Omar Saidou Tall

Hadji Oumarûl Foutiyou Tall (Umar ibn Sa'id al-Futi Tal, Arabic: حاج عمر بن سعيد طعل), (c. 1794 – 1864 CE), born in Futa Tooro, present day Senegal, was a West African Tijani sufi Toucouleur Islamic scholar and military commander who founded the short-lived Toucouleur Empire, which encompassed much of what is now Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania and Mali.[1]

For the soccer player, see Omar Tall (soccer).
Oumar Foutiyou Tall
El Hadji, Khalifa, Amir al-Mu'minin
Graffiti of Omar Tall in Dakar, Senegal
Reign1852–1864
SuccessorAhmadu Tall
BornOumar Tall
c. 1796
Halvar, Mali
Died10 February 1865(1865-02-10) (aged 68–69)
Bandiagara Escarpment
ReligionIslam

Name

Omar Tall's name is spelled variously: in particular, his first name is commonly transliterated in French as Omar, although some sources prefer Umar; the patronymic, ibn Sa'id, is often omitted; and the final element of his name, Tall (Arabic: طعل), is spelt variously as Tall, Taal or Tal.

The honorific El Hadj (also al-Hajj or el-Hadj), reserved for a Muslim who has successfully made the Hajj to Mecca,[2] precedes Omar Tall's name in many texts, especially those in Arabic. Later he also took on the honorifics Amir al-Mu'minin, Khalifa, Qutb (pole of the universe), vizier of the Mahdi, Khalifat Khatim al-Awliya (successor of the seal of saints), and Almami (Imam).[1]

Early life

Omar Tall was born about 1794 in Halwar in the Imamate of Futa Toro (present-day Senegal); he was the tenth of twelve children.[3] His father was Saidou Tall, from the Torodbe tribe, and his mother was Sokhna Adama Thiam.

Omar Tall attended a madrassa before embarking on the Hajj in 1828, during which he learned from the scholars of Al Azhar University. While in Mecca he stayed with Muhammad al Ghali, the head of the Tijaniyyah order, who made him a muqaddam (commander) of the order with a commission to destroy paganism in the Sudan.[4] He returned in 1830 as a marabout with the title El Hadj and assumed the khalifa of the Tijaniyya Sufi order in the Sudan. El-Hadj took the Tijani honorific Khalifat Khatim al-Awliya. This authority would become the basis of his personal authority necessary to lead Africans.[5]

When returning from the Hajj, he camped near Damascus, where he met Ibrahim Pasha, Omar Tall befriended the Pasha and healed his son from a deadly fever. Omar Tall was highly inspired by the trends set by the Pasha.

Gathering strength

Settling in Sokoto from 1831 to 1837, he took several wives, one of whom was a daughter of the Fula caliph of the Sokoto Caliphate, Muhammed Bello. In 1837, Omar Tall moved to the Imamate of Futa Jallon and founded his own religious settlement at Jegunko in 1840. Tension with the leaders of the Imamate pushed him to relocate to Dinguiraye, in present-day Guinea, in 1851 where he began preparations for his jihad.[1][4]

Omar Tall claimed a transcendental personal authority. He denied the important of adherence to a madhhab and favoured ijtihad or personal religious judgment. He taught that a believer should follow the guidance of a Sufi shaykh who has immediate personal knowledge of the divine truth. Even though Omar Tall never took the title of either mujaddid or mahdi, he was regarded as such by his followers. He became the torodbe ideal of religious revival and conquest of pagans.[1]

Omar Tall's message appealed to a large cross-section of the Sahelian population in the mid 19th century, including Fula, Soninke, Moors, and others. Many lowerclass people had grievances against local religious or military elites. Slaves aspired to gain freedom fighting for Islam. Rootless individuals of mixed ethnic background found new social identity and opportunities. Communities under the power of Europeans looked to Tall to drive off the foreigners. Marabout families hoped to gain political power in addition to their religious influence.[6][1]

Initial conquests

In 1852 Tall proclaimed a jihad against pagans, lapsed Muslims, European intruders, and the backsliding rulers of Futa Toro and Futa Jallon.[1] As his army scored victories, he reinforced his army with the new recruits who flocked to Dinguiraye and English guns purchased in Sierra Leone with the spoils of war.[4]

Omar Tall pressed on into what is today the region of Kayes in Mali, conquering a number of cities and building a tata (fortification) near the city of Kayes that is today a popular tourist destination.[7] He conquered Bambouk, then seized Nioro du Sahel, the capital of Kaarta, in April 1855, which became his capital.[4]

Next, Omar Tall turned west towards Futa Toro, Gajaaga and Bundu. This brought him into conflict with the French who were attempting to establish their commercial supremacy along the Senegal river. Tall besieged the French colonial army at Medina Fort. The siege failed on July 18 1857 when Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrived with relief forces. In 1860 Omar Tall made a treaty with the French that recognized his, and his followers', sphere of influence in Futa Toro and assigned them the Bambara states of Kaarta and Segu.[1]

Bambara and Masina

Prevented from expanding in the west by the French, Omar Tall turned East. He conquered the important Bambara cities of Nyamina and Sinsani, followed by Ségou on 10 March 1860.[4][8] When Segu fell, their king, Ali Diara (Bina Ali), fled to Hamdullahi[9] taking with him the traditional idols of the royal family.[10]

While Omar Tall's wars thus far had been against the animist Bambara or the Christian French, he now turned his attention to the smaller Islamic states of the region. Installing his son Ahmadu Tall as imam of Segu, Omar Tall marched down the Niger to attack the Massina Empire of Hamdullahi. This was controversial, as attacking a fellow Muslim power was forbidden.[4] Ahmad al-Bakkai al-Kunti, of the Qadari Sufi order, led a coalition of local states to resist this invasion, denounced as an illegitimate war of Muslims on Muslims. The coalition included, inter alia, Masina and Timbuktu.

More than 70,000 died[7] in the battles that followed. The most decisive was at Cayawel, where Amadu III, the Masina king, was wounded.[9] Djenné fell quickly[9] followed by the final fall of Hamdullahi in May 1862.[9][11][12]

Omar Tall captured Hamdullahi on 15 May 1862. Now controlling the entire Middle Niger, Omar Tall moved against Timbuktu, only to be repulsed in 1863 by a combined force of Tuaregs, Moors, and Fulas.[13] During 1863, the coalition inflicted several defeats on Omar Tall's army, ending up killing Tall's generals Alpha Umar (Alfa 'Umar), Thierno Bayla and Alfa 'Uthman.[14][15]

Death and legacy

Meanwhile, a rebellion broke out in the Masina lands led by Ba Lobbo, cousin of executed Masina monarch Amadu III. In suppressing the revolt, In the Spring of 1863, Omar Tall reoccupied the city of Hamdullahi, and in June Balobo's combined force of Fulas and Kountas besieged Omar Tall's army there.[16] Balobo's followers captured Hamdallahi in February 1864. Omar Tall fled and managed to make it to a cave in Degembere (in the Bandiagara Escarpment[17]) where he died on 14 February 1864.[14][16][18]

Omar Tall's nephew Tidiani Tall succeeded him in retaking Massina, though his son Ahmadu Tall, operating out of Ségou, did much of the work in keeping the empire intact. Nonetheless, the French continued to advance, conquering Nioro in 1891.[4] Omar Tall's jihad state was completely absorbed into the growing French West African empire.[1]

Omar Tall remains a prominent figure in Senegal, Guinea, and Mali, though his legacy varies by country. Where many Senegalese tend to remember him as a hero of anti-French resistance, Malian sources tend to describe him as an invader who prepared the way for the French by weakening West Africa. Omar Tall also figures prominently in Maryse Condé's historical novel Segu. He remains to this day an influential figure in the Tijaniyya and other reformist movements, which stressed the importance of Muslim orthopraxy. Omar Tall's state forbade dancing, the use of tobacco, alcohol, charms, pagan ceremonies, and the worship of idols. Many un-Islamic practices were banned. These laws were also very strictly enforced, especially the ban on alcohol. Omar Tall abolished uncanonical taxes and replaced them with zakat, land taxes, and jizya. Polygamists were restricted to only four wives. Omar Tall, however, was uninterested in the logistical aspects of inculcating Islam such as building courts, madrassahs, and mosques. The primary function of Omar Tall's state was predatory warfare, slaving, the accumulation of booty, and the reform of morals.[1] In the Senegambia, his emphasis during the “jihadic period” is remembered as "not resistance to the Europeans but the “destruction of paganism” in the Western Sudan."[19]

In November 2019, the French government returned the so-called sword of Omar Tall—which was actually a sword of Ahmadu Tall, Omar Tall's son—to the government of the Republic of Senegal.[20][21]

References

Notes
  1. Lapidus, Ira M. (2014) A History of Islamic Societies. 3rd ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 472–473.
  2. Malise Ruthven (1997). Islam: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-19-285389-9.
  3. Robinson, David (1985). The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 67–71. ISBN 978-0198227205.
  4. Boilley, Pierre (2005). "Tukolor Empire of al-Hajj Umar". In Shillington, Kevin (ed.). Encyclopedia of African History. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn. pp. 1591–1592.
  5. Robinson, David (1987). "The Umarian Emigration of the Late Nineteenth Century". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 20 (2): 97–99. doi:10.2307/219842. JSTOR 219842.
  6. Chastanet, Monique (October 1987). "De la traite à la conquête coloniale dans le Haut Sénégal : l'état Soninke du Gajaaga de 1818 à 1858" (PDF). Cahiers du C.R.A. 5: 106–107. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  7. "El-Hadj Umar Tall (1797–1864) Islamic scholar and empire builder". Standard News From The Gambia. 2019-05-31. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  8. Delafosse, Maurice (1968). The Negroes of Africa: History and Culture. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press. p. 93., a reprint of the 1931 edition, being a translation of the author's Les noirs de L'Afrique, published in 1921; Civilizations négro africaines, published in 1925; and part of Les nègres published in 1927.
  9. Roberts, Richard L. (1987). Warriors, Merchants, and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700–1914. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 83. hdl:2027/heb.02662. ISBN 978-0-8047-1378-8.
  10. Okoth, Assa (2006). A History of Africa: African societies and the establishment of colonial rule: 1800–1915. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishing. pp. 10–11. ISBN 978-9966-25-357-6.
  11. Stapleton, Timothy J. (2013). A Military History of Africa. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-313-39570-3.
  12. Tall, Hadja (2006). "Al Hajj Umar Tall: The Biography of a Controversial Leader". Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies. 32 (1/2): 73–90 [85]. doi:10.5070/F7321-2016514.
  13. Fula: Fulɓe; French: Peul
  14. Ajayi, J. F. Ade, ed. (1989). Africa in the Nineteenth Century Until the 1880s. Paris: International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa, UNESCO. p. 620. ISBN 978-0-520-03917-9.
  15. Tyam, Mohammadou Alio (1935). La vie d'el Hadj Omar, qacida en poular. Paris: Institut d'ethnologie. pp. 190–192, notes 1092 & 1110. notes and translation by Gaden, Henri; url access restricted to University of Michigan libraries.
  16. Tall 2006, p. 86
  17. Gallay, Alain; Huysecom, Eric; Honegger, Matthieu; Mayor, Anne (1990). "Vorwort [Forward]". Hamdallahi, capitale de l'Empire peul du Massina, Mali: première fouille archéologique, études historiques et ethnoarchéologiques (in German). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 10.
  18. There is some dispute about where exactly the cave in question is located. "Le miracle s'est produit a Degembere et non dans les falaises de Bandiagara" [The miracle occurred in Degembere and not in the Bandiagara Escarpment]. SenePlus. 2 February 2014.
  19. The Standarde (Gambia), Al-hajj Umar Fouti Tall c. 1797–1864 The Tijaniyya jihadist (June 19, 2020) (retrieved 23 August 2020)
  20. "France returns Omar Tall's sword to Senegal". BBC News. 18 November 2019.
  21. "'La première œuvre qui est "restituée" à l'Afrique est un objet européen'". Le Monde. 24 November 2019.

Sources
  • Davidson, Basil. Africa in History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
  • Robinson, David, (1985) The Holy War of Umar Tal. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Robinson, David; Triaud, Jean-Louis, eds. (1997). Le temps des marabouts Itinéraires et stratégies islamiques en Afrique occidentale française. ISBN 978-2-8111-0735-2. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)*B. O. Oloruntimeehin. The Segu Tukulor Empire. New York: Humanities Press (1972). SBN 391002066
  • Willis, John Ralph. In the Path of Allah: The Passion of al-Hajj 'Umar. London: Cass, 1989.
  • Wise, Christopher. The Desert Shore: Literatures of the Sahel. Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner, 2001.
  • Wise, Christopher. Yambo Ouologuem: Postcolonial Writer, Islamic Militant. Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner, 1999.
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