`UMAR TAL (c.1794-1864), more fully al-Hajj ‘Umar ibn Sa’id, Senegalese Islamic militant leader and thinker. Al-Hajj ‘Umar ibn Said deserves recognition as one of the towering figures of West African history in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It is to his efforts that we can ascribe the success of the Tijaniyah brotherhood which, with the `Umarian brand of militant Islam, swept like a flame over much of modern-day Mali, Senegal, Guinea, and Mauritania-an area of some 150,000 square miles at its widest geographic extent. Never before and never again did so much territory in this region submit to a single Islamic authority.
For al-Hajj `Umar, the model of Muhammad presented the perfect frame in which to pattern his jihad fervor. The peaks and valleys of the Prophet’s life were imitated with pious frequency in the career of Shaykh `Umar. He broke off relations with his kinsmen around 1849/50 and referred to this action as hijrah in imitation of the Prophet’s move under similar circumstances. In 1852, he launched his jihad at the same age at which Muhammad had commenced his struggle for the diffusion of Islam. Indeed, the shaykh was to state explicitly:
I was faced with enmity as he [Muhammad] was faced by it during his difficulty at al-Hudaybiyah. . . . I had suffered harm in Allah’s way, and yet I had stood patiently-the same way that the Prophet had suffered harm and had stood patiently in the face of it. . . . Religion, in its infancy, begins as a stranger; and during this phase it will be maintained by hijrah, as had happened before. For in most cases no prophet has been supported by his people.
Even in a century of so many great individualists as the nineteenth, `Umar Tal was no ordinary figure. Indeed, the western Sudan of this period was profoundly stirred by his views. As the Qadiri movement of the first quarter of this period failed to clothe its senile form with any new attraction, excitement passed to the Tijaniyah brotherhood. Coming as it did between the jihdd of Shehu Usuman dan Fodio in northern Nigeria and that of Muhammad Ahmad (the Mahdi) in the AngloEgyptian Sudan, the movement of al-Hajj `Umar maintained its rank absolutely. The mystic shaykh was the peer of the Sudanese Mahdi in his capacity to raise controversy. For his detractors, his struggle in the path of God was a pretext to sanctify political and economic expediencies: jihad and the excessive claims of charisma made dangerous allies. The reputation of al-Hajj ‘Umar gained in scope what it had lost in definition as he assumed the guise of an apocalyptic figure. Through a primary inspiration the mystic shaykh became the momentum of Islamic revival, leaving the path of an edifying imitatio nabi (imitation of Muhammad) as the guidance of his mission was subsumed under a beatifying principle. Having lifted himself onto this exalted plane, the shaykh, perceptibly, was in a position to create the taste by which he was to be relished-to rule not by the shari’ah alone, but by divine inspiration.
The Senegalese militant is no less regarded for his role as a writer and thinker, as one who shaped the content and direction of Tijani thought during his lifetime and left on it an indelible imprint for posterity. His Rimdh hizb al-Rahim `ala nuhur hizb al-rajim (composed in AH 1261/1845 CE) stands in near parity to the Jawahir alma`ani (Cairo, 1927), and together these two great works constitute a complete body of laws for the order and a guide to conduct for its members.
Al-Hajj ‘Umar brought to his writings a perspective rich in experience gained from travel throughout much of the Muslim world and study in many of the leading centers of Islamic thought. He made the pilgrimage to the Muslim holy places in 1825, remaining away from his homeland until the late 1830s. On his return, his preaching and teaching culminated in a jihdd effort, the effects of which are still evident in his theater of operations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For literature on this subject, see my epic, In the Path of Allah: The Passion of al-Hajj `Umar, an Essay into the Nature of Charisma in Islam (London, 1989). For a highly detailed account, consult David Robinson, The Holy War of `Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the MidNineteenth Century (Oxford, 1985).
JOHN RALPH WILLIS
