values, the Sanūsī movement and the history and loyalty for late King Idrīs as-Sanūsī”, he explains. And many observers, even among the Westerners, think another politically active head of state does not meet the expectations of impartiality the Libyan people require.

The judgment review towards Sanūsī by the new Libya was soon become clear when the revolutionaries had hoisted the Kingdom of Libya flag and had begun singing the anthem of the monarchist Libya and when both had turned the official symbols of the new State. Then, last February, then Prime Minister ʿAlī Zīdān had submitted to the General National Congress (the legislative body) a draft law repealing the rule that exiled the royal family. Two months ago, on March 5th, the interim government decided to “rehabilitate” the royalfamily, giving citizenship to its members and providing the juridical framework for the restitution of property confiscated after the 1969 coup.

The ability to act for unity and identity, that is attributed to Sanūsī as leaders of the Libyan people, has been established because of the characteristics of their history, that join religious and political aspects, poured over an area free from ethnic homogeneity, with no national experiences before 1951, and strongly rooted in the religious beliefs of its community. Sanūsī first gave local populations an ethical and behavioral concern through Sanūsiyya, the reformist Sufi Brotherhood founded in 1837 in Mecca by their forefather Sharīf Sayyid Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī, theGrand Sanūsī; then, by acquiring a connotation of militant Islamism, have provided them with a political awareness and gradually have