African Art

majority of whom until then seem to have practiced a religion
which was a mixture of Christianity and paganism. Towards
1040, a movement of Islamic propaganda took birth among
portions of the Lemtuna tribe, which principally inhabited the
Tagant and the district of Howdaghost, and that of the Goddala
or Jeddala, who led a nomadic life between the Mauritanian
Adrar and the Atlantic and formed a sort of federation with the
former. From a monastery situated on an island of the lower
Senegal or in the proximity of its outlet, the famous sect of the
Almoravides (al-morabetine, the “marabouts”, etymologically
“those who close themselves up in a ribbat or monastery”), set out
to preach Islam and to wage war from Sudan to Spain.

TThhee AAl lmmo or raav vi iddee MMo ov veemme ennt t

Under the direction of the fiery preacher Abdallah ben Yassine, a
Berber of North African origin, as fierce a religious reformer as an
indefatigable warrior, and under the nominal command of Yahia
ben Ibrahim, chief of the Goddala, then of Yahia ben Omar of the
Lemtuna tribe, a movement occurred which affected only
ephemeral political results among the Negroes but which had very
durable and quite important ones from a religious point of view. It
was indeed to the Almoravides that we must attribute the
conversion to Islam of the Sudanese groups who have since then
propagated this religion over a notable part of Africa: Tekrurians
or Tukulors, Sarakolle, Jula, and Songhoy.

From the middle of the 11thcentury, a sharp and merciless struggle
began between the Almoravide bands, who represented Islam
and who were stimulated by the desire to shake off the yoke of
the Negroes, and the Sarakolle kings of Ghana who, although
always having been hospitable to the Muslims were considered to
be the champions of paganism. In 1054, Howdaghost, though
the capital of a Berber kingdom, was attacked, taken and pil-
laged by Abdallah ben Yassine, under the pretext that the town
paid tribute to the king of Ghana.

At the same time, an active religious propaganda was carried
on by the efforts of the same Abdallah among the Negroes who
then resided on both banks of the Senegal, and also among the
Nigerian populations. But it often met with a resistance which,
when it could not manifest itself otherwise, was expressed by
an exodus of the inhabitants. It is thus that a majority of the
Serers emigrated to the left bank of the river in the Tekrur (which
almost corresponds to the province we call the Futa-Tooro),
whence a considerable number went to form groups in the Sine,
where we still find them today. They left the field clear for the
Berbers in what has since become Mauritania, hunted at the
same time by the desire to escape the constraint and the
exactions of the Almoravides and by the need of seeking more

fertile lands. It is thus again that, pushed by analogous motives,

the Fulani of Termes and of the Tagant began to swarm with

their herds towards the same region of the Futa-Toro, where, for

a long time, they must have energetically defended paganism

against Muslim enterprise.

However, certain royal families of the Negro country, attracted to

the new religion by the prestige which attached to its adepts,

ranged themselves deliberately under the banner of Mohammed.

Such was the case of the princes who then held the power in the

Tekrur, under the more or less distant tutelage of the emperors of

Ghana, and who, like the latter, must have belonged to the

Sarakolle race. They reigned over a people who were probably

very composite, formed of Sarakolle, Mandinka, Serers, and

perhaps Wolof elements, who ended by adopting the language

of the Fulani, their neighbours, and known to us today under the

name of Tukulors, this word being only a modification of the

primitive name of the kingdom and city of Tekrur^8

A disciple of Abdallah ben Yassine, about whom there are

currently numerous legends and whose memory has been handed

down to us under several different names, among which that of

Abu-Dardal, converted to Islam the princes and notables of the

Tekrur, who became effective allies of the Almoravides.

A Lemtuna Berber, who, according to Leo the African, was none

other than the very father of Yahia ben Omar and the famous

Abubekr or Bubakar, travelled as far as Mandinka and succeeded

in enrolling in the new religion of the king of the country, named

Baramendana, whom he is supposed to have influenced to

undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca.

However, one should not exaggerate the importance of these

conversions effected among the Negroes by the Almoravides,

or claim, as is sometimes done, that they gained the entirety of

Sudan for Islam. In reality, the conversions do not seem to have

been serious and lasting except among the princes and higher

officials and their immediate circle. The mass of the people

either resisted Islamisation by migration, as we have seen in the

case of the Serers and the Fulani, or else they did not let

themselves be persuaded by the efforts of the Almoravide

preachers, as was the case with the Wolof and the Mandinka^9

or else again, accepted the new faith only to abandon it when

the ephemeral power of the disciples of Abdallah ben Yassine

came to an end. It is only among the Tekrurians or Tukulors,

among the Songhoy, and, strange to say, among the Sarakolle

and the Jula, their descendants, that Islam penetrated widely

and strongly.

The Sarakolle, in fact, who represented the pagan element in all

its vigor, finished, under constraint and force, by accepting,