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The Torodbe Clerisy: A Social View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

John Ralph Willis
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

It is a salient feature of the great jihāds of the western Sudan that the leadership for these wars of religious fervour should have sprung forth from a single source, the Torodbe clerisy. It was the Torodbe ʿulamā’ who sustained the jihāds in Futas Bundu, Toro and Jallon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and prefigured the jihāds of Usumān dan Fodio and al-Hājj ʿUmar b. Saʿīd, perhaps the most illustrious leaders thrown up by Torodbe Islam.

We have long viewed these Islamic revolutions as ‘Fulani jihads’—as consummate examples of the way in which ‘Fulani’ skilfully orchestrated the people in favour of their own views. But it would now appear that those Muslims we have been calling ‘Fulani’ deserved this designation in language and culture only—that they were drawn from diverse strains of Sūdānī society—that Turudiyya suggests a métier and not an ethnic category.

The Torodbe clerisy evolved out of that mass of rootless peoples who perceived in Islam a source of cultural identity. Bound in a new persuasion—linked by a common oppression—they shook the sense of ethnic difference and sought to stimulate a counter trend of a levelling nature. Yet, having habitually recruited from all levels, and most notably from the submerged levels of society, the Turudiyya became an increasingly closed world, discoloured of their levelling intentions. This tendency was manifest in Futas Toro and Bundu especially. In these new communities, the Turudiyya took shape as a hereditary ruling class—succession to the imāmiyya became the special preserve of a select few families. The position of slaves in the new order progressively hardened; the ranks of the Turudiyya remained closed to artisans who continued to pursue their traditional crafts.

The levelling tendency of the Turudiyya movement seems to have reached its apogee in the ʿUmarian Jamāʿa. Though it is said that al-Hājj ʿUmar b. Saʿid did not extend freedom to his slaves, the ties of Islam and the community of faith came to supplant the old threads of allegiance. Among believers, superiority in the faith or stricter observance of its precepts presented a new passport to honoured status.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 To underscore the Torodbe clerisy as the dominant factor in the jihāds under discussion is not to deny or ignore the importance of other factors such as the Sunna (‘example’ or ‘action’) of the Prophet Muhammad himself (see this writer's ‘Jihād fi sabīl Allāh— Its Doctrinal Basis in Islam and Some Aspects of its Evolution in Nineteenth-Century West Africa’, J. Afr. Hist. viii, 1967, 395415)Google Scholar, or the influence of similar movements throughout the Muslim world.

2 Published accounts differ sharply on the Shehu's link with the Torodbe. The Shehu's line is on the one hand rather vaguely linked with the Sisibé or Sihsibé (sing. = Si or Sih, with a host of variants), and on the other with the Dembubé (sing. = Dem), two yettode (Fulfulde = ‘the name that honours’) commonly found among Torodbe Muslims. Last links the Shehu's line with the ‘Toronkawa’, whom he equates with Torodbe (and both of which he renders, ‘people of Futa Toro’). Gaden claims the Shehu's family carried the yettode Dem. Sisibé and Dembubé (pl. of ‘Dem’) were (at least initially) Mande-speaking peoples (Wa-kore or Wangara according to Barth and Bello). The Sisibé (‘cousins of the Fulani’) appear to have been absorbed into Fulbe groups (as slaves?) and dispersed with them throughout the western and central Sudan (in Hausa, they become the Sullebawa). Murray, Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (1967), lxxii f.Google Scholar; Gaden, Henri, Proverbes et Maximes Peuls et Toucouleurs (1931), 154Google Scholar; Barth, Henry, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (5 vols., 18571858), iv, 144 f.Google Scholar; Bello, Muhammad, Infāq al-maisür (Arabic text edited by C. E. J. Whitting, 1957), 138.Google Scholar

3 Wane, Yaya, Les Toucouleurs du Fouta Toro (Sénégal). Stratification Sociale et Structure Familiale (1966), 55.Google Scholar

4 Gaden, , Proverbs et Maximes Peuls et Toucouleurs, 316.Google Scholar

5 Ibid. 317.

6 Ibid. 316.

7 Ibid. 317.

8 See also Süra xxiv, 33.Google Scholar

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10 Before the rise of Mālik Si, Bundu is said to have been inhabited by Fatūbé and Guirobé Fulbe, both of whom resided in what are described as ‘holes’, or ‘subterranean hollows’. Their nomadic existence was sustained by hunting, particularly of the wild boar (the eating of which was anathema to Muslims). According to tradition, Mālik Si became their shaykh on condition that they turn away from this practice and become fixed. (Cf. Brigaud, Felix, Histoire Traditionnelle du Sénégal [1962], 218Google Scholar; and Capt. Roux, , ‘Notice Historique sur le Boundou’, Journal Officiel du Sénégal, p. 286, 5 Aug. 1893Google Scholar; pp. 293–4, 12 Aug. 1893; Pp. 302–3, 19 Aug. 1893; and pp. 312–13, 26 Aug. 1893; see pp. 286 and 293). Mālik Si was the first Torodbe imām of Bundu.

11 Mūsā b. Ahmad al-Fūtī al-Mātamī al-Gūrīkī al-Gangilī al-Sa'dī Fādilī, Kitāb al-Hāajj ‘Umar bi dhikr ba'd manāqibihi wa karā-mātihi [hereafter called, Ta'rīkh], Fonds Shaykh Mousa Kamara, Fouta Toro (documents historiques), Cahier no. 9, JFAN Library, Dakar (fo. 11). See also, Gaden, , Proverbes et Maxima, 12.Google Scholar

12 Kamara, Mūsa, Ta'rīkh, no. IIGoogle Scholar. In yet another explanation of the term Torodbe—this time drawn from Songhay informants—Mūsā Kamara noted that in some areas (notably Songhay) the term ‘Toro’ (or Turu) carried the significance of al-şanam, which means ‘idol’ in Arabic. Hence, whoever embraced Islam and abandoned Toro or idol worship came to be called ‘Torodbe’ or Turudiyya. Indeed, it was perhaps in this way that the celebrated Askia al-Hājj Muhammad b. Abū Bakr acquired the added epithet, al-Turudī, ‘the Torodo’.

13 Willis, , ‘Jihād fi Sabīl Allah’, 405.Google Scholar

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17 According to Juynboll, T. W. (article, 'abd, Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 3)Google Scholar, ‘a legal consequence of every liberation is the clientship or patronage (mala‘). The freed slave is the client of the liberator’. Similarly, upon becoming Muslims, non-Muslims were compelled to become mawālī of Arab groups. Such a relation was necessary, according to Watt, because non-Arab groups had made no treaty or confederacy with Muhammad (i.e. they had not become Muslims), nor had they sent a deputation to him. (Watt, W. Montgomery, Muhammad at Medina [1956], 247.)Google Scholar

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23 Arcin, , Histoire, 66 fGoogle Scholar. Neophytes embraced the generic, ‘Torodbe’, but in the second generation Arcin asserted that they assumed the further appellation, ‘Ba-la’, in order to indicate their submission to the Ba (ibid. 67).

24 A discussion of Bundu chronology appears in Curtin, P. D., ‘Jihad in West Africa: Early Phases and Inter-relations in Mauritania and Senegal’, J. Afr. Hist., xii (1971), 1124CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Curtin does not employ the term ‘Torodbe’. Rather he makes use of ‘Fulbe’ as a generic for the jihād leadership throughout the western Sudan. To view this leadership as ‘Fulbe’ and not ‘Torodbe’, however, is to lose sight of an extremely important social aspect of these jihāds.

25 Adam, M. G., Légendes Historiques du Pays de Nioro (Sahel) (1904), 49Google Scholar. Cf. Raffenel, A., Voyage dans l'Afrique Occidentale Française (1843–1844) (1846), 269.Google Scholar

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32 Machat, J., Guinée Française: Les Rivières du Sud et le Fouta-Djallon (1906), 269.Google Scholar

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35 Ibid. 277. For a discussion of the chronology of the Sidiankè Jamā'a, see Curtin, (‘Jihad in West Africa’, 22)Google Scholar, who places its establishment during the 1770s and 1780s.

36 Machat, , Guinée Française (following Noirot), 296.Google Scholar

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42 Machat, , Guinée Française, 303Google Scholar. In an interesting aside, Machat hazards that this social custom might have stemmed from ancient Fulbe civilization and its attachment to ‘boolâtrie’ (‘cattle-worship’). Elsewhere (p. 260), he speculates that the ‘caste’ hierarchy, so prevalent among the Fulbe, might have developed from their several wars among the Mande-speaking peoples, and that slaves taken from these conflicts came to represent subordinate groups.

43 Vieillard, , ‘Notes’, 82.Google Scholar

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45 Ibid. 108.

46 Gaden, H., Proverbes et Maximes, 104Google Scholar, noted that the position of the rimaibe (servile or client peoples of the Fulbe) was equivalent to that of the harātīn among Berbers: when a Fulbe slave became a grandfather (resulting from his master having a child by the slave's daughter), he was declared dimado (sing.), and the future children were, like the slave, declared rimaibe (plural); the dimado took the yettode (‘name that honours’—clan name) of his master and observed the same taboos (woda). Yet he was not free, and he continued to work for his master if he continued to live with him, or paid a specified amount, if he lived in a village of rimaibe (which is precisely what the roudés were); again, he could not be sold, and both master and slave felt that some evil would befall them should they break relations. Gaden indicates that there were both free and captive groups of rimaibe among the Fulbe. What is important here is that it appears the Torodbe (‘pré'tendus peuls’) retained these and other Fulbe social customs, though they rejected the nomadic aspect.

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56 Vieillard, ibid., also notes that the Muslim jinn (‘airy or fiery bodies [ajsām], intelligent, imperceptible, capable of appearing under different forms and of carrying out heavy labours’: see MacDonald, D. B., ‘Djinn’, SH.E.I., 90–1, at 90)Google Scholar replace the pagan ‘life forces’ who control the reproductive elements of the soil.

57 Vieillard, , ‘Notes’, 79 f.Google Scholar

58 Geismar, L., Recueil des Coûtumes Civiles des Races au Sénégal (1933), especially chapter II, pp. 137–82Google Scholar; Gaden, H., ‘Du Régime des Terres de la Vallée du Fouta Antérieurement a l'Occupation Française’, B.C.E.H.S.A.O.F. xviii, no. 4 (1935), 403–15Google Scholar; Vidal, M., ‘Etude sur la Tenure des Terres Indigènes au Fouta’, B.C.E.H.S.A.O.F. xviii, no. 4 (1935), 415–49Google Scholar; Kane, Abdou Salam, ‘Du Régime des Terres Chez les Populations du Fouta Sénégalais’, B.C.E.H.S.A.O.F. xviii, no. 4, 449–62Google Scholar. A study by Guèye, Y., ‘Essai sur les Causes et les Consequences de la Micropropriété au Fouta Toro’, Bulletin de l'I.F.A.N. Série B, xix (1957), 2842Google Scholar, is also useful.

59 Vidal, , ‘Études sur la Tenure des Terres’, 425, 443Google Scholar; Gaden, , ‘Du Régime des Terres’, 413.Google Scholar

60 Vidal, , ‘Etudes sur la Tenure des Terres’, 426, 443.Google Scholar

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62 Ibid. 426, 443.

63 Raffenel, , Voyage, 271.Google Scholar

64 Diagne, Pathe, Pouvoir Politique Traditionnel en Afrique Occidental (1967), 220.Google Scholar

65 Ibid. 203.

66 Ibid. 217.

67 Ibid. 179.

68 Ibid. 215.

69 Hecquart, , Voyage, 328.Google Scholar

70 Machat, , Guinée Française, 297.Google Scholar

71 Hecquart, , Voyage, 329.Google Scholar

72 Bayol, , Voyage, 113.Google Scholar

73 Hecquart, , Voyage, 331.Google Scholar

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76 Ibid. 298.

77 Hecquart, , Voyage, 331Google Scholar; Machat, , Guinée Française, 294.Google Scholar

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79 Perhaps the most notable of these slaves was the amīr, Muşţafa, who held the imārat (command) of Nioro, the most important in the Shaykh's gift. Other amīrs who were slaves include: Yogokballé (Bakūnū); Assamadi (or Assa-Mady) (Diombokho); Mudi Muhammad Jam (Dialafara); ‘Abd Allāh (Mūrgūla); Sulaymān Bāba Raki (Dialafara). A detailed discussion of the administration of these slaves will be given in the present writer's forthcoming 'Umarian Jamā'a.

80 Here one should mention Tafsīr ‘Alī Jam and Ahmad 'Alī Jāli (apparently of griot origin), both of whom were muqaddamī.

81 Cf. Kamara, Mūsā, Ta'rikh al-Hājj 'Umar, no. 94Google Scholar, and Cahier no. 18, Fonds Gaden, Fouta Toro (Documents historiques), fo. 2.

82 MS Arabe 5259, BNP, fo. 71.

83 MS Arabe 5716, BNP, fo. 38.

84 Ibid. fo. 37.

85 MS Arabe 5716, BNP, fo. 183.