Umar Tall

Hadji Oumarûl Foutiyou Tall (Umar ibn Sa'id al-Futi Tal, ar, حاج عمر بن سعيد طعل), ( – 1864 CE), born in Futa Tooro, present day Senegal, was a West African political leader, Islamic scholar, Tijani Sufi and Toucouleur military commander who founded the short-lived Toucouleur Empire encompassing much of what is now Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania and Mali. Lapidus, Ira M. (2014) A History of Islamic Societies. 3rd edition, New York: Cambridge University Press, pages 472-473.

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'' ( ar, طعل, links=no), 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, 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).

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. 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, returning in 1830 as a marabout with the title ''El Hadj'' and was initiated into the Tijaniyya, and then assumed the khalifa of the Tijaniyya sufi brotherhood 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.

When returning from the Hajj he camped near Damascus there he met Ibrahim Pasha, Omar Tall befriended the Pasha healed his son from a deadly fever, Omar Tall was highly inspired by the trends set by the Pasha. 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 1836, Omar Tall moved to the Imamate of Futa Jallon and then to Dinguiraye in 1840, in present-day Guinea, where he began preparations for his jihad. There he organized his followers into a professional army of around 50,000 strong, equipped with French weapons and western advisors. In 1852 he proclaimed a jihad against pagans, lapsed Muslims, European intruders, and the backsliding rulers of Futa Toro and Futa Jallon.

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.

Initial conquests

Omar Tall appealed to the populace of Futa Toro on the basis of local grievances against the military elites. His community also appealed to rootless individuals of mixed ethnic background who found new social identity and opportunities for conquest under the aegis of Islam. His Jihad began with the conquest of Futa Toro and by 1862 his empire included Timbuktu, Masina, Hamdallahi, and Segu.

In 1848, Omar Tall's Toucouleur army, equipped with French weapons, invaded several neighboring, pagan, Malinké regions and met with immediate success. 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.

In April 1857, Omar Tall declared war on the Khasso kingdom. He came into conflict with the French who were attempting to establish their commercial supremacy along the Senegal river. Omar Tall besieged the French colonial army at Medina Fort. The siege failed on July 18 of the same year 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.

Bambara and Masina

After his failure to defeat the French, Omar Tall launched a series of assaults on the Bambara kingdoms of Kaarta and Ségou (Segu). The Kaarta capital of Nioro du Sahel fell quickly to Omar Tall's mujahideen, followed by Ségou on 10 March 1861., 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. When Segu fell, their king, Ali Diara (Bina Ali), fled to Hamdullahi taking with him the traditional idols of the royal family.

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

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