- Fulani War
The Fulani War of
1804 -1810 , also known as the Fulani Jihad or Jihad of Usman dan Fodio, was a military conquest in present dayNigeria andCameroon . Expelled fromGobir by his former studentYunfa in 1802,Islam ic reformerUsman dan Fodio assembled a Fulani army to lead injihad against the Hausa kingdoms of the north. Realizing the threat that Usman's forces posed, Yunfa assembled the other Hausa rulers to oppose him.The Hausa rulers dealt the jihadists a number of initial setbacks, most notably at the
Battle of Tsuntua (December 1804), in which Usman lost more than 2,000 men, 200 of whom are said to have known theKoran by heart. The following year, however, Usman's forces seizedKebbi and established a permanent base atGwandu . Building on popular discontent caused in part by famine and by Hausa taxation, the jihadists continued to advance, taking the Gobir's capitalAlkalawa in 1808 and killing Yunfa.Usman united the conquered lands under his
Fulani Empire . The success of the jihad inspired a number of laterWest Africa n jihadists, includingMassina Empire founderSeku Amadu ,Toucouleur Empire founderUmar Tall ,Wassoulou Empire founder Samori Ture, andAdamawa Emirate founderModibo Adama .References
*cite encyclopedia |year= |title =Usman dan Fodio |encyclopedia=
Encyclopædia Britannica Online |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc |location=Chicago |id=See also
*Fulani jihads
*History of Nigeria
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
