Umar Tal

Umar Tal (1797-1864), full name al-Hajj Umar ibn Said Tal, West African mystic and warrior, who founded the Tukolor Empire of the Senegambia region. Born in the Fouta Toro (in present-day Senegal), the son of a Tukolor Muslim scholar, he was given a good education, joined the Tijaniyya brotherhood, and married a daughter of Muhammad Bello, sultan of Sokoto. In the 1820s he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and he returned inspired to further the spread of Islam. Gathering a large following of adherents and arming them with guns, he launched a jihad, or holy war, in 1852, winning control of several non-Islamic Bambara and Mandinka (also known as Mandingo or Malinke) states in the Sénégal-Niger basins. From there he turned eastward to Ségou, which he defeated in 1861, and the kingdom of Macina, a fellow Muslim state, which he overran the following year. In 1863 he captured Tombouctou but came into violent conflict with the Tuaregs, who beat him back. A combined force of Tuaregs and revolting Fulani from Macina destroyed his army in 1864, and Umar himself was killed. His empire, under his son Ahmadu, was finally subdued by the French in 1893.