. Military supplies and basic necessities from Tunisia, designated
as "contraband" by French officials, flowed across the frontiers despite concerted colonial efforts to
halt exchanges of goods and peoples between the two countries. Rumors, news, and information
about events in Europe or the Ottoman Empire also reached Algeria through the Tunisian beylik.
Finally, Tunisia represented a pole of religious attraction for Algerians, particularly those from the
Constantine (Algeria's eastern province) and from the upper Sahara. As Islamic education
progressively deteriorated under the willed neglect or active hostility of the French regime in
Algeria, Tunisia's madrasas (religious colleges), sufi zawaya (plural of zawiya , a sufi center), and
its great mosque-university, the Zaytuna, located in the capital, offered religious and other kinds of
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/...style=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e33 (2 of 3) [2/10/2003 1:23:22 AM]
Rebel and Saint
instruction to students and scholars from France's colony. In the past century, Algerian students
might first have come here to the Jarid, especially to the oasis of Nafta regarded as a provincial holy
city, second only to al-Qayrawan (Kairouan), to seek Islamic instruction in its numerous sufi centers
and madrasas. The most gifted and ambitious would then pursue advanced learning in the capital at
the feet of the Zaytuna's erudite masters.
In large measure, Tunisia's attraction for Algerian religious and other figures explains the political
trajectory of both countries in the past century. If sufi orders have traditionally crisscrossed various
kinds of borders and frontiers(cid:20)political as well as spiritual and social(cid:20)protest movements in
nineteenth-century North Africa did likewise. Indeed it can be argued that the physical and moral
displacement of Algerian sufi leaders from the Rahmaniyya, Tijaniyya, and Qadiriyya orders into
southwestern Tunisia brought the French colonial encounter into Tunisia's backyard.
When Arabic printing presses became widely available in Tunis by the close of the nineteenth
century, the city functioned as a publishing center for Algerian scholars seeking to have religious
works printed which the European-controlled publishing establishment in Algeria declined to
handle. This development explains why the biography of the great Algerian Rahmaniyya shaykh,
Sidi Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim (c. 1823-1897), who lived and died in al-Hamil (el-Hamel), a
small oasis not far from Bu Sa'ada (Bou Saada), was only printed in Tunis (c. 1890).
(cid:21) xiv (cid:21)
And the fact that I had to travel to Rabat to consult the writings of Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Rahman
al-Jurjuri, the Algerian founder of the Rahmaniyya brotherhood (tariqa) whose spiritual lessons are
currently housed in Morocco's al-Khizana al-'Amma collection, is significant. It provides evidence
not only for Sidi 'Abd al-Rahman's own journeys and spiritual itinerary but also for the geographic
range of his reputation as well as the movements of his disciples, ideas, and imitators during the
years following the master's death in the last decade of the eighteenth century.
TUZAR, THE JARID
6 JANUARY 1992
Preface
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/...style=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e33 (3 of 3) [2/10/2003 1:23:22 AM]
Rebel and Saint
Home | Show Table of ContentsSearch for Customize | Help
Julia A. Clancy-Smith
Rebel and Saint
Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800(cid:19)1904)
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
My own peregrinations to gather information on the religious notables and other dramatis personae
who figure in this study took me far and wide(cid:20)to some ten archival collections and libraries on three
continents. These journeys, a form of research nomadism, and the wealth of documentation amassed
would not have been possible without the beneficent support, financial and otherwise, of a large
number of institutions and individuals. While I can never hope to repay the debt which stretches
back more years than I care to recall, I can at least acknowledge the extent of my liabilities.
My deep respect for, and abiding interest in, the Maghrib and its gracious people began with the
Peace Corps in Tunisia in 1973, where we, the volunteers, had the good fortune to learn about all
things Tunisian from Laurence O. Michalak, then the summer training director. Larry's enthusiasm
for the country was infectious and has remained with me until this day. Subsequently, I studied
North African history with John Ruedy at Georgetown University, who proved to be a formidable
intellectual mentor then as he still is now. Other Georgetown faculty, former and present, to whom I
owe a debt of gratitude are Thomas Ricks, Barbara Stowasser, and Michael Hudson, to name only a
few. In 1977 while still at Georgetown, I had the uncommon privilege of serving as Jacques
Berque's teaching assistant, the start of a long intellectual friendship which later continued in France
as well as in California. From 1978 on the G. E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies
and the History Department of the University of California, Los Angeles, offered extensive financial
assistance and intellectual inspiration. The UCLA faculty also deserve special mention: Claude
Audebert, Edward Berenson, Nikki R. Keddie, the late Malcolm Kerr, Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot,
who kindly served as a mentor,
(cid:21) xvi (cid:21)
friend, and as the chair of my dissertation committee, Georges Sabagh, and many others. Over the
past decade, Edmund Burke III, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, has acted as an
invaluable intellectual preceptor as I delved into the thicket of popular protest. Ross E. Dunn of San
Diego State University also has provided much encouragement. In addition, L. Carl Brown, Dale F.
Eickelman, R. Stephen Humpfreys, and John Voll have offered greatly appreciated suggestions for
improving portions of the manuscript.
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/...style=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e81 (1 of 2) [2/10/2003 1:23:54 AM]
Rebel and Saint
My years at Georgetown University and the University of California, Los Angeles, were punctuated
by extended periods of study in France. While in Paris at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences
Sociales in 1976(cid:19)1977, I had the opportunity to study with Mme. Germaine Tillion. Subsequently,
the French government provided me with the financial wherewithal to study with Jacques Berque at
the Collège de France, Paris, in 1980, a richly rewarding experience. I also had the opportunity to
attend Lucette Valensi's stimulating seminars in Paris that year and again in 1982. Numerous
research trips to the Maghrib and Europe from 1981 until the present were funded by the following
institutions and organizations: the Social Science Research Council; Fulbright-Hays International
Doctoral Dissertation Program; Council for International Exchange of Scholars/Fulbright Islamic
Civilization Program; American Philosophical Society; and the American Institute for Maghrebi
Studies. The University of Virginia provided summer faculty research grants and a year of leave
from teaching responsibilities to write.
On the other side of the Atlantic and on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, the staffs of
numerous archives and libraries in Tunisia, Morocco, France, Great Britain, and Malta have greatly
facilitated my research forays, particularly Monsieur Moncef Fakhfakh of the Dar el-Bey, Tunis,
and Mme. Jeanne Mrad of the Centre d'Études Maghrébines à Tunis. Special thanks are also due to
the very efficient staff of the Bibliothèque Générale in Rabat and its director, Mohamed Ben
Sherifa. Beyond institutional support, Tunisian colleagues and friends have provided all manner of
sustenance to me and my family over the years: Alya Baffoun, Samya El Mechat, Khalid Mrad, Pat
and Dick Payne, Noura and Mohamed Rostom, Fredj Stambouli, Abdeljelil Temimi, and countless
others who have overwhelmed us with their hospitality. Closer to home, colleagues and graduate
students at the University of Virginia have also contributed in one way or another to the present
endeavor: Richard Barnett, Timothy Faulkner, Robert Fuller, Patrick Gibbons, R. Carey Goodman,
Ann Lane, Melvyn Leffler, Cynthia Metcalf, Farzaneh Milani, and Joseph Miller.
(cid:21) xvii (cid:21)
Still closer to home, my greatest debt is to my husband, Charles ("Carl") D. Smith, who has, with
unfailing good humor, read many drafts of this manuscript, both in early incarnations as a
dissertation and in later versions, and has suffered for years from the effects of the distracted spouse
syndrome. My daughter, Elisabeth, "helped" in her own inimitable way by inquiring cheerfully, if a
bit impatiently, after school every day: "Have you finished your book today, Mommy?" Elisabeth is
happy to know that I will now be spending much less time with strangers like Bu Ziyan and more
with her.
Acknowledgments
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/...style=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e81 (2 of 2) [2/10/2003 1:23:54 AM]
Rebel and Saint
Home | Show Table of ContentsSearch for Customize | Help
Julia A. Clancy-Smith
Rebel and Saint
Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800(cid:19)1904)
Note on Transliteration
Note on Transliteration
Anyone who has traveled across North Africa's beautiful landscapes is acquainted with the
intractable problems posed by the transliteration of proper names, geographical places, concepts,
and institutions. These have their origins in classical Arabic, vernacular Arabic, Berber dialects,
Ottoman Turkish, and, in many cases, have come down to English speakers from French. To
complicate matters, during the colonial era in the Maghrib, Arabic and Berber terms were frequently
rendered from colloquial forms into the French language. While total consistency is impossible, I
have attempted to stay as close to the written Arabic in rendering proper names and places as is
feasible without unduly confusing the reader who may be more familiar with another system of
transliteration. Thus, for example, Nefta becomes Nafta, but the western province of Algeria
remains Oran instead of Wahran. For the names of geographical regions, I have mainly relied upon
Jamil M. Abun-Nasr's A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period , which strikes me as
achieving a reasonable compromise between the correct Arabic rendition and differing usage. As for
proper names and institutions, only the ayn (') and hamza (') are employed in the text and notes. Full
diacritics are provided for the glossary. Moreover, words more widely used in English, for example,
ulama , appear without diacritics. The system of transliteration is that employed by the International
Journal of Middle East Studies .
Note on Transliteration
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/Boo...ml&style=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e99 [2/10/2003 1:24:29 AM]
Rebel and Saint
Home | Show Table of ContentsSearch for Customize | Help
Julia A. Clancy-Smith
Rebel and Saint
Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800(cid:19)1904)
Chronology
Chronology
1525
Algeria incorporated into Ottoman Empire
1574
Tunisia incorporated into Ottoman Empire
1668(cid:19)present
'Alawi dynasty in power in Morocco
c. 1715(cid:19)c. 1793
Life of Sidi Muhammad b. "Abd al-Rahman, founder of the Rahmaniyya sufi order
1715
Husaynid dynasty established in Tunisia; abolished in 1957
1792
Spanish evacuation of Oran in western Algeria
1808(cid:19)1839
Reign of Ottoman sultan, Mahmud II
1822(cid:19)1859
Reign of Sultan 'Abd al-Rahman of Morocco
April 1827
The dey of Algiers, Husayn, has an altercation with the French consul, Pierre Deval
June 1827
French naval squadron imposes blockade of Algiers
14 June 1830
French landing at Sidi Ferruch
5 July 1830
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/...tyle=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e114 (1 of 4) [2/10/2003 1:25:55 AM]
Rebel and Saint
Husayn Dey signs convention with France; French flag raised over qasba in Algiers
(cid:21) xxii (cid:21)
July 1830
Charles X Restoration government falls; Louis Philippe comes to power
1830(cid:19)1847
Ahmad, last bey of the Constantine, attempts to establish an independent state in eastern Algeria
1832(cid:19)1847
Amir 'Abd al-Qadir leads resistance movement, mainly centered in the Oran
1837(cid:19)1855
Ahmad Bey comes to power in Tunisia; initiates modernization and reform program
1840
Thomas Bugeaud appointed governor-general of Algeria; institutes the policy of total occupation of
the country
1844
French army under the Duc d'Aumale lays siege twice to the oasis of Biskra
1844
Bureaux Arabes officially created
1844
Mustafa b. 'Azzuz emigrates from Algeria to the Tunisian Jarid; begins constructing a Rahmaniyya
zawiya in the oasis of Nafta
1844
Defeat of Moroccan army by France at battle of Isly convinces Sultan 'Abd al-Rahman to withdraw
support for 'Abd al-Qadir's jihad
1848
Second Republic declared; Algeria formally made French territory divided into three départements
1849
Bu Ziyan launches a millenarian rebellion centered in Za'atsha
1849
French army lays siege to Za'atsha and pre-Sahara for 52 days during October and November
1850(cid:19)1855
Jihad led by the Sharif of Warqala, Muhammad b. 'Abd Allah, in Algerian and Tunisian pre-Sahara
1851
European settlers in Algeria number 131,283; over 115,000 hectares of land expropriated
1852
Fall of al-Aghwat to French army
http://escholarship.cdlib.org:8088/dynaxml/servlet/...tyle=eschol/xsl/dynaxml/dynaxml.xsl&chunk.id=d0e114 (2 of 4) [2/10/2003 1:25:55 AM]