Karamokho Alfa
Fula religious leader
Karamokho Alfa (born Ibrahima Musa Sambeghu and sometimes called Alfa Ibrahim; died c. 1751) was a Fula religious leader who led a jihad that created the Imamate of Futa Jallon in what is now Guinea. This was one of the first of the Fulbe jihads that established Muslim states in West Africa.
Alfa Ba, Karamoko Alfa's father, formed a coalition of Muslim Fulbe and called for the jihad in 1725, but died before the struggle began. The jihad was launched around 1726-1727. 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. Ibrahima Sambeghu, who became known as Karamokho Alfa, was the hereditary ruler of Timbo and one of the nine ulama. He was elected leader of the jihad. Under his leadership, Futa Jallon became the first Muslim state to be founded by the Fulbe. Despite this, Karamokho Alfa was constrained by the other eight ulama.
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This entry incorporates text from “Karamokho Alfa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.