The Fulbe Jihads and the Islamic Legal Literature of the Southern Sahara (1650-1850)

Résumé En

This article explores debates among Muslim jurists on the question of politico-religious authority that developed in the southwestern Sahara during the age of the West African jihād movements. I argue that scholars in present-day Mauritania and northern Mali perceived the Fulbe Imamates of ‘Abd al-Qādir Kane (d. 1807) in Futa Tooro and of Aḥmad Lobbo (d. 1845) in Masina as a possibility for establishing a true Islamic polity in the region and ending the domination of Arabic-speaking nomadic groups, the Banū Ḥassān. The various concepts and notions put forward in these debates reflect the complex ways in which legal ideas were transmitted across time and space, while helping to shape discursive action in local contexts. As such, they document the emergence of autonomous and original traditions of legal reasoning among Muslim scholars in West Africa, and how these traditions connected to the juridical and religious culture of the Islamic ecumene.