Al-Sanusiya in confrontation with France "French-Libyan war forgotten? Chad 1900 - 1902"

The Senussiya, the Muslim way that was born in the middle of the nineteenth century, is almost forgotten today. But this stable missionary organization in eastern Libya and its south, was during the colonial era a formidable opponent. And its leader, King Idris, became the head of the new Libyan state in 1951. Bir Alali, the oasis near Lake Chad, was the site of three consecutive battles between French forces and Senussi forces, in 1901-1902, and the beginning of a desert war that lasted 12 years, which also took place on both sides of approximately 16 degrees latitude. This French-Senussi war is what determined the final shape of the modern state of Chad. Jean Louis Tréhiou, a lecturer at the University of Paris VII-Jussieu, specializing in Africa and Islam, and responsible for the Islam and Sub-Saharan Society periodic, is an expert in the Senussi way and contemporary Chadian issues.