By: Marina Gamil
CAIRO – At the heart of Libya’s eastern desert, al-Jaghbub Oasis exhibits traces that take visitors to an era of ancient Libyan history.
Closer to the features of Egyptian Siwa Oasis than to any other Libyan town, Jaghbub Oasis, with a population estimated at 2,768 people, is one of the few regions inhabited by Libya’s minority group of Berbers.
It was founded in 1851 by Sidi Moḥammad ibn Ali Sanusi al-Kabir, an Arab Muslim theologian and leader who set the Senussi mystical order, a Muslim political-religious Sufi order, in 1837.
Located at the northern edge, an area that once was an important staging post for trans-Saharan traders and for pilgrims going to Siwa, Cairo and on then to Mecca, Jaghbub Oasis became a Senussi religious center and a fortress town with an important Islamic university.
Since its establishment, many religious intellectuals, including Libya’s iconic resistance leader against Italian forces, Omar Mukhtar, and other Muslim imams received their education at Jaghbub Oasis.
The oasis was the headquarters of the Senussi Movement where king Idris, the king of Libya before Muammer Gaddafi, was born on March 12, 1889.
Alongside being an important religious hub, the oasis is famous for its cultural, therapeutic and leisure tourism. The oasis is also a place for wild animals and plants; therefore, the protected area was set up to provide a habitat for this wild life.
Therapeutic tourism
The oasis is the home of a number of desert lakes, the most popular of which are the Malfa lake and the Fridgha. It is said that the salt in the Malfa lake, the largest lake in the Libyan Sahara, has healing properties.
Further, the oasis is self-sufficient, depending largely on the underground water reservoirs and palm-date production.
Being set in a remote location of the Sahara desert makes the oasis famous for its sand remedy, attracting many tourists, who bury their bodies in hot sand right to their chins and soak the sun-energy trapped in the sand. The healing property of hot sand is also found in the nearby Berber oasis of Siwa, Egypt.
From mid-June to mid-September, many patients arrive in the Berber oasis for the hot sand bath of the Sahara for around 20 minutes, believing the practice heals a number of ailments such as rheumatism, back and muscle pain, and skin diseases.
Cultural Tourism
The oasis was neglected by all Libyan governments, and until now no studies have been conducted to document the abandoned treasures of the oasis, including prehistoric cave tombs, paintings and engravings.
One of its great but overlooked monuments is Al-Thani Castle, which is a witness to the region’s history of Senussi religious practices.
It is built by a merchant known as Mohamed Al-Thani, who joined the religious movement and left his job to live a spiritual life in the oasis.
Despite several warnings about the possibility of the collapse of the castle at any moment, many tourists and locals visit the castle for being an edifice of the Senussi Movement.
Meanwhile, no actions have been taken by the interim government to renovate the castle.
