Sulayman al-Baruni

Sulayman al-Baruni (c. 1870 – 1 May 1940) was a Libyan Ibadi scholar, poet and statesman from the Jabal Nafusa, a leading figure of Libyan resistance to the Italian invasion and afterwards a minister in Oman.¹

Born about 1870 in the Jabal Nafusa — Wikidata and the Arabic article's categories specify Jadu — into an Ibadi scholarly family, he studied at the Zitouna in Tunis, at al-Azhar in Cairo, and in the M'zab under the Mozabite Ibadi scholar Muhammad ibn Yusuf Atfayyash.¹ In Cairo he ran a press and published the journal al-Asad al-Islami.²

After the Young Turk revolution of 1908 he sat in the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies for the Jabal Gharbi.¹ When Italy invaded Libya in 1911 he fought in the resistance; defeated at al-Asaba'a in March 1913, he later returned as the Ottoman-appointed wali of Tripolitania and was one of the four representatives of the Tripolitanian Republic proclaimed in November 1918.¹

Forced into final exile in 1921, he settled in Oman, where he served as finance minister, and died at Mumbai on 1 May 1940 while travelling with the Sultan of Oman.¹ His remains were brought back to Libya in 1970 and buried in Tripoli.¹

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