"Yet,
the emblem with which the Libyan revolutionaries risked and sacrificed their lives is specifically that of the pre-Gaddafi state of King Idris (1889-1983), who was Libya's only king from 1951, when he led the country to independence, until 1969, when he was overthrown by Gaddafi.
....
Before becoming king, Idris reigned over Cyrenaica, the eastern region that has been the center of Libyan opposition to Gaddafi. Still, his standing as grandson of Sayyid Muhammad Ibn Ali As-Senussi (1787-1859) was the real source of his legitimacy.
Sayyid Muhammad Ibn Ali As-Senussi established the Senussi Sufi order as a branch of the Idrisi Sufis, founded by the Moroccan Sufi Ahmad ibn Idris (1760-1837), one of the most important figures in modern Islamic thought. Ahmad ibn Idris was notable both in his reforming concepts -- he called for abandonment of the traditional sharia schools of Islamic law -- and for his active criticism of the ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi school."
