War Jabi

War-Dyabe (Arabic: وار ذياب بن ربيس) or War Jabi[1] (Arabic: وار جابي), also known as: War Jaabi or War-Dyabe, was the first Muslim king of Takrur in the 1030s, the first to proclaim Islam as a state religion in the Sudan.

[3] He successfully waged West Africa's first Holy War against the King of Sila.

[4] He died in 433 Hijri (1040 or 1041 Gregorian), and was succeeded by his son Lebi ibn War Jabi, who would go on to be a key contributor to the foundation of the Almoravids and their rule in Al Andalus.

[5] War Jabi's enforcement of sharia law pushed the Serer people of Tekrur (land owners and "the local agricultural people"[6]), who refused Islam in favour of their traditional religion, out of the country.

[1] War Jabi's embrace of Islam may have provided impetus and inspiration for the later Almoravid movement that arose among the Berbers north of the Senegal river in the decades after his death.