Awlad Sidi Shaykh

[1] In the 16th century the growing population in the south-western Algerian Sahara created a need for more intense farming and for collaboration between farmers and nomads.

[2] A. G. P. Martin [fr] dates this to 1651, when the walis of the Tuat and Gurara brought the Sharifian ideology to the villages of the Zenata Berbers.

[2] Arab tribes in the Gurara and the Sahara such as the Khenafsa became faithful to the Awlad Sidi Shaykh, the mrabtin[a] of the Saharan Atlas Mountains.

[3] As the population pressure slackened in the following centuries the Awlad Sidi Shaykh gradually took control of the prayer-meditation center and grew into a mid-sized tribe.

[5] There were trading communities of the Awlad Sidi Shaykh far to the south in Timbuktu, Kidal and Agadez, and to the east in Ghadames and Ghat.

In 1831 the Duc de Rovigo caused a scandal in Algiers when he built a military highway through two functioning cemeteries with no respect for the human remains, and converted several mosques into Catholic churches.

[9] These groups of the Oran Plateau and the Plain of Gharis accepted Muhyi al-Din, chief of the Qadiriyya Sufis, as the "Champion of Islam" against the French.

[14] Awlad Sidi Ahmad Majdub of the Amir Bedouin tribe of Morocco participated in the revolt, but was pardoned and placed in the Sebdou circle.

[14] As the rebellion died down, the itinerant marabouts of the Awlad Sidi Shaykh turned to rebuilding their business, demanding donations to their shrine from the peasants, who still thought they had strong influence with God.

[20] The colonial administrator Alfred Le Chatelier, a relatively enlightened secularist and republican, succeeded in convincing the Mekhedma tribe of the Sud-Oranais that they need not pay tribute.

Territory of Awlad Sidi Shaykh in 1842
Mausoleum of Sidi Shaykh in El Abiodh Sidi Cheikh
Qa'id of Awlad Sidi Shaykh