El Tag (; also ''Al-Tag'', ''Al-Taj'') is a village and holy site in the

Kufra Kufra () is a basinBertarelli (1929), p. 514. and oasis group in the Kufra District of southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. At the end of nineteenth century Kufra became the centre and holy place of the Senussi order. It also played a minor role in ...

Oasis, within the

Libyan Desert The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the north-eastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval maps, its use predates t ...

subregion of the

Sahara , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

. It is in the

Kufra District Kufra or Kofra ( ar, الكفرة '), also spelled ''Cufra'' in Italian, is the largest district of Libya. Its capital is Al Jawf, one of the oases in Kufra basin. There is a very large oil refinery near the capital. In the late 15th century, L ...

in the southern

Cyrenaica Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή ��παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...

region of southeastern

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

. The Arabic ''el tag'' translates as "crown" in English, and derives from the position above the Kufra basin.Bertarelli (1929), p. 515. El Tag, being on a rise, is without an oasis

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a ...

and native

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as date or date palm, is a flowering plant species in the palm family, Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across northern Africa, the Middle Eas ...

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

Senussi

El-Tag was founded in 1895 by Muhammad El-Mahdi es-Senussi (1844–1902), after the

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

forced him and the Senussi Order from

Jaghbub Jaghbub ( ar, الجغبوب) is a remote desert village in the Al Jaghbub Oasis in the eastern Libyan Desert. It is actually closer to the Egyptian town of Siwa than to any Libyan town of note. The oasis is located in Butnan District and was th ...

in the Cyrenaican desert to Kufra. He was the son of the founder and the supreme leader (1859-1902) of the Order. El-Mahdi founded a

Zaouia A ''zawiya'' or ''zaouia'' ( ar, زاوية, lit=corner, translit=zāwiyah; ; also spelled ''zawiyah'' or ''zawiyya'') is a building and institution associated with Sufism, Sufis in the Islamic world. It can serve a variety of functions such a p ...

(''madrassa''—school) with a mosque a low octagonal

minaret A minaret (; ar, منارة, translit=manāra, or ar, مِئْذَنة, translit=miʾḏana, links=no; tr, minare; fa, گل‌دسته, translit=goldaste) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets are generall ...

tower here. He also built several tombs of the

Senussi The Senusiyya, Senussi or Sanusi ( ar, السنوسية ''as-Sanūssiyya'') are a Muslim political-religious tariqa (Sufi order) and clan in colonial Libya and the Sudan region founded in Mecca in 1837 by the Grand Senussi ( ar, السنوسي ...

family here, which later included his own therefore making El-Tag a Senussi holy place.

Italians and World War II

During the colonial

Italian Libya Libya ( it, Libia; ar, ليبيا, Lībyā al-Īṭālīya) was a colony of the Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica ...

period, the Italians built a

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

–style fort in El Tag in the mid-1930s. Although some guns were stationed at the fort, its battlements were out of date and of little use in the mobile warfare tactics of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The fort, airfield, and town of Kufra were taken by

Free French forces __NOTOC__ The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, l ...

and the British-New Zealand

Long Range Desert Group )Gross, O'Carroll and Chiarvetto 2009, p.20 , patron = , motto = ''Non Vi Sed Arte'' (Latin: ''Not by Strength, but by Guile'') (unofficial) , colours = , colours_label ...

in the 1941

Capture of Kufra The Capture of Kufra (, it, Cufra) was part of the Allied Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. Kufra is a group of oasis, oases in the Kufra District of south-eastern Cyrenaica in the Libyan Desert. In 1940, it was part of the c ...

, in the Allies World War II Western Desert Campaign.

References

Sources

* {{Clear Populated places in Kufra District Forts in Libya Italian Libya Senussi dynasty Cyrenaica World War II sites in Libya World War II sites of Fascist Italy Burial sites of the Senussi dynasty