18th–19th Centuries: (Interpreting the West African Jihads — Coalitions of Interests Combining Religious Reform, Ethnic Conflict Between Pastoralist Fulani a…

18th–19th Centuries: (Interpreting the West African Jihads — Coalitions of Interests Combining Religious Reform, Ethnic Conflict Between Pastoralist Fulani and Agricultural Hausa, Socioeconomic Repression Including the Jangali Cattle Tax, and the Deepening of Islam Across the Savannah That Would Provide Greater Unity of Purpose Against European Colonial Invasion): Interpretations of the West African jihads vary: while on one level they can be seen as genuinely concerned with religious reform, on another they may represent the crystallization of deep-rooted inter-ethnic tensions or insurrections against political and economic repression. The use of the term jihad is itself problematic, as the uprisings frequently targeted Muslims from other brotherhoods rather than infidels. Across Hausaland, much of the leadership and support for Uthman’s revolt came from pastoral Fulani who believed themselves oppressed by agricultural Hausa — many were not dedicated Muslims and were motivated more by ethnic solidarity than religious zeal. The socioeconomic interpretation is also compelling: taxation, particularly the jangali cattle tax hitting the Fulani hard, was seen as brutal and un-Islamic, and the prophets and warriors of revivalist Islam represented a pastoralist militancy born of the longstanding struggle for land rights. A combination of religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors lay behind the uprisings in what can be termed coalitions of interests. Whatever the motives, Islam became much more deeply rooted in West African states and societies. As European colonial invasion gathered pace between the 1870s and 1890s, Islam provided greater unity of purpose and resistance than was found in many other parts of the continent — though opposition was never fully effective, undermined by sectarian rivalry between competing brotherhoods, and by European co-optation of Muslim authorities into the colonial system.