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Mukhtar Al-Kunti
Sidi al-Mukhtar ibn Ahmad al-Kunti (1729-1811) was a leading ulama, ʻalim of the Qadiriyya movement in the Sudan (region), Western Sudan who played an important role in promoting the spread of Islam in West Africa in the nineteenth century. Origins Al-Mukhtar ibn Ahmad al-Kunti was born in 1729 in the Erg Oralla region to the north of Mabroûk, Mali. His family belonged to the Zawaya, Zawāyā, a group of tribes that had abandoned violence and self-defense in favor of a peaceful life of religious devotions and herding, paying tribute to the warrior groups to avoid molestation. He was a member of the influential Kunta family, Kunta clerical tribe, originally Arab descendants of Uqba ibn Navi Al Fihri. Many of the Kunta moved east to the region north of Timbuktu and became salt merchants. The Kunta adopted the teachings of Muhammad al-Maghili, a noted cleric around 1500 CE who was said to have introduced the Qadiriyya order of Sufis to the region. Al-Mukhtar's father died ...
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Brackets
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their names, that vary between British English, British and American English. "Brackets", without further qualification, are in British English the ... marks and in American English the ... marks. Other symbols are repurposed as brackets in specialist contexts, such as International Phonetic Alphabet#Brackets and transcription delimiters, those used by linguists. Brackets are typically deployed in symmetric pairs, and an individual bracket may be identified as a "left" or "right" bracket or, alternatively, an "opening bracket" or "closing bracket", respectively, depending on the Writing system#Directionality, directionality of the context. In casual writing and in technical fields such as computing or linguistic analysis of grammar, brackets ne ...
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Tuareg People
The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; Endonym and exonym, endonym, depending on Tuareg languages#Subclassification, variety: ''Imuhaɣ'', ''Imušaɣ'', ''Imašeɣăn'' or ''Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berbers, Berber ethnic group, traditionally nomadic pastoralism, pastoralists, who principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and as far as northern Nigeria, with small communities in Chad and Sudan known as the ''Kinnin''. The Tuareg speak Tuareg languages, languages of the same name, also known as ''Tamasheq'', which belong to the Berber languages, Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. They are a semi-nomadic people who mostly practice Islam, and are descended from the indigenous Berber communities of Northern Africa, whose ancestry has been described as a mosaic of local North Africa, Northern African (Taforalt), Middle Eastern, Genetic history of Europe, European (Early Eu ...
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Jihad
''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God's guidance, such as an introspection, internal struggle against evil in oneself, efforts to build a good Muslim community (''ummah''), and struggle to defend Islam. Literally meaning 'struggle', the term is most frequently Islam and war, associated with warfare. ''Jihad'' is classified into inner ("greater") ''jihad'', which involves a struggle against one's own passions and impulses, and outer ("lesser") ''jihad'', which is further subdivided into ''jihad'' of the pen/tongue (debate or persuasion) and ''jihad'' of the sword (warfare). Much of Muslim opinion considers inner ''jihad'' to have primacy over outer ''jihad'', although many Western scholars disagree. The analysis of a large survey from 2002 reveals considerable nuance in the co ...
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Sokoto Caliphate
The Sokoto Caliphate (, literally: Caliphate in the Lands of Sudan), also known as the Sultanate of Sokoto, was a Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa. It was founded by Usman dan Fodio in 1804 during the Fula jihads, Fulani jihads after defeating the Hausa Kingdoms in the Fulani War. The boundaries of the caliphate extended to parts of present-day Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria. By 1837, the Caliphate had a population of 10-20 million people, becoming the most populous empire in West Africa. It was dissolved when the British, French, and Germans conquered the area in 1903 and annexed it into the newly established Northern Nigeria Protectorate, Senegambia and Niger and Kamerun respectively. The caliphate emerged after the Hausa Kingdoms, Hausa King Yunfa attempted to assassinate Usman Dan Fodio in 1802. To escape persecution, Usman and his followers migrated towards Gudu in February 1804. Usman's followers pledged allegiance to Usman as the Amir al-Mu'mi ...
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Massina Empire
The Caliphate of Hamdullahi (; ; ; ; also: Dina of Massina, Sise Jihad state), commonly known as the Massina Empire (also spelled ''Maasina'' or ''Macina''), was an early nineteenth-century Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa centered in the Inner Niger Delta of what is now the Mopti and Ségou Regions of Mali. It was founded by Seku Amadu in 1818 during the Fulani jihads after defeating the Bambara Empire and its allies at the Battle of Noukouma. By 1853, the empire had fallen into decline and was ultimately destroyed by Omar Saidou Tall of Toucouleur. The Massina Empire was one of the most organized theocratic states of its time on the African continent and had its capital at Hamdullahi. It was ruled by an almami with the help of a Grand Council that possessed the power to elect new rulers after the death of the previous one. While, in theory, the almami did not have to be a member of the Bari family, but only someone who was learned and pious, every almami elected ...
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Seku Amadu
Sheikhu Ahmadu (; ; ) (c. 1776 – 20 April 1845) was the Fulbe founder of the Massina Empire (Diina of Hamdullahi) in the Inner Niger Delta, now the Mopti Region of Mali. He ruled as '' Almami'' from 1818 until his death in 1845, also taking the title ''sisse al-Masini''. Early years Aḥmad bin Muḥammad Būbū bin Abī Bakr bin Sa'id al-Fullānī () was born around 1776 and was raised by Hamman Lobbo, his father's younger brother. Amadu was a pupil of the Qadiriyya Sufi teacher Sidi Mukhtar al-Kunti. In the Inner Niger Delta region, alliances of Fulbe traders ruled the towns like Djenné, but non-Moslem Bambara people controlled the river. The Fulbe ''ardo'en'' were tributary to the Bambara of Ségou, and practiced a form of Islam that was far from pure. Seku Amadu may have served in the Sokoto ''jihad'' before returning to the Massina region. He settled in a village under the authority of Djenné. When his teaching brought him a large following he was expelled, ...
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Usman Dan Fodio
Shehu Usman dan Fodio (; full name; 15 December 1754 – 20 April 1817). (Uthman ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman ibn Saalih ibn Haarun ibn Muhammad Ghurdu ibn Muhammad Jubba ibn Muhammad Sambo ibn Maysiran ibn Ayyub ibn Buba Baba ibn Musa Jokolli ibn Imam Dembube`) was a Fulani scholar, Islamic religious teacher, poet, revolutionary and a philosopher who founded the Sokoto Caliphate and ruled as its first caliph. After the successful revolution, the "Jama'a" gave him the title Amir al-Mu'minin (commander of the faithful). He rejected the throne and continued calling to Islam. Born in Gobir, Usman was a descendant of the Torodbe clans of urbanized ethnic Fulani people living in the Hausa Kingdoms since the early 1400s. In early life, Usman became well educated in Islamic studies and soon, he began to preach Sunni Islam throughout territories that would later become parts of independent Nigeria and Cameroon. He wrote more than a hundred books concerning religion, government, cultur ...
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Ségou Empire
The Ségou Empire (also Bambara or Bamana Empire , ) was one of the largest states of West Africa in the 18th century. Along with Kaarta it was one of the most important successors of the Songhai Empire. Based on an earlier kingdom established in 1640, it grew into a powerful empire in the early 18th century under Bitòn Coulibaly. The empire existed as a centralized state from 1712 until the 1861 invasion by the Toucouleur conqueror El Hadj Umar Tall. History Bitonsi Around 1640, Kaladian Coulibaly, also known as Fa Sine, became the leader of a small Bambara kingdom in the city of Ségou in Mali. Though he made many successful conquests of neighboring tribes and kingdoms, he failed to set up a significant administrative framework, and the new empire disintegrated following his death (). In 1712 Mamari Kulubali, also known as Biton Coulibaly, Kaladian's great-grandson, was elected the leader of a youth organization known as a ''tòn''. Mamari soon reorganized the tòn as a ...
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Mauritania
Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, Algeria to Algeria–Mauritania border, the northeast, Mali to Mali–Mauritania border, the east and southeast, and Senegal to Mauritania–Senegal border, the southwest. By land area Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and 28th-largest in the world; 90% of its territory is in the Sahara. Most of its population of some 4.3 million lives in the temperate south of the country; roughly a third of the population is concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, on the Atlantic coast. The country's name derives from Mauretania, the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It extended from central present-day Algeria to the Atlantic. Berbers occupied what is now Mauritania by the beginning of the third centu ...
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Fula People
The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people are an ethnic group in Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, and regions near the Red Sea coast in Sudan. The approximate number of Fula people is unknown, due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity. Various estimates put the figure between 25 and 40 million people worldwide. A significant proportion of the Fula – a third, or an estimated 7 to 10 million – are pastoralism, pastoralists, and their ethnic group has the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world., Quote: The Fulani form the largest pastoral nomadic group in the world. The Bororo'en are noted for the size of their cattle herds. In addition to fully nomadic groups, however, there are also semisedentary Fulani – Fulbe Laddi – who also farm, although they argue that they do so out of necessity, not choice. The major ...
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Tariqa
A ''tariqa'' () is a religious order of Sufism, or specifically a concept for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking , which translates as "ultimate truth". A tariqa has a (guide) who plays the role of leader or spiritual director. The members or followers of a tariqa are known as (singular '), meaning "desirous", viz. "desiring the knowledge of God and loving God" (also called a '). The murshid of the tariqa is also believed to be the same as the '' tzadik'' of Judaism, meaning the "rightly guided one". The metaphor of "way, path" is to be understood in connection of the term sharia which also has the meaning of "path", more specifically "well-trodden path; path to the waterhole". The "path" metaphor of ''tariqa'' is that of a further path, taken by the mystic, which continues from the "well-trodden path" or exoteric of sharia towards the esoteric '. A fourth "station" following the succession of ''shariah'', ' and ' is called ...
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Kanem–Bornu Empire
The Kanem–Bornu Empire was an empire based around Lake Chad that once ruled areas which are now part of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Libya, Algeria, Sudan, and Chad. The empire was sustained by the prosperous trans-Saharan trade and was one of the oldest and longest-lived List of kingdoms and empires in African history, empires in African history. The foundation and early history of the Kanem–Bornu Empire is poorly known. The state is typically dated to have been founded around the year 700, though it may have been established centuries earlier or later. The ruling Duguwa dynasty ruled from their capital Njimi in the Kanem (region), Kanem region and used the ruling title ''List of mais of Kanem–Bornu, mai''. By the 11th century, the Duguwa had been replaced by the Sayfawa dynasty and the empire had converted to Islam. Economic factors and conflict with the Bilala people caused the empire to lose Kanem in the 14th century. ''Mai'' Omar I of Kanem, Omar I re-centered the empire i ...
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