Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith Book contents
- Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith
- African Studies Series
- Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Orthography and Other Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I A Nineteenth-Century Chronicle in Support of the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi: Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir’s Tārīkh al-fattāsh
- Part II A Contested Space of Competing Claims
- 3 The Emergence of Clerical Rule in the Middle Niger
- 4 Aḥmad Lobbo, Timbuktu, and the Kunta
- 5 Fluctuating Diplomacy: Ḥamdallāhi and Sokoto
- Part III The Circulation and Reception of the Tārīkh al-fattāsh, 1840s–2010s
- Index
- African Studies Series
3 - The Emergence of Clerical Rule in the Middle Niger
from Part II - A Contested Space of Competing Claims
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2020
- Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith
- African Studies Series
- Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the Faith
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Notes on Orthography and Other Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I A Nineteenth-Century Chronicle in Support of the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi: Nūḥ b. al-Ṭāhir’s Tārīkh al-fattāsh
- Part II A Contested Space of Competing Claims
- 3 The Emergence of Clerical Rule in the Middle Niger
- 4 Aḥmad Lobbo, Timbuktu, and the Kunta
- 5 Fluctuating Diplomacy: Ḥamdallāhi and Sokoto
- Part III The Circulation and Reception of the Tārīkh al-fattāsh, 1840s–2010s
- Index
- African Studies Series
Summary
This chapter explores the emergence of new the claims of authority on which Aḥmad Lobbo rested his role as a spiritual leader charged with the political power – a domain that had traditionally been a prerogative of the region’s warrior elites of Fulani, Bambara, and Arma origins. It first analyzes the writings of Aḥmad Lobbo to understand his project of religious reform. It then follows the unfolding of the events that translated the conflict between Aḥmad Lobbo and the religious establishment of the city of Djenné into an open war between his entourage and the old Fulani warrior elite in charge of political power in 1818. It concludes by showing that Aḥmad Lobbo’s authority was not only expressed through his demonstrable mastery of Islamic jurisprudence. He was also perceived as a Friend of God known for his access to Divine Blessing, or baraka.
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- Sultan, Caliph, and the Renewer of the FaithAhmad Lobbo, the <I>Tārīkh al-fattāsh</I> and the Making of an Islamic State in West Africa, pp. 127 - 153Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020