Claiming Islamic Authenticity. The Ḫatmīya Sufi order confronting WWI

The Libyan war of 1911-1912 and the Great War in general were marked by a political deployment of religion. During the conflict, not only the Ottoman Empire – who called for a global ğihād against the Allied powers – but also the European powers and Muslim elites in the Mediterranean and Red Sea regions claimed legitimisation of their political positions with an appeal to the authenticity of the Islamic faith. This paper focuses on the agency of one of these actors, the Ḫatmīya Islamic brotherhood, and looks at its role at a transnational level. It considers the discourses that were mobilised within the framework of the rivalry among transnational Sufi orders. While the Sanūsiya tackled the pan-Islamic positions associated with the Ottoman Empire and led a ğihād against the European colonial powers, notably in Egypt and Libya, one of its rival orders, the Ḫatmīya, supported the war against the “Turks,” whom they accused of being the illegitimate heirs of the caliphate and “false Muslims.”The political position of the Ḫatmīya was pursued through a series of actions, including a call to Muslims to enroll in European armies and diplomatic and intermediation activities with other political and religious authorities in the Red Sea region. The involvement of both the order’s representatives and affiliated members was finally rewarded in the post-war period. Indeed, thanks in part to their military service in the European armies; its affiliated members became leading actors in the colonial economy in Eritrea and Sudan.