Idris (Arabic: إدريس الأول; El Sayyid Prince Muhammad Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi; 12 March 1889 – 25 May 1983),[1]was a Libyan political and religious leader who served as the Emir of Cyrenaica and then as the King of Libya from 1951 to 1969. He was the chief of the Senussi Muslim order.
Idris was born into the Senussi Order. When his cousin, Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi, abdicated as leader of the Order, Idris took his place. Cyrenaica was facing invasion from the Italians. Idris formed an alliance with the British, through whom he entered into negotiations with the Italians, resulting in two treaties; these resulted in the Italian recognition of Senussi control over most of Cyrenaica. Idris then led his Order in an unsuccessful attempt to conquer the eastern part of the Tripolitanian Republic.
Following the Second World War, the United Nations General Assembly called for Libya to be granted independence. It established the United Kingdom of Libya through the unification of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan, appointing Idris to rule it as king.
On 24 December 1951 Idris announced the establishment of the United Kingdom of Libya from the al-Manar Palace in Benghazi.[28] The country had a population of approximately one million, the majority of whom were Arabs, but with Berber, Tebu, Sephardi Jewish, Greek, Turkish, and Italian minorities.[29] The newly established state faced serious problems; in 1951, Libya was one of the world's poorest countries.[30] Much of its infrastructure had been destroyed by war, it had very little trade and high unemployment, and both a 40% infant mortality rate and a 94% illiteracy rate.[25] Only 1% of Libya's land mass was arable, with another 3–4% being used for pastoral farming.[31]Although the three provinces had been united, they shared little common aspiration.[32]
According to the reporter Jonathan Bearman, Idris was "nominally a constitutional monarch" but in practice was "a spiritual leader with autocratic temporal power",[39] with Libya being a "monarchical dictatorship" rather than a constitutional monarchy or parliamentary democracy.[35] The new constitution granted Idris significant personal power,[34] and he remained a crucial player in the country's political system.[40] Idris ruled via a palace cabinet, namely his royal diwan, which contained a chef de cabinet, two deputies, and senior advisers.[35] This diwan worked in consultation with the federal government to determine the policies of the Libyan state.[35] Idris was a self-effacing devout Muslim, he refused to allow his portrait to be featured on Libyan currency and also insisted that nothing should be named after him except the Tripoli Idris Airport.[34] Idris' regime soon banned political parties from operating in the country, claiming that they exacerbated internal stability.[37] From 1952 onward, all candidates for election were government nominees.[37] In 1954, the Prime Minister Mustafa Ben Halim suggested that Libya be converted from a federal to a unitary system and that Idris be proclaimed President for Life.[41] Idris recognised that this would deal with the problems caused by federalism and would put a stop to the intrigues among the Senussi family surrounding his succession. He asked Ben Halim to produce a formal draft for these plans, but the idea was dropped amid opposition from Cyrenaican tribal chiefs.[41]
This situation changed suddenly and dramatically in June 1959 when research prospectors from Esso (later renamed Exxon) confirmed the location of major petroleum deposits at Zaltan in Cyrenaica. Further discoveries followed, and commercial development was quickly initiated by concession holders who returned 50 percent of their profits to the Libyan government in taxes. In the petroleum market, Libya's advantages lay not only in the quantity but also in the high quality of its crude product. Libya's proximity and direct linkage to Europe by sea were further marketing advantages. The discovery and exploitation of petroleum turned the vast, sparsely populated, impoverished country into an independently wealthy nation with potential for extensive development and thus constituted a major turning point in Libyan history. Libya's petroleum law, initially passed in 1955, was amended in 1961 and again in 1965 to increase the Libyan government's share of the revenues from oil.[11]
Under Idris, Libya found itself within the Western sphere of influence.[42] It became the recipient of Western expertise and aid, and by the end of 1959 it had received over $100 million of aid from the United States, being the single biggest per capita recipient of American aid.[43] U.S. companies would also play a leading role in the development of the Libyan oil industry.[44] This support was provided on a quid pro quo basis, and in return Libya granted the United States and United Kingdom usage of the Wheelus Air Base and the al-Adem Air Base.[45] This reliance on the Western nations placed Libya at odds with the growing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist sentiment across the Arab world.[44] The Arab nationalist sentiment promoted by Radio Cairo found a particularly receptive audience in Tripolitania.[46] In July 1967, anti-Western riots broke out in Tripoli and Benghazi to protest the West's support of Israel against the Arab states in the Six-Day War.[47]Many oil workers across Libya went on strike in solidarity with the Arab forces fighting Israel.[47]
The 1955 law created conditions that enabled small oil companies to drill alongside larger corporations; each concession had a low entry fee, with rents only increasing significantly after the eighth year of drilling.[50] This created a competitive atmosphere that prevented any one company from becoming crucial to the country's oil operation, although it had the downside of incentivising companies to produce as much oil as possible in as quick a period as possible.[51] Libya's oil fields fuelled rapidly growing demand in Europe,[52] and by 1967 it was supplying a third of the oil entering the West European market.[53] Within a few years, Libya had grown to become the world's fourth largest oil producer.[52] Oil production provided a huge boost to the Libyan economy; whereas the per capita annual income in 1951 had been $25–35, by 1969 it was $2000.[41] By 1961, the oil industry was exerting the greater influence over Libyan politics than any other issue.[40] In 1962, Libya joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).[54] In ensuing years the Libyan state furthered its control over the industry, establishing a Ministry of Petroleum Affairs in 1963 and then the Libyan National Oil Company.[55] In 1968 they established the Libyan Petroleum Company (LIPETCO) and announced that any further concession agreements would have to be joint ventures with LIPETCO.[55]
Libya experienced rampant corruption and favouritism.[44] A number of high-profile corruption scandals impacted on the highest levels of Idris' government.[47] In June 1960 Idris issued a public letter in which he condemned this corruption, claiming that bribery and nepotism "will destroy the very existence of the state and its good reputation both at home and abroad".[56]
In April 1963 Idris abolished Libya's federal system.[57] Both the provincial legislative assemblies and the provincial judicial systems were abolished.[57] Doing so allowed him to concentrate economic and administrative planning at a centralised national level,[57] and thenceforth all taxes and oil revenues were directed straight to the central government.[57] As part of this reform, the "United Kingdom of Libya" was renamed the "Kingdom of Libya".[57] This reform was not popular among many of Libya's provinces, which saw their power curtailed.[57]According to the historian Dirk Vandewalle, this change was "the single most critical political act during the monarchy's tenure in office".[57]The reform handed far greater political power to Idris than he had held previously.[58] By the mid-1960s, Idris began to increasingly retreat from active involvement in the country's governance.[59]
On 1 September 1969, while Idris was in Turkey for medical treatment, he was deposed in a coup d'état by a group of Libyan Army officers under the leadership of Muammar Gaddafi. The monarchy was abolished and a republic proclaimed.[64] The coup pre-empted Idris's abdication and the succession of his heir the following day. From Turkey, he and the Queen traveled to Kamena Vourla, Greece, by ship and went into exile in Egypt. After the 1969 coup, Idris was put on trial in absentia in the Libyan People's Court and sentenced to death in November 1971.
Gaddafi's policies with regard to the oil industry would also be technocratic and bore many similarities with those of Idris.[67]
In 1983, at age 94, Idris died at the Sultan Palace in the district of Dokki in Cairo. He was buried at Al-Baqi' Cemetery, Medina, Saudi Arabia.
In 2013 the African Union commemorated King Idris' legacy as an African hero and the architect of Libya's independence from Italy's colonial rule in a public event.[15] In fact, Idris remains widely regarded as the father of an independent and unified Libya who led the country through its resistance to the colonial powers. As a quiet but firm ruler, he played a unifying role both in Libya, between the various strains of Islam and the plethora of Libyan tribes, and across the region.[16][17] He is remembered as "uncompromising" against his enemies, no matter the consequences of his actions.[16] The obituary posted by Associated Press in 1983 recalled that he stripped thirty members of the royal household of their privileges and rights, exiled seven princes and ruled in favor of the execution of one of his nephew who had murdered a trusted royal adviser.[16]
(Dirk) Vandewalle characterised Idris as "a scholarly individual whose entire life would be marked by a reluctance to engage in politics".[9] For Vandewalle, Idris was a "well meaning but reluctant ruler",[69] as well as "a pious, deeply religious, and self-effacing man".[34] The Libyan Prime Minister Ben Halim stated his view that "I was sure... that [Idris] sincerely wanted reform, but I knew from experience that he became hesitant when he felt that such reform would affect the interests of his entourage. He would gradually pull back until he abandoned the reform plans, moved by the whisperings of his entourage."[70]
Although the king and the crown prince died in exile and most of the younger generation of Libyans were born after the monarchy, the Senussi dynasty has enjoyed somewhat of a comeback during the 2011 Libyan civil war, especially in the dynasty's traditional stronghold of Cyrenaica. Opposition demonstrators to Colonel Gaddafi used the old tricolour flag of the monarchy, some carried portraits of the king,[18]and played the old national anthem Libya, Libya, Libya. Two of the surviving Senussi exiles were planning to return to Libya to support the protestors.
Growing support on the ground in Libya that a Constitutional monarchy based on the pre-revolutionary constitution should be reinstated as a force for stability, unity, and just governance has emerged since 2011. Libyan exiles, as well as prominent political actors and local groups, have publicly backed the reinstatement of the Senussi Monarchy under the leadership of Prince Mohammed el-Senussi as an attractive political option in Libya.[22][23]
Prince Mohammed el-Senussi has acknowledged the growing enthusiasm towards the reinstatement of the 1951 Constitution and the Constitutional Monarchy. He has consistently stressed that he would be honored to return and serve his country if the Libyan people demanded it.[23][27]
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