Sufi sm and ‘Popular’ Islam 129to have experienced a signifi cant increase in membership in the nineteenth
century, and also gained a new legitimacy, in response to the encroachments
of colonial powers. However, in various places the Sufi resurgence began in
fact as early as the late eighteenth century and preceded actual colonial con-
quest (as did the emergence of Wahhabism). Some scholars have perceived in
these movements indications that Muslim societies were already experienc-
ing an indigenous process of modernisation, with developments analogous to
Enlightenment, prior to the age of colonialism. Some critics of this view denied
that these movements exemplifi ed distinctly modern sensibilities and claimed
that the allegedly new ideas in the Sufi authors of this period could already be
found in the earliest Sufi literature.^4
In West Africa, a wave of great jihad movements, typically led by Sufi
teachers, ushered in more modern patterns of state formation and constitutes a
historical watershed. The fi rst of these jihads was, however, fought not against
Western invaders but against older local elites, who were partly Islamicised
but held on to many pagan practices. Some later observers (e.g. Hiskett 1976)
attribute the impulse behind these movements to a revitalisation of Sufi sm in
Egypt, which itself was a reaction against the rise of Wahhabism in the Arabian
Peninsula; others have suggested that the fi rst impact of the West on the political
economy of the region had made itself felt even before direct physical contact
was established. Either way, these movements signalled signifi cant changes in
the societies concerned. Although in some cases old established Sufi orders were
involved (notably the Qadiriyya, which was widespread in the region), the great-
est vigour was displayed by orders that had only recently emerged, especially the
Tijaniyya.
The most important of these jihad movements was led by Shaykh Usuman
dan Fodio around the turn of the century and resulted in the creation of an
Islamic state, the Sokoto caliphate, in northern Nigeria. Dan Fodio was a Sufi of
the Qadiriyya order as well as a learned scholar, who saw himself as a mujaddid,
one of the periodically appearing ‘renewers’ whose task it is to purify and rein-
vigorate Islamic belief and practice. His jihad was directed against the pagan
practices and beliefs that were still dominant in the nominally Muslim Hausa
chiefdoms of the region, and aimed at the stricter application of sharia prescrip-
tions in dress code, ritual practice, trade law and personal law. The traditional
chiefdoms were abolished and replaced by a more centralised and explicitly
Islamic polity, headed by a khalifa (caliph) to whom a number of amirs, rulers of
smaller units, owed allegiance (Hiskett 1976; Martin 1976). The exact role of
the Qadiriyya in this jihad is a matter of debate; the state he founded did not
replicate the structure of the Sufi order, but Usuman dan Fodio’s position as the
highest shaykh of this order no doubt facilitated the mobilisation of followers.
Al-Hajj Umar Tall or Umar al-Futi was a Senegalese scholar and Sufi who
launched a major jihad in the mid-nineteenth century. As his title indicates,