Caliphate of Hamdullahi

The Caliphate of Hamdullahi was an early 19th-century Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa centered in the Inner Niger Delta of what is now the Mopti and Ségou Regions of Mali. It was founded by Seku Amadu in 1818 during the Fulani jihads after defeating the Bambara Empire and its allies at the Battle of Noukouma. By 1853, the empire had fallen into decline and was ultimately destroyed by Omar Saidou Tall of Toucouleur and his successors.

The Massina Empire was one of the most organized theocratic states of its time on the African continent and had its capital at Hamdullahi. It was ruled by an almami with the help of a Grand Council that possessed the power to elect new rulers after the death of the previous one. While, in theory, the almami did not have to be a member of the Bari family, but only someone who was learned and pious, every almami elected happened to be a son of the previous ruler.

History

The Sultanate of Massina was founded in c. 1400 by a group of Fulani originally coming from the Termess, south of Hodh. For centuries after their arrival, the inhabitants were vassals of larger states, including the Mali Empire (14th century), the Songhai Empire (15th-16th centuries), the Arma (Moroccan) pashas of Tomboctou (17th century), and the Bambara Empire at Ségou (18th century).

Seku Amadu and the Founding of the Caliphate

In the early 1800s, inspired by the recent Muslim uprisings of Usman dan Fodio in nearby Hausaland, preacher and social reformer Seku Amadu Lobbo began efforts at increasing religious revivals in his homeland, intending to restore genuine Islam rather than the contemporaneous infusion of Islam with traditional beliefs.