RISE OF THE FULANI 387 the independent doctrines gave offence to the pagan authorities.

In the year 1802, the King Bawa sent for their Imaum, Othman dan Fodio, and all the principal Fulani chiefs, and administered a severe public reprimand on account of the religious and political pretensions that they were beginning to put forward. This was but a spark to the tinder. Indignation spread through the Fulani community at the insult which had been offered to their chiefs. Othman dan Fodio inflamed the general sentiment by his preaching, in which he urged the Fulani to submit no longer to the yoke of a pagan people. The Fulani chiefs raised the standard of revolt ; Othman was elected Sheikh, and under his leadership a Holy War was declared which was to counterbalance, by the successes which it gave to the Fulani on the eastern side of the Niger, any temporary loss which this people had suffered in the west. The date of the opening of the Holy War is given differently by different authors, who vary between 1800 and 1804, but it evidently broke out immediately after the taking of Timbuctoo by the Tuaregs in 1800, and Othman dan Fodio gave the lead in Haussaland, which was shortly followed by Ahmadou in the west.

Between them these two Fulani Sheikhs conquered the Western Soudan from Masina to Bornu.

The first efforts of the Fulani in Haussaland were stoutly resisted by Gober, and, though the province was subdued, the capital, Alkalawa, was not taken during the lifetime of Dan Fodio. But through the rest of Haussaland, where the towns were already half in Fulani hands, the conquest of the Fulani spread rapidly. Zanfara was conquered in the first year of the war ; Zaria was either conquered, or allied itself with the conquerors, within a month of the submission of Zanfara. The conquest of Kano shortly followed; Katsena was taken in 1807; and in 1808 the victorious arms of the Fulani were carried into Bornu.

Here, however, after a short period of triumph, they