Maba Diakhou Bâ

Mamadu Diakhou Bâ (1809 – July 1867), also known as Maba Jahou Bah, Ma Ba Diakhu, Ma Ba Diakho Ba, Ma Ba Jaaxu, Mabba Jaxu Ba, was a Muslim leader in West Africa during the 19th century. He was a disciple of the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood and became the Almami of Saloum.

Maba Diakhou Bâ combined political and religious goals in an attempt to reform or overthrow previous animist monarchies, and resist French encroachment. He is in a tradition of Fulani jihad leaders who revolutionized the states of West Africa at the time of colonialism.

Early life
A descendant of the Fulani Denianke Dynasty, Maba was born in 1809 a member of the Bâ family of the region of Rip, also known as Badibou. His grandfather had immigrated from Futa Toro, and the family were all teachers of the Quran. Maba studied in Cayor and taught in Kingdom of Jolof, where he married a member of the royal family, then returned to Rip around 1850. After meeting El Hadj Umar Tall, he spent ten years teaching and preaching in the village of Keur Maba Diakhou near Kaolack.

During this time, French forces under governor Faidherbe had carried out a scorched-earth policy against resistance to their expansion in Senegambia, with villages razed and populations removed after each victory.

Beginnings of Jihad
The king of Badibou (Rip) in the 1850s was entitled Mansa Jeriba. He was a weak ruler, and his warriors would frequently raid marabout villages in the area. Maba was the court marabout, frequently making amulets and praying for the king, but also attempting to weaken him by magical means and stockpiling weaponry. When the marabouts retaliated against the ceddo (animist) warriors for a raid, the king tried to crush them but Maba and his talibes (students) defeated them. This success attracted more supporters, and by 1861 Maba controlled all of Rip. At this point he launched his jihad into Serer territory and soon controlled most of Saloum and part of Niumi. He founded the city of Nioro as his capital, named after El Hadj Umar's capital.

Expansion and War
In 1862, the Damel of Cayor Lat Dior was overthrown by a French-supported rival. Maba Diakhou Bâ offered him asylum, and converted Dior and his soldiers from the traditional Tièddo animism to Islam. While his conversion may have been for reasons more political than spiritual, Lat Dior became a powerful ally. With his support, Maba's movement became more than a civil war in Saloum and grew to impact the entire region. Maba would also convert Alboury Ndiaye, the Buur of the Kingdom of Jolof, to Islam. This marked a decisive turning point in the history of Islam among the Wolof.

Maba's forces soon clashed with the French and, despite a defeat, continued to attract new recruits. His army number up to 11,000 fighting men. In 1864 the French recognized him as Almamy of Baddibu and Saloum, but his growing power threatened to unify Senegambia against them. In the spring of 1865 Lat Dior led an army to conquer the Kingdom of Jolof, alarming the French. An alarmed French governor Émile Pinet-Laprade marched on Saloum at the head of 1,600 regulars, 2,000 cavalry, and 4,000 volunteers and footsoldiers. At the Battle of Pathé Badiane outside of Nioro, however, the marabout forces led by Lat Dior drove the French back towards Kaolack.

Islamization and reform
As well as converting traditional states and their populations to Islam, Maba Diakhou Bâ's forces sought to abolish the traditional caste system of the Wolof and Serer aristocratic states. In unifying with other Muslim forces, West African Jihad states aimed to end the reign of small regional kingships who kept the area in a constant state of war, and the farming and artisanal classes in slave conditions. This centralization caused friction within his realm, as Mandinka people near the Gambia river resented being ruled by Wolof judges from the north. The Toucouleur Empire of El Hadj Umar Tall in Mali rose at about the same time had much the same goals, and Umar Tall himself was in contact with and recruited among Maba Diakhou Bâ's forces.

Death and legacy
In 1867, Maba Diakhou Bâ invaded the Kingdom of Sine, still led by the animist Serer ruler Kumba Ndoffene Diouf. With a surprise attack he captured and burned the capital of Diakhao, before facing the Serer armies at the Battle of Fandane-Thiouthioune. A rainstorm rendered the Muslim guns useless, Maba's troops were routed and he himself was killed.

With the continued resistance of Sine, much of Serer territory remained animist or Christian into the 20th century. Sine resistance was likely as much nationalist as religious, with Muslims and animists fighting on both sides of these struggles.

Maba Diakhou Bâ is an important link in the tradition of Senegalese marabouts who trace their lineage to Umar Tall. This tradition has continued to the present, with such notables as El Hadj Saidou Nourou Tall (the former grand marabout of French West Africa) the Tivaouane-based Sy family of El Hadj Malik Sy (1855–1922), and the Niass family of Abdoulaye Niasse (1840–1922) and his son Ibrahim in Kaolack. Tivaouane in the north among the Wolof and Kaolack among the Serer have become the two centers of Tijaniyyah Sufi teaching in Senegal, and both were founded as a direct result of Maba Diakhou Bâ's short-lived state.

He was interred in the village of Fandène (or Mbel Fandane), and his tomb, which has become a place of pilgrimage, is in the Diakhao Arrondissement, département of Fatick in Sine-Saloum, Sénégal.