Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1985. 420 pages
I became interested in Umar Tal during my research on his homeland in 1967-9, but I did not conceive of a study of the Jihad until 1973-4, when I conducted field work in Futa Toro, Gajaga, and Bundu. In 1976 and 1979 I was able to do archival and field work in Mali and thereby gain some perspective from the « receiving » end of the Jihad. It has become increasingly important to me to understand the campaigns and their impact from both east and west, outside and inside, below and above.
In the text I have followed an Anglicized form of the standard French transliteration of most personal and place names. Arabic and Fulfulde terms in the text have been transcribed in standardized English forms.
For assistance in carrying out the extensive field and archival research, I would like to thank:
I have enjoyed the cooperation of the staffs of:
I would like especially to thank my close collaborators in the field:
I am indebted to:
Moore Crossey and Ellen Titus Hoover gave invaluable bibliographical help at the onset of this project, while Revd Mounir Saadah provided translations of some key Arabic documents. I benefited greatly from the inventory of the Umarian library at the Bibliothèque Nationale established by Nourredine Ghali and Sidi Mohamed Mahibou; Ghali's comments were often critical guides to materials that I needed to see at first hand.
For a close reading of various forms of the manuscript of this work, I would like to thank:
The most consistently probing comments have come from John Hanson. The final manuscript was prepared thanks to the efforts of:
Finally, I would like to express gratitude to Rudite, for her arduous work on the proofs, and to her and Damel, for their encouragement over the years.
David Robinson
East Lansing, Michigan