Religion as Resistance: Negotiating Authority in Italian Libya

When Italian forces landed on the shores of Libya in 1911, many in Italy hailed it as an opportunity to embrace a Catholic national identity through imperial expansion. After decades of acrimony between an intransigent Church and the Italian state, enthusiasm for the imperial adventure helped incorporate Catholic interests in a new era of mass politics. Others among Italian imperialists-military officers and civil administrators-were more concerned with the challenges of governing a Muslim society, one in which the Sufi brotherhood of the Sanusiyya seemed dominant. Eileen Ryan illustrates what Italian imperialists thought would be the best methods to govern in Muslim North Africa and in turn highlights the contentious connection between religious and political authority in Italy.Telling this story requires an unraveling of the history of the Sanusiyya. During the fall of Qaddafi, Libyan protestors took up the flag of the Libyan Kingdom of Idris al-Sanusi, signaling an opportunity to reexamine Libya's colonial past. After decades of historiography discounting the influence of Sanusi elites in Libyan nationalism, the end of this regime opened up the possibility of reinterpreting the importance of religion, resistance, and Sanusi elites in Libya's colonial history. Religion as Resistance provides new perspectives on the history of collaboration between the Italian state and Idris al-Sanusi and questions the dichotomy between resistance and collaboration in the colonial world.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents List of Maps List of Figures Introduction Chapter 1: Italian imperialism and Sanusi authority at the turn of the century Chapter 2: Crafting an Italian Approach to Colonial Rule Chapter 3: Occupation, War, and the Transformation of the Sanusiyya Chapter 4: Railways and Resistance: Idris al-Sanusi's Fall from Power Chapter 5: Religion and Power in the Fascist Colonies Conclusions Essay on Sources: Memories of Resistance in the Oral History Project Bibliography

About the Author :
Eileen Ryan is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at Temple University. She has published articles in Modern Italy and the Annali della Fondazione Ugo La Malfa. She is currently working on an article on Italian settlers as refugees during the process of decolonization. This is her first book.

Review :
"Exceptionally significant and brilliantly told....The great strength of the book is Ryan's unflinching refusal to see the coloniser and the colonised as monolithic in their essence or as unchanging over time." -- Giuseppe Finaldi, Modern Italy "Religion as Resistance is path-breaking, and will become essential reading for historians studying modern Italy, especially Italian colonialism, as well as modern Libya. The book establishes religion, and the Church, as critical components of Italian imperialism, and also simultaneously problematizes Italian perceptions of the roles that Sanusi political and religious authority played in the anticolonial struggle. The book also works well as a history of the Sanusiyya during this period, even if refracted mostly through Italian sources. All of these contributions raise new questions and suggest new directions for the colonial and postcolonial histories of Libya and Italy." -- Michael R. Ebner, Bustan: The Middle East Book Review "This new book is a milestone in how we study the colonial history of Libya and the history of the Sanusiyya, thanks to its juxtaposition of that subject with the history of Church and State in post-Unification Italy. I cannot fail to emphasise the last-but-not-least notable contribution of Ryan's work: her use of the Oral History materials in Libya's National Archive. She is the first non-native-Arabic scholar, simply put, to work with them. She draws these materials into conversation with the broader scholarship in Arabic and European languages, gaining from them usable substance even though it is often tucked away in corners, hiding behind the relatively standardised and often overbearing narratives of resistance the archives are designed to foreground. This is really laudable work, and a major contribution." -- Mia Fuller, Journal of North African Studies "Religion as Resistance is a milestone in the historiography of Libya, the Sanusiyya, and post-Unification Italy. Showing the internal rivalries among both Italian colonizers and Sanusi leaders, Ryan redresses the historical record on both fronts and illuminates previously ignored aspects of how the two groups engaged, negotiated, and disengaged. A nuanced and rigorous re-interpretation, and a deeply perceptive tour de force." -- Mia Fuller, author of Moderns Abroad: Architecture, Cities, and Italian Imperialism "Ryan situates the complex and often contradictory policies of Italian colonial authorities in Libya towards Islam in general and the Sanussiya Order in particular within a Mediterranean frame marked by inter-imperial competition (European and Ottoman). Simultaneously, she attends to regional rivalries among local actors and power struggles within the Italian state, as well as between Catholic and secular visions of Italian nationalism. In doing so, she complicates and nuances entrenched views about Sanusi anti-colonial resistance. Deeply researched and written in lucid prose, this study should be required reading for students of Italian empire, Libya, modern North Africa, and the relationship between religion and nationalism." -- Pamela Ballinger, University of Michigan "Centered on the strong and still existent Sanusiyya order, Eileen Ryan reveals both the hardness of Fascist oppression and the resilient will of the Libyan subalterns to resist. This book is necessary to understand the complexities of the clash of identities inside colonial relationships from a post-colonial point of view." -- Nicola Labanca, University of Siena "Eileen Ryan's book charts a path for future research on the Italian occupation of Libya by placing religious politics and the Sanusi organization-font of resistance then and a symbol of Libyan national identity today-at the center of her narrative." -- Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University "Recent years have seen an explosion in scholarship on Italy's empire ... Eileen Ryan's study Religion as Resistance ... is a welcome addition to this fast-growing field. Ryan's book is a political and diplomatic history of Italy's imperial project in Libya, with a focus on the intersection of religion and empire. Ryan argues that Italy's pursuit of the colonies brought church and state together: after decades of tensions between Catholic and lay leaders, originating in the papacy's anger at having to cede temporal power to the new Kingdom of Italy in the nineteenth century, Italy's African empire became a common cause around which both church and state could rally ... A valuable contribution to the growing field of literature about Italian colonialism. Its broad chronological sweep in particular ... makes it indispensable reading for any student of Italian colonialism." -- Shira Klein, American Historical Review