The Road to Mecca Ch 11 JIHAD

The Road to Mecca Ch 11 JIHAD

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<메카로 가는 길> 제11장 <지하드(JIHAD)> 요약

<사누시 교단의 영광과 역사적 비극> 메디나의 예언자 모스크를 나서던 무함마드 아사드는 리비아 독립 투쟁의 원로 지도자 시디 무함마드 아즈주와이(Sidi Muhammad az-Zuwayy)를 만난다. 두 사람은 메디나에 망명 중인 사누시 교단의 최고 지도자 '대(大)사누시' 사이이드 아흐마드(Sayyid Ahmad)를 찾아간다.

아사드는 사누시 교단의 기원과 성취를 회고한다. 19세기 중반 창시된 사누시 운동은 단순한 종교 결사를 넘어, 분열된 베두인 부족들을 교화하고 통합하여 도덕적·사회적 부흥을 이룬 모범적인 이슬람 공동체였다. 그러나 19세기 후반 프랑스의 남하와 1911년 이탈리아의 리비아 침공으로 평화는 깨어지고 자위적 투쟁(지하드)에 돌입하게 된다.

1915년 오스만 제국 칼리프의 참전 요청에 응해 영국을 공격한 사이이드 아흐마드의 기사도적 결정은 교단에 치명적인 패착이 되었다. 유일한 보급로였던 이집트(영국령)와의 관계가 단절되면서 전선은 3면으로 확대되었고, 결국 리비아 본토는 고립되었다. 이후 아흐마드는 튀르키예에서 무스타파 케말(아타튀르크)의 독립 전쟁을 영적으로 지원했으나, 승리 후 케말이 이슬람을 전면 부정하는 세속주의 개혁을 단행하자 깊은 배신감을 느끼고 아라비아로 망명했다.

<비극적 소식: 우마르 알무크타르의 순교> 아즈주와이는 키레나이카(리비아 동부)의 무장 저항이 완전히 진압되었으며, 10여 년간 이탈리아에 맞서 전설적인 게릴라전을 이끌었던 '사막의 사자' 우마르 알무크타르(Umar al-Mukhtar)가 1년 전 부상으로 사로잡혀 술루크의 공개 교수대에서 처형당했다는 비보를 전한다. 그라치아니(Graziani) 장군의 회유와 항복 권유 앞에서도 무크타르는 "침략자가 물러나거나 내 목숨이 다할 때까지 싸울 것"이라며 당당히 죽음을 맞이했다.

<키레나이카 잠입 밀명과 탈출> 이 비보는 1931년 1월, 아사드가 직접 목숨을 걸고 키레나이카로 잠입했던 과거의 기억을 되살린다. 당시 사이이드 아흐마드의 부탁을 받은 아사드는 무자히딘의 보급선을 확보하고 전황을 타개할 방도를 찾기 위해 비밀 임무를 맡았다. 그는 홍해를 은밀히 건너 이집트 바흐리야 오아시스를 거쳐 이탈리아군의 공습과 수용소, 철조망 장벽을 뚫고 키레나이카 고원에 잠입했다.

그곳에서 마주한 우마르 알무크타르는 이미 저항의 거점이었던 쿠프라(Kufra) 오아시스가 함락되고 대량 학살이 자행되었음을 알린다. 승산이 전무한 상황에서 아사드는 이집트로의 후퇴를 권유했으나, 무크타르는 백성들을 침략자의 손에 버려둘 수 없으며 오직 신앙과 자유를 위해 끝까지 싸우다 죽는 길만이 남아있다고 담담히 거절했다. 협의를 마친 아사드는 국경에 설치된 이탈리아군의 철조망을 절단하고 장갑차의 기관총 사격을 뚫는 격렬한 야간 탈출 끝에 극적으로 생환했다.

<패배 속의 체념과 신앙적 위안> 다시 메디나의 현재로 돌아와, 아사드는 노쇠하고 꺾여버린 사이이드 아흐마드를 마주한다. 대사누시는 과거 칼리프의 부름에 응해 영국을 공격했던 자신의 판단이 교단과 무크타르를 파멸로 이끈 것이 아닌지 자책과 회한을 털어놓는다. 아사드는 양심의 부름을 따랐던 그의 고결한 동기를 바라보며, 인간의 성패를 넘어선 역사의 비극과 신의 섭리를 묵묵히 응시한다.

평론: 성전(Jihad)의 숭고함과 식민주의의 야만, 그리고 비극적 실존

제11장 <지하드>는 종교적 이상주의가 냉혹한 제국주의적 현실과 맞닥뜨렸을 때 빚어지는 비장미와 도덕적 숭고함을 탁월하게 포착한 장이다. 아사드는 '지하드'라는 개념을 광신적 폭력이 아니라, 압제에 저항하여 인간의 존엄과 신앙의 자유를 지키기 위한 '정당방위이자 도덕적 의무'로 명확히 정립한다.

<1. 지하드의 본질과 식민주의의 잔혹성> 아사드는 사누시 교단이 일군 공동체를 통해 이슬람이 지향하는 평화적·문명적 건설의 가능성을 입증한다. 그러나 이 문명적 성취는 서구 열강(프랑스·이탈리아)의 잔혹한 침략으로 무참히 짓밟힌다. 공중 폭격, 민간인 학살, 유목민을 집단 수용소에 가두어 아사시키는 이탈리아 파시즘 정권의 만행과 성경을 찢으며 오만을 부리는 식민 장성의 모습은 서구가 자임하던 '문명화 사명'의 민낯을 폭로한다. 이에 맞선 베두인들의 무장 투쟁은 단순한 민족주의적 반란이 아니라, 억압에 굴복하지 않으려는 실존적·종교적 정당방위였다.

<2. 두 지도자의 초상: 이상의 덫과 타협 없는 결기> 이 장은 두 걸출한 지도자의 비극적 운명을 대비시킨다. < 사이이드 아흐마드는 무슬림 공동체의 단결이라는 '칼리프에 대한 충성심과 이상주의적 기사도'에 사로잡혀 전략적 합리성을 놓쳤고, 이로 인해 교단의 파멸을 자초했다는 자책 속에 살아가는 비극적 인물이다. < 반면 우마르 알무크타르는 결과의 승패를 신의 영역에 맡긴 채, 오직 '현재의 도덕적 책무'에 헌신한 순수한 신념의 화신이다. 죽음을 면할 수 있는 도주와 타협의 길을 거부하고 앙상한 소총을 든 채 마지막 순간까지 적과 맞서다 교수대로 향한 그의 최후는 비극을 뛰어넘는 영적 숭고함을 자아낸다.

<3. 관찰자에서 동반자로: 행동하는 신앙> 아사드는 이 여정에서 단순한 언론인이나 관찰자에 머물지 않는다. 그는 목숨을 걸고 전장에 뛰어들어 코란 위에 손을 얹고 비밀 결사의 맹세를 지킨다. 그에게 이슬람은 서재에서 탐구하는 추상적 교리가 아니라, 불의와 억압에 맞서 피 흘리는 동지들과 함께 호흡하는 '살아있는 실천의 길'이었기 때문이다.

결국 <지하드>는 패배로 끝난 한 독립 투쟁에 대한 조가(弔歌)이자, 세속적 성공 여부와 상관없이 내면의 양심과 신앙적 부름에 온몸을 던진 인간 군상에게 바치는 가장 엄숙한 헌사라 할 수 있다.

<메카로 가는 길>의 다음 장에 대해서도 요약과 평론을 이어갈까요, 세진님?

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아래는 첨부하신 <The Road to Mecca Ch 11: JIHAD>의 1,000단어 정도 요약+평론입니다. 이 장에서 <지하드>는 단순한 전쟁이 아니라, 이탈리아 식민주의에 맞선 리비아 사누시 운동의 저항, 무슬림 공동체의 존엄, 그리고 아사드 자신의 행동윤리가 한데 묶인 개념으로 제시됩니다.

<요약>

이 장은 메디나 예언자 모스크를 나서는 장면으로 시작된다. 아사드는 산우시 형제단의 인물인 시디 무함마드 아즈주와위와 만난다. 그는 아사드를 반갑게 맞으며, 사누시 운동의 지도자 사이이드 아흐마드가 아사드를 보고 싶어 한다고 전한다. 아사드는 곧바로 함께 가자고 한다. 아사드에게 사이이드 아흐마드는 단순한 종교 지도자가 아니다. 그는 북아프리카 무슬림 저항의 상징이며, 영적 이상과 정치적 투쟁이 만나는 인물이다.

아사드는 오래전 메카의 아부 쿠바이스 산에서 사이이드 아흐마드를 처음 만난 기억을 회상한다. 그 산 정상에는 작은 흰 모스크가 있었고, 아래로는 카바와 메카의 집들이 내려다보였다. 그곳에서 만난 사이이드 아흐마드는 이미 병들고 유배된 노인이었지만, 아사드에게는 영적 권위와 전투적 의지가 결합된 인물로 보였다. 그는 단순한 학자도, 단순한 정치가도 아니었다. 그는 이슬람 공동체의 영적 부흥을 위해 자기 삶을 바친 사람이었다.

이 장의 전반부는 사누시 운동의 역사 설명이다. 사누시 운동의 창시자는 알제리 출신 학자 무함마드 이븐 알리 앗사누시였다. 그는 북아프리카와 메카에서 수학한 뒤, 키레나이카의 자그붑에 중심지를 세웠다. 그의 목표는 단순한 수피 교단 확장이 아니라, 도덕적·사회적·정치적 이슬람 공동체를 만드는 것이었다. 사누시 운동은 베두인 부족들을 교육하고, 부족 간 싸움을 줄이며, 상업과 농업을 장려하고, 공동체적 질서를 세웠다. 아사드는 사누시 운동을 “야만적 부족사회”를 이슬람적 형제애와 규율로 변화시킨 문명화 운동으로 본다.

사누시 운동의 핵심은 강제 통치가 아니라 도덕적 권위였다. 사누시 지도자는 세속 군주처럼 행정권을 장악한 것이 아니라, 자위야, 곧 종교적·사회적 중심지를 통해 사람들의 삶을 조직했다. 그 결과 베두인들은 단순한 약탈적 유목민이 아니라, 이슬람적 규율과 연대 속에 살아가는 공동체로 변해갔다. 아사드는 여기서 참된 이슬람 운동은 인간의 삶 전체를 변화시키는 힘을 가져야 한다고 본다.

그러나 19세기 말과 20세기 초, 유럽 제국주의가 북아프리카로 밀려오면서 사누시 운동은 전쟁에 휘말린다. 프랑스는 남쪽에서, 이탈리아는 트리폴리타니아와 키레나이카에서 압박해왔다. 이탈리아가 1911년에 리비아를 침공하자, 사이이드 아흐마드는 사누시 무자히딘을 이끌고 저항했다. 아사드는 이 싸움을 방어적 지하드로 본다. 공격적 정복전쟁이 아니라, “침략자에게 맞서 자기 땅과 신앙과 공동체를 지키는 투쟁”이었다.

하지만 제1차 세계대전이 사태를 복잡하게 만든다. 오스만 술탄은 칼리프로서 사누시에게 영국령 이집트를 공격하라고 요청했다. 사이이드 아흐마드는 처음에는 중립을 지키려 했지만, 결국 독일·터키 측의 압력과 이슬람적 연대의식 때문에 영국과 싸움에 끌려들어간다. 아사드는 이것을 비극적 오판으로 본다. 영국과 싸우는 바람에 사누시는 이집트 방면의 보급로를 잃었고, 이탈리아와의 투쟁에 집중할 힘도 약해졌다. 그 결과 사누시 운동 전체가 치명적 손상을 입었다.

전후에도 투쟁은 계속되었다. 사이이드 아흐마드는 정치적 압력 속에서 터키로 갔고, 사누시 지도력은 사이이드 이드리스에게 넘어갔다. 그러나 이드리스는 더 타협적이고 정치적인 인물이었다. 그는 영국·이탈리아와 어느 정도 합의하려 했고, 결국 키레나이카 내륙의 지배권을 얻기도 했다. 하지만 무솔리니의 파시스트 이탈리아가 등장하면서 상황은 다시 악화되었다. 이탈리아는 리비아 내부를 군사적으로 장악하려 했고, 전쟁은 다시 시작되었다.

여기서 장의 핵심 인물인 우마르 알무크타르가 등장한다. 그는 노인이었지만, 리비아 사막과 산악지대에서 이탈리아군을 상대로 게릴라전을 이끌었다. 그는 거의 70세가 넘은 나이에도 끝까지 싸웠다. 아사드는 그를 단순한 전사가 아니라 신앙과 자유의 상징으로 그린다. 시디 무함마드 아즈주와위는 아사드에게 우마르 알무크타르가 포로가 되어 이탈리아군에게 교수형을 당했다는 소식을 전한다. 그는 마지막까지 자기 백성과 신앙을 버리지 않았고, 이탈리아 장군 그라치아니의 회유도 거부했다. 그는 “하나님께 맹세코, 그들이 우리 땅을 떠나지 않는 한 싸움을 멈추지 않겠다”고 말한 사람으로 그려진다.

아사드는 이 소식을 듣고 큰 충격을 받는다. 우마르 알무크타르의 죽음은 단순한 한 지도자의 죽음이 아니라, 사누시 저항의 종말을 알리는 사건처럼 느껴진다. 그는 사이이드 아흐마드가 아직 메디나에 있고, 사누시 투쟁의 잔여 세력이 키레나이카에서 버티고 있다는 사실을 알게 된다. 그리고 그는 사이이드 아흐마드와 함께 무엇을 할 수 있을지 논의하게 된다.

사이이드 아흐마드는 아사드에게 위험한 임무를 제안한다. 이집트로 가서 사누시 연락망과 접촉하고, 키레나이카 내부로 들어가 무자히딘의 상황을 조사해 달라는 것이다. 목적은 사누시 저항을 재조직할 수 있는지 알아보는 데 있었다. 아사드는 망설임 없이 받아들인다. 그는 꾸란에 손을 얹고 비밀을 지키겠다고 맹세한다. 이 장에서 아사드는 단순한 관찰자가 아니라 행동하는 무슬림으로 변한다. 그에게 이슬람은 지적으로 이해하는 종교가 아니라, 위험을 감수하고 형제들을 돕는 책임이다.

이후 아사드와 자이드는 변장하여 히자즈 항구 얀부에서 배를 타고 이집트로 간다. 그들은 순례자처럼 보이기 위해 히자즈 복장을 하고, 이집트에서는 다시 서부 사막 사람들의 복장으로 갈아입는다. 카이로를 피하고, 상이집트의 쿠사이르와 바니 수에프 등을 거쳐 서부 사막으로 향한다. 사누시 지지자들의 도움을 받아 낙타와 물자, 무기를 준비하고, 오아시스들을 지나 리비아 국경 쪽으로 접근한다.

여정은 극도로 위험하다. 이탈리아군은 항공기, 장갑차, 바리케이드, 철조망을 이용해 사누시 게릴라의 이동을 막고 있었다. 아사드 일행은 밤에 이동하고 낮에는 숨는다. 그들은 바흐리야, 시와, 자그붑 방면을 거쳐 자발 아크다르 쪽으로 향한다. 도중에 이탈리아 정찰기가 나타나고, 그들은 급히 몸을 숨긴다. 한 번은 비행기가 그들을 발견해 기총소사를 하지만, 다행히 인명 피해는 없고 낙타 한 마리만 죽는다. 이 장의 중후반부는 모험소설처럼 긴박하게 전개된다.

마침내 아사드 일행은 우마르 알무크타르의 부하들이 있는 게릴라 진영에 도착한다. 하지만 그들이 발견한 현실은 참혹하다. 무자히딘은 지치고 굶주렸으며, 무기도 부족했고, 이탈리아군의 압도적 군사력에 포위되어 있었다. 키레나이카의 마을과 오아시스는 파괴되었고, 사람들은 강제수용소로 몰려갔으며, 사누시 저항은 사실상 마지막 숨을 몰아쉬고 있었다. 쿠프라도 이미 함락되었다. 이 소식은 사이이드 아흐마드가 기대했던 저항 재조직의 가능성을 사실상 무너뜨린다.

아사드는 그곳에서 살아남은 전사들의 증언을 듣는다. 이탈리아군은 마을을 불태우고, 사람들을 죽이고, 여자와 아이들을 몰아내고, 책과 도서관을 파괴했다. 사누시의 영적 중심지와 학문적 유산도 파괴된다. 이것은 단순한 군사작전이 아니라 한 공동체의 삶과 기억을 지우는 폭력으로 나타난다. 아사드는 이탈리아 식민주의를 잔혹하고 비인간적인 세력으로 묘사한다.

그러나 우마르 알무크타르의 후계자 격인 전사들은 끝까지 싸우려 한다. 아사드는 그들에게 이집트로 물러나 힘을 재정비하는 것이 낫지 않느냐고 묻는다. 그러나 그들은 그것을 거부한다. 그들의 대답은 비장하다. “우리는 우리의 신앙과 자유를 위해 싸웠고, 하나님이 죽기를 원하시면 죽을 것이다.” 이 장에서 <지하드>는 승리 가능성과 무관하게 존엄을 지키는 행위로 나타난다. 그것은 전략적으로는 절망적일 수 있지만, 영적으로는 항복할 수 없는 의무다.

아사드와 자이드는 다시 이집트로 돌아가야 한다. 귀환 역시 위험하다. 그들은 이탈리아의 철조망 방어선을 돌파해야 한다. 밤중에 철조망을 자르고 지나가려는 순간, 이탈리아 초소가 발각하고 조명탄과 기관총 사격이 쏟아진다. 몇 명이 죽고 다치지만, 일부는 간신히 이집트 쪽으로 넘어간다. 아사드는 자신이 살아남았다는 사실에 안도하면서도, 함께한 이들의 죽음과 실패한 임무의 무게를 느낀다. 여정은 두 달가량 걸렸고, 결국 사누시 저항을 구할 방법은 없다는 결론만 남긴다.

마지막 장면은 다시 메디나의 사누시 자위야다. 아사드는 사이이드 아흐마드 앞에 돌아와 보고한다. 노인은 이미 병들고 지쳐 있다. 아사드가 우마르 알무크타르의 죽음과 키레나이카의 참상을 전하자, 사이이드 아흐마드는 깊은 슬픔에 잠긴다. 그는 “우리가 우마르 알무크타르를 구할 수만 있었다면”이라고 중얼거린다. 하지만 곧 “그는 구원받기를 원하지 않았다. 그는 승리하기보다 전투 중에 죽기를 원했다”고 말한다. 노인은 자신이 영국과 싸우기로 한 결정이 사누시 운동에 치명적 결과를 가져왔는지 고통스럽게 되묻는다. 그는 자신이 옳았는지 어리석었는지는 하나님만이 아신다고 말한다. 장은 이 깊은 회한과 영적 고통 속에서 끝난다.

<평론>

이 장의 가장 큰 힘은 <지하드>를 선동적 구호가 아니라 역사적 비극과 윤리적 책임의 언어로 보여준다는 점이다. 오늘날 “지하드”라는 말은 흔히 폭력, 테러, 광신과 연결되어 이해되지만, 아사드가 그리는 지하드는 훨씬 복잡하다. 그것은 외세의 침략에 맞선 방어전이며, 공동체의 자유와 신앙을 지키려는 투쟁이다. 특히 우마르 알무크타르의 모습은 침략자에 대한 증오보다, 굴복하지 않는 존엄의 상징으로 그려진다.

그러나 이 장은 지하드를 낭만화하지만은 않는다. 오히려 아사드는 투쟁의 비극을 매우 분명히 보여준다. 사누시 운동은 영적으로 고귀했지만, 정치적 판단에서는 실패했다. 사이이드 아흐마드가 오스만의 요청에 따라 영국과 싸움에 끌려든 것은 결과적으로 치명적이었다. 그는 이탈리아와 싸워야 할 힘을 분산시켰고, 영국과의 보급로를 잃었으며, 사누시 운동의 기반을 약화시켰다. 여기서 아사드는 “선한 의도”와 “올바른 판단”이 같지 않다는 냉혹한 사실을 보여준다.

이 장은 또한 아사드 자신의 이상주의를 잘 드러낸다. 그는 사누시 운동에서 자신이 찾던 이슬람 공동체의 가능성을 보았다. 부족 갈등을 넘어선 형제애, 영적 규율, 사회적 정의, 식민주의에 맞서는 용기. 그래서 그는 이 위험한 임무를 받아들인다. 그러나 결과는 실패다. 그는 사누시를 구하지 못하고, 오히려 그 붕괴의 증인이 된다. 이 실패가 장 전체를 깊게 만든다. 아사드에게 이슬람은 승리의 종교라기보다, 때로는 패배 속에서도 존엄을 지키는 종교로 나타난다.

다만 비판적으로 보면, 아사드의 사누시 서술에는 이상화가 있다. 그는 사누시 운동을 상당히 순수하고 고결한 이슬람 공동체로 그린다. 물론 이탈리아 식민주의의 폭력 앞에서 사누시 저항은 도덕적으로 강한 위치에 있다. 그러나 실제 사누시 운동 내부의 권력관계, 부족정치, 사회적 통제, 젠더 질서 등은 충분히 다뤄지지 않는다. 아사드는 사누시를 자신이 꿈꾸는 “참된 이슬람 사회”의 거의 마지막 가능성처럼 본다. 이 점은 감동적이지만, 역사적으로는 검토가 필요하다.

또 하나 중요한 점은, 이 장이 <The Road to Mecca> 전체의 정치적 성격을 강하게 드러낸다는 것이다. 아사드는 단순히 영적 구도자나 여행자가 아니다. 그는 반식민 투쟁에 감정적으로, 때로는 실제 행동으로 관여한 인물이다. 크레이머가 지적했듯이 이런 장면들은 아사드의 회고록을 순수한 영성문학으로만 읽을 수 없게 만든다. 이 책은 동시에 제국주의 시대의 정보, 저항, 국경정치, 무슬림 연대의 기록이다.

결국 <Jihad> 장의 핵심은 “무엇을 위해 싸울 것인가”라는 질문이다. 아사드의 답은 분명하다. 정복을 위해서가 아니라 자유를 위해, 증오를 위해서가 아니라 존엄을 위해, 권력을 위해서가 아니라 하나님 앞의 책임을 위해 싸워야 한다. 그러나 그 싸움이 언제 지혜로운가, 언제 공동체를 더 큰 파국으로 몰고 가는가는 끝내 쉬운 답이 없다. 사이이드 아흐마드의 마지막 회한은 바로 그 질문을 남긴다. 하나님만이 인간 행위의 최종 의미를 아신다는, 아사드다운 결론이다.

==

==

JIHAD

-1-

AS I AM LEAVING the Prophet's Mosque, a hand grips mine: and as I turn my head, I meet the kind old eyes of Sidi Muhammad az-Zuwayy, the Sanusi. 'O my son, how glad I am to see thee after all these months. May God bless thy step in the blessed City of the Prophet...'

Hand in hand, we walk slowly over the cobbled street leading from the mosque to the main bazaar. In his white North African burnus, Sidi Muhammad is a familiar figure in Medina, where he has been living for years; and many people interrupt our progress to greet him with the respect

due not only to his seventy years but also to his fame as one of the leaders of Libya's heroic fight for independence. 'I want thee to know, O my son, that Sayyid Ahmad is in Medina. He is not in good health, and it would give him much pleasure to see thee. How

long wilt thou remain here?'

'Only until the day after tomorrow,' I reply, 'but I shall certainly not leave without seeing Sayyid Ahmad. Let us go to him now.'

In the whole of Arabia there is no man whom I love better than Sayyid Ahmad, for there is no man who has sacrificed himself so wholly and so selflessly for an ideal. A scholar and a warrior, he has devoted his entire life to the spiritual revival of the Muslim community and to its struggle for political independence, knowing well that the one cannot be brought about without the other.

How well I remember my first meeting with Sayyid Ahmad, many years ago, in Mecca..

To the north of the Holy City rises Mount Abu Qubays, the centre of many ancient legends and traditions. From its summit, crowned by a small, whitewashed mosque with two low minarets, there is a wonderful view down into the valley of Mecca with the square of the Mosque of the Kaaba at its bottom and the colourful, loose amphitheatre of houses climbing up the naked, rocky slopes on all sides. A little below the summit of Mount Abu Qubays, a complex of stone buildings hangs over narrow terraces like a cluster of eagles' nests: the Meccan seat of the Sanusi Fraternity. The old man whom I met there - an exile to whom all ways to his home in Cyrenaica were closed after thirty years' fight and his seven-year odyssey between the Black Sea and the mountains of Yemen bore a name famous throughout the Muslim world: Sayyid Ahmad, the Grand Sanusi. No other name had caused so many sleepless night to the colonial rulers of North Africa, not even that of the great Abd al-Qadir of Algeria in the nineteenth century, or of the Moroccan Abd al-Karim who had been so powerful a thorn in the side of the French in more recent days. Those names, however unforgettable to the Muslims, had only a political import - while Sayyid Ahmad and his Order had for many years been a great spiritual power as well.

I was introduced to him by my Javanese friend Hajji Agos Salim, who held a position of leadership in Indonesia's struggle for political emancipation and had come to Mecca on pilgrimage. When Sayyid Ahmad learned that I was a recent convert to Islam, he stretched out his hand toward me and said gently:

'Welcome among thy brethren, O young brother of mine...'

Suffering was engraved on the beautiful brow of the aging fighter for faith and freedom. His face, with its little grey beard and sensually-shrewd mouth between painful grooves, was tired; the lids fell heavily over the eyes and made them appear drowsy; the tone of his voice as soft and weighted with sorrow. But sometimes it flared up in him. The eyes assumed a glittering sharpness, the voice grew into resonance, and out of the folds of his white burnus an arm rose like an eagle's wing.

Heir to an idea and a mission which, had it reached fulfilment, might have brought about a renascence of modern Islam: even in the decay of age and illness and in the breakdown of his life's work, the North African hero had not lost his glow. He had the right not to despair; he knew that the longing after religious and political revival in the true spirit of Islam - which was what the Sanusi movement stood for - could never be wiped out of the hearts of the Muslim peoples.

IT WAS SAYYID AHMAD'S GRANDFATHER, the great Algerian scholar Muhammad ibn Ali as-Sanusi (thus surnamed after the clan of Banu Sanus, to which he belonged), who in the first half of the century conceived the idea of an Islamic fraternity which might pave the way to the establishment of a truly Islamic commonwealth. After years of wandering and studying in many Arab lands, Muhammad ibn Ali founded the first zawiya, or lodge, of the Sanusi Order at Mount Abu Qubays in Mecca and rapidly gained a strong following among the beduins of the Hijaz. He did not remain in Mecса, however, but returned to North Africa, ultimately to settle at Jaghbub, an oasis in the desert between Cyrenaica and Egypt, from where his message spread like lightning all over Libya and far beyond. When he died in 1859, the Sanusi (as all members of the Order came to be known) held sway over a vast state stretching from the shores of the Mediterranean deep into equatorial Africa and into the country of the Tuareg in the Algerian Sahara.

The term 'state' does not precisely describe this unique creation, for the Grand Sanusi never aimed at establishing a personal rule for himself or for his descendants: what he wanted was to prepare an organizational basis for a moral, social and political revival of Islam. In accordance with this aim, he did nothing to upset the traditional tribal structure of the region, nor did he challenge the nominal suzerainty over Libya of the Turkish Sultan whom he continued to recognize as the Caliph of Islam - but devoted all his efforts to educating the beduins in the tenets of Islam, from which they had deviated in the past, and to bringing about among them that consciousness of brotherhood which had been envisaged by the Koran but had been largely obliterated by centuries of tribal feuding. From the many zawiyas which had sprung up all over North Africa, the Sanusi carried their message to the remotest tribes and wrought within a few decades an almost miraculous change among Arabs and Berbers alike. The old intertribal anarchy gradually subsided, and the once unruly warriors of the desert became imbued with a hitherto unknown spirit of co-operation. In the zawiyas their children received education - not only in the teachings of Islam but also in many practical arts and crafts that previously had been disdained by the warlike nomads. They were induced to drill more and better wells in areas which for centuries had lain barren, and under Sanusi guidance prosperous plantations began to dot the desert. Trade was encouraged, and the peace engendered by the Sanusi made travel possible in parts where in past years no caravan could move unmolested. In short, the influence of the Order was a powerful stimulus to civilization and progress, while its strict orthodoxy raised the moral standards of the new community far above anything which that part of the world had ever experienced. Almost to a man, the tribes and their chieftains willingly accepted the spiritual leadership of the Grand Sanusi; and even the Turkish authorities in Libya's coastal towns found that the moral authority of the Order made it vastly easier for them to deal with the once so 'difficult' beduin tribes.

Thus, while the Order concentrated its efforts on a progressive regeneration of the indigenous people, its influence became in time almost indistinguishable from actual governmental power. This power rested on the Order's ability to rouse the simple beduins and the Tuareg of North Africa out of their erstwhile sterile formalism in matters religious, to fill them with a desire to live truly in the spirit of Islam and to give them the feeling that all of them were working for freedom, human dignity and brotherhood. Never since the time of the Prophet had there been anywhere in the Muslim world a large-scale movement as closely approximating the Islamic way of life as that of the Sanusi.

This peaceful era was shattered in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when France began to advance southward from Algeria into equatorial Africa, and to occupy, step by step, regions that previously had been independent under the spiritual guidance of the Order. In defence of their freedom, the founder's son and successor, Muhammad al-Mahdi, was forced to take to the sword and was never able to lay it down. This long struggle was a true Islamic jihad - a war of self-defence, thus defined by the Koran: Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but do not yourselves be aggressors; for, verily, God does not love aggressors... Fight against them until there is no longer oppression and all men are free to worship God. But if they desist, all hostility shall cease...

But the French did not desist; they carried their tricolour on their bayonets deeper and deeper into Muslim lands.

When Muhammad al-Mahdi died in 1902, his nephew Sayyid Ahmad followed him in the leadership of the Order. From the age of nineteen, during his uncle's lifetime and later when he himself became Grand Sanusi, he was engaged in the fight against French encroachment in what is now French Equatorial Africa. When the Italians invaded Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in 1911, he found himself fighting on two fronts; and this new and more immediate pressure forced him to transfer his main attention to the north. Side by side with the Turks and, after the latter abandoned Libya, alone, Sayyid Ahmad and his Sanusi mujāhidīn - as these fighters for freedom called themselves - waged war against the invaders with such success, that in spite of their superior armaments and numbers, the Italians could keep only a precarious foothold in a few coastal towns.

The British, then solidly entrenched in Egypt and obviously none too anxious to see the Italians expand into the interior of North Africa, were not hostile to the Sanusi. Their neutral attitude was of utmost importance to the Order since all the supplies of the mujahidin came from Egypt, where they enjoyed the sympathy of practically the whole population. It is quite probable that this British neutrality would in the long run have enabled the Sanusi to drive the Italians entirely out of Cyrenaica. But in 1915 Turkey entered the Great War on the side of Germany, and the Ottoman Sultan, as Caliph of Islam, called upon the Grand Sanusi to assist the Turks by attacking the British in Egypt. The British, naturally more than ever concerned about safeguarding the rear of their Egyptian possession, urged Sayyid Ahmad to remain neutral. In exchange for his neutrality, they were prepared to accord political recognition to the Sanusi Order in Libya, and even to cede to it some of the Egyptian oases in the Western Desert.

Had Sayyid Ahmad accepted this offer, he would only have followed what common sense categorically demanded. He did not owe any particular loyalty to the Turks, who had signed away Libya to the Italians some years earlier, leaving the Sanusi to fight on alone; the British had not committed any act of hostility against the Sanusi but, on the contrary, had allowed them to receive supplies from Egypt - and Egypt was their sole avenue of supply. Moreover, the Berlin-inspired 'jihad' which the Ottoman Sultan had proclaimed certainly did not fulfil the requirements laid down by the Koran: the Turks were not fighting in self-defence but rather had joined a non-Muslim power in an aggressive war. Thus, religious and political considerations alike pointed to one course alone for the Grand Sanusi: to keep out of a war which was not his. Several of the most influential Sanusi leaders - my friend Sidi Muhammad az-Zuwayy among them - advised Sayyid Ahmad to remain neutral. But his quixotic sense of chivalry toward the Caliph of Islam finally outweighed the dictates of reason and induced him to make the wrong decision: he declared himself for the Turks and attacked the British in the Western Desert.

This conflict of conscience and its eventual outcome were the more tragic as in the case of Sayyid Ahmad there was not merely a question of personal loss or gain but also, possibly, of doing irreparable harm to the great cause to which his whole life, and the lives of two generations before him, had been devoted. Knowing him as I do, there is no doubt in my mind that he was prompted by a most unselfish motive - the desire to safeguard the unity of the Muslim world; but I have as little doubt that, from a political point of view, his decision was the worst he could ever have made. By waging war against the British, he sacrificed, without fully realizing it at the time, the entire future of the Sanusi Order.

From then on he was forced to fight on three fronts: in the north against the Italians, in the southwest against the French, and in the east against the British. In the beginning he met with some success. The British, hard pressed by the German-Turkish advance toward the Suez Canal, evacuated the oases in the Western Desert, which were immediately occupied by Sayyid Ahmad. Flying Sanusi columns mounted on dromedaries, led by Muhammad az-Zuwayy (who in his wisdom had so strongly opposed this venture), penetrated to the vicinity of Cairo. At that moment, however, the fortunes of war suddenly shifted: the swift advance of the German-Turkish army was halted in the Sinai Peninsula and turned into a retreat. Shortly thereafter, the British counterattacked the Sanusi in the Western Desert, re-occupied the frontier oases and wells, and thus cut off the sole supply route of the mujahidin. The interior of Cyrenaica could not alone nourish a population engaged in a life-and-death struggle; and the few German and Austrian submarines that secretly landed arms and ammunition brought no more than token help.

In 1917 Sayyid Ahmad was persuaded by his Turkish advisers to go by submarine to Istanbul and there arrange for more effective support. Before he left, he entrusted the leadership of the Order in Cyrenaica to his cousin, Sayyid Muhammad al-Idris.*2 Being of a more conciliatory disposition than Sayyid Ahmad, Idris almost at once attempted to come to terms with the British and the Italians. The British - who had disliked the conflict with the Sanusi from the very beginning readily agreed to make peace; and they exerted pressure on the Italians to do the same. Shortly afterward, Sayyid Idris was officially recognized by the Italian government as 'Amir of the Sanusi', and was able to maintain a precarious quasi independence in the interior of Cyrenaica until 1922. When it became obvious, however, that the Italians did not really mean to abide by their agreements but were bent on subjecting the entire country to their rule, Sayyid Idris, in protest, left for Egypt at the beginning of 1923, handing over leadership of the Sanusi to a trusted old follower, Umar al-Mukhtar. The anticipated breach of agreements by the Italians followed almost immediately, and the war in Cyrenaica was resumed.

Meanwhile in Turkey, Sayyid Ahmad met with disappointment after disappointment. It had been his intention to return to Cyrenaica as soon as he had achieved his purpose; but the purpose was never achieved. For, once in Istanbul, strange intrigues forced him to delay his return from week to week, from month to month. It would almost appear that the circles around the Sultan did not really desire the Sanusi to succeed. The Turks had always been fearful lest one day the resurgent Arabs try to regain the leadership of the Muslim world; a victory of the Sanusi would of necessity have heralded such an Arab resurgence and made the Grand Sanusi, whose fame was almost legendary even in Turkey, the obvious successor to the Caliphate. That he himself had no such ambitions did not assuage the suspicions of the High Porte; and although he was treated with utmost respect and all honours due to his position, Sayyid Ahmad was politely but effectively detained in Turkey. The Ottoman breakdown in 1918 and the subsequent occupation of Istanbul by the Allies signalled the end of his misplaced hopes and at the same time closed all avenues of return to Cyrenaica.

But the urge to work for the cause of Muslim unity did not allow Sayyid Ahmad to remain inactive. As the Allied troops were landing at Istanbul, he crossed over to Asia Minor to join Kemal Ataturk - then still known as Mustafa Kemal who had just begun to organize the Turkish resistance in the interior of Anatolia.

One should remember that, in the beginning, the heroic struggle of Kemal's Turkey stood in the sign of Islam, and that it was religious enthusiasm alone that gave the Turkish nation in those grim days the strength to fight against the overwhelming power of the Greeks, who were backed by all the resources of the Allies.

Placing his great spiritual and moral authority in the service of the Turkish cause, Sayyid Ahmad travelled tirelessly through the towns and villages of Anatolia, calling upon the people to support the Ghazi, or 'Defender of the Faith', Mustafa Kemal. The Grand Sanusi's efforts and the lustre of his name contributed immeasurably to the success of the Kemalist movement among the simple peasants of Anatolia, to whom nationalist slogans meant nothing, but who for countless generations had deemed it a privilege to lay down their lives for Islam.

But here again the Grand Sanusi had committed an error of judgment - not with regard to the Turkish people, whose religious fervour did lead them to victory against an enemy many times stronger, but with regard to the intentions of their leader: for no sooner had the Ghazi attained to victory than it became obvious that his real aims differed widely from what his people had been led to expect. Instead of basing his social revolution on a revived and reinvigorated Islam, Ataturk forsook the spiritual force of religion (which alone had brought him to victory) and made, quite unnecessarily, a rejection of all Islamic values the basis of his reforms. Unnecessarily even from Ataturk's viewpoint: for he could easily have

=

harnessed the tremendous religious enthusiasm of his people to a positive drive for progress without cutting them adrift from all that had shaped their culture and made them a great race.

In bitter disappointment with Ataturk's anti-Islamic reforms, Sayyid Ahmad withdrew completely from all political activity in Turkey and finally, in 1923, left for Damascus. There, in spite of his opposition to Ataturk's internal policies, he tried to serve the cause of Muslim unity by attempting to persuade the Syrians to reunite with Turkey. The French mandatory government viewed him, naturally, with utmost distrust and when, toward the end of 1924, his friends learned that his arrest was imminent, he escaped by car across the desert to the frontier of Najd and thence proceeded to Mecca, where he was received warmly by King Ibn Saud.

-2-

'AND HOW ARE the mujahidin faring, O Sidi Muhammad?' I ask - for I have been without news from Cyrenaica for nearly a year.

The round, white-bearded face of Sidi Muhammad az-Zuwayy darkens: 'The news is not good, O my son. The fighting has ended some months ago. The mujahidīn have been broken; the last bullet has been spent. Now only God's mercy stands between our unhappy people and the vengeance of their oppressors...'

'And what about Sayyid Idris?'

'Sayyid Idris,' replies Sidi Muhammad with a sigh, 'Sayyid Idris is still in Egypt, powerless, waiting - for what? He is a good man, God bless him, but no warrior. He lives with his books, and the sword does not sit well in his hand...'

'But Umar al-Mukhtar - he surely did not surrender? Did he escape to Egypt?'

Sidi Muhammad stops in his tracks and stares at me in astonishment: 'Umar...? So thou hast not heard even that?'

'Heard what?'

'My son,' he says gently, 'Sidi Umar, may God have mercy on him, has been dead for nearly a year ...'

Umar al-Mukhtar - dead... That lion of Cyrenaica, whose seventy-odd years did not prevent him from fighting, to the last, for his country's freedom: dead... For ten long, grim years he was the soul of his people's resistance against hopeless odds against Italian armies ten times more numerous than his armies equipped with the most modern weapons, armoured cars, aeroplanes and artillery - while Umar and his half-starved mujahidīn had nothing but rifles and a few horses with which to wage a desperate guerrilla warfare in a country that had been turned into one huge prison camp...

I can hardly trust my own voice as I say: 'For the last year and a half, ever since I returned from Cyrenaica, I have known that he and his men were doomed. How I tried to persuade him to retreat into Egypt with the remnants of the mujahidin, so that he might remain alive for his people ... and how calmly he brushed aside my attempts at persuasion, knowing well that death, and nothing but death, awaited him in Cyrenaica: and now,

after a hundred battles, that long-waiting death has at last caught up with him... But, tell me, when did he fall?' Muhammad az-Zuwayy shakes his head slowly; and as we emerge from the narrow bazaar street into the open, dark square of Al-Manakha, he tells me:

'He did not fall in battle. He was wounded and captured alive. And then the Italians killed him... hanged him like a common thief...'

'But how could they!' I exclaim. 'Not even Graziani would dare to do such a terrible thing!"

'But he did, he did,' he replies, with a wry smile. 'It was General Graziani himself who ordered him to be hanged. Sidi Umar and a score of his men were deep in Italian-held territory when they decided to pay their respects to the tomb of Sidi Rafi, the Prophet's Companion, which was in the vicinity. Somehow the Italians learned of his presence and sealed off the valley on both sides with many men. There was no way to escape. Sidi Umar and the mujahidin defended themselves until only he and two others remained alive. At last his horse was shot dead under him and, in falling, pinned him to the ground. But the old lion continued firing his rifle until a bullet shattered one of his hands; and then he continued firing with the other hand until his ammunition ran out. Then they got hold of him and carried him, bound, to Suluq. There he was brought before General Graziani, who asked him: "What wouldst thou say if the Italian government, in its great clemency, would allow thee to live? Art thou prepared to promise that thou wilt spend thy remaining years in peace?" But Sidi Umar replied: "I shall not cease to fight against thee and thy people until either you leave my country or I leave my life. And I swear to thee by Him who knows what is in men's hearts that if my hands were not bound this very moment, I would fight thee with my bare hands, old and broken as I am..." Thereupon General Graziani laughed and gave the order that Sidi Umar be hanged in the market place of Suluq; which they did. And they herded together many thousands of Muslim men and women from the camps in which they were imprisoned and forced them to witness the hanging of their leader..."

-3-

STILL HAND IN HAND, Muhammad az-Zuwayy and I proceed in the direction of the Sanusi zawiya. Darkness lies over the vast square, and the noises of the bazaar have been left behind. The sand crunches under our sandals. Here and there a group of resting load-camels can be discerned, and the line of houses on the distant periphery of the square shows indistinctly against the cloudy night sky. It reminds me of the fringe of a distant forest - like those juniper forests on the tableland of Cyrenaica where I first encountered Sidi Umar al-Mukhtar: and the memory of that fruitless journey wells up within me with all its tragic flavour of darkness and danger and death. I see the sombre face of Sidi Umar bent over a small, flickering fire and hear his husky, solemn voice: 'We have to fight for our faith and our freedom until we drive the invaders away or die ourselves...

We have no other choice...'

IT WAS A STRANGE MISSION that brought me to Cyrenaica in the late January of 1931. Some months earlier - to be precise, in the autumn of 1930-the Grand Sanusi came to Medina. I spent hours in his and Muhammad az-Zuwayy's company, discussing the desperate straits of the mujahidin who were carrying on the struggle in Cyrenaica under the leadership of Umar al-Mukhtar. It was evident that unless they received quick and effective help from outside, they would not be able to last out much longer.

The situation in Cyrenaica was roughly this: all the towns on the coast and several points in the northern part of the Jabal Akhdar - the 'Green Mountains' of central Cyrenaica - were firmly held by the Italians. Between these fortified points they maintained continuous patrols with armoured cars and considerable numbers of infantry, mostly Eritrean askaris, supported by an air squadron which made frequent sorties over the countryside. The beduins (who constituted the core of the Sanusi resistance) were unable to move without being spotted immediately and strafed from the air. It often happened that a reconnaissance plane reported the presence of a tribal encampment by wireless to the nearest post; and while the machine guns of the plane prevented the people from dispersing, a few armoured cars would come up, driving straight through tents, camels and people, indiscriminately killing everyone within range - men, women, children and cattle; and whatever people and animals survived were herded together and driven northward into the huge barbed-wire enclosures which the Italians had established near the coast. At that time, toward the end of 1930, about eighty thousand beduins, together with several hundred thousand head of cattle, were herded together into an area which did not provide sufficient nourishment for a quarter of their number; in result, the death rate among man and beast was appalling. In addition to this, the Italians

were erecting a barbed-wire barrier along the Egyptian border from the coast southward to Jaghbub in order to make it impossible for the guerrillas to obtain supplies from Egypt. The valiant Maghariba tribe under their indomitable chieftain, Al-Ataywish - Umar al-Mukhtar's right-hand man - were still putting up a stiff resistance near the western coast of Cyrenaica, but most of the tribe had already been overwhelmed by the superior numbers and equipment of the Italians. Deep in the south, the Zuwayya tribe, led by ninety-year-old Abu Karayyim, were still fighting desperately despite the loss of their tribal centre, the Jalu oases. Hunger and disease were decimating the beduin population in the interior.

All the fighting forces which Sidi Umar could deploy at any one time amounted to hardly more than a thousand men. This, however, was not entirely due to lack of men. The kind of guerrilla warfare which the mujahidin were waging did not favour large groupments of warriors but depended rather on the speed and mobility of small striking forces which would suddenly appear out of nowhere, attack an Italian column or outpost, capture its arms and disperse without trace into the tangled juniper forests and broken-up wādis of the Cyrenaican plateau. That such small bands, however brave and death-despising, could never win a decisive victory over an enemy who commanded almost unlimited resources of men and armaments was obvious. The question was, therefore, how to increase the strength of the mujahidin so as to enable them not only to inflict sporadic losses on the invaders but to wrest from them the positions in which they were entrenched and hold those positions in the face of renewed enemy attacks.

Such an increase of Sanusi strength depended on several factors: a steady influx of badly needed food supplies from Egypt; weapons with which to meet the onslaughts of aeroplanes and armoured cars - especially antitank rifles and heavy machine guns; trained technical personnel to employ such weapons and to instruct the mujahidin in their use; and, lastly, the establishment of reliable wireless communications between the various groups of mujahidīn in Cyrenaica and secret supply depots within Egyptian territory.

For about a week, evening after evening, the Grand Sanusi, Sidi Muhammad and I held council on what might be done. Sidi Muhammad expressed the opinion that an occasional reinforcement of the mujahidīn in Cyrenaica would not solve the problem. It was his belief that the oasis of Kufra, far to the south in the Libyan Desert, which had been the headquarters of the Sanusi Order under Sayyid Ahmad, should again be made the focal point of all future warfare: for Kufra was still beyond the reach of Italian troops. It lay, moreover, on the direct (if very long and difficult) caravan route to the Egyptian oases of Bahriyya and Farafra, and therefore could be more effectively provisioned than any other point in the country. It could also be made a rallying centre for the many thousands of Cyrenaican refugees who were living in camps in Egypt, and thus form a steady reservoir of manpower for Sidi Umar's guerrilla forces in the north. Properly fortified and equipped with modern weapons, Kufra could hold off machine-gun attacks by low-flying aircraft, while bombing from great heights would not really endanger such a widely dispersed group of settlements.

The Grand Sanusi suggested that if such a reorganization of the struggle were possible, he himself would return to Kufra to direct future operations from there. I, for my part, insisted that for the success of such a plan it was imperative for Sayyid Ahmad to re-establish good relations with the British, whom he had so bitterly, and so unnecessarily, antagonized by his attack on them in 1915. Such an improvement of relations might not be impossible, for Britain was not very happy about Italy's expansionist mood, especially now that Mussolini was trumpeting to all the world his intention of 're-establishing the Roman Empire' on both shores of the Mediterranean, and was casting covetous glances on Egypt as well.

My deep interest in the fate of the Sanusi was due not only to my admiration of the extreme heroism in a righteous cause; what concerned me even more was the possible repercussion of a Sanusi victory on the Arab world as a whole. Like so many other Muslims, I had for years pinned my hopes on Ibn Saud as the potential leader of an Islamic revival; and now that these hopes had proved futile, I could see in the entire Muslim world only one movement that genuinely strove for the fulfilment of the ideal of an Islamic society: the Sanusi movement, now fighting a last-ditch battle for survival.

And it was because Sayyid Ahmad knew how intensely my own emotions were involved with the Sanusi cause that he now turned to me and, looking straight into my eyes, asked:

'Wouldst thou, O Muhammad, go to Cyrenaica on our behalf and find out what could be done for the mujahidin? Perhaps thou wilt be able to see things with clearer eyes than my people can...'

I looked back at him and nodded, without a word. Although I was aware of his confidence in me and, therefore, not completely surprised by his suggestion, it nevertheless took my breath away. The prospect of an adventure of such magnitude exhilarated me beyond words; but what thrilled me even more was the thought of being able to contribute something to the cause for which so many other men had given their lives.

Sayyid Ahmad reached toward a shelf above his head and drew out a copy of the Koran wrapped in a silken cloth. Placing it on his knees, he took my right hand between both of his and laid it on the Book:

'Swear, O Muhammad, by Him who knows what is in the hearts of men, that thou wilt always keep faith with the mujahidīn...'

I took the oath; and never in my life have I been surer of what I pledged than at that moment.

THE MISSION WHICH SAYYID AHMAD entrusted to me required extreme secrecy. Since my relations with the Grand Sanusi were well known and could not have escaped the notice of the foreign missions in Jidda, it was not advisable to travel openly to Egypt and run the risk of being trailed there. My recent uncovering of the intrigues behind Faysal ad-Dawish's rebellion had certainly not enhanced my standing with the British, and it was only too probable that they would watch me closely from the moment I set foot on Egyptian soil. We decided, therefore, that even my going to Egypt should be kept in the dark. I would cross the Red Sea in one of those Arabian sailing ships and land surreptitiously, without passport or visa, at some secluded point on the coast of Upper Egypt. In Egypt I would be able to move about freely in the guise of a Hijazi townsman, for the many Meccans and Medinese who went there in pursuit of trade or in search of prospective pilgrims were a familiar sight in Egyptian towns and villages - and as I spoke the Hijazi dialect with perfect ease, I could pass anywhere for a native of one of the two Holy Cities.

Several weeks of preparation were required to complete the arrangements which involved secret exchanges of letters with Sidi Umar in Cyrenaica as well as with Sanusi contacts in Egypt; and so it was only in the first week of January 1931, that Zayd and I made our way out of the Hijazi port-town of Yanbu to a little-frequented part of the shore. It was a moonless night, and walking over the uneven path in sandals was most unpleasant. Once, when I stumbled, the butt of the Luger pistol tucked under my Hijazi kaftān struck my ribs; and this brought vividly to my mind the dangerous nature of the adventure on which I was embarking.

Here I was, walking toward a rendezvous with an obscure Arabian skipper who was to take me in his dhow across the sea and land me secretly somewhere on the Egyptian coast. I had no papers with me which could betray my identity and so, if I were caught in Egypt, it would not be an easy matter to prove who I was. But even the risk of spending a few weeks in an Egyptian jail was nothing as compared with the dangers that lay farther ahead. I would have to make my way across the entire width of the Western Desert, avoiding detection by Italian spotter planes and possibly also armoured car patrols, into the heart of a country in which only weapons spoke. Why was I doing this? - I asked myself.

Although danger was not unknown to me, I had never sought it out for the sake of a possible thrill. Whenever I had gone into it, it was always in response to urges, conscious or unconscious, connected in a very personal way with my own life. Then what about the present undertaking? Did I really believe that my intervention could turn the tide in favour of the mujahidīn? I wanted to believe it: but in my innermost I knew that I was setting out on a quixotic errand. Then why, in God's name, was I risking my life as I had never risked it before, and with so little promise ahead? But the answer was there before the question was even consciously formulated.

were erecting a barbed-wire barrier along the Egyptian border from the coast southward to Jaghbub in order to make it impossible for the guerrillas to obtain supplies from Egypt. The valiant Maghariba tribe under their indomitable chieftain, Al-Ataywish - Umar al-Mukhtar's right-hand man - were still putting up a stiff resistance near the western coast of Cyrenaica, but most of the tribe had already been overwhelmed by the superior numbers and equipment of the Italians. Deep in the south, the Zuwayya tribe, led by ninety-year-old Abu Karayyim, were still fighting desperately despite the loss of their tribal centre, the Jalu oases. Hunger and disease were decimating the beduin population in the interior.

All the fighting forces which Sidi Umar could deploy at any one time amounted to hardly more than a thousand men. This, however, was not entirely due to lack of men. The kind of guerrilla warfare which the mujahidin were waging did not favour large groupments of warriors but depended rather on the speed and mobility of small striking forces which would suddenly appear out of nowhere, attack an Italian column or outpost, capture its arms and disperse without trace into the tangled juniper forests and broken-up wādis of the Cyrenaican plateau. That such small bands, however brave and death-despising, could never win a decisive victory over an enemy who commanded almost unlimited resources of men and armaments was obvious. The question was, therefore, how to increase the strength of the mujahidīn so as to enable them not only to inflict sporadic losses on the invaders but to wrest from them the positions in which they were entrenched and hold those positions in the face of renewed enemy attacks.

Such an increase of Sanusi strength depended on several factors: a steady influx of badly needed food supplies from Egypt; weapons with which to meet the onslaughts of aeroplanes and armoured cars - especially antitank rifles and heavy machine guns; trained technical personnel to employ such weapons and to instruct the mujahidin in their use; and, lastly, the establishment of reliable wireless communications between the various groups of mujahidīn in Cyrenaica and secret supply depots within Egyptian territory.

For about a week, evening after evening, the Grand Sanusi, Sidi Muhammad and I held council on what might be done. Sidi Muhammad expressed the opinion that an occasional reinforcement of the mujahidīn in Cyrenaica would not solve the problem. It was his belief that the oasis of Kufra, far to the south in the Libyan Desert, which had been the headquarters of the Sanusi Order under Sayyid Ahmad, should again be made the focal point of all future warfare: for Kufra was still beyond the reach of Italian troops. It lay, moreover, on the direct (if very long and difficult) caravan route to the Egyptian oases of Bahriyya and Farafra, and therefore could be more effectively provisioned than any other point in the country. It could also be made a rallying centre for the many thousands of Cyrenaican refugees who were living in camps in Egypt, and thus form a steady reservoir of manpower for Sidi Umar's guerrilla forces in the north. Properly fortified and equipped with modern weapons, Kufra could hold off machine-gun attacks by low-flying aircraft, while bombing from great heights would not really endanger such a widely dispersed group of settlements.

The Grand Sanusi suggested that if such a reorganization of the struggle were possible, he himself would return to Kufra to direct future operations from there. I, for my part, insisted that for the success of such a plan it was imperative for Sayyid Ahmad to re-establish good relations with the British, whom he had so bitterly, and so unnecessarily, antagonized by his attack on them in 1915. Such an improvement of relations might not be impossible, for Britain was not very happy about Italy's expansionist mood, especially now that Mussolini was trumpeting to all the world his intention of 're-establishing the Roman Empire' on both shores of the Mediterranean, and was casting covetous glances on Egypt as well.

My deep interest in the fate of the Sanusi was due not only to my admiration of the extreme heroism in a righteous cause; what concerned me even more was the possible repercussion of a Sanusi victory on the Arab world as a whole. Like so many other Muslims, I had for years pinned my hopes on Ibn Saud as the potential leader of an Islamic revival; and now that these hopes had proved futile, I could see in the entire Muslim world only one movement that genuinely strove for the fulfilment of the ideal of an Islamic society: the Sanusi movement, now fighting a last-ditch battle for survival.

And it was because Sayyid Ahmad knew how intensely my own emotions were involved with the Sanusi cause that he now turned to me and, looking straight into my eyes, asked:

'Wouldst thou, O Muhammad, go to Cyrenaica on our behalf and find out what could be done for the mujahidīn? Perhaps thou wilt be able to see things with clearer eyes than my people can...'

I looked back at him and nodded, without a word. Although I was aware of his confidence in me and, therefore, not completely surprised by his suggestion, it nevertheless took my breath away. The prospect of an adventure of such magnitude exhilarated me beyond words; but what thrilled me even more was the thought of being able to contribute something to the cause for which so many other men had given their lives.

Sayyid Ahmad reached toward a shelf above his head and drew out a copy of the Koran wrapped in a silken cloth. Placing it on his knees, he took

my right hand between both of his and laid it on the Book:

'Swear, O Muhammad, by Him who knows what is in the hearts of men, that thou wilt always keep faith with the mujahidin...'

I took the oath; and never in my life have I been surer of what I pledged than at that moment.

THE MISSION WHICH SAYYID AHMAD entrusted to me required extreme secrecy. Since my relations with the Grand Sanusi were well known and could not have escaped the notice of the foreign missions in Jidda, it was not advisable to travel openly to Egypt and run the risk of being trailed there. My recent uncovering of the intrigues behind Faysal ad-Dawish's rebellion had certainly not enhanced my standing with the British, and it was only too probable that they would watch me closely from the moment I set foot on Egyptian soil. We decided, therefore, that even my going to Egypt should be kept in the dark. I would cross the Red Sea in one of those Arabian sailing ships and land surreptitiously, without passport or visa, at some secluded point on the coast of Upper Egypt. In Egypt I would be able to move about freely in the guise of a Hijazi townsman, for the many Meccans and Medinese who went there in pursuit of trade or in search of prospective pilgrims were a familiar sight in Egyptian towns and villages - and as I spoke the Hijazi dialect with perfect ease, I could pass anywhere for a native of one of the two Holy Cities.

Several weeks of preparation were required to complete the arrangements which involved secret exchanges of letters with Sidi Umar in Cyrenaica as well as with Sanusi contacts in Egypt; and so it was only in the first week of January 1931, that Zayd and I made our way out of the Hijazi port-town of Yanbu to a little-frequented part of the shore. It was a moonless night, and walking over the uneven path in sandals was most unpleasant. Once, when I stumbled, the butt of the Luger pistol tucked under my Hijazi kaftān struck my ribs; and this brought vividly to my mind the dangerous nature of the adventure on which I was embarking.

Here I was, walking toward a rendezvous with an obscure Arabian skipper who was to take me in his dhow across the sea and land me secretly somewhere on the Egyptian coast. I had no papers with me which could betray my identity and so, if I were caught in Egypt, it would not be an easy matter to prove who I was. But even the risk of spending a few weeks in an Egyptian jail was nothing as compared with the dangers that lay farther ahead. I would have to make my way across the entire width of the Western Desert, avoiding detection by Italian spotter planes and possibly also armoured car patrols, into the heart of a country in which only weapons spoke. Why was I doing this? - I asked myself.

Although danger was not unknown to me, I had never sought it out for the sake of a possible thrill. Whenever I had gone into it, it was always in response to urges, conscious or unconscious, connected in a very personal way with my own life. Then what about the present undertaking? Did I really believe that my intervention could turn the tide in favour of the mujahidīn? I wanted to believe it: but in my innermost I knew that I was setting out on a quixotic errand. Then why, in God's name, was I risking my life as I had never risked it before, and with so little promise ahead?

But the answer was there before the question was even consciously formulated.

When I had come to know Islam and accepted it as my way of life, I had thought that all my questioning and searching had come to an end. Only gradually, very gradually, did I become aware that this was not the end: for to accept a way of life as binding for oneself was, to me at least, inextricably bound up with a desire to pursue it among like-minded people and not only to pursue it in a personal sense but also to work for its social fruition within the community of my choice. To me, Islam was a way and not an end - and the desperate guerrillas of Umar al-Mukhtar were fighting with their lifeblood for the freedom to tread that way, just as the Companions of the Prophet had done thirteen centuries ago. To be of help to them in their hard and bitter struggle, however uncertain the outcome, was as personally necessary to me as to pray

And there was the shore. In the soft swell of the wavelets that lapped against the pebbles rocked the rowboat that was to take us to the ship anchored in the dark distance beyond. As the solitary oarsman rose from the waiting boat, I turned to Zayd:

'Zayd, my brother, dost thou know that we are going into a venture which may prove more threatening to thee and me than all of Ad-Dawish's Ikhwān put together? Dost thou not look back with yearning to the peace of Medina and thy friends?'

'Thy way is my way, O my uncle,' he replied. 'And hast thou not told me thyself that water which stands motionless becomes stale and foul? Let us go - and may the water run until it becomes clear...'

The ship was one of those large, clumsy dhows which ply all around the coasts of Arabia: built entirely of wood, smelling of dried fish and seaweed, with a high poop, two Latin-rigged masts and a large, low-ceilinged cabin between them. The rais, or skipper, was a wizened old Arab from Muscat. The small, beady eyes that peered at me from beneath the folds of a voluminous, multicoloured turban bore a wary expression that spoke of long years spent in illicit hazards and adventures; and the curved, silver-encrusted dagger in his sash did not seem to be mere ornament.

'Marhaba, ya marhaba, O my friends!' he cried as we clambered aboard. "This is an hour of good augury!"

How many times, I mused, had he given the same hearty welcome to poor hajjis whom he surreptitiously took on board in Egypt and, without any further thought to their welfare, landed on the coasts of the Hijaz, so that they might avoid paying the heavy pilgrimage tax which the Saudi government had imposed on those who wish to make the pilgrimage to the House of God? And how many times had he used exactly these words to the slave traders who, in sharp violation of the Law of Islam, had captured some wretched Ethiopians to sell in the slave markets of Yemen? But then, I consoled myself, the experience which our rais must have gained - however questionable its background - could be only to our advantage: for he knew his way around the Red Sea as few other sailors did, and could be relied upon to set us down on a safe shore.

AND INDEED, FOUR NIGHTS after we had embarked on the dhow, we were landed, again in the small rowboat, north of the port of Qusayr on the coast of Upper Egypt. To our astonishment, the rais refused to accept payment, 'for,' he said with a grin, 'I have been paid by my masters. May God be with you.'

As I had expected, it was not difficult to make ourselves in-conspicuous in Qusayr, for the town was accustomed to seeing men in Hijazi garb. On the morning after our arrival we booked seats in a ramshackle bus bound for As-Siyut on the Nile; and, sandwiched between an alarmingly fat woman who carried a basket full of chickens in her vast lap and an old fellāh who, upon observing our attire, immediately started reminiscing about the hajj he had performed ten years earlier, Zayd and I started on the first stage of our African journey.

I had always thought that any man engaged in a surreptitious and risky undertaking was bound to feel as though he were the object of suspicion on the part of everyone he encountered, and that his disguise could easily be seen through. But, strangely enough, I did not have that feeling now. During my past years in Arabia I had entered the life of its people so fully that somehow it did not occur to me to regard myself as anything but one of them; and although I had never shared the peculiar business interests of the Meccans and Medinese, I now felt so entirely at home in my role of pilgrim tout that I promptly became involved in an almost 'professional' discussion with several other passengers on the virtues of performing the hajj. Zayd fell into the spirit of the game with great zest, and so the first hours of our journey were spent in lively conversation.

After changing to a train at As-Siyut, we finally arrived at the small town of Bani Suef and went straight to the house of our Sanusi contact, Ismail adh-Dhibi - a short, stout man of merry countenance, speaking the resonant Arabic of Upper Egypt. Being only a clothier of moderate means, he was not one of the notables of the town; but his allegiance to the Sanusi Order had been proved on many occasions, and his personal devotion to Sayyid Ahmad made him doubly trustworthy. Although the hour was late, he aroused a servant to prepare a meal for us, and while we waited for it, he recounted the arrangements he had made.

First of all, immediately on receipt of Sayyid Ahmad's message, he had contacted a well-known member of the Egyptian royal family who for many years had been an ardent and active supporter of the Sanusi cause. The Prince was fully apprised of the purpose of my mission; he had readily consented to place the necessary funds at my disposal and also to provide mounts and two reliable guides for the desert journey to the Cyrenaican border. At this moment, our host informed us, they were awaiting us in one of the palm orchards outside Bani Suef.

Zayd and I now discarded our Hijazi dress, which would arouse too much curiosity on the Western Desert routes. In its place we were provided with cotton trousers and tunics of North African cut as well as with woollen burnuses such as are worn in western Egypt and Libya. From the basement of his house Ismail produced two short cavalry carbines of Italian pattern - 'for it will be easier to replenish your ammunition for this kind of rifle among the mujahidin.'

On the following night, guided by our host, we made our way out of the town. Our two guides proved to be beduins from the Egyptian tribe of Awlad Ali, among whom the Sanusi had many supporters; one of them, Abdullah, was a vivacious young man who had participated a year earlier in the fighting in Cyrenaica and could thus give us a good deal of information about what we might expect there. The other, whose name I have forgotten, was a gaunt, morose fellow who spoke only rarely but showed himself no less trustworthy than the more personable Abdullah. The four camels they had with them strong, speedy dromedaries of Bisharin breed - had obviously been chosen for their quality; they carried saddles not much different from those to which I had been accustomed in Arabia. As we were to move rapidly, without long halts, cooked food would be out of the question most of the way; consequently, our provisions were simple: a large bagful of dates and a smaller bag filled to bursting with hard, sweetened biscuits made of coarse wheat flour and dates; and three of the camels had waterskins attached to their saddles.

Shortly before midnight, Ismail embraced us and invoked God's blessing on our enterprise; I could see that he was deeply moved. With Abdullah leading, we left the palm orchard behind us and soon, under the light of a bright moon, ambled at a brisk pace over the gravelly desert plain toward the northwest.

Owing to the necessity of avoiding any encounter with the Egyptian Frontier Administration - whose cars and camel-mounted constabulary might, for all we knew, patrol this part of the Western Desert - we took care to keep as far as possible from the main caravan tracks; but as almost all traffic between Bahriyya and the Nile valley went via Fayyum, far to the north, the risk was not too great.

During the first night out we covered about thirty miles and stopped for the day in a clump of tamarisk bushes; on the second and following nights we did much better, so that before dawn of the fourth day we arrived at the rim of the deep depression within which lay the oasis of Bahriyya.

While we encamped under cover of some boulders outside the oasis - which consisted of several separate settlements and plantations, the chief of them being the village of Bawiti - Abdullah made his way on foot down the steep, rocky incline into the palm-covered depression to seek out our

contact man at Bawiti. He would not be able to return before nightfall, and so we lay down to sleep in the shadow of the rocks: a pleasant rest after the strain and cold of our night-long ride. Nevertheless, I did not sleep much, for too many ideas occupied my mind.

Ruminating on our plans, it seemed to me that it would not be too difficult to maintain a permanent line of communications between Bani Suef and Bahriyya; even large caravans would be able, I was certain, to proceed undetected between these two points if sufficient care was taken. Despite the fact that a Frontier Administration post was situated at Bawiti (we could see its white buildings from our hiding place above the oasis), it might be possible to establish a secret wireless transmitter in one of the more isolated villages in the south of Bahriyya. On this point I was reassured some hours later by Abdullah and the old Berber our contact man who accompanied him. It appeared that, on the whole, the oasis was only loosely supervised by the government; and, what was even more important, the population was overwhelmingly pro-Sanusi.

Five more nights of strenuous riding: first over gravel and broken ground and then through flat sand dunes; past the uninhabited Sitra oasis and its lifeless, dark-blue salt lake fringed by reeds and thickets of wild palms; over the Arj depression with its fantastic, craggy chalk rocks, to which the moonlight imparted a ghostly, other-worldly appearance; and, toward the end of the fifth night, our first view of the oasis of Siwa...

For years it had been one of my most cherished desires to visit this remote oasis which once had been the seat of an Aramon temple and an oracle famous throughout the ancient world; but somehow my desire had never been fulfilled. And now it lay before me in the rising dawn: a vast expanse of palm groves surrounding a solitary hill on which the houses of the town, rooted in the rock like cave dwellings, rose tier upon tier toward a tall, conical minaret that topped the flat summit. It was a bizarre conglomeration of crumbling masonry such as one might behold in a dream... I was seized with an urge to enter its mysterious confines and to wander through lanes that had witnessed the times of the Pharaohs, and to see the ruins of the temple in which Croesus, King of Lydia, heard the oracle that spelt his doom, and the Macedonian Alexander was promised conquest of the world.

But once again my longing was to remain unfulfilled. Although so near, the town of Siwa must needs remain closed to me. To visit a place so remote from contacts with the outer world and so unaccustomed to strangers that every new face was bound to be noticed at once would indeed have been foolhardy: for, situated almost on the Libyan border, Siwa was most closely watched by the Frontier Administration and also, beyond any doubt, full of informers in Italian pay. And so, regretfully consoling myself with the thought that it was not my portion to see it on this trip, I dismissed Siwa from my mind.

We skirted the town in a wide circle to the south and finally made camp in a grove of wild palms. Without allowing himself to rest - for we had no intention of stopping so close to the border any longer than was absolutely necessary - Abdullah immediately rode off to the neighbouring hamlet to find the man whom Sayyid Ahmad had entrusted with seeing us across the frontier. After a few hours, he returned with the two new guides and the four fresh camels that were to take us onward. The guides, Bara'sa beduins from the Jabal Akhdar, were Umar al-Mukhtar's men, sent especially by him to lead us through the gap between the Italian-occupied oases of Jaghbub and Jalu onto the Cyrenaican plateau, where I was to meet Umar.

Abdullah and his friend took leave of us to return to their village in Egypt; and under the guidance of the two mujahidīn, Khalil and Abd ar-Rahman, we started on our week's trek across the almost waterless desert steppe that gently ascends toward the Jabal Akhdar. It was the hardest desert journey I had ever experienced. Although there was not much danger of discovery by Italian patrols if one took care to hide in daytime and travel only by night, the necessity of avoiding the widely spaced wells made the long march a nightmare. Only once were we able to water our camels and refill our waterskins from a desolate well in Wadi al-Mra; and this almost proved our undoing.

We had arrived at the well later than we had expected - in fact, dawn was breaking when we started to draw water for the animals, and the sun stood above the horizon when we finished.

We had still, as Khalil told us, two good hours to go before we would reach the rocky depression that was to be our hiding place for the day. But hardly had we resumed our march when the ominous drone of an aeroplane broke the desert silence: and a few minutes later a small monoplane appeared over our heads, banked steeply, and began to circle in a steadily lowering spiral. There was no place to take cover, and so we jumped down from the camels and scattered. At that moment the pilot opened fire with his machine gun.

'Down, down on the ground!' I shouted. 'Don't move - play dead!'

But Khalil, who must have experienced many such encounters in his long years with the mujāhidīn, did not 'play dead'. He lay down on his back, his head against a boulder, and, resting his rifle on one raised knee, started firing at the oncoming plane - not at random, but taking careful aim before every shot, as if at target practice. It was an extremely daring thing to do, for the plane went straight for him in a flat dive, spraying the sand with bullets. But one of Khalil's shots must have hit the plane, for suddenly it swerved, turned its nose upward and rapidly gained altitude. The pilot had probably decided that it would not be worthwhile to shoot up four men at the risk of his own safety. He circled once or twice above us, and then disappeared toward the east, in the direction of Jaghbub.

"Those Italian sons of dogs are cowards, Khalil announced calmly as we reassembled. "They like to kill - but they do not like to expose their own skins too much.'

None of us had been injured, but Abd ar-Rahman's camel was dead. We transferred his saddlebags to Zayd's animal, and henceforth he rode pillion behind Zayd.

Three nights later we reached the juniper forests of the Jabal Akhdar and gratefully exchanged our exhausted camels for the horses that had been waiting for us at a secluded spot in the custody of a group of mujahidin. From now on the desert lay behind us; we rode over a hilly, rocky plateau criss-crossed by innumerable dry stream beds and dotted with juniper trees which in places formed almost impenetrable thickets. This wild and pathless land in the heart of Italian-occupied territory was the hunting ground of the mujahidīn.

FOUR MORE NIGHTS BROUGHT us to Wadi at-Taaban - the 'Valley of the Tired One', as it was most appropriately named - where we were to meet Umar al-Mukhtar. Safely ensconced in a thickly wooded gulley, with our horses hobbled in the lee of a rock, we awaited the coming of the Lion of the Jabal Akhdar. The night was cold and starless and filled with a rustling silence.

It would still be some hours until Sidi Umar arrived; and as the night was exceedingly dark, our two Bara'sa beduins saw no reason why we should not replenish our supply of water from the wells of Bu Sfayya, a few miles to the east. True, there was a fortified Italian post less than half a mile from Bu Sfayya -

'- but,' said Khalil, 'those curs will not dare to leave their walls in so dark a night.'

Thus Khalil, accompanied by Zayd, set out on horseback with two empty waterskins, having wrapped rags around the hooves of their horses to prevent any sound on the rocky ground. They disappeared into the darkness while Abd ar-Rahman and I huddled together for warmth against the low rocks. It would have been too risky to light a fire.

After an hour or so, some twigs crackled among the junipers; a sandal struck softly against a stone. My companion, instantly alert, stood straight for a while, the rifle in his hands, and peered into the darkness. A subdued call, not unlike the wail of a jackal, came from the thicket, and Abd ar-Rahman, cupping his hand before his mouth, answered with a similar sound. The figures of two men appeared before us. They were on foot and

carried rifles. When they came closer, one of them said, "The way of God,' and Abd ar-Rahman replied, 'There is no might and no power beside Him' -which seemed to be a kind of password.

Of the two new arrivals - both of them clothed in ragged jards, the wraps of Libyan beduins one apparently knew Abd ar-Rahman, for he gripped both his hands and greeted him affectionately. I was introduced, and the two mujahidīn clasped hands with me in turn. One of them said: 'May God be with thee. Sidi Umar is coming.' We stood listening. After perhaps ten minutes, the twigs again crackled in the juniper bushes and three more men emerged from the shadows, each from a different direction, converging upon us with rifles ready. When they had convinced themselves that we were indeed those whom they expected to meet, they immediately fanned out into the thicket, again in different directions, obviously intending to keep good watch over their leader's safety.

And then he came, riding a small horse whose hooves were muffled in cloth. Two men walked on each side and several more followed him.

When he reached the rocks by which we were waiting, one of his men helped him to dismount, and I saw that he moved with difficulty (later I learned that he had been wounded in a skirmish some ten days earlier). In the light of the rising moon I could now see him clearly; a man of middle size, strong of bone; a short, snow-white beard framed his sombre, deeply lined face; the eyes lay deep in their sockets; from the creases around them one could guess that in different circumstances they might have readily laughed, but now there was nothing in them but darkness and suffering and courage.

I stepped forward to meet him and felt the strong pressure of his gnarled hand.

'Welcome, my son' - and as he spoke his eyes swept over me, keenly, appraisingly: the eyes of a man to whom danger was daily bread.

One of his men spread a blanket on the ground and Sidi Umar sat down heavily. Abd ar-Rahman bent over to kiss his hand and then, after asking the leader's permission, set himself to lighting a small fire under the protective overhang of a rock. In the faint glow of the fire, Sidi Umar read the letter from Sayyid Ahmad which I had brought with me. He read it carefully, folded it, held it for a moment over his head - a gesture of respect and devotion one almost never sees in Arabia but often in North Africa - and then turned toward me with a smile:

'Sayyid Ahmad, may God lengthen his life, has good words to say about thee. Thou art ready to help us. But I do not know where help could come from, save from God, the Mighty, the Bountiful. We are indeed reaching the end of our allotted time.'

'But this plan which Sayyid Ahmad has evolved', I interposed, 'could it not be a new beginning? If steady supplies could be arranged and Kufra made the base of future operations, could not the Italians be held?'

I had never seen a smile so bitter, so hopeless as that with which Sidi Umar answered me: 'Kufra...? Kufra is lost. It was occupied by the Italians about a fortnight ago...'

This news stunned me. Throughout all the past months, Sayyid Ahmad and 1 had been building our plans on the supposition that Kufra could be made a rallying point for intensified resistance. With Kufra gone, nothing remained to the Sanusi but the tortured plateau of the Jabal Akhdar -

nothing but the steadily tightening vice of Italian occupation, loss of point after point, a slow, relentless strangulation...

'How did Kufra fall?'

With a weary gesture, Sidi Umar motioned to one of his men to come closer: 'Let this man tell thee the story... He is one of the few who have escaped from Kufra. He came to me only yesterday.'

The man from Kufra sat down on his haunches before me and pulled his ragged burnus around him. He spoke slowly, without any tremor of emotion in his voice; but his gaunt face seemed to mirror all the horrors he had witnessed.

'They came upon us in three columns, from three sides, with many armoured cars and heavy cannon. Their aeroplanes came down low and bombed houses and mosques and palm groves. We had only a few hundred men able to carry arms; the rest were women and children and old men. We defended house after house, but they were too strong for us, and in the end only the village of Al-Hawari was left to us. Our rifles were useless against their armoured cars; and they overwhelmed us. Only a few of us escaped. I hid myself in the palm orchards waiting for a chance to make my way through the Italian lines; and all through the night I could hear the screams of the women as they were being raped by the Italian soldiers and Eritrean askaris. On the following day an old woman came to my hiding place and brought me water and bread. She told me that the Italian general had assembled all the surviving people before the tomb of Sayyid Muhammad al-Mahdi; and before their eyes he tore a copy of the Koran into pieces, threw it to the ground and set his boot upon it, shouting, "Let your beduin prophet help you now, if he can!" And then he ordered the palm trees of the oasis to be cut down and the wells destroyed and all the books of Sayyid Ahmad's library burned. And on the next day he commanded that some of our elders and ulamā be taken up in an aeroplane - and they were hurled out of the plane high above the ground to be smashed to death... And all through the second night I heard from my hiding place the cries of our women and the laughter of the soldiers, and their rifle shots... At last I crept out into the desert in the dark of night and found a stray camel and rode away...'

When the man from Kufra had concluded his terrible tale, Sidi Umar gently drew me to himself and repeated: 'So thou canst see, my son, we have indeed come close to the end of our allotted time.' And, as if in reply to the unspoken question in my eyes, he added: 'We fight because we have to fight for our faith and our freedom until we drive the invaders out or die ourselves. We have no other choice. To God we belong and unto Him do we return. We have sent away our women and children to Egypt, so that we should not have to worry about their safety when God wills us to die.'

A muffled drone became audible somewhere in the dark sky. With almost a reflex movement, one of Sidi Umar's men threw sand on the fire. The plane, no more than a vague shape against the moonlit clouds, passed fairly low over us on its eastward flight, and the sound of its engine slowly died away.

'But, Sidi Umar,' I said, 'would it not be better for thee and thy mujahidin to withdraw into Egypt while there is still a way open? For in Egypt it would perhaps be possible to bring together the many refugees from Cyrenaica and to organize a more effective force. The struggle here ought to be halted for a time, so that the people might regain some of their strength... I know that the British in Egypt are not too happy at the thought of having a strong Italian position on their flank; God knows, they might perhaps close their eyes to your preparations if you could convince them that you do not regard them as enemies...'

'No, my son, it is too late for that. What thou speakest of was possible fifteen, sixteen years ago, before Sayyid Ahmad, may God lengthen his life, took it upon himself to attack the British in order to help the Turks - who did not help us... Now it is too late. The British will not move a finger to make our lot easier; and the Italians are determined to fight us to the finish and to crush all possibility of future resistance. Should I and my followers go now to Egypt, we would never be able to return. And how could we abandon our people and leave them leader-less, to be devoured by the enemies of God?'

'What about Sayyid Idris? Does he share thy views, Sidi Umar?'

'Sayyid Idris is a good man, a good son of a great father. But God has not given him the heart to sustain such a struggle...' There was a deep earnest, but no despondency, in Sidi Umar's voice, as he thus discussed with me the inevitable outcome of his long struggle for freedom: he knew that nothing awaited him but death. Death held no terror for him; he did not seek it; but neither did he try to evade it. And, I am sure, even if he had known what kind of death lay before him, he would not have tried to avoid it. He seemed to be conscious in every fibre of his body and mind that each man carries his destiny within himself, wherever he goes and whatever he does.

A soft commotion became audible from within the brush, so soft that one might have remained unaware of it under ordinary circumstances; but these were no ordinary circumstances. With my ears tensed in anticipation of all manner of danger from unexpected quarters, I could clearly distinguish the faint sounds of stealthy movement that had stopped abruptly, to be resumed a few moments later. The bushes parted and out stepped Zayd and Khalil, accompanied by two of the sentries; the horses they led were loaded with bulging waterskins. At the sight of Sidi Umar, Khalil rushed forward to kiss the leader's hand, whereupon I introduced Zayd. The sharp eyes of Sidi Umar rested with obvious approval on Zayd's austere face and spare figure; placing his hand on Zayd's shoulder, he said:

'Welcome to thee, O brother from the land of my fathers. Of which Arabs art thou?' - and when Zayd told him that he belonged to the tribe of Shammar, Umar nodded smilingly: 'Oh, then thou art of the tribe of Hatim at-Tayyi, the most generous of men..." 2

Some dates wrapped in a piece of cloth were placed before us by one of Sidi Umar's men; and he invited us to the simple fare. When we had eaten, the old warrior stood up:

'It is time to move on, brothers. We are too close to the Italian post at Bu Sfayya to allow daybreak to find us here.'

We broke our improvised camp and rode on behind Sidi Umar, while the rest of his men followed on foot. As soon as we emerged from the gulley, I saw that Sidi Umar's company was much larger than I had thought: one by one, dark shadows darted from behind rocks and trees and joined our column, while several more men were strung out in loose pickets far to its right and left. No casual observer would have guessed that there were about thirty men around us, for each of them moved with the silence of a Red Indian scout.

Picture 

AUTHOR, 1932

Before dawn we reached the main encampment of Umar al-Mukhtar's own dawr (guerrilla band), which at that time consisted of a little over two hundred men. It was sheltered in a deep, narrow gorge, and several small fires were burning under overhanging rocks. Some men were sleeping on the ground; others, blurred shadows in the greyness of early dawn, were busy with various camp tasks - cleaning their arms, fetching water, cooking meals, or tending to the few horses that were tethered to trees here and there. Almost all seemed to be clothed in rags, and neither then nor later did I see a single whole jard or burnus in the entire group. Many of the men wore bandages which spoke of recent encounters with the enemy.

To my surprise, I perceived two women - one old and one young - in the camp; they sat near one of the fires, apparently engrossed in repairing a torn saddle with crude bodkins.

'These two sisters of ours go with us wherever we go,' said Sidi Umar in reply to my mute astonishment. 'They have refused to seek the safety of Egypt together with the rest of our women and children. They are mother and daughter. All their men have been killed in the struggle.'

For two days and a night during which the camp was shifted to another place within the forests and gorges of the plateau - Sidi Umar and I went over every possibility of arranging more regular supplies for the mujahidin. A trickle was still coming from Egypt. Ever since Sayyid Idris had reached an understanding with them during the period of his armistice with the Italians, the British authorities seemed to be willing to look, once again, with a certain tolerance upon Sanusi activities within Egyptian territory so long as they remained limited to local moves. In particular, they took no official notice of the small groups of warriors who occasionally succeeded in breaking through the Italian lines and came to Sallum, the nearest Egyptian town on the coast, to sell their war booty - mostly Italian mules - in exchange for badly needed food stores. Such expeditions, however, were extremely hazardous for the mujahidīn and could not often be undertaken, the more so since the Italians were making rapid progress with the barbed-wire entanglements that ran along the Egyptian border. Sidi Umar agreed with me that the only alternative could be a supply route along the way I had come, with secret depots in the Egyptian oases of Bahriyya, Farafra and Siwa; but he was very doubtful whether this scheme could long elude the vigilance of the Italians.

(Umar's apprehensions proved only too well founded. A few months later one such supply caravan did reach the mujahidīn, but was spotted by the Italians while passing through the 'gap' between Jaghbub and Jalu. Soon afterward a fortified Italian post was established at Bir Tarfawi, about halfway between the two oases, and this, in addition to almost continuous air patrols, made further enterprises of this kind far too risky.)

I had now to think of my return. Not being very keen on retracing the long, arduous trail I had pursued on my westward journey, I inquired of Sidi Umar whether any shorter route was feasible. There was, he told me, but a dangerous one: through the barbed-wire entanglements, to Sallum. As it happened, a band of mujahidīn were ready to set out on a venture of this kind in order to bring flour from Sallum; if I wanted, I could join them. I decided that I wanted.

Zayd and I took leave of Umar al-Mukhtar, never to see him again: less than eight months later he was captured and executed by the Italians.

AFTER ABOUT A WEEK'S MARCH - only by night - over the rough terrain and through the juniper thickets of the eastern Jabal Akhdar, our band of some twenty men reached the Egyptian-Cyrenaican border near the point where we planned to make our break-through. This point had not been selected at random. Although the barbed-wire barrier already covered the greater part of the frontier, it was in those days not quite completed. At some places, as here, there was only a single entanglement about eight feet high and four feet wide, while in other places there were already as many as three separate rows strung in heavy, multiple coils over poles embedded in concrete foundations. The spot we had chosen was only half a mile or so from a fortified outpost in which, we knew, there were armoured cars as well; but it had been a choice between this sector of the border or another which might perhaps be less well fortified but guarded by a double or even triple line of wire.

Arrangements had been made for us to be met a few miles inside Egyptian territory by Sanusi supporters with transport animals. Thus, it would not be necessary to endanger our own horses; they were sent back in the charge of a few of the mujahidin, while the rest - Zayd and I among them approached the wire on foot shortly before midnight. Darkness was our only protection, for the Italians had cut down all trees and bushes along the frontier.

With pickets posted at a distance of several hundred yards to the north and south, six of our men - armed with wire-cutters and heavy leather gloves captured in previous raids on Italian working parties - crept forward on all fours; we others covered their advance with our rifles. It was a tense moment. Straining my ears for the slightest sound, I could hear only the crunch of gravel under the weight of the advancing bodies and the occasional call of a night bird. Then came the screech of the first shears biting into the wire - it sounded like an explosion to my ears - followed by a subdued staccato of snapping metal strands... snap, snap, snap... grating and snapping, deeper and deeper into the entanglement...

Another bird call broke through the night; but this time it was not a bird but a signal: a signal from one of our pickets in the north announcing the approach of danger... and almost at the same moment we heard the drone of a motor coming toward us. A searchlight swept obliquely into the air. Like one man, we threw ourselves to the ground, except for the wire cutters who went on with their work in desperate haste, no longer bothering about stealth but cutting, hacking into the wire with shears and rifle butts, like men possessed. A few seconds later a shot rang out: our northern sentry. The crew of the armoured car must have sighted him, for the beam of the searchlight suddenly swept downward and we heard the ominous rattle of a machine gun. The roar of the engine increased in volume and the black silhouette bore down upon us, its beam catching us squarely on the ground. A blast of machine-gun fire followed; the gunner had apparently aimed too high: I could hear the whizz and whine of the bullets as they passed over our heads. Lying on our bellies, we answered the fire with our rifles.

"The searchlight, the searchlight!' someone shouted. 'Aim at the searchlight!' - and the searchlight went out, apparently shattered by the bullets of our sharpshooters. The armoured car came to an abrupt halt, but its machine gunner continued firing blindly. At that instant a shout from ahead of us announced that the break-through was completed and, one by one, we squeezed ourselves through the narrow opening, ripping our clothes and our flesh on the barbed wire. A sound of running steps - and two more jard-clad figures threw themselves into the gap in the entanglement: our sentries rejoining us. The Italians were apparently loath to leave the car and engage us in open fight...

And then we stood on Egyptian soil - or, rather, we continued to run, followed for a while by erratic firing from across the border, taking cover behind boulders, sand ridges and isolated bushes.

Dawn found us well inside Egyptian territory and out of danger. Of our twenty-odd men, five were missing, presumably dead, and four wounded, though none seriously.

'God has been merciful to us,' said one of the wounded mujāhidīn. 'Sometimes we lose half of our men in crossing the wire. But, then, none ever dies whom God, exalted be His name, has not willed to die... And does not the Holy Book say, Speak not of those who are slain in the way of God as dead: for they are alive ...?'

Two weeks later, returning by way of Marsa Matruh and Alexandria to Upper Egypt and thence, as pre-arranged, by dhow back to Yanbu, Zayd and I found ourselves once again in Medina. The entire venture had taken about two months, and our absence from the Hijaz had hardly been noticed...

AS I STEP WITH SIDI Muhammad az-Zuwayy over the threshold of the humble Sanusi zawiya of Medina, those dim echoes of death and despair linger in my mind, and the smell of juniper trees, and the contraction of my heart at the sound of bullets passing over my head, and the pain of a hopeless quest; and then the memory of my Cyrenaican adventure fades away and only the pain remains.

AND ONCE AGAIN I stand before the Grand Sanusi and look upon the old warrior's tired face; and once again I kiss the hand that has held a sword so long that it cannot hold it any longer.

'God bless thee, my son, and make thy way secure... It is over a year since we last met; and the year has seen the end of our hopes. But praise be unto God, whatever He may decree...

It must indeed have been a sorrowful year for Sayyid Ahmad: the furrows around his mouth are deeper and his voice is lower than ever. The old eagle is broken. He sits huddled on the carpet, his white burnus wrapped tightly about him as if for warmth, staring wordlessly into an endless distance.

'If we could only have saved Umar al-Mukhtar,' he whispers. 'If we could only have persuaded him to escape to Egypt while there was yet time...'

'Nobody could have saved Sidi Umar,' I comfort him. 'He did not want to be saved. He preferred to die if he could not be victorious. I knew it when I parted from him, O Sidi Ahmad.'

Sayyid Ahmad nods heavily: 'Yes, I too knew it, I too knew it... I knew it too late. Sometimes it occurs to me that I was wrong to heed the call from Istanbul, seventeen years ago... Was not that perhaps the beginning of death not only for Umar but for all the Sanusi?'

To this I have no reply, for I have always felt that Sayyid Ahmad's decision to start his unnecessary war against the British was the most fatal mistake of his life.

'But,' adds Sayyid Ahmad, 'how could I have done otherwise when the Caliph of Islam asked me for help? Was I right or was I foolish? But who, except God, can say whether a man is right or foolish if he follows the call of his conscience?'

Who can say, indeed?

The Grand Sanusi's head sways slowly from side to side in a perplexity of pain. His eyes are veiled behind drooping lids; and with sudden certainty I know that they will never again flare up with a flame of hope.* 10