My feeling of interest in studying these movements led me to choose the Sanusi movement as the subject of the research I had to present for my Master's degree at Cairo University. Perhaps what helped in this particular choice was that, due to work circumstances, I resided in Sudan for a period of time, which gave me the opportunity to access a large amount of information about the movement and to study the homeland that was its center. Added to this is my observation of the scarcity of what has been written about the Sanusiyya and my feeling of the necessity to fill a gap in this deficiency. The supervising professor encouraged me in this choice.

I embarked on the preliminary preparation for my research, and it became clear to me that the books that dealt with the Sanusiyya were few. Some of them were written in the second half of the last century, while others were written in this century. Among the most important books that I encountered from the last century are those written by European travelers who visited North Africa and the African desert. The most famous of these are the books by the Frenchmen Louis Rinn and Duveyrier, the Englishman Hamilton, and the German Rolfs. The accounts of these individuals were, to me, a biased perspective stemming from a colonial viewpoint in Africa for expansionist purposes.

In addition to foreign books, there is what the Tunisian Al-Hashaishi wrote in his journey, and the book by Sadiq Al-Mu'ayyad Al-Azam about his journey to Kufra, and what Al-Bustani wrote in his encyclopedia, and the books by Ahmed Al-Sharif Al-Sanusi about the journeys of his uncle Al-Mahdi and his grandfather Ibn Al-Sanusi, and other books. After these books, modern studies appeared, the most important of which are the book by Richard about Ibn Al-Sanusi, the book by Fouad Shukri about the Sanusiyya, and the book by Nicola Ziadeh about it as well, and the books of the Italian authors. Some Italian books also touched upon it in their discussion of the history of Libya.

I searched for these sources and was able to access them, and most of the printed books of Ibn Al-Sanusi. I also found a manuscript containing the book by Ahmed Al-Sharif about the journeys of his uncle and grandfather, and a manuscript containing Al-Hashaishi's account of the Sanusiyya.