7
The Shaykh and His Daughter:
Implicit Pacts and Cultural Survival, c. 1827–1904

Drink deeply of science.^[1]

Bu Ziyan's demise, the unraveling of the Sharif of Warqala's jihad, and the defeat of the Kabylia imposed other modes of political behavior upon religious notables in Algeria. After mid-century, sufi leaders and saintly lineages in areas under direct, or even indirect, colonial rule wavered between various forms of submission, accommodation, evasion, and resistance; survival demanded such. While emigration in the pre-1881 era was one option, it carried both penalties and rewards. If those Algerians who migrated to Tunisia, Morocco, or the Levant enjoyed the moral-religious comfort of residing in Islamic states, they faced the social adversities that all immigrants perforce suffer. After the imposition of the French protectorate upon Tunisia in 1881, even those with the will or means to emigrate found physical evasion increasingly difficult as the frontiers between the Maghribi countries were more efficiently policed. Nevertheless, some religious notables, including members of the 'Azzuz clan, departed Tunisia after 1881 for Istanbul or the Mashriq, where they frequently engaged in anti-French activities from afar.^[2] And if hijra from Algeria to Tunisia proved riskier by the century's end, the beylik provided other sorts of refuge—intellectual and spiritual—for Algerian literati. In Tunis they were relatively freer to publish religious works and pursue Islamic studies. Of course, the Moroccan borders were still porous enough to permit some migration, whether clandestine or otherwise, although long before 1912, parts of Morocco were gradually absorbed into France's expanding empire. The years 1910–1911 witnessed several waves of mass departures from Tilimsan, much to the dismay of colonial authorities.^[3]

The slow hemorrhaging of human resources, which migration represented, eroded Algeria's core of learned activists, great families, and religious notables. This imposed a heavier burden upon religious leaders

9.
Colonial Algeria. Reproduced from John Ruedy, Modern Algeria (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 
1992), by permission of Indiana University Press.

electing to remain, for the sociospiritual services they provided were greatly oversubscribed. Nevertheless, the passing of the conquest era opened new avenues for some religious notables, including women, to engage in low-level political maneuvering to achieve limited cultural autonomy. For those who stayed in the colony, internal evasion or interior hijra represented a means of coping and therefore of endurance—sauvegarde , to use Jacques Berque's felicitous term.^[4] And while safeguarding and preserving North African society demanded a measure of inkimash (withdrawal, retreat), this did not mean political passivity or social lassitude, far from it.

If a special type of salvation had earlier been expected from the mahdi, cultural salvation came to be the life's work of a few highly visible religious figures. Nothing proves this more than the biographies of the shaykh of al-Hamil and his daughter, Zaynab, whose lives span seventy-five years of Algeria's most turbulent history, from the twilight of Turkish rule to the eve of the nationalist movement.

Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim's (1823–1897) strategies for survival, and those of his successor, Lalla Zaynab (c. 1850–1904), did not constitute a total rupture with the past. Rather their mode of political adjustment resulted from a pragmatic assessment of the prospects for certain kinds of social action, based upon a reading of how and why earlier stratagems had failed. In this sense, they forged a new path. In a war of cultures, cultural weapons—and not militant opposition—proved the most formidable defense. And one of the most intrepid warriors in this bloodless battle was a woman, precisely because the colonial edifice was conceived of as an imperial man's world. While the colonial order had evolved a formidable arsenal of methods for containing unsubmissive Algerian men, it had few, if any, to repress rebellious females. Indeed, contrary to what is frequently asserted—that colonized women lost power and status—it can be argued that the contradictions of the French regime offered opportunities, under certain conditions, for women to offer nonviolent resistance.^[5] Thus, Zaynab's confrontation with French authorities indicates that women could be political agents as well as social actors even in a system of dual patriarchy. "But it is principally her audacity that renders this woman remarkable," observed Zaynab's main opponent within French officialdom.^[6]

The Zawiya of al-Hamil: Upon a Great Rose-Brown Mountain

The oasis of al-Hamil is located some twelve kilometers to the southwest of the market town of Bu Sa'ada, which, for colonial strategists, represented

little else than a military station used to defend the Tell. Aside from Bu Sa'ada's garrison, few French civilians resided permanently there since the lack of cultivable land and the indigenous system of land tenure excluded settler colonialism.^[7] If Bu Sa'ada was on the margins of the colonial state, al-Hamil was even more so; no Europeans inhabited the oasis, and foreign travelers through the region were infrequent before 1897. Thus al-Hamil offered the advantage of relative isolation, a space where Muslim society, then under cultural siege, could protect itself against the noxious effects of Algérie Française .^[8]

Those few Europeans who visited the Rahmaniyya zawiya in al-Hamil before 1897 were inevitably surprised by its appearance. The village, constructed of dun-shaded mud brick, sat upon "a great rose-brown mountain" in the barren foothills of the Saharan Atlas. The square while minaret of the mosque adjacent to the zawiya formed the town's highest point. Not far away the wadi, which funneled water to the date-palm groves below, snaked down the side of the mountain. The sufi center was of recent construction, having been founded only in 1863; like other desert zawaya, it resembled a fortress.^[9] By the close of the nineteenth century, thousands of pilgrims, scholars, students, and the needy flocked to the zawiya from all over Algeria and the Maghrib for it provided religious, cultural, and socioeconomic services not readily available elsewhere. Moreover, the life-giving waters of the wadi permitted agrarian development to feed the oasis's expanding population.

Al-Hamil's popularity as a pilgrimage site and educational center was due to the Rahmaniyya zawiya, which boasted a prestigious madrasa and a fine library, whose rich manuscript collection represented a significant portion of North Africa's cultural patrimony.^[10] The Rahmaniyya complex was the work of Sidi Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim, one of the most powerful saints, mystics, and scholars to emerge from the Rahmaniyya movement. Because of Shaykh Muhammad's piety, baraka, erudition, and unstinting generosity, the zawiya commanded a huge popular and elite following.^[11] Moreover, the oasis attracted not only the living but also those nearing the end of their days. The village's relatively small size was accentuated by the vast burial grounds encircling it. From far away, Muslim families came to bury their dead and fulfill the deceased's last wish. Al-Hamil's cemeteries betrayed its moral importance. And the desire to retreat in death to a space untainted by the humiliations of foreign conquest produced the mass of tombs, qubbas, and simple graves, sheltering North Africans of all social ranks and ages.^[12]

By the late nineteenth century, Sidi Muhammad claimed the single largest number of Rahmaniyya sufi clients in Algeria, which made him a

spiritual power to be reckoned with by colonial authorities ever mindful of the threat of revolt. His equally pious and saintly daughter, Lalla Zaynab, inherited her father's clientele and control of the zawiya but only after a determined struggle with military officials to assert her rights to spiritual succession.

Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim: Cultural Survival and Implicit Pacts

Sidi Muhammad was from the Awlad Laghwini of the Jabal Tastara in the Bu Sa'ada region. His was a minor clan of ashraf, and sharifian descent could be a potent source of socioreligious authority if parlayed in the right manner. Another source of prestige was his lineage's reputed creation of al-Hamil through the performance of a miracle. According to popular lore, Sidi Muhammad's saintly ancestors arrived in the region many centuries earlier from Morocco as wandering holy men, thus the oasis's name "al-Hamil," or "errant." Sidi'Abd al-Rahman b. 'Ayub thrust his walking stick into the arid soil and, upon extracting it, discovered to his amazement that verdant mulberry leaves tree covered the staff. This miraculous event was taken both as a sign of al-Hamil's sacredness and of the family's supernatural powers.^[13] However, the translocal spiritual influence wielded by Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim in later centuries was the product of religious knowledge, good works, the miracles attributed to him by his disciples, and his leadership position within the Saharan Rahmaniyya hierarchy.

The future Rahmaniyya leader's early education was typical for local saintly lineages in the period. He began his religious studies under his father's direction and was "beginning to learn the Quran by heart" as a very small child when the French army landed in July 1830.^[14] Since the Kabylia was one of the last areas subjugated, Sidi Muhammad was subsequently sent to northern Algeria for more advanced learning at the zawiya of the Awlad Sidi b. Da'ud near Akbou; there he mastered Muslim law, theology, and Arabic grammar.^[15] In addition, the Kabyle Mountains constituted the religious hub for the Rahmaniyya tariqa, whose founder-saint had died only a half century earlier. It is uncertain whether Shaykh Muhammad was initiated into the Rahmaniyya order while in the Kabylia or later. However, his father had performed the ziyara to the zawiya of Sidi 'Ali b. 'Umar in Tulqa sometime before 1842. Thus, the shaykh's clan had ties to Rahmaniyya centers and lineages in the Ziban, including the 'Azzuz family of al-Burj.^[16]

Sometime before the fateful 1848–1849 period and Bu Ziyan's uprising, Sidi Muhammad returned to al-Hamil, long regarded as a holy place.^[17] The

fact that the small oasis was spared from colonial interference rendered it all the more appealing. At the same time, its location on routes connecting Bu Sa'ada with both the Tell and Sahara linked al-Hamil to vital markets as well as providing pilgrims and students from the Kabylia, Constantine, and the desert easy access to the oasis. In al-Hamil, Sidi Muhammad founded a madrasa, began family life, and was endowed with the ability to work miracles.

Supernatural gifts operated both to create and confirm piety and holiness; thus the saintly personage was at once the cause and consequence of the divine marvel. Three miracles from this period in Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim's adult life are particularly revealing of the primary values of his society and of the virtues ascribed to him by his followers. On one occasion, the saint succeeded in warding off the devil, who had vainly attempted to enter his chamber to tempt him with the glamour of evil. On another, the oil reading lamp in the saint's study defied the laws of gravity, levitating in the air. Finally, and most significantly, the holy man was visited by the Prophet Muhammad one night in the course of a dream-vision.^[18] Moral probity, sacred knowledge, and personal piety—virtues that were ratified by the Prophet's appearance—were qualities demanded of the holy person, who thereby became the object of collective popular veneration and supplication. By the middle of the past century, Sidi Muhammad's saintly reputation attracted disciples from Bu Sa'ada's environs as well as more distant regions.

The years 1849–1850 witnessed major political transformations in the upper reaches of the Sahara which deeply affected local religious notables and their disciples. Bu Ziyan's uprising provoked a small-scale revolt within the oasis of Bu Sa'ada and among the surrounding Awlad Na'il. Terrorized by the bloody repression of Za'atsha, Bu Sa'ada's inhabitants sued for peace late in 1849; soon thereafter a fort and a Bureau Arabe, with all the administrative paraphernalia of a military headquarters, were constructed in the town. Several years later, despite the concerted attempts made by Muhammad b. 'Abd Allah to lure Bu Sa'ada into his insurrection, its people assumed a wait-and-see stance, largely due to the formidable military presence there.^[19] In this tumultuous period, Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim remained largely unscathed by the larger, more ominous forces around him, although he drew some important lessons from the experiences of his religious peers elsewhere in Algeria, including 'Abd al-Qadir.^[20]

In 1857, he left al-Hamil for the Rahmaniyya zawiya of Awlad Jallal in the Ziban, where he studied under the spiritual direction of Shaykh al-Mukhtar b. 'Abd al-Rahman b. Khalifa, then nearing the end of his days.^[21] Also present at the zawiya was Sidi Mabruk b. Muhammad b. 'Azzuz,

Mustafa's brother with whom Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim established a lasting friendship.^[22] Shaykh al-Mukhtar initiated Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim into the Rahmaniyya way; by the time of the master's death in 1862, he had become his closest sufi intimate, even inheriting Sidi al-Mukhtar's baraka. In addition, Sidi Muhammad was entrusted by his spiritual preceptor with the zawiya's administration and the education of Sidi al-Mukhtar's young sons. His stewardship of this zawiya lasted for only a year since some disgruntled family members looked askance at the succession passing to an individual from outside the lineage.^[23] Apparently unfazed by the ill-will shown him, Shaykh Muhammad left the Ziban in 1862–1863 to return to al-Hamil, where he founded an independent Rahmaniyya center, using the older madrasa as its nucleus. He also claimed possession of Sidi al-Mukhtar's baraka, an enormous source of social legitimacy and spiritual authority. Soon the Rahmaniyya zawiya of al-Hamil rivaled the older establishments in the Ziban.^[24]

Significantly, Sidi Muhammad created the earlier madrasa in al-Hamil in the wake of the region's first large-scale anticolonial uprisings. After the 1854 defeat of the Sharif of Warqala's jihad, a decade of uneasy calm descended upon much of the Sahara until the great Awlad Sidi al-Shaykh movement of 1864. Nevertheless, in the nearby Awras, the shaykh of Sidi Masmudi, Sadiq b. al-Hajj, led the tribesmen in the millenarian revolt of 1858–1859 which brought the Rahmaniyya zawiya's destruction at the hands of General Desvaux and the shaykh's exile and imprisonment in France.^[25]

A similar fate awaited the great zawiya attached to the shrine of Sidi'Abd al-Rahman in the Kabylia. After the Kabyles were crushed in the late 1850s, the zawiya's lands were sequestered by the colonial regime, resulting in the sufi center's ruin as its educational, religious, and social functions were circumscribed. No sooner had the 1864 Awlad Sidi al-Shaykh movement been suppressed than the Muqrani elite and the octogenarian Rahmaniyya leader, Shaykh al-Haddad, raised the banner of revolt in the Constantine. During the turmoil of 1871, the tomb of the Rahmaniyya's founder in the village of the Ait Isma'il was even bombarded by General Cerez. The leveling of Rahmaniyya zawaya located elsewhere in Algeria after each insurrection increased the al-Hamil's attraction as a religious and educational refuge.^[26] Encircled by nearly continuous populist unrest, Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim opted for prudent yet active neutrality, which meant that the colonial regime left the zawiya alone for the most part.

Before long a collection of buildings—a family residence, library, mosque, guest house for travelers, an elementary school, meeting rooms for sufi ceremonials, and student lodgings—came to grace al-Hamil.^[27]

These attested to the founder-saint's charismatic appeal to a large and diverse following; this in turn brought in funds, largely in the form of pious offerings, needed to finance a multitude of socioreligious services.^[28] In addition, the zawiya functioned as a large storage depot for grains and other foodstuffs which, when penury threatened, were distributed to the unfortunate.^[29] Shaykh Muhammad expanded the range of services available to include financial operations for the good of the local Muslim community. Individuals were able to deposit money at the zawiya for safekeeping, receipts of deposit were issued, and account books kept. This suggests the existence of a rudimentary savings bank, perhaps inspired by the sociétés indigènes de prévoyance then being organized in Algerian communities under direct French colonial control.^[30] However, in contrast to some sufi elites elsewhere in Algeria and later in Tunisia, particularly the Tijaniyya shaykhs, there is no evidence that Sidi Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim ever solicited or received financial subsidies from colonial authorities.^[31] Until his death, he maintained his ascetic lifestyle and simple manners, a mode of behavior followed scrupulously by his daughter, Zaynab.

For Shaykh Muhammad and his followers, one symbolically charged method of survival was social redemption through agrarian development. In the Bu Sa'ada region alone, some nine hundred hectares of land were farmed for the benefit of the al-Hamil zawiya; outside the immediate area, hundreds of hectares were placed under the zawiya's protection in the form of religious endowments or hubus.^[32] Yet, Shaykh Muhammad's involvement in the rural economy exceeded the cultivation of existing arable land. Zawiya revenues and pious offerings were employed to open up new areas for exploitation by peasant-clients. This contrasts with rural conditions in other areas after 1850 where indigenous cultivators suffered cruelly from the progressive loss of lands to settler colonialism, resulting in the peasantry's social marginalization and economic ruin. Naturally, the key elements permitting this form of rural redemption were the zawiya's distance from the main nodes of colonial agriculture and the region's aridity, which rendered it unsuitable for pied-noir settlement.^[33]

The establishment and expansion of a Rahmaniyya center in this period represents a radical departure from the situation elsewhere in Algeria under the Second Empire. Due to Rahmaniyya participation in revolts, this sufi tariqa in particular was targeted by the colonial regime as prone to rebellion; sufi centers were closed or their activities closely surveyed to dampen future revolutionary ardor. After the great 1871 insurrection in the Kabylia, repression became even more draconian.^[34] While the shaykh of al-Hamil apparently played no role in the massive Kabyle revolt, he did agree to shelter some of the rebellion's defeated leaders, above all, members

of the Muqrani clan at his zawiya, which later brought him into muted conflict with French authorities.

By the last decades of the century, hundreds of students and scholars were involved in al-Hamil's educational endeavors on a yearly basis. Between seven and eight thousand people visited the zawiya annually, making it one of the largest pilgrimage sites in Algeria. The influx of pilgrims performing the ziyara to capture the shaykh's baraka was part and parcel of the educational process since donations were used to provide material support for students. Surprisingly rich in comparison with the Islamic education offered elsewhere in Algeria at the time, the curriculum blended "traditional" Maghribi religious education with what might be termed the "classical." In addition to standard courses devoted to the Quran, hadith, fiqh, Arabic, and tasawwuf, students mastered chemistry, mathematics, astrology, astronomy, and rhetoric, subjects which—outside of the large, urban madrasas—were no longer offered by provincial educational establishments.^[35] Sidi Muhammad's intellectual prowess in the important discipline of 'ilm al-nahw (grammar) won him the sobriquet "imam of the grammarians." Yet his greatest contribution was to remind the community that the pursuit of knowledge and science was a duty incumbent upon all good Muslims, an attitude that hearkened back to the medieval Islamic era of Ibn Khaldun, while anticipating the modern reformist Islamic movements of the twentieth century. Moreover, one of his most enduring gifts to the Rahmaniyya tariqa was to have the saint-founder's spiritual lessons, al-Rahmaniyya , accompanied by Mustafa Bash Tarzi's commentary (sharh ), published in Tunis in 1889 by the Imprimerie Officielle Tunisienne.^[36]

Among the shaykh's numerous writings was a treatise which constituted a remarkable critique of some of the abuses associated with the cult of saints as then practiced in Algeria and the Maghrib. In it, the shaykh scrutinized one of the pillars undergirding his own immense authority and social prestige. Reproaching some of the saintly lineages for immoral behavior, Sidi Muhammad accused them of "spending their lives in the pursuit of the things of this world and lavish lifestyles."^[37] Thus, his vision extended far beyond the mere maintenance of the cultural status quo to the more daunting task of social regeneration through the acquisition of knowledge and spiritual renewal, including the reform of the sufi-saintly idiom from which he himself issued. In fact, the shaykh had a fairly advanced pedagogical sense, for the education dispensed at the zawiya was organized into three clearly differentiated cycles, arranged according to the level of the students and the difficulty of the material. Certificates attesting to scholarly achievement were issued by the zawiya's school until 1962. In the

sufi center's heyday at the end of the past century, between seven and eight hundred students sought instruction there annually.^[38]

Among those studying at the zawiya was Abu al-Qasim al-Hafnawi (c. 1852-1942), a noted teacher, journalist, and "proto-historian."^[39] Born at roughly the same time as Lalla Zaynab, al-Hafnawi's early years resemble those of the Rahmaniyya shaykh. Originally from Bilad al-Dis in the vicinity of Bu Sa'ada, al-Hafnawi studied first in a zawiya in the northern Constantine. He then resided in Tulqa and al-Hamil for more advanced studies in theology, law, and literature. Unlike his former teacher in al-Hamil, however, al-Hafnawi was eventually attracted to the sophisticated milieu of the ulama and literati of Algiers. There al-Hafnawi sought to deepen his knowledge of the North African past by delving into the classical works of Maghribi literature and history, including Ibn Khaldun's al-Muqaddima . At the same time he joined the association of young, mainly Francophone Muslim intellectuals known as the "Rashidiyya," created in 1894, a reform-minded group like the educational society "al-Khalduniyya" established in Tunis in 1896.^[40] Al-Hafnawi's intellectual curiosity and his sound grounding in Arabic language and literature and in fiqh resulted from his residence in al-Hamil, providing evidence for the high quality of education offered in the small oasis.

As part of the officially sponsored Algerian renaissance, the governor-general of Algeria, Charles Jonnart, encouraged al-Hafnawi to compose Ta'rif al-khalaf bi rijal al-salaf , a sort of biographical dictionary. Published in Algiers in two volumes between 1906 and 1907, al-Hafnawi's work was part of a conscious attempt by Algerian Muslim intellectuals to use the past, in this case the lives of especially pious and virtuous religious figures, to reawaken a sense of pride in Algerian history. Al-Hafnawi's admiration for the shaykh of al-Hamil is reflected in the biographical notice devoted to Muhammad b. Abi Al-Qasim, one of the lengthiest in the work.^[41]

Significantly, the author of Ta'rif excised any mention of the seventy-five-year French presence in the country, although he was the editor of the official bilingual government newspaper, Mobacher , from 1884 to 1926.^[42] This strange, complicit silence—willed forgetfulness—about France's hegemony may have been in part an expression of cultural-cognitive dissidence within al-Hafnawi himself. Christelow has pointed out the book's curious juxtaposition of old-time sufis and saints with ardent proponents of religious reform—the former are as prominent in al-Hafnawi's work as "the most staunchly puritanical of reformists."^[43] Yet, it might be argued that the space devoted to the al-Hamil zawiya was not necessarily a tacit statement that Islamic reformism belonged to the city, while in the coun-

tryside "sufism remained appropriate for the masses."^[44] It could also be interpreted as an acknowledgment that without the work of cultural preservation carried out by zawaya like al-Hamil, the reform-minded leaders in Algeria would have faced more adversity than they did. And willed forgetfulness about Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim's dealings with the French may be read as a subtle statement about the sociospiritual, intellectual, and ultimately political importance of those who coped successfully with European domination. Whatever interpretation is attached to al-Hafnawi's Ta'rif , his work is credited with inspiring Muslim Algerian literati to reexamine their own past, distant and near, to contend with the tribulations of the present.

The steady influx of visitors to al-Hamil from all over Algeria and the Maghrib required a large, permanent staff to oversee the day-to-day affairs—charity, education, hospitality—of the Rahmaniyya complex. Those in temporary duress, the poor or sick, the disinherited, and even fugitives from French justice found shelter in the zawiya, whose prosperity enabled it to dispense social services lacking elsewhere in the colony. The supervision of the zawiya's extensive hubus properties, mainly devoted to agricultural or pastoral production, also demanded administrative and managerial skills as well as bookkeeping to monitor incoming revenues and funds deposited for safekeeping. By the eve of the shaykh's death, the monetary worth of the zawiya's diverse holdings in gardens, land, flocks, mills, cash, etc., was evaluated at some Fr 2.5 million, a huge sum for the period, particularly in view of the general impoverishment of the Muslim Algerians.^[45] Al-Hamil's monetary worth would be one important element in the struggle unleashed in 1897.

Once again general socioeconomic conditions outside al-Hamil diverged considerably from those in the oasis, while also explaining the popularity of the sufi center. From the 1860s on, the rural Muslim population was afflicted by drought, famine, and epidemics which rendered all the more precarious a subsistence level seriously compromised by massive land expropriations. One observer of the terrible 1867-1868 famine characterized those regions hit by starvation as "an open tomb."^[46] At the same time, after the Muqrani uprising of 1871-1872, the colonial bureaucracy in the north passed fully into the hands of civilian administrators who were notoriously parsimonious about extending financial or other assistance to the beleaguered Muslim populace. Thus, the relatively thriving state of the oasis of al-Hamil and its environs stands in stark contrast to areas like the Kabylia after 1871, where, according to popular poets, "taxes rain upon us like repeated blows, the people have sold their fruit trees and even their clothes, the most fertile land goes for lowly sums."^[47]

Much of the credit for al-Hamil's success was due to the postures and strategies adopted by Shaykh Muhammad toward the unpleasant reality of foreign occupation. In addition, the Rahmaniyya leader was blessed with a temperament that enabled him to deal skillfully with Europeans of whatever background. This too explains his adeptness in navigating the treacherous political waters of fin de siècle Algeria.

The Shaykh and the French: The Politics of Cultural Redemption

North Africans were not the only visitors to the zawiya in the latter part of the century, although aside from the permanent military administration in Bu Sa'ada, the region did not interest Europeans before 1897. This was naturally a critical factor in Sidi Muhammad's relative freedom to construct a social and religious space where the impact of asymmetrical power relations was attenuated. Officers stationed in Bu Sa'ada, however, periodically called upon the Rahmaniyya shaykh as part of the politics of supervised amity.^[48] On one occasion sometime in the 1880s, the commandant arrived in the oasis, accompanied by a group of French women "with sun umbrellas unfurled," who evinced a mild curiosity in things Muslim and Saharan. Also present was the well-known French orientalist painter, Gustave Guillaumet, who by then had made numerous trips to Algeria to paint.

During this particular visit, Sidi Muhammad proved a cordial host, displaying an extraordinary equanimity in the face of European eccentricities. Not only did he open the doors of the very private women's quarters in his personal family residence to the French female guests but he also agreed to partake in a formal sit-down luncheon à la française at the zawiya. One can only wonder at his thoughts as he was seated for two hours with French women on either side for dinner companions, before a table set with the curious culinary implements of Western civilization which the delegation had thoughtfully furnished. For the first time in his life, Sidi Muhammad grappled with silverware, sat down with his guests while eating, and engaged in polite dinner conversation through an interpreter. Guillaumet left this account of the luncheon in the shaykh's residence:

A long table is set for the guests, contrary to the traditional custom of eating seated on the floor. For two hours all the refinements of Arab cuisine are brought out. Out of respect for such a venerable host, we refrained from bringing wine or other forbidden items. . . . for drinks, there was water or milk smelling of tar and of the skin of a goat, and curiously served in bottles and flowered bowls, coming from French manufacturers. As the master of the house, the marabout [the shaykh] sat down to the feast

only upon the express invitation of the French commandant, who placed him between two ladies. For him, what an overturning of custom! Between two ladies! This is certainly not the way in which the Arab honors the gentle sex. In addition, the commandant's cook brought out a complete table service. And the marabout, whose beard was grey, learned for the first time to serve himself with a fork, eat upon a table cloth and with porcelain plates, a crystal glass in front of him. To every expression of attention given him by his table companions, the marabout always responded with a smile full of finesse and goodwill. His mien is light and sweet, and his face that of a scholar rather than a man of war.^[49]

Guillaumet also observed that "Sidi Muhammad does not speak a word of our language; we appreciate his eloquence with the aid of interpreters."^[50] This fact is significant and contrasts once again with other religious notables, some of whom by this period had acquired at least limited facility in French. Whether the shakyh consciously refused to learn the occupiers' tongue is uncertain; Zaynab was unversed in French as well. A lack of proficiency in the foreigners' language, however, preserved a subtle cultural distance between the holy man and those officials who strove to work with him or through him to govern the local populace. Maintaining a balance between rapprochement with, and detachment from, the conqueror was absolutely critical for highly visible social intermediaries like Sidi Muhammad. An overly cozy relationship with the French might erode popular indigenous support; while remoteness from those in power could undermine the shaykh's ability to negotiate concessions for his community from colonial authorities.

The saint prudently refused to accept any formal office, honoraria, or even decorations from the regime, which left his reputation for piety untarnished, assuring him of the continued support of his constituency.^[51] This too contrasts with some other religious notables, who, seduced by the temptation of minor positions within the colonial order, saw their clients transfer loyalties to others less compromised by overt ties to the oppressors.^[52]

At the same time, the shaykh welcomed Europeans to his zawiya, including the French painter E. Dinet, who did a large portrait of Shaykh Muhammad which until recently hung in the zawiya's reception room for visitors. More significant than an Algerian sufi shaykh posing for his portrait was the fact that Dinet converted to Islam under Sidi Muhammad's spiritual guidance. The shaykh also discreetly arranged for Dinet to be circumcised at the Hospital Mustapha in Algiers. However, fearing re-

prisals from colonial officials, who would have been scandalized at a Frenchman's conversion, Dinet and the shaykh kept the matter secret for years.^[53] Sometime toward the end of his life, Sidi Muhammad even posed for a photograph obviously taken by a European visitor to the zawiya.^[54]

Sidi Muhammad's hospitality earned him kudos from military officials, thus reinforcing the benevolence of the local commandant, who was a powerful figure in the region's affairs and those of the zawiya. Of this, Shaykh Muhammad was painfully aware. In an age when the régime du sabre had ceded to the more corrosive system of civilian bureaucratic domination, a consummate diplomat like Shaykh Muhammad could claim victory in wars waged far from conventional battlefields. Proof of this is furnished by the lengthy evaluations of him written by colonial officialdom. French authorities rarely indulged in gratuitous praise of Algerian Muslim leaders. Yet Sidi Muhammad was characterized more than once as being "of great intelligence, vast knowledge, and irreproachable morals; his authority stretches from Bou Saada, Djelfa, Boghar, and Biskra to the region of Aumale, Médéa, Tiaret, and Sétif."^[55]

Shaykh Muhammad could not have undertaken extensive travels to visit his numerous affiliated zawaya and followers—the sine qua non of maintaining a religious network—without the blessings of the colonial regime. By this period many officials were frantic about the twin threats to France's African empire posed by Pan-Islam and by those sufi brotherhoods perceived as politically active. These apprehensions led them to monitor obsessively the physical displacements of North African religious figures. Written permits had to be obtained in advance of travel, a privilege which officials selectively conferred and more frequently refused. Denial of travel permits to uncooperative shaykhs loosened the highly personal bonds between sufi masters and distant clients, thus undermining spiritual loyalties, which in any case were deemed inherently subversive to France's hegemony.^[56] As far as can be ascertained from the sources available, Sidi Muhammad enjoyed unrestricted travel, which helped to sustain the translocal nature of his sociospiritual clientele.

One of the saint's last journeys on this earth brought him to Maison Carrée, outside of Algiers, in April 1896. In the course of a single day, Shaykh Muhammad was greeted by some five thousand Muslim Algerians eager to capture some of his baraka by touching him or kissing the hem of his robes.^[57] During this particular trip, the shaykh performed one of his most widely publicized miracles—a public demonstration of divinely conferred powers superior to those claimed by the French masters of Algeria. Since the scheduled departure for the train in which he rode conflicted with the afternoon prayer, the saint employed his supernatural gifts to stall the

train so that he might perform his devotions undisturbed. His followers swore that the European mechanics were powerless to move the train forward until Sidi Muhammad had completed the prescribed prayers.^[58] And here and there, in all the places where the shaykh had stopped to preach or rest, his disciples constructed small shrines (maqams) to commemorate his holy presence.

The positive attitude of colonial officials toward the director of the al-Hamil zawiya—indeed the very prosperity of the sufi center—was directly tied to Sidi Muhammad's decision not to oppose the French, at least not head on. Outwardly he maintained an amiable, if reserved, stance toward the regime, eschewed direct involvement in either profane politics or saintly squabbles, and even attempted to defuse movements of violent protest, for example, during the revolts of 1864 and 1871. Yet the shaykh was scarcely a pliant instrument in the hands of forces ostensibly more powerful than himself. His piety and erudition were infused by a large dose of realpolitik. Rather than being manipulated by the colonial order, he was quite adept at manipulating that same order to wring tangible concessions, material or otherwise, from his French mentors. The benefits from this quid pro quo arrangement were used solely for preserving the Muslim community under the less than favorable circumstances of the age. In short, the authorities needed the Rahmaniyya shaykh as much as he depended upon their goodwill to carry on the work of cultural survival. These then were the unspoken terms of the pact patiently worked out between religious notables, such as Sidi Muhammad, and local colonial authorities in places where pied-noir settlement was largely absent.

While steering clear of violent clashes pitting Muslim against European (or Muslim against Muslim), the shaykh openly risked the opprobrium of those in power. The most serious case of moderate, yet determined, insubordination had to do with the fact that he was "charitable, his house and purse are wide open to all."^[59] Sidi Muhammad provided asylum to political figures deemed dangerous to colonial security, among them rebels involved in the Muqrani insurrection and Ibrahim b. 'Abd Allah, implicated in the 1864 revolt. With the defeat of the Muqrani family and of the Rahmaniyya shaykh, al-Haddad, the survivors fled to al-Hamil, where they were given special quarters near the zawiya. Forty families received shelter from French justice there, and even today the northwest wing of the sufi complex still bears the designation of "quarter of the Muqranis."^[60] The presence of the once powerful Muqrani elite of the Majana in the oasis also led to matrimonial alliances between Shaykh Muhammad's lineage and his refugee guests.

As discussed above, asylum was traditionally expected of sufi-saintly lineages, whose centers were neutral havens of protection and hospitality.

To refuse sanctuary to fellow Muslims would have diminished Sidi Muhammad's prestige in the eyes of the faithful and compromised his ability to exercise moral persuasion and thereby shape collective political behavior. Local military officers preferred not to interfere with the shaykh's duty to welcome political "undesirables" to his zawiya—"people of disorder and intrigue," as one French officer described them—out of fear of alienating him.^[61] Of this dilemma the saint was well aware, exploiting it to advantage. And colonial pleas that he furnish officials with a list of the names of those under his protective mantle were ignored; the shaykh felt no compulsion to answer these demands since the will to employ coercive means to effect compliance was lacking among local military officials.^[62] In effect, the shaykh and his colonial masters were signatories to an unstated, yet mutually binding, pact whose implicit terms guaranteed political order in return for religious autonomy.

Nevertheless, the contentious issue of asylum and protection went deeper than this; at the heart of the matter were divergent cultural understandings of what constituted the proper domain of politics. Granting refuge to fellow Muslims was for Sidi Muhammad a religious duty; in French eyes, asylum was a political act. This incomprehension was expressed by a military officer in Bu Sa'ada who observed, in a long, favorable report devoted to the shaykh, that the saint "has a tendency to get involved in affairs whose solution depends entirely upon the authorities—criminal matters, political conflicts, and private concerns."^[63] All of these affairs were also squarely within the rightful realm of sufi leaders in the countryside. As a guarantor of social order, the shaykh's duty was to define and uphold religious and spiritual principles. Since Sidi Muhammad's interpretation of those principles was generous, it poached upon territory deemed political by secular-minded authorities.

By the eve of his death, Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim was clearly one of the most influential Rahmaniyya figures in North Africa. His disciples were estimated in the thousands; the educational prestige of his zawiya was rivaled only by the Rahmaniyya establishment in Tulqa, then under the directorship of Sidi 'Ali b. 'Uthman, who remained head shaykh until 1898. As was the case with al-Hamil, Tulqa's prosperity and its ability to meet its clientele's needs were a direct consequence of Sidi 'Ali's apolitical stance which earned for the zawiya the benign neglect of local officials. And benign neglect meant that the zawiya's various collective activities—religious, cultural, and social—could be carried on without interference from overly zealous or fearful administrators.^[64]

As Shaykh Muhammad advanced in years, unease regarding the critical matter of his spiritual successor steadily mounted in colonial circles. These apprehensions were due to the internal affairs of al-Hamil itself and to the

nature of moral-religious authority; nevertheless, France's larger African interests were also at stake. The saint appeared to be grooming his nephew Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad (c. 1861-1912) for a future leadership role. This Sidi Muhammad did by presenting his nephew on several occasions to local French officers in Bu Sa'ada as well as to officials in Algiers.^[65] Yet, the aging shaykh, who had suffered a serious heart attack years earlier, declined to publicly appoint a spiritual heir, despite increasing French insistence to do so. On the other hand, the individual most intimately involved in the zawiya's daily management was Sidi Muhammad's only surviving child, Zaynab, although no one in the colonial bureaucracy anticipated her audacious behavior or even considered her a likely candidate for leadership prior to 1897. In French eyes only a male could aspire to direct the zawiya; the burning question was—would Shaykh Muhammad's replacement be equally well disposed toward France? As the last decade of the century drew to a close, this unsettling question preoccupied not only the local military administration but also those at the top of the colonial hierarchy in the capital.^[66] As Captain Fournier observed in his 1895 report:

At the present time, in the region of Bu Sa'ada, the imposing personality of Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim guarantees upon all a form of behavior that is not politically suspect, but we can not assume that it will always be this way. It should be noted that, in effect, if the shaykh has acquired considerable authority, this influence is completely personal, and his successors will not necessarily inherit it.^[67]

French worries about spiritual headship can be comprehended only in relation to a constellation of imperial anxieties reaching far beyond the Sahara or even Algeria. The specter of pan-Islamic "plots" haunted colonial administrators, both French and British, in Africa and Asia by the century's end. The publication of Octave Depont and Xavier Coppolani's study of the Islamic brotherhoods in 1897 did nothing to allay these phantasms but rather fed them. Predictably, older French phobias about inherently "dangerous" sufi orders resurfaced as Shaykh Muhammad's physical condition declined. According to colonial intelligence, families believed associated with the Sanusiyya and Darqawa brotherhoods—the bêtes noires of French Islamophobes—regularly sent their children to al-Hamil for education and even performed the ziyara to the Rahmaniyya shaykh; a weak successor might fall under the nefarious influence of "religious fanatics." In this way a friendly, or at least politically neutral, zawiya would be transformed into a hotbed of sedition—or so colonial reasoning had it.^[68]

Connected to this was the unresolved problem of the Bu (Abu) 'Amama revolt along the Algerian-Moroccan borders, which threatened the security

of the Sahara and western Algeria for decades after its inception in 1881.^[69] Thus, by 1897 the issue of al-Hamil's future was a matter of no small consequence, not only for the zawiya, its personnel and clients, but also for those whose administrative careers depended upon the preservation of social tranquillity and political order in this remote corner of the Sahara. However, the expectation that Shaykh Muhammad's nephew would be accepted as head shaykh lulled some officers, particularly Captain Crochard, into a false serenity about what lay ahead. Two months prior to his death in June 1897, Sidi Muhammad, by then under intense pressure from local colonial authorities, had written a letter to Bu Sa'ada's military command stating that Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad, his brother's son, was to succeed him.^[70] However, it appears that only the French knew of the existence of this document. Zaynab was unaware of the letter designating her cousin as head shaykh; she later used it as one of the bases for her grievances against local military officials, asserting that the letter had been wrung from her ailing father when his faculties were waning.

This was the complex political legacy that Zaynab bint Shaykh Muhammad inherited, one which forced the shaykh's daughter to fight to succeed her father. While her father had deftly maneuvered and negotiated to avoid serious clashes, Zaynab chose, due to circumstances, to directly confront the colonial order. She contested the imperial system more vigorously than her father had deemed wise in order to sustain the zawiya's socioreligious functions so vital for the community's well-being, if not its very existence. In large measure, Zaynab's gender and femininity were at the root of the confrontation; yet conversely, it was precisely because she was a woman—an extraordinary woman—that she successfully defied those ostensibly monopolizing political power in a dispute over spiritual power. Zaynab did not seek out politics, but rather politics came to find her in the seclusion of al-Hamil.

The Shaykh's Daughter: Lalla Zaynab

Nineteenth-century Algerian historiography appears as an imperial male preserve, peopled almost exclusively by men, whether French military heroes like General Bugeaud, celebrated in colonial hagiography, or Muslim resistance figures, such as Amir Abd al-Qadir, venerated as an early nationalist leader.^[71] One of the few exceptions was the "fille insoumise," the rebellious daughter of Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim, although her story has remained untold until now.

In some ways, Zaynab is emblematic of the social situation of indigenous females in European settler-colonial societies of Africa or Asia. In addition to class or social ranking and gender distinctions, these societies were

structured according to "racial" boundaries. For North Africans, the category of race was manipulated by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European thinkers, writers, and colonial administrators to include cultural and ethnic attributes. By virtue of their Islamic religion and Arab-Semitic language, which had consequently "retarded" sociomoral development, most North Africans were deemed "racially inferior" to their colonial masters. Nevertheless, the Berbers were at times placed a bit higher on the "racial" scale than Arabic speakers.^[72] In Les femmes arabes en Algérie , Hubertine Auclert stated quite bluntly the prevailing colonial estimation of the North Africans: "In Algeria, only a small minority of Frenchmen would place the Arab race in the category of humanity."^[73] As for indigenous North African women, they were part of a social order that was doubly patriarchal—colonial, on the one hand, and indigenous, on the other.

Nevertheless, saintliness, sharifian descent, piety, and the miracles attributed to her by religious clients rendered Zaynab an extraordinary person, at least in the eyes of the Muslim faithful. Sinthood and special virtue placed her outside of the normal bounds defining female public behavior and sociolegal status in Muslim society. While colonial officials obviously did not subscribe to the same cultural norms, they were reluctant to take certain kinds of action against female religious notables, like Zaynab, out of fear of offending Muslim sensibilities and provoking unrest. Perhaps more than their male counterparts, some women were strategically situated to exploit the weaker points within the colonial system of control.

Information about Zaynab's early years is scanty; many things can only be posited from fragmentary evidence or deduced from her father's biography. While there is ample biographical, or more accurately hagiographical, material in published and unpublished Arabic sources devoted to the shaykh, Zaynab is conspicuous by her absence in the Arabic texts. (The rich oral traditions concerning Zaynab are still extant today and represent a potential, though underutilized, source.) In al-Hafnawi's Ta'rif , for example, she is referred to simply as the shaykh's "bint saliha" (virtuous daughter) with no further elaboration upon her life or works.^[74] Al-Hafnawi was well acquainted with al-Hamil's history; when he composed his dictionary, Zaynab had just died and her first cousin, Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad, had belatedly claimed spiritual directorship. European documentation devoted to Zaynab comes from two main sources. Foreign visitors, such as Guillaumet, who journeyed to the zawiya in search of the exotic (or in the case of Isabelle Eberhardt for personal salvation), have provided extremely sympathetic accounts of the female saint. More abundant are colonial archival sources, many of which, although not all, were

written by hostile military officials during the period when al-Hamil's headship was hotly contested.

Although the exact date of her birth is unknown, Zaynab was born sometime in the 1850s, soon after Sidi Muhammad founded the religious establishment in al-Hamil which later grew into the Rahmaniyya center.^[75] Zaynab spent most, if not all, of her life in the oasis, although she may have been with her father during his five years (1857–1862) in the oasis of Awlad Jallal in the Ziban. She was educated by Sidi Muhammad, who took his daughter's instruction very seriously. She attained an advanced stage of erudition, becoming well versed in the books and manuscripts housed in the zawiya's extensive library; she later helped to keep the accounts of the center's numerous properties. Her knowledge was viewed with admiration and respect by her father's followers and increased the "already great prestige she enjoyed in the community as the shaykh's daughter."^[76] A later source claimed that Sidi Muhammad had "trained her from childhood to fill the role that awaited her."^[77]

Zaynab was raised in the harim (harem) attached to the shaykh's private family residence. The harim housed some forty women—the shaykh's mother, sister, wives, and a large number of females who, deprived of male protectors, had been entrusted to Sidi Muhammad's care; even divorced wives continued to reside in the zawiya. After her father's death, Zaynab assumed the role of protector for the harim's women, shielding them on at least one occasion from harassment by local military officials. Many of these women led secluded lives devoted to spiritual exercises, not unlike cloistered nuns.^[78] Following the custom of endogamy among North African saintly-sufi clans, Sidi Muhammad had wed spouses from other religious families of distinction and even from among the aristocratic Muqrani. While these liaisons brought a large measure of social notoriety and enlarged the clan's already extensive networks, they did not apparently produce any surviving male heirs.^[79]

While she had many suitors as a young woman, Zaynab took a vow of celibacy, a somewhat unusual act since Islamic social values prize matrimony, family life, and progeny above all else.^[80] Yet for the shaykh's daughter, virginity was a compelling source of spiritual authority and social empowerment. It permitted her to devote herself entirely to caring for the destitute, unencumbered by the burdens of domestic chores or child rearing. Zaynab's celibate state also conferred greater freedom of movement in the community, for as one colonial officer remarked, "She was not afraid to show herself to others."^[81] Her frail appearance, the legacy of a lifetime of fasting, prayer vigils, and other forms of asceticism, enhanced her

virtuous reputation. Another visitor described her during the early 1880s as a "saintly being whose face is marked by small pox and decorated with small tattoos" as was the custom among Saharan women.^[82]

Shaykh Muhammad centralized the management of the sufi center's numerous properties and complex affairs within his own hands. Nevertheless, he apparently kept Zaynab informed of financial and other operations, viewing her as a confidant. After a massive heart attack in 1877, Sidi Muhammad directed the qadi in Bu Sa'ada to draw up a hubus document specifying the terms of inheritance under Maliki law. In this document, the shaykh's substantial possessions—land, houses, gardens, library manuscripts, valuable household items—were constituted as a family hubus "in favor of his daughter Zaynab and other children of either the male or female sex." In a departure from the usual inheritance practices, Zaynab was singled out to receive a "portion equal to male" descendants, although no sons were ever born (or survived to adulthood). All other female descendants would inherit only the customary one-half of a male share of property.^[83] But the document was more than a legal blueprint for distributing material goods; it may have been an expression of the shaykh's desire that his daughter succeed him as head of the zawiya. Two decades later, Zaynab relied upon the 1877 hubus document as part of a campaign to advance her claims to spiritual succession over and against those of her male cousin.

The marked preference shown Zaynab can also be interpreted as a sign of the shaykh's deep attachment to her and his recognition of her very special piety. Nevertheless, the fact that she had renounced the pleasures of marriage meant that Zaynab would produce no offspring to complicate the matter of inheritance. Zaynab returned her father's affections, describing him with some passion in a letter dated 1899 as an exemplar whose life was motivated by a love for others, noting Shaykh Muhammad's "pity for the disinherited, his generosity, his great theological knowledge, disinterest in the things of this world, and his scrupulous observance of Muslim law in all matters."^[84] Imagine Zaynab's profound distress when her beloved father passed away.

One 2 June 1897, Sidi Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim suffered another heart attack while returning from a visit to the governor-general, Jules Cambon, in Algiers; he died among his religious clients, the Awlad Sahari in the hamlet of Buhaira Sakhiri; the qadi had his saintly remains transported back to al-Hamil.^[85] According to Muslim tradition, he was quickly buried in the stately family mausoleum inside the zawiya's mosque. His tomb immediately became an enormously popular pilgrimage site for the multitude seeking the saint's blessings. The next month, on 16 July, a religious ceremony was held in his memory in Bu Sa'ada's principal mosque.

In addition to Rahmaniyya followers and members of the region's tribes, a number of colonial officials were present at the service. Speaking to the assembly was Major Crochard, soon to be Zaynab's nemesis in the succession struggle. In his speech, Crochard evoked Shaykh Muhammad's relationship with France, as he and all within the colonial hierarchy wanted to see it:

Si Mohammed ben Belqacem [sic ] was tied to the French cause, openly, loyally, and without ulterior motive. Due to his enlightened way of thinking, he offset the influence of those who were hostile to us, aiding us with all his means in the work of civilization which he so well understood. He struggled to see that civilization triumph, even risking his own prestige with many people to so do.^[86]

Crochard's elegy in French was probably comprehensible to but a few of the assembled Muslim Algerians. After he had finished, the defunct shaykh's nephew and the qadi of Bu Sa'ada also addressed the crowd—the order of speaking reflected the arrangement of power. Here, of course, the language was Arabic, and while some of the military officers were versed in that tongue, the same can not be assumed for the rest of the Europeans. Moreover, the second elegy had nothing to do with France or her civilizing mission; far from it, the speakers recalled the saint's sharifian origins, his religious virtues, and his pious works.^[87] Thus the two elegies in two different languages remembered two very different dimensions of the same man. Yet the mutual incomprehension went further than the merely linguistic domain; the lack of understanding was cultural and ideological and by extension political. It would seem, at least in this context, that the mission civilisatrice had thus far implicitly failed.

If the French could congratulate themselves momentarily for deftly managing an apparently willing ally like Shaykh Muhammad for years, and arranging a suitably docile heir, events in both the long- and short-term would cut short those felicitations. A generation later, Shaykh Muhammad's work of cultural survival produced individuals who would begin to aggressively reassert their authentic Algerian Muslim identity. As for the immediate future, Lalla Zaynab quickly ended comfortable illusions about smooth succession at the zawiya.

"Une Fille Insoumise": The Rebellious Daughter

No sooner had the shaykh been laid to rest and the funerary ceremonials concluded, than Zaynab's cousin belligerently affirmed his right to al-Hamil's headship. Accompanied by a band of followers, Muhammad b.

al-Hajj Muhammad went to the shaykh's residence and was immediately confronted by a resolute and hostile Zaynab, who refused to acknowledge his moral and spiritual authority. She forbade the students and zawiya personnel from obeying her cousin's orders, denied him entry to the center's library, books, and buildings, and imposed a sort of lockout by taking possession of the keys.^[88] Zaynab's objections to her cousin were twofold. First, she and many others regarded him as impious and worldly, traits that rendered him undeserving to replace her father. And it was feared that his excessive attachment to the things of this life would endanger the zawiya's social services and its mission of cultural redemption. Second, Zaynab rejected the nomination letter, which she characterized as "apocryphal," extracted from the shaykh just before his death by Captain Crochard.^[89]

The confrontation degenerated into a series of brawls between the two sides; some of Zaynab's partisans were beaten. Enraged, the cousin even went so far as to attempt to shut Zaynab up in the harim against her will. A desperate act by a desperate man, this stratagem for containing a willful female only brought disgrace upon the pretender and caused Zaynab to go on the offensive. Deprived of access to the zawiya's physical space and material assets, Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad also forfeited the spiritual capital and social perquisites which accompanied that access. Of this, both Zaynab and her cousin were well aware. With al-Hamil's educational and devotional facilities off limits, Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad created a counterfollowing by establishing a rival school on the outskirts of the village. A little less than a year after the schism erupted, the hapless cousin had enticed only a small group of thirty students to his side.^[90]

The conflict soon widened. Zaynab sent letters to Rahmaniyya notables all over the region denouncing her cousin; she also contacted the nearby office of the Affaires Indigènes, demanding redress of her grievances. Accusing Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad of advancing spurious claims to the post of head shaykh, she also informed French authorities of her cousin's untoward comportment toward her, insisting that they curb his "injustice and thievery" and reminding them pointedly of her father's "devotion to France and to [the maintenance] of public order."^[91] In a war of words, Zaynab's arguments were a stroke of genius—her attack on French insistence upon her cousin as a fitting successor was based entirely upon the logic of keeping order.

The two-way struggle provoked divisions among al-Hamil's numerous religious clients, including various tribes in the Sahara. Most of the Awlad 'Alan, the Titteri, and the Sahari supported Zaynab's cause; several other tribal groups threw in their lot with her rival. While information is lacking

about the motives of tribal support for either of the spiritual contestants, the split may have followed saff fault lines, which often occurred when the tribes were confronted with a politico-religious contest of this nature. In addition, the Rahmaniyya shaykhs of Tulqa seized upon the discord to woo some clients away from al-Hamil.^[92] Zaynab's bold actions also presented Sidi Muhammad's closest spiritual intimates with a serious dilemma. She had declared that any Rahmaniyya brother who joined her cousin's side "could no longer hope to see the door of Lalla Zaynab's [zawiya] open to him."^[93] Although some of her father's disciples believed that Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad would be an acceptable successor, they recoiled from disavowing Zaynab due to their great respect for the shaykh's daughter. Moreover, Zaynab bore a striking physical resemblance to her father; her carriage and mannerisms recalled those of the deceased saint. Many believed that she had inherited her father's baraka. Finally, other Rahmaniyya notables questioned the claims of both Zaynab and her cousin, asserting that spiritual succession should return to the descendants of Shaykh al-Mukhtar in the oasis of Awlad Jallal.^[94]

As far as can be ascertained from the available sources, the hesitation of some Muslim Algerians to endorse Zaynab's directorship did not necessarily revolve around the issue of gender and proper gender roles. The wellspring of legitimate succession was the matter of baraka and the worthiness of an individual to inherit the defunct shaykh's blessings and charisma. Moreover, within the Rahmaniyya tariqa, precedents existed for the assumption of spiritual authority by female saints, at least temporarily.^[95] It was rather local colonial officials who argued most vehemently against Lalla Zaynab in 1897 solely because she was of the weaker sex. For French officers, Zaynab's femininity meant ipso facto that she would be a pliable instrument in the hands of anti-French forces; her very nature made her incapable of effective administration.^[96] While Sidi Muhammad's political neutrality had kept colonial interference in the zawiya's spiritual affairs at bay, once Zaynab assumed control outside meddling escalated.

While massive French intervention was in large measure due to the prospect of a woman in charge, colonial authorities had been increasingly concerned about the zawiya's educational activities even before the shaykh's death. Astute officials perceived that Islamic education posed as much of a threat—perhaps more—to France's grand design for Algeria as did insurrection. Accordingly, decrees and laws regulating Muslim "private" schools were promulgated from the 1880s seeking to better supervise, and thus suppress, the taproot of North African culture and civilization—its religious schools.^[97] Moreover, the great shaykh's death had come at a particularly inopportune moment for those whose military careers were

devoted to following maraboutic politics. One month before Sidi Muhammad's death, Tijaniyya factions from 'Ain Madi and Tammasin had become embroiled in a macabre dispute over the recently defunct Tijani shaykh's sacred remains and thus his baraka.^[98] The tenuous peace in the Sahara threatened to dissolve. This then was the subtext underlying Commandant Crochard's alarm over Zaynab's daring bid for leadership.

Bu Sa'ada's military officers were stunned and infuriated since they had anticipated that Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad would take over al-Hamil unopposed. Zaynab's public denunciations of her cousin placed them on the defensive; striving to limit the damage done by an upstart woman, they threw their full weight behind their chosen candidate. Captain Crochard naturally portrayed Zaynab's rival to his superiors in glowing terms—as a faithful, upright individual, motivated solely by concerns for the zawiya's welfare and the security of France. Nevertheless, others officials painted a somewhat different portrait of him, characterizing him as "of average intelligence yet ambitious, haughty, and prone to excess." Moreover, the zawiya's numerous clients regarded him as rapacious and miserly, thus popular support was tepid at best.^[99]

Predictably rumors spread among al-Hamil's inhabitants and its sufi followers—Zaynab's cousin had gone to Algiers to enlist the assistance of the authorities in seizing the zawiya's assets. Rumors such as this made Muhammad al-Hajj Muhammad's claims to succession even less palatable for most.^[100] While Muslim Algerians revered sufi leaders marked by piety, purity of morals, and closeness to God, the French privileged other behavioral attributes—above all, docility. Deprived of widespread communal respect, Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad would, therefore, be amenable to manipulation, solely reliant upon his French allies to administer the sufi center. In turn, the would-be shaykh expected the authorities to force Zaynab to yield, something that they were unwilling or, more accurately, unable to do. Political diffidence on the part of those ostensibly in power increasingly alienated Zaynab's cousin from his colonial mentors, thus complicating things.^[101]

The rebellious daughter's unexpected behavior provoked a great deal of bitter frustration among local military officers. Dealing with a defiant Muslim woman was somewhat of a novelty for those long accustomed to breaking the will of obstreperous Muslim males. At one point, the officers of the Affaires Indigènes had indeed considered coercion to evict her from the zawiya—an index of their sense of impotence. Yet Zaynab was a saint and venerated mystic with her own popular following, which rendered the matter all the more delicate. On the one hand, she had ensnared Crochard in his own infernal trap: to drive her from office would rally the sufi

brothers and clients around her. They had already closed ranks to support their female leader, and rash actions would provoke the very unrest the officers sought to avoid. On the other hand, she defied French male authority—a double affront coming from a Muslim and a woman at that! The entire colonial edifice of control was in question.^[102]

Evaluations of Zaynab contained in official correspondence translate the helpless rage felt by those in command, whose very careers were endangered by female recalcitrance. Not surprisingly, Captain Crochard felt compelled to characterize her as the passive, foolish victim of sinister, female intrigues within the zawiya. According to his reports, she was exploited by anti-French malcontents, who perceived Zaynab's cousin as inimical to their own political interests: "Among her associates, there are no good men; she is surrounded by untrustworthy people, capable of the worst excesses. . . . they know well that she can be manipulated."^[103] Thus, her strength was interpreted as the product of inherent female weakness. In addition to revealing pervasive French male attitudes toward female nature in general, such explanations also unveil something much more profound: the absence of colonial mechanisms for containing small-scale, nonviolent rebellions, particularly by Muslim women.^[104]

Zaynab was serenely conscious of the tactical edge that seeming powerlessness conferred and exploited this tiny breach in the prevailing system of domination. "She knows that a woman is always treated with circumspection and exploits this in order to embarrass and cause problems for local authorities whom she sees as favoring her cousin."^[105] As he grew increasingly aware of his own political impotence, Crochard became more censorious of his feminine opponent: "Passionate to the point of hatred, bold to the point of insolence and impudence, very haughty and eager for deferential treatment, she displays in the worst ways her father's qualities; her charity is nothing but extravagance; she does not hesitate to deceive or make false accusations to pursue the plan of action she has in mind."^[106] In concluding his vilification, Crochard gloomily predicted the ultimate ruin of the zawiya and its numerous social welfare functions—all because of a rebellious woman. Noteworthy here is that those very same qualities deemed laudable in Zaynab's father—philanthropy and largesse—were pernicious in a disobedient female. The captain also disclosed the true source of his resentment toward her, lamenting, "Lalla Zaynab's behavior has completely destroyed all that I have labored so hard to effect, "that is, to arrange for a politically tranquil succession after Shaykh Muhammad's death. In late nineteenth-century Algeria, small defiant acts could be as menacing to the political order as large, militant gestures: "This affair demonstrates that Zaynab is a dangerous woman whose intrigues and

activities should be closely surveyed."^[107] She had trespassed into political territory theoretically prohibited to the colonized.

The Riposte

Zaynab employed every means at her disposal to thwart the designs of the two men opposing her—Crochard and her cousin. The material stakes were considerable since control over the zawiya's substantial assets and properties was also at issue. With the French in Bu Sa'ada against her, Zaynab took a most unusual step—she cleverly petitioned those at the very top of the colonial hierarchy for assistance. In August 1897, she hired a French lawyer, Maurice l'Admiral, the general counsel for the circumscription of Aumale, and some of his associates, to represent her legally in Algiers.^[108] L'Admiral, together with Bonnard, the general counsel for the prefecture of Algiers, and messieurs Pastoureau and Arene met with Zaynab at her residence in Bu Sa'ada on 13 September 1897. One of the four Frenchmen served as an interpreter for Zaynab during the long interview they had with her that day. L'Admiral subsequently brought her allegations regarding misconduct by Bu Sa'ada's Affaires Indigènes office to the attention of the head of the French judiciary, the procureur-général . The latter, alarmed by Zaynab's accusations and by the dimensions which the conflict was assuming, contacted the governor-general and the leading military officer for the province in October 1897.^[109]

Once l'Admiral became embroiled in the conflict, the calculus of the succession dispute was utterly transformed. The mere threat of the semi-independent judiciary intervening in the matter caused considerable discomfiture in Algiers. Moreover, bad publicity about French treatment of Muslim dignitaries was also unwelcome. France in this period was engaged in an international public relations campaign to convince Muslims in Morocco, Tunisia, and elsewhere of the benefits of French rule; the al-Hamil affair might besmirch the desired image of benevolence and toleration for all things Islamic.^[110]

In setting forth her grievances to those at the pinnacle of French Algeria, Zaynab displayed a remarkable knowledge of imperial and administrative structures and their potential soft spots. It was she who reminded French authorities of their duties under the terms of the colonial "pact" with the indigenous population rather than the reverse. Her familiarity with the ways of the infidels appears all the more extraordinary since as far as we know prior to 1897 she had remained largely within the environs of al-Hamil. However, Zaynab had access to three important sources of information: her father, who traveled widely, met with colonial officials, and treated her as a confidant; the Muqranis as well as the other political

refugees who had long resided in the zawiya and who had previous experience with the colonial bureaucracy; and the thousands of pilgrims and students from Algeria and North Africa who had visited al-Hamil over the years, invariably bringing news of the world outside the oasis.

This information, combined with her own highly developed powers of persuasion and deep commitment to the zawiya's welfare, made Zaynab a formidable opponent. By involving French lawyers, the procureur-général , and the governor-general in the dispute, she managed to pit high-ranking officials against local officers—a shrewd appropriation of France's long-standing policy for governing the Algerians through "divide and rule" tactics. As General Meygret stated to his superior, Jules Cambon, Zaynab's complaint "contains allegations of a grave nature" against those heading the Bu Sa'ada command.^[111]

Moreover, the appointment of Jules Cambon as the new, reform-minded governor-general in 1891 signaled a belated effort by Paris to rein in the European settlers and curb bureaucratic excesses vis-à-vis the indigenous Muslim community. No stranger to Algeria, Cambon attempted to soften the regime's hostile stance toward Islam and the sufi orders and to cultivate cordial relations with religious notables heading the great brotherhoods, the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyya, and Rahmaniyya.^[112] The clumsy meddling by Crochard and others into the spiritual affairs of a friendly sufi center, such as al-Hamil, was viewed with displeasure in Algiers. Zaynab's actions had, therefore, thrown the colonial administration into a certain disarray. By the end of 1897, Meygret recommended to Cambon that the colonial regime refrain from further interference in the al-Hamil dispute. Convinced that she would never yield without recourse to force, the authorities in Algiers ordered Bu Sa'ada's officers to desist.^[113] Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad was relegated to the sidelines for the next seven years, although his gracious female cousin gave him managerial functions at the zawiya. Zaynab had defeated the combined forces of French officialdom and her cousin. More important, she had succeeded her father.

Feeling secure in her position as director, Zaynab had al-Hamil's mosque rebuilt in 1898, calling in Italian masons and artisans from Morocco and the East to construct a completely new structure, perhaps as a symbol of her hard-won spiritual authority.^[114] While she was left more or less in peace, another assault upon her management of the center came in 1899 under the guise of financial claims against the zawiya's assets, an attack which Zaynab deftly repulsed. That year an Algerian named Sa'id b. Lakhdar requested that the military officers in Bu Sa'ada take action on his behalf against the Rahmaniyya establishment. Lakhdar, who as Zaynab observed in her letter was mentally deranged, maintained that Zaynab's

father owed him the colossal sum of over two million francs. In addition, he asserted that Sidi Muhammad had designated him as the shaykh's spiritual khalifa or successor. Local officers, eager to push even patently fraudulent claims, subsequently contacted Zaynab, demanding an explanation.^[115]

Drawing upon Islamic law, customary practice, French legal procedures, and her own highly developed powers of reasoning, Zaynab swiftly refuted all of Lakhdar's allegations. Among other arguments, she observed that "there is no native Algerian in all of our region who has ever possessed over two million francs in specie."^[116] Moreover, the sum demanded by the plaintiff was not recorded in the zawiya's financial registers, nor did Lakhdar possess a written receipt of deposit from Shaykh Muhammad. Finally, Zaynab pointed out the irrational nature of the complaint and its true motives—to discredit the zawiya and its female director:

Sa'id ibn Lakhdar says that he deposited this sum of money with my father. Assuming that the sum was in cash, [the plaintiff] would have been obliged to transport a heavy load of specie, requiring enormous numbers of donkeys to deliver it to the zawiya. . . . the claims of this individual have no foundation; . . . how ever, this affair is the work of someone other than Lakhdar, who is a tool for those who hate us and who are intent upon the ruin and loss of the zawiya.^[117]

Zaynab's written rebuttals were a tour de force in terms of argumentation; her letters reveal not only a profound familiarity with the colonial regime—and with the mentality of Algeria's French masters—but also a singular sense of strategy. Once again, she pointedly reminds those in power of their obligations under the implicit colonial pact: "The French government, whose predominant qualities are those of justice and equity, will know how to foil the plans of evil people."^[118] Finally, her intimate knowledge of all the details of Sa'id b. Lakhdar's past financial relations with her father demonstrates that Sidi Muhammad had kept his daughter informed of the zawiya's various banking activities.

In the course of this incident, she clearly emerged as the protector of the harim's secluded women, assuming a role previously fulfilled by her father. Still pressing his case several months later, Sa'id b. Lakhdar next sought to force the harim's women to travel to Algiers to one of the tomb-shrines of Sidi Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Azhari. There at the qubba of the Rahmaniyya tariqa's saint-founder, the women were to take an oath swearing they knew nothing of the money owed by their deceased spouse. Lakhdar's demands caused great distress among Sidi Muhammad's widows.

Once more, Zaynab adroitly discredited the legality of this ploy by appealing both to Islamic law regarding oaths and to French justice. If need be, she would take an oath upon the tomb of the great saint in Algiers—an extremely serious, morally binding act in the eyes of Muslims—but the harim's women were not parties to the dispute and thus should not be disturbed.^[119] The matter ended there.

In part, Zaynab's victory sprang from her own determination and tactical skills as well as French powerlessness in the face of a refractory Muslim woman. The feckless, greedy nature of her cousin was another factor since popular enthusiasm for his cause was lacking. Paradoxically, the backing of local colonial authorities may have eroded the little respect Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad enjoyed in the community. Nevertheless, Zaynab's father played a role in resolving the dispute—from the grave—by performing a posthumous miracle.

When the struggle over spiritual succession was in its most bitter stage, Lalla Zaynab took refuge one day at her father's tomb. There she wept and prayed for hours until nightfall. Alarmed by her distress, family and followers gathered at the tomb to implore her to return to the residence. As Zaynab refused to heed their pleas, the old imam raised his voice to heaven and cried out: "Oh Lord, come to our aid; who thus has inherited [Sidi Muhammad's] baraka?" Immediately all present heard Shaykh Muhammad's voice issue from the grave, saying: "It is my daughter, Zaynab, who has inherited my baraka." From that day forth, Zaynab's legitimate succession was confirmed; the ranks of her clientele swelled to include former skeptics.^[120]

There was, however, one more significant, if less articulate, force determining the outcome of the succession conflict—public opinion and the collective consensus of the faithful. As much as colonial officials in the capital, Zaynab's clientele, drawn from the local community and wider sufi network, helped to resolve the issue. As stated earlier, Zaynab's father had bequeathed upon her a fund of sociospiritual capital which she then enlarged through her own piety, virtue, and erudition. Moreover, because baraka—which fused grace, blessings, supernatural powers, and charisma—was regarded as transmissible, the struggle between Zaynab and her cousin was in reality over the dead shaykh's baraka. Public recognition of Zaynab's worthiness to receive her father's baraka, together with overriding French concerns for maintaining public order, thus brought the succession quarrel to an end. Ordinary people, too, had a voice in electing saintly preceptors.

A rare eyewitness account of the forms that popular veneration for the female saint and sufi assumed is provided by the French artist, Charles de

Galland, who visited Lalla Zaynab in al-Hamil seven months after her father's death. De Galland noted that, anticipating Zaynab's appearance, a large crowd "of the faithful remaining completely immobile and silent" had gathered in a small square before the zawiya's immense doorway; the throng included both Rahmaniyya members and others not affiliated with the order. Zaynab's emergence from the residence dressed in flowing, white robes provoked a murmur that rippled throughout the throng, then a dead silence fell. When Zaynab reappeared later to wend her way through the people, they pressed around her, bending low to kiss the hem of her garments and capture some of her baraka as had earlier been done with her father.^[121]

Contrary to Crochard's predictions that "the daughter of the marabout [would] be unable to administer alone the zawiya's vast fortune and properties, dispersed over three départements ," Zaynab's seven-year stewardship was no less judicious than her father's. By 1899, local military officials reluctantly admitted that under her direction al-Hamil's fortune remained intact and "the gardens around al-Hamil [were] flourishing, the farmland cultivated, and the zawiya's numerous flocks [were] thriving."^[122] As her father had done, Zaynab initiated sufi brothers and sisters into the Rahmaniyya tariqa with her own hands.^[123] The number of annual pilgrims to the zawiya remained as high as in previous years, and students poured in seeking instruction. Thus, despite her deteriorating health and the taxing burden of caring for several hundred indigents per day, Zaynab directed the zawiya in vigorous fashion with, as one European remarked, "an incomparable authority."^[124] The demands of running a complex sufi center with a widely dispersed following meant that Zaynab journeyed throughout the area, as her father before her. Wherever she paused to pray, the populace erected maqams—simple shrines or saint markers—to commemorate her presence, thereby designating the sacredness of the space.

After Sidi Muhammad's death, Zaynab emerged more fully into the public spaces largely reserved for males, whether French or Algerian. In part it was the very opposition of men like Crochard that compelled her to construct a more public persona. To wage the campaign against her cousin, she began to travel widely, visiting Rahmaniyya notables, Muslim dignitaries, and French officials, although she had always moved freely about in the local Muslim community due to her saintly status and celibate state. Yet it was not necessarily the dictates of gender roles, informed by Islamic custom, which had kept her in the old shaykh's shadow prior to 1897 but rather respect for his prestige, age, and authority. Similarly, deferential attitudes also determined the behavior of subordinate or junior males toward older sufi superiors. Finally, while European settler colonialism

erected its own highly charged political spaces and boundaries in Algeria, Zaynab, as a female saint commanding a vast following, was able to challenge those boundaries to a degree that few Muslim males or ordinary women dared.^[125]

By the century's close, the turbulent frontiers earlier created by populist protest and resistance had given way to sociocultural frontiers. Particularly in northern Algeria, the dividing lines between the two communities, European and Muslim, were becoming increasingly lithified and justified by reliance upon racial arguments. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the social place assigned to Western women in French Algeria, about which little has been written. Another woman who defied colonial cultural confines—in this case, the accepted norms of European female behavior in front of the "natives"—was Isabelle Eberhardt.

Zaynab and Isabelle, "The Passionate Nomad"

In 1902, an improbable relationship developed between the virgin saint and sufi and Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904), the "passionate nomad."^[126] Eberhardt was the illegitimate daughter of a defrocked Armenian clergyman of nihilist persuasion and an aristocratic German woman. Her childhood and upbringing in Geneva were wildly eccentric, predisposing Eberhardt to unconventional behavior throughout her brief life. In 1897, the year of Sidi Muhammad's death, Eberhardt and her mother arrived in the city of Bône, hoping to escape the domestic unhappiness and social ostracism they had suffered in Europe. Instead the two women found themselves in Bône's bigoted, self-righteous pied-noir community, whose inhabitants suffered from acute "status anxiety" toward both the Muslim Algerians and expatriate foreigners.^[127] There Eberhardt continued her study of Arabic and Islam, snubbing settler society and fraternizing instead with the colonized. Her marriage in 1902 to an Algerian Muslim soldier, Sliman Ehnni, one of the few Algerians to be granted citizenship, also ironically conferred French nationality upon Eberhardt, who carried a Russian passport, as well as provoking an uproar in colonial circles.

Eberhardt's evident sympathy for Islam and Arab culture aroused a great deal of overt hostility among officials and European settlers alike. In addition, Isabelle's disorderly conduct—a fondness for alcohol and drugs, illicit sexual liaisons, and cross-gender, cross-cultural dressing (she wore the garb of an Algerian male most of the time)—caused profound distress in colonial society. Since European women were the custodians of France's divinely ordained civilizing mission in Algeria (and elsewhere in Africa), white women defined social distance from, and political control over, the "natives." By mixing socially and sexually with Muslim Algerians, Eber-

hardt transgressed the culturally and legally defined "racial" barriers separating the two communities. Ironically, Eberhardt, a social marginal, posed the ultimate challenge to the colonial order.^[128] It is uncertain how Lalla Zaynab and her zawiya first came to Eberhardt's attention, although when Isabelle and her mother rented their first house in Bône in 1897, they chose to live in the Arab quarter; a Rahmaniyya zawiya was located down the street from their home.^[129] By this time, Zaynab's reputation for sanctity and miracles had spread far beyond the Sahara, and she was "spoken of with awe and reverence throughout every corner of Algeria where the disciples of the Rahmaniyya order were found."^[130] Women, both European and Muslim, brought their ailing children to Zaynab, who was blessed with the ability to cure. Therefore, Eberhardt may have heard about the female saint either from Muslim friends or from the small circle of French "Arabophiles," or she may have read about her in travel accounts then being published by Frenchmen who had visited al-Hamil.^[131] In addition, Eberhardt, as was true of many Europeans in this period, the heyday of European Orientalism, was fascinated by the desert. As Isabelle put it: "In the really Arab towns like the fortified oases of the south, the poignant and bewitching atmosphere of the land of Africa is quite tangible."^[132] Thus, her unquiet soul and exoticist cravings drove Isabelle into the Sahara.

In the summer of 1902, Eberhardt made the arduous journey from Algiers to al-Hamil expressly to visit Lalla Zaynab, the first of several pilgrimages to the zawiya. By then the European woman was suffering from a host of physical and other afflictions—chronic malaria, syphilis, and drug addiction—and was bent upon pursuing some vague mystical vocation connected to her frantic search for inner tranquillity. Arriving in Bu Sa'ada during a violent summer rainstorm, Isabelle was forced to obtain written permission from local military authorities before proceeding on to al-Hamil. Clothed in Arab male garb and riding a horse, she set out for the oasis, noting:

The route to al-Hamil goes through the hills, between the high mountains that surround Bou Sa'ada. The wadi follows this route, and near the zawiya of al-Hamil it flows into the gardens, whose date palms radiate with their peculiar color. The village of al-Hamil is made of very light tub (sun-dried bricks) and seems to be painted with whitewash. The village is rather large and situated half-way up the mountainside, dominating the gardens and the valley. The town's culminating point is formed by the zawiya.^[133]

Zaynab had been absent from the oasis on some unspecified mission but returned the next day to greet her newly arrived guest. Overlooking the

European woman's dissolute ways, Zaynab welcomed Eberhardt to her residence and apparently consented to be her spiritual mentor and friend. The female saint made a huge impression upon Eberhardt, who described their first meeting at length in her diary. The troubled European woman bared her soul to Zaynab, who listened with evident sympathy to Eberhardt's story, although there is no way of knowing exactly how Isabelle portrayed herself. Zaynab sanctioned Isabelle's spiritual quest, even assuring her visitor of her undying friendship.^[134] Isabelle left a moving account of the shaykh's daughter, whom she described as dressed in the simple, white costume of the women of Bu Sa'ada: "Her face, tanned by the sun because she travels frequently in the region, was wrinkled. She is nearly fifty years old. Her eyes are kindly and in them burns a flame of intelligence, though veiled by a great sadness. Everything—her voice, her mannerisms, and the welcome she accords to pilgrims—expresses a profound sincerity."^[135]

According to Eberhardt, Shaykh Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim had designated Zaynab to succeed him, educating her in the manner "of the best of his students." Al-Hamil "more so than any other sufi center is a refuge for the poor who come here from all over."^[136] The European woman noted with alarm that Lalla Zaynab's health was declining; she appeared older than her years. By then Zaynab suffered from a painful throat disease that made talking arduous and rendered her voice hoarse. Their conversations were interrupted by a "harsh cough which shook [Zaynab's] frail body, fragile as that of a child under its burnus and veils."^[137] A lifetime of fasting, asceticism, and illness had left its mark upon the saint; Isabelle was correct in foreseeing Zaynab's death before too long.

Despite the briefness of their first encounter, the two women took to one another, and Zaynab in turn confided in Isabelle. With tears in her eyes, she told her European visitor the following: "My daughter, . . . I have devoted my entire life to doing good for the love of God. Nevertheless, there are men who refuse to recognize the good that I have done for them. Many hate and envy me. And yet, I have renounced all in life; I never married, I have no children, no joy."^[138] Isabelle's interview with Lalla Zaynab, as short as it was, brought her an inexplicable sense of joy and much needed inner peace. From the pilgrimage to al-Hamil, which passed as "as rapid as a dream," she returned to Algiers healed, momentarily, of the morbid languor which had so long afflicted her.^[139] The next year while in the capital, Eberhardt happened upon one of al-Hamil's inhabitants, Sidi Abu Bakr, who greeted her, saying, "Won't you come see us again. . . . the trees are beginning to flower. . . . the marabuta [Zaynab] speaks often about you."^[140] Isabelle, whose own health was declining, visited her spiritual

mentor on several more occasions, writing in 1903 that "each time I see Lalla Zaynab, I experience a sort of rejuvenation. . . . I saw her yesterday twice in the morning. She was very kind and gentle toward me and expressed delight at seeing me again."^[141] By this time, the friendship developing between the two women had come to the attention of the authorities.

The French military had been discreetly spying upon Zaynab's activities in al-Hamil since 1897 and monitoring Isabelle's movements since by then she was deemed an "undesirable." Despite the innocuous nature of their relationship, the police tracked Eberhardt's second visit to Zaynab in 1903, seeking to gather information about the meetings. The new governor-general, Charles Jonnart, urged the commanding general of the province to discover "the subjects of the two women's conversations."^[142] In part high-level concern was a product of the succession dispute and colonial fears about the politicization of the Rahmaniyya zawiya. Moreover, on the eve of Lyautey's planned military sweep from Algeria into southwestern Morocco, calm in the Sahara was of paramount importance. Finally, some officials held the mistaken belief that Eberhardt exerted influence over the Algerian Muslims because of her sufi affiliation and Arabic fluency. Of course, it was quite the opposite, but the notion that a Muslim woman, like Zaynab, could have an enormous impact upon a European female did not occur to them.

This relationship between a colonized female saint, whose life was wholly devoted to self-abnegation, and a Western woman, whose manic personality impelled her to excess and self-destructive behavior, appears to be somewhat unusual in the annals of Maghribi history. However, both women flouted colonial male authority, although Isabelle's rebellion went much further than Zaynab's since Eberhardt violated the sexual and cultural norms of her own European society. Eberhardt's profession of Islam (she claimed to have converted while still in Europe sometime before 1897), her supposed membership in the Qadiriyya sufi order, and her fluent command of the classical and vernacular Arabic language probably gave her an entrée into Zaynab's circle, as did the North African custom of hospitality and courtesy toward guests. Yet as significant in the developing friendship was the fact that it took place on the physical and political margins of the colonial regime—in the Sahara, away from the centers of European settlement with its increasingly rigid lines of social demarcation.

The two women did not see one another again after 1903. The next year brought Isabelle's sensational death in October 1904 during a desert flash flood at 'Ain Sefra, where the French army, under Lyautey, was thrusting

deep into Moroccan territory.^[143] Flamboyant in death as in life, Eberhardt's story overshadowed that of her spiritual guide who also died the same year.

On 19 November 1904, Zaynab succumbed to the disease which had progressively undermined her health.^[144] The next day she was buried alongside her father and her paternal uncle in the family mausoleum, in a "great tomb draped with green, yellow, and red coverings, surrounded by a spacious railed enclosure."^[145] The crowd attending her funeral became so great and unruly in their grief that the zawiya's personnel buried her earlier than planned. Zaynab's tomb, like that of her father's, became a popular pilgrimage site; indeed it still is today. Now her cousin could at long last assume the long-coveted headship of al-Hamil—or so he thought. Yet Zaynab died intestate; whether she did this intentionally is impossible to ascertain. Without a valid will, and with several branches of the shaykh's family advancing claims to inheritance rights, the matter of succession was postponed for over a year while the complex judicial inquiry proceeded through the courts. Eventually the case ended up before the civil tribunal in Algiers for adjudication.^[146]

Zaynab's Cousin: "Hard and Stony Is His Path"

When Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad finally assumed full responsibility for the sufi establishment, the worst had happened. During the lengthy, at times bitter, court proceedings, the zawiya had forfeited its control over some of its lands, flocks, and other forms of wealth. Reduced material assets diminished the center's ability to provide social welfare services, which brought a corresponding decrease in moral and religious prestige. By 1910 al-Hamil's economic situation was so precarious that the new Rahmaniyya shaykh petitioned the French government to borrow money, thus falling into the very snare that Zaynab and her father had carefully avoided—financial dependence upon, and by extension political subjugation to, the colonial regime.^[147] By the eve of the Great War, however, colonial officials were rather less concerned with sufi leaders on the Sahara's edge since other, more compelling, preoccupations confronted them: massive emigration from western Algeria, indigenous resistance to service in the French army, and increasing urban restiveness, where new political voices were being raised, if not heard, for the first time.^[148] Therefore, Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad's pleas for credit advances were regarded more as a minor irritation than an opportunity to shape the course of Muslim politics.

In 1912, another European woman, Helen C. Gordon, journeyed to al-Hamil, attracted to the oasis by its reputation as an "Arab university

town." Over eight years had passed since Zaynab's death, yet her memory remained vivid among the villagers and zawiya's clients and would endure for decades thereafter.

So beneficent had been her sway, so charitable was she that "her memory is still green in the hearts of her people," and by children her name is spoken as one would whisper that of a revered saint, with awe and to bear witness to the truth of some statement they have made which is open to suspicion.^[149]

Gordon also noted that, while pilgrims continued to arrive in the oasis to offer alms to Zaynab's cousin and seek his baraka, Muhammad b. al-Hajj was "secretly considered to be avaricious and worldly" by the people.^[150] Since his female cousin's pious reputation continued, even from the grave, to completely overshadow his in the eyes of the faithful, the Rahmaniyya shaykh looked elsewhere for gratification. When the sister of the English monarch visited al-Hamil in search of the exotic, Muhammad b. al-Hajj Muhammad expended lavish sums to honor her with an elegant luncheon. His efforts were inspired less by the dictates of customary hospitality than by the feverish expectation that he would be rewarded by some sort of magnificent medal or decoration. Bitter disappointment awaited him when the king's sister bestowed upon the shaykh no more than her photograph.^[151] Under Muhammad b. al-Hajj's direction, the sufi zawiya was transformed into a "folkloric" center, a sort of ethnological museum where "Mauresque hospitality" entertained bored Europeans in search of colorful, authentic, yet domesticated native ambience. The cost of providing these distractions, complete with oriental food and drink, to demanding Western guests depleted the zawiya's coffers, at the expense of its social welfare services.^[152] Thus, after 1904, al-Hamil experienced a fate similar to that of many other sufi centers in North Africa: localization, marginalization, and exoticization. These processes were frequently accompanied by an overly cozy relationship between religious notables and the colonial regime, which ultimately left sufi leaders open to charges of "collaboration" by Muslim reformist and nationalist forces after the Great War.^[153]

Viewed in the short term, Zaynab's victory over her cousin and French officialdom was Pyrrhic. Fearing that her rival would squander the zawiya's resources, she fought successfully to retain management of al-Hamil's spiritual and mundane affairs. By dying intestate, she exposed the sufi establishment to a debilitating legal quarrel which ultimately led to direct French intervention in the zawiya's internal affairs, diminishing its ability to function as a cultural redoubt for a society under siege. Yet it could be argued that al-Hamil's socioeconomic importance would have dwindled

anyway with the emergence of new, urban-based political forces and of the Reformist Ulama of Shaykh 'Abd al-Hamid b. Badis (Ben Badis), centered in Constantine. Nevertheless, the Algerian religious revival and nationalist movements were the cultural heirs of pious saints and sufis like the shaykh and his daughter.

This was not lost on one fervent reformer and nationalist, Ahmad Tawfiq al-Madani (1899–1954), an Algerian by origins but Tunisian by birth. The cofounder of the Tunisian Dustur (Old Destour) party and editor of the journal Ifriqiya , al-Madani was accused by Tunisian protectorate authorities of supporting 'Abd al-Karim's revolt (1921–1926) and the Moroccan rebel's drive to create an independent state in the Rif. In 1925, al-Madani was officially expelled from Tunisia and returned to the country of his forefathers, where he helped to launch the Association of the Reformist Ulama in 1931. In his memoirs, al-Madani devotes a section to the zawiya of al-Hamil, which the fiercely nationalist writer characterized as "ma'qil al-'uruba wa al-Islam," (the refuge of Arab culture and Islam). He also noted that "after the death of Shaykh Muhammad b. Bilqasim [sic ] his daughter, al-sayyida Zaynab bint Muhammad, devout, chaste, and worthy, took over the direction of the zawiya, whose capacity [to provide] knowledge increased along with its prosperity."^[154]

Even today, some three thousand pilgrims make the annual ziyara to al-Hamil from the distant Jurjura Mountains. Proceding as a cohort, they depart from the Kabylia in May after the olive harvest; a portion of the harvest is brought as gifts and offerings specifically dedicated to the zawiya. Again in autumn, two to three hundred Kabyle pilgrims come to al-Hamil to spent the night there in proximity to the very special dead. As late as 1985, the zawiya of al-Hamil still claimed five hundred sufi members; its educational activities persisted, although in a much attenuated form, even after independence from France.^[155]

Postscripts

For Muhammad b. Abi al-Qasim, survival was more compelling than violent confrontations or armed struggle. More precisely, survival for Muslim Algerian culture represented in and of itself such an immense struggle that radical resistance gave way to subtler, perhaps more enduring forms of social action. Because he grasped and accepted some of the limitations imposed upon him, the saint was able to work all the more efficiently within a colonial system of domination that marginalized large numbers of people, while reinforcing the abusive powers of selected indigenous elites. In Sidi Muhammad's relationship with his colonial superiors can be detected the outlines of an tacit pact which imposed political

restraints upon both parties to the agreement, the French and the Algerian Muslims. In return for cultural autonomy and the freedom to engage in socioreligious works, the shaykh refrained from politics, as narrowly defined by Algeria's European masters, and prudently avoided clashes with colonial forces wielding certain kinds of power. In large measure, withdrawal to al-Hamil spared him the types of painful, intractable choices faced by his peers in the Rahmaniyya tariqa during the conquest era. Compromising situations were skirted, although the zawiya was subject to the nervous scrutiny of nearby officials, especially after a woman came to power. Thus Shaykh Muhammad fits into none of the categories conventionally employed to identify the political behavior of religious notables during the colonial moment; for he was neither an "ignorer" of the West, nor a fence sitter or an accommodator, nor a last-ditch resistor, nor a collaborator.^[156] He forged a novel course of action by combining all of these strategies to preserve Algerian culture. In this the shaykh of al-Hamil was a precursor of more militant leaders such as 'Abd al-Hamid b. Badis. Yet the political component inherent in Muslim education organized and funded outside of official channels would become glaringly apparent a generation after the shaykh's death only with the movement of reformed ulama in the interwar period.

During her lifetime and for decades after her death, Zaynab was revered as a god-fearing, learned woman and a saint by a her followers, both male and female. Her spiritual authority was constructed of a number of elements. Birth into a saintly lineage of sharifian descent furnished a threshold of inherited holiness; her own intensely personal spiritual itinerary rendered Zaynab the encapsulation of the virtuous woman. Communal recognition of her uncommon private virtue, as seen in public works of charity and in her chosen virginity, resulted in Zaynab's informal, popular election to the ranks of the uniquely pious. Indeed, the ritual transmission of baraka to Zaynab from her father's tomb may have merely endorsed what was already widely acknowledged.

Blessed with miraculous gifts, she was a healer of bodies and of unquiet spirits, as Isabelle Eberhardt learned. While part of her sociospiritual capital was clearly inherited from her father, Zaynab expanded that fund of popular veneration through her own actions, including an uncompromising stance against those ostensibly monopolizing political power. For the colonial pact still held in this period, and it was Zaynab who pointedly reminded officials of their contractual duties under the terms of the transaction worked out earlier with her father. She did so despite—or because of—opposition from officials and some members of indigenous society. By being both an obedient daughter and a rebellious woman, Zaynab trans-

formed the terms of the colonial encounter, shifting the moral burden for the maintenance of order and implicit pacts upon imperial authorities.

Taken together, the stories of the shaykh and his daughter provide evidence for two historical processes whose significance has gone largely unrecognized: if resistance in the post-1871 era was mainly cultural and educational, it was no less deeply patriotic or politically subversive; and women as well as men, ordinary people as well as elites, were active agents in contests for power whose outcome assured the endurance of North Africa's cultural patrimony.