Ma al-'Aynayn
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Shaykh Ma al-'Aynayn (b. c:a 1830-31 in Mali, d. 1910; real name Mohamad Mustafa Ould Sheikh Mohamad Fadel) was a religious and political leader who fought French and Spanish colonization in North Africa. He was the son of Mohammed Fadil Mamin (founder of the Fadiliyya, a Qadiriyya Sufi brotherhood), and the elder brother of shaykh Saad Bouh, a prominent marabout (religious leader) in Mauritania.
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[edit] Early years
In 1859, Ma al-'Aynayn (a name he received as a child, meaning "water of the eyes" in Arabic) settled in the oasis of Tindouf in present-day Algeria. The son of a famous marabout, he quickly became known as a great scholar, and was also thought to have magical powers. His nomad encampment attracted many students of Islamic law and bedouins asking for his blessing. In 1887 he was appointed as caid of the sultan of Morocco Hassan I.
In 1898, Ma al-'Aynayn began building the town of Smara, in what was then Spanish Sahara (today the disputed territory of Western Sahara). His goal in creating the city was to make it a center of commerce between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. Thousands of locals assisted him in the construction, as well as the sultan Hassan I, who sent craftsmen and materials. In 1902, with the main parts of the city completed, he moved there and pronounced it his holy capital, creating among other things an important Islamic library.
[edit] The anticolonial revolt
Increasingly disturbed by Western penetration of the area, which he viewed both as an intrusion by hostile foreign powers and as a Christian assault on Islam, he began agitating for resistance. Local Saharan tribes performed ghazi raids against the foreign forces, but French troops drew ever closer, conquering one local ruler after another. In 1904, Ma al-'Aynayn proclaimed a holy war, or jihad, against the colonizers. He proclaimed that the trab al-beidan (a desert area that includes today's Mauritania, Western Sahara and large swaths of Mali and Algeria) was under the Sultan's rule. While the Sultan was never given control over Ma al-'Aynayn's forces, this display of effective cooperation helped assemble a large coalition of tribes to fight the colonizers. Ma al-'Aynayn set about acquiring firearms and other materials both through channels in Morocco and through direct negotiations with rival European powers such as Germany and Spain, and quickly built up an impressive fighting force. A member of his Gudfiyya brotherhood in 1905 assassinated Xavier Coppolani, who was leading the French conquest of Mauritania, thereby delaying the conquest of the emirate of Adrar for a few years.
[edit] Claiming the Moroccan throne
In 1906 the Sultan Abdelaziz accepted the Treaty of Algeciras, granting colonial control over much of Morocco, over Ma al-'Aynayn's enraged accusations of betrayal. The following year Morocco began interrupting the flow of arms to the anti-French Jihad. The uprising crumbled as French forces under then-colonel Gouraud pushed forward, and Ma al-'Aynayn retreated to Tiznit in what today is southern Morocco.
In 1910, anarchy spread through Morocco, as the Sultanate grew ever weaker under European pressures. On March 30, 1912, the new Sultan Moulay Hafid signed a treaty with the French which contained clauses directly aimed at "shaykh Ma al-'Aynayn and the enemies of France in the Sahara". Ma al-'Aynayn, outraged by the Sultan's actions and concerned that Morocco would fall in European hands, decided to extend Jihad to the north. He was proclaimed Sultan of Morocco in June, and immediately charged northwards at the head of an army of several thousand men to overthrow Moulay Hafid. He was intercepted on June 23, and his forces destroyed by the modern French army. Ma al-'Aynayn, then about 80 years old, fled back to southern Morocco, to Tiznit, where he died in October of the same year.
[edit] Legacy of Ma al-'Aynayn
A few years after Ma al-'Aynayn's death, his son El-Hiba, known as The Blue Sultan, resumed the war against the French, but was ultimately defeated. Merebbi Rebbu, another of his sons, then rose in revolt, as would several of his grandchildren. It was not until after World War II that the independence movement really gathered momentum again.
Ma al-'Aynayn enjoyed tremendous prestige and his name is invoked by both the Polisario Front and by Moroccans for whom he embodied the unity of Morocco and the Sahara. There are family members of Ma al-'Aynayn which hold high offices in Morocco, in the Polisario Front and in Mauritania.
