Karamokho Alfa

After a crucial, concluding victory at Talansan, the state was established at a meeting of nine Fulbe ulama who each represented one of the Futa Jallon provinces.

Some of the other Ulama had more secular power than Karamokho Alfa, who directly ruled only the diwal of Timbo; for this reason the new state was always a tenuous confederation.

Karamoko Alfa ruled the theocratic state until 1748, when his excessive devotions caused him to become mentally unstable and Sori was selected as de facto leader.

[6] In the last quarter of the seventeenth century the Zawāyā reformer Nasir al-Din launched a jihad to restore purity of religious observance in the Futa Toro region to the north.

[10] According to tradition, Ibrahim Sori symbolically launched the war in 1727 by destroying the great ceremonial drum of the Yalunka people with his sword.

[8] Karamoko Alfa managed to enlist disadvantaged groups such as gangs of young men, outlaws and slaves.

[18] Karamokho Alfa's maternal cousin was Maka Jiba, the ruler of Bundu, and both men studied in Fugumba under the famous scholar Tierno Samba.

[16][c] The structure of the new Fulbe state had an almami at its head, Karamokho Alfa being the first, with his political capital at Timbo.

The council operated as a strong curb on the power of the almami, and the ulama retained much autonomy, so the new state was always a loose federation.

[23] Karamoko Alfa ruled the theocratic state until 1748, when his excessive devotions caused him to become mentally unstable and Sori was selected as de facto leader.

After many years of conflict, Ibrahim Sori achieved a decisive victory in 1776 that consolidated the power of the Fulbe state.

Slave villages were founded, whose inhabitants provided food for their Fulba masters to consume or sell.

The largest of the Fulani jihads was led by the scholar Usman dan Fodio and established the Sokoto Caliphate in 1808, stretching across what is now the north of Nigeria.

The chief of the Ouassoulounké, Kondé Buraima, opened Karamokho Alfa's tomb and cut off the left hand of the body.