The rise of an Ibadi religious revival movement and its impacts on the society and built environment in the Mzab (Saharan Maghrib, 1868-1914)

This study is about the rise of a nineteenth century religious renewal movement among Ibadi Mzabis, a sectarian and Saharan community. It looks at how this group responded to the local effects of a re-globalising world and redefined its sectarian identity to strengthen itself. The movement, which I call the Ibadi Mzabi *nahḍa*, began in the late 1860s when the community was faced with multiple pressures leading to social division. A cosmopolitan network of merchant-scholars drew on ideas which were circulating among broader Arab-Muslim cultural, intellectual and other religious *nahḍa* movements at the time. Some of these ideas shaped the way in which this local movement was expressed in its textual and built works. During a period of pressure in the 1870s and 1880s, there was a rise in the production of new texts. Through these new texts, there was a renewal of Ibadi religious law and rise in the authority of Ibadi religious scholars, and an increasing recognition that Mzabis were Ibadis rather than Kharijis. In Ghardāya, this rise in sectarianism resulted in the suppression of religious diversity in the public sphere and encouraged the integration of Muslims of multiple identities into a common and "renewed" Ibadi Mzabi community. During a period of prosperity and stability in the late 1890s, new commemorative shrines were built as part of this Ibadi Mzabi *nahḍa*. Through these shrines, new ideas of sectarian identity were expressed in the landscape, substantiating the historical legacy of contemporary Ibadi scholars and expressions of Ibadism in the Mzab.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Kwan, Elisabeth

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Bennison, Amira

• Algeria
• commemorative shrines
• Ibadism
• intellectual life
• Maghrib
• Mzab
• nahḍa
• nineteenth century
• religious renewal
• Sahara
• women

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/82d938ab-d40d-4062-8a18-fc9ae4fdb020/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.112691

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/374738