Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904) (review)

Book Reviews 123 been greatly strengthened through interviews with at least some of these individuals , both Somali and Italian. In the last chapter ofhis study, Tripodi includes data culled from interviews with various military officials regarding the Italian role in Operation Restore Hope. These interviews help shed light not only on how Italian forces acted during the Somalia operation but why they undertook certain actions. Such an approach toward the rest ofhis subject would help readers understand not only what Italian authorities did to precipitate the fall of Somalia but provide us with the rationale for their actions. Scott Reese Xavier University of Louisiana Rebel and Saint : Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1 800- 1 904) Julia A. Clancy-Smith. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1994, paperback edition 1997. xxiii, 370 p. : 9 maps. This study ofMuslim notables in eastern Algeria and theJarid ofTunisia in the nineteenth century has already achieved widespread recognition: honorable mention in the Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle Eastern Studies Association, the Alf Heggoy Book Award of the French Colonial Historical Society, and the award in history for the Phi Alpha Theta International Honor Society. This recognition and most reviews feature the story of a Rahmaniyya Sufi leader, Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim, and his daughter Lalla Zaynab, who found ways in the last three decades of the nineteenth century to maintain the prosperity and reputation of al-Hamil, an agricultural and religious community set in the transition zone between the sedentary and desert zones. In fact, Clancy-Smith devotes only the last twenty percent ofher work to al-Hamil, and her achievement should be attached to her ability to tease out the story of this "pre-desert" zone over the entire nineteenth century, from a period of strong Ottoman influence to one of much more complete French domination. 124 Book Reviews The strength ofher work is precisely her ability to show the changes in this zone over the entire course of the nineteenth century. The Ottoman regime, with its semi-autonomous beyliks in Tunis and Constantine, had not weighed very heavily on the pre-Saharan and Saharan communities. There was ample opportunity for protest, or for movement to escape taxation, conscription, or the campaigns which Ottoman and allied forces occasionally waged in the region. But the French posed a greater problem. By the 1840s, within a decade and a half of their occupation of Algiers, they were able to intervene significantly in the lives of the inhabitants of this part of the pre-Sahara. From a base in the heart of the region at Biskra, and from the information accumulated by the network of Bureaux Arabes establishedby General Bugeaud, they had a significantly enhanced capacity to interfere in the lives of the inhabitants. And they constituted an additional challenge, since they were non-Muslims, Christians with a history ofhostility, crusading and pirating against the Muslim communities of the Mediterranean sphere. The pre-Saharan Muslims responded to the new intervention in a number of ways. One of the shrewdest leaders was Mustafa bin al-Azzuz, a Rahmaniyya leader who emigrated to Tunisia in the 1840s. This was framed as hijra from an area controlled by nonMuslims . From his base in theJarid, Mustafa attracted a large following but also gave logistical support to those who remained in eastern Algeria and confronted the Europeans more directly. One of these leaders was Bu Ziyan, a somewhat mysterious figure based in the oasis of Za'atsha who preached resistance to the intrusion. Amid the deteriorating conditions of the area, he adopted the title of mahdi, the rightlyguided one who comes at the end of time, gathered weapons and followers, and brought pressure to bear upon the rural Sufi establishment to provide support, especially to the leaders of the zawiya of the Rahmaniyya order that was so prominent in the region. In November 1849 a French force destroyed the mahdi, his family and Za'atsha in compelling fashion, but with a loss in the process of some 1,500 French and allied soldiers. A few years later the Sharif of Warqala, an oasis to the southwest, raised the banner ofjihad again. One of the younger...