al-Mukhtār, ʿUmar - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Krais, Jakob
Leiden
Brill
(1,396 words)
ʿUmar al-Mukhtār (1862-1931) was a Sanūsī shaykh and a leader of the resistance against the Italian colonisation of Cyrenaica. Since the second half of the twentieth century, he has often been considered a Libyan national hero in public memory. ʿUmar al-Mukhtār was born in al-Baṭnān, in the Jabal al-Akhḍar region of northern Cyrenaica (Barqa), in what was then the Ottoman province of Tripolitania (Turk. Trablusgarp, Ar. Ṭarābulus al-Gharb). He was initiated into the Ṣūfī Sanūsiyya ṭarīqa (brotherhood) that was founded in 1837 by Muḥammad