LESSON 30
JIHÂD STATESThere were many jihâds in West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. These had their religious motives, since for many Muslims the necessity of living under Sharî`a left them the choice only of hijra (migration to a Islamic state) or jihâd (the establishment of an Islamic state - See Lesson 15). Nevertheless, economic motives were also very important. Notable among these was control over the Atlantic slave market.
In the 1680s a Torodbe Fulani, Mâlik Sî, led an invasion of Bondu. The Fulani had to secure their position by new battles well into the 18th century. The jihâd was largely a matter of who would control the upper Senegal river and its trade.
The Fulani leader Alfa Ba conquered Futa Jalon in 1725. From there the Fulani raided their neighbours, keeping the Sierra Leone markets filled with slaves and making Islam known among the coastal peoples. People subject to Fulani rule were not sold but used as slaves for farming rice, which was sold to Europeans for feeding slaves on ships across the Atlantic.
In Futa Toro another Fulani, Sulayman Bal, hearing of the Islamic revival in Futa Jalon, seized power, setting up another Islamic state which imposed Islam on much of the area.
In the Mâsina region an Islamic state was set up by Ahmadu Lobbo who, around 1805 went to Hausaland and associated with Uthmân Dan Fodiye and was inspired by his jihâd and the Qâdiriyya brotherhood. He defeated the Bambara, while the Fulani avoided battle. He then took and destroyed Jenne, building a new capital which he called Hamdallahi. Ahmad capitalized on popular eschatological expectations by claiming to be a mujaddid and demanding the allegiance of all Muslims. The Mâsina empire could never become important because trade patterns were now oriented towards the Atlantic instead of across the Sahara, and the area no longer was economically strategic as it once was.
Al-hajj Umar was a Fulani from Futa Toro also inspired by Uthmân Dan Fodiye. During a pilgrimage in 1826 he was initiated into the Tijâniyya. Umar began his jihâd in 1852. Taking Bambuk, Bondu and Khasso, in 1857 he conquered the Bambara state of Kaarta. His method of fighting involved wholesale massacres and pillaging, but his growing strength led many to submit to him as allies. Umar overran Segu and Mâsina and might have created an empire the size of Mali, but for the French who were taking over the inland trade routes themselves.
Samori Ture led a jihâd among the Malinke from around 1870. His territory included the eastern half of present day Guinea, across the northern half of Ivory Coast and part of Ghana. Everywhere Samori destroyed the traditional shrines and set up mosques, permanently islamizing these areas. He was defeated by the combined efforts of the French and British.
In the Serer states of Sine and Saloum some Wolof and Malinke Muslim trading communities had settled. When these grew strong enough, Ma Ba in 1861 started a jihâd and took over this territory, demanding conversion or death of the pagans. The French took over these parts of Senegal in 1887, but Islam had become firmly established in the meantime in most of the territory north of the Gambia river.
The Sokoto jihâd in Hausaland was the most significant of all these jihâds. The Hausa states had their beginnings in the Middle Ages, but did not come into prominence until the 17th century after the disintegration of Songhay. Then they became trading partners with Borno (exporting to Tripoli), Gonja (involving the Atlantic trade via Ashanti, gold from the Akan fields and kola) and y (as a route to the Atlantic slave market. The demand for slaves on the coast was the principal stimulus for the continual wars among the Hausa states, where captives were frequently sold.
`Uthmân Dan Fodiye had a religious ideology to back up his jihâd, which he expressed in many writings. Beginning in 1804 he and his Fulani flag-bearers quickly overthrew most of the Hausa leaders, unifying Hausaland for the first time under the Sokoto caliphate. Thereafter the Muslims turned their energy towards the pagans of the middle-belt as a source of slaves, while they pushed relentlessly through Nupeland (1830) and the y empire (1824-1836) towards the coast, while immediate northern neighbours, such as Argungu and Sabon Birni, were left undisturbed.
Slaves continued to be exported across the Sahara. Once the jihâd was consolidated, the Sokoto confederation rivalled Borno for the trans-Saharan trade. Trans-Saharan trade increased throughout the 19th century, in spite of the growth of European trade on the coast, and it thrived after the Atlantic slave market vanished. In the early days of the jihâd, however, the Atlantic market was more attractive, since from the beginning of the 19th century until 1830 the Atlantic slave business actually increased. This was the result of increased demand from Brazil, Cuba and Southern United States, in spite of the stop of the slave trade by the British in 1810 and the French in 1815. The Atlantic slave trade dipped sharply after 1840, until it was completely stopped by 1860. So the thrust of Sokoto to the sea was frustrated not merely by the intervening independent states and later British interference, but more importantly by the evaporation of the major economic motive. Expansion to the coast was also blunted by the rise of independent states in the former southern dependencies of y, such as Ibadan, Abokuta and the coastal city-states, so that the southern end of the trade routes was still subject to the exactions of middlemen and periodic instability and insecurity.
The attraction of the Atlantic was only renewed later on because other advantages became apparent. One of these was the supply of firearms, which in the 19th century became not only more common but also indispensable for survival. After the British imposed their rule on the whole of modern Nigeria, the heirs to the Sokoto establishment continued to show concern for the route to Lagos and took every available means to assure that it remained open and secure for their trading operations.
QUESTIONS
- Explain the religious motivation of jihâd.
- Explain the economic motives of West African jihâds.
- Describe the expansion of the Sokoto caliphate and offer reasons why it went in the directions it did.
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