The appeal to jihād as a means of political change attracted adherents other than the Fulbe clerics and scholarly Muslims of Fuuta Jalon. To the south, a Muslim holy man from the interior named Fatta declared himself Mahdī and, as the messianic redeemer who according to prophecy was destined to make the entire world Muslim, led a jihād in 1789 to achieve that result. With fifteen thousand followers, mostly recruited among Susu and the enslaved population of the area, he invaded Moria, a Muslim state on the coast that was already weakened by war and a succession crisis. Local rulers and elders prostrated themselves before Mahdī Fatta, and massive numbers of fugitive slaves joined his army. Among his targets were the British and mixed-race traders along the coast. He required his followers to wear yellow garments, and even some of the European and mixed-race traders did so to try to save themselves. The traders on the Rio Pongo felt the threat, as did the Muslim elites of Moria and neighboring Sambuyo, who temporarily put their differences aside to deal with the jihād in their midst and crush the slave uprising that the jihād sanctioned.12 Fatta was executed in the early 1790s, and the jihād and slave revolt came to an end. The Fuuta Jalon military that was concentrated in the various diwal asserted its authority in Fuuta Jalon, but Almami Sori’s death in 1791 prompted a succession crisis when Sori’s son, Sadu, attempted to claim the position of almami. Bademba, son of Almami Karamokho Alfa, challenged Sadu, who was assassinated in 1797/98.13 Thereafter the two factions agreed to alternate the succession, thereby institutionalizing the internal rivalry within Fuuta Jalon.
The jihād in Fuuta Toro evolved during the disorder along the middle Senegal River valley after the great drought that hit most of West Africa in the middle of the eighteenth century.14 The ruling Denyanke dynasty was subjected to internal strife and open harassment from the Maure of the Brakna region north of the Senegal River, who dominated the central and western parts of Fuuta Toro, while the Denyanke were confined largely to the eastern parts of the Senegal flood plain. This situation made it possible for the Torodbe to stage an organized offensive that eventually resulted in the establishment of a new government that became committed to jihād. First under Sulaymān Baal, the Torodbe consolidated their position in central Fuuta Toro, where the fords crossing the Senegal River could be defended against raids by the Maures, and by the early 1770s they had stopped paying the annual tribute that had been collected. Together with clerics from Pire in Kajoor, Sulaymān was able to forge an alliance with other Torodbe in western Fuuta Toro, where the Denyanke rulers held sway, in an attempt to stop the Denyanke from pillaging the central valley. Unfortunately, in 1776 Sulaymān Baal and several key Pire clerics were killed in battle, which marked a turning point in the reform movement. Through the intervention of Fuuta Jalon, a successor to Sulaymān was selected in Abdul Kader Kan, who had not previously been involved in the struggle in Fuuta Toro but who became the first almami of a new regime that became committed to jihād.
MAP 2.1. Fuuta Jalon and Fuuta Toro, 1795.
Source: Henry B. Lovejoy, African Diaspora Maps
Abdul Kader had been educated at Pire and Koki, as well as at centers in Mauretania. Sharing Sulaymān’s commitment to education, he had been teaching in a small village in Fuuta Bundu because the almami of Fuuta Bundu had a reputation for supporting the Torodbe clerics. With Abdul Kader’s installation at a new capital at Thilogne, the jihād entered a period of expansion that lasted for twenty years. He clearly had strong support in the royal court of Fuuta Bundu, and his reputation in Kajoor, especially at Koki, was very great. He negotiated a settlement with the Denyanke dynasty that conferred virtual autonomy on the former ruling elite but confined their territory to the eastern periphery of the Senegal flood plain. Abdul Kader then set out to redistribute land to the supporters of the jihād, founded some thirty to forty mosques, and appointed judges and teachers for the villages. In 1785 Abdul Kader negotiated a commercial treaty with the French that generated an annual tribute. In 1786 a major offensive was launched against the Trarza Maures, and between 1789 and 1791 garrison villages were established at the fords of the Senegal to prevent further incursions by the Maures. By this time Abdul Kader was clearly invoking allegiance to jihād as justification for state policies.15 By 1790 Abdul Kader was able to use his influence in the lower Senegal valley to secure support in Waalo, Jolof, and Kajoor. He subsequently also obtained the recognition of Khasso in 1796, so that the jihād state of Fuuta Toro controlled the Senegal valley from Fuuta Bundu in the east to the Atlantic shores in the west.
However, Fuuta Toro suffered a crushing defeat in Kajoor in late 1796 at the battle of Bunguye, which reasserted the independence of the Wolof states. Abdul Kader was captured and held prisoner for several months before being allowed to return to Fuuta Toro. Waalo, in turn, revoked its allegiance to Fuuta Toro. The Islamic center at Koki became embroiled in the struggle promoted by the jihād in Fuuta Toro, and its scholarly reputation suffered as a result.16 In 1797 Fuuta Jalon intervened in a succession crisis in Fuuta Bundu after the execution of Almami Sega Gaye. Subsequent difficulties with Fuuta Bundu and Khasso further reduced Fuuta Toro hegemony, and in 1807 Abdul Kader was killed in battle against Fuuta Bundu, which had secured the support of the Bambara state of Kaarta. Thereafter the jihād was effectively undermined, and French influence along the Senegal River steadily extended further into the interior.17
Nonetheless, by the end of the eighteenth century the jihād movement was clearly established from the Senegal River valley in the north to the highlands of Fuuta Jalon and the coastal zone to the south, but with somewhat mixed results. Jihād had become fully associated with the Fulbe, particularly with the scholarly and religious elite who were spread across the savanna and the Sahel of West Africa because of the transhumance migration patterns of the cattle herders and the elite who owned the cattle. The Muslim and learned leadership was allied with and often related to the clan heads who managed the cattle herds that traversed West Africa. Ethnically related pastoralists, who were variously known as Peul, Ful, Fulbe, Fula, or Fulani depending on their location in West Africa and spoke a shared language, Fulfulde, became particularly influential in the jihād movement. As the jihād of Mahdī Fatta in Moria demonstrates, the idea of jihād also appealed to other Muslims, although in his case jihād was not successful. Perhaps because Fatta’s uprising was linked to what amounted to a slave revolt in Moria, the supernatural powers that he claimed protected him from death were openly challenged, and his appeal was undermined when it was proved that he had no such powers.18
Ethnicity played a significant role in all the successful jihād movements. Except for the jihād in Moria, Fulbe/Fulani were involved in all the jihāds from the 1690s to the middle of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize here that the jihād movement was not an ethnic phenomenon. Muslims came from many different ethnic backgrounds and included the merchants of the extensive Muslim commercial networks that linked West Africa in a common economic market. The Qādirī shaykh Sīdī al-Mukhtār was not Fulbe, nor was Jibrīl ibn ʿUmar, one of ʿUthmān dan Fodio’s teachers.19 Those Fulbe who were well learned in the classic scriptures of Islam and were fluent in Arabic were of the Torodbe clan, whose members were not pastoral nomads. In many cases they were able to appeal to pastoral Fulbe and in the process secure their commitment to an aggressive Muslim agenda. In the central Bilād al-Sūdān the Fulbe were known by the Hausa term “Fulani,” and their ethnic allegiance was fundamental to the consolidation of the Sokoto Caliphate.
In the context of explaining why jihād began in the far western Bilād al-Sūdān, two underlying factors are significant: first, the organization of Muslim trade in West Africa, and second, the transhumance patterns of the cattle-owning Fulbe. Muslim merchants, craftsmen, and scholars were found in virtually every town in West Africa, providing an interlocking network of communities from Senegambia to Lake Chad. Fulbe