Omar Mukhtar

Umar al-Mukhtar Muhammad bin Farhat al-Manifi (20 August 1858 – 16 September 1931) was a Libyan Qur'an teacher and a sheikh of the Senussi order in Cyrenaica, eastern Libya, who led the armed resistance to the Italian occupation from October 1911 until his capture and execution. He is known by the nicknames "Lion of the Desert" and "Sheikh of the Martyrs". ^{1 2}

His resistance lasted twenty years in the mountains and valleys of Cyrenaica, facing successive Italian commanders, and ended when he was wounded and captured near Slonta on 11 September 1931, court-martialled, and hanged at the Soluch camp before his imprisoned followers. ¹

He was born on 20 August 1858. The English article disagrees with itself on the place: its infobox gives Benghazi, while its text gives the town of Zanzur (Janzur) near Tobruk; the Arabic article pairs the date with 10 Muharram 1275 AH. ^{1 2 3}

He belonged to the Mnifa tribe. His father was Al-Mukhtar ibn Muhammad and his mother Aisha bint Muharib; orphaned young, he was adopted and raised by a sheikh. ¹

He spent eight years at the Senussi university in Jaghbub, studying Islamic law and the Senussi way, while Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Senussi led the order, and he accompanied al-Mahdi to Kufra in 1895. ¹

The order appointed him sheikh of Zawiyat Ayn Kalk in Chad from 1896 to 1902, where he fought the French encroachment in 1899, and then sheikh of Zawiyat Laqsur in Cyrenaica from 1902 to 1911, under Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi. ¹

When Italy invaded Libya in October 1911, at the start of the Italo-Turkish War, Omar Mukhtar took command of the resistance in Cyrenaica, and remained its field leader after the Ottoman withdrawal, as the Italian conquest of the eastern province continued. ¹

He waged a guerrilla war of hit and run in the Jebel Akhdar, drawing on his knowledge of the land and on the Senussi zawiya network. The resistance outlasted several Italian commanders despite Italy's military superiority; the last of them was Rodolfo Graziani. ¹

In 1929 he entered compromise negotiations with the Italian commander Pietro Badoglio, then denounced the settlement in October 1929 and resumed fighting, judging that its terms did not end the occupation. ¹

Italy answered in 1930–1931 with Graziani's campaign: mass concentration camps for the people of Cyrenaica and a barbed-wire fence along the Egyptian border to cut the resistance's supplies, which progressively broke the social base of the guerrillas. ¹

On 11 September 1931 he was wounded and captured near Slonta, taken to Benghazi, and tried by an Italian military court, which sentenced him to death. ¹

On 16 September 1931 — 3 Jumada al-awwal 1350 AH in the Arabic article's pairing — he was hanged at the Soluch (Suluq) concentration camp before his assembled followers, aged seventy-three. ^{1 2}

His father was Al-Mukhtar ibn Muhammad and his mother Aisha bint Muharib, and he had a son named Muhammad; the sources used here give no further confirmed family detail. ¹

He trained at Jaghbub under the leadership of Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Senussi, accompanied him to Kufra, and later served under Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi as sheikh of Zawiyat Laqsur. Al-Mahdi is the one of these two with a record in this museum so far, so he alone carries the formal relation. ¹

This section sets out positions as the sources report them. It is not a verdict by the museum.

Libyan and Arab sources portray him as a national hero and a symbol of resistance, under the nicknames "Lion of the Desert" and "Sheikh of the Martyrs"; the English article describes him as the leader of the Libyan resistance to the Italian occupation. ^{1 2}

The same sources record that the Italian authorities treated him as a brigand and tried him by court martial, while later historians documented Graziani's policies in Cyrenaica — the mass concentration camps and the execution of prisoners — as the instruments of the campaign that ended his resistance. ¹

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• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.