Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi's connections with the…

Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi's connections with the Wahhabi movement have caused him to be looked upon with suspicion while in Arabia by the ulema of Mecca and the Ottoman authorities.

Finding the opposition in Mecca too powerful, Senussi settles in Cyrenaica, Libya in 1843, where in the mountains near Derna he builds the Zawia Baida ("White Monastery").

Here he is supported by the local tribes and the Sultan of Wadai, and his connections extend across the Maghreb.