[CHAPTER XXIV.]
THE FULAH REVOLUTION.
Simultaneously with the commencement of Park’s work of exploration, an event of almost equal moment in the history of the Niger basin had begun to germinate. This was the phenomenal rise to a position of immense political and religious importance of the Fulahs—a people known among the Haussa as Fillani, and in Bornu as Fillatah.
As Park was the forerunner of Christian enterprise, so Othman dan Fodiyo, a simple Fulah Malaam or teacher, in raising the banner of Islam, marked the revival of the political and religious spirit of Mohammedanism in the Central and Western Sudan.
We have seen how the huge empire of Songhay crumbled into pieces before the musketeers of a Moorish sultan—how with its political influence went its civilising influence, and whole kingdoms and provinces fell back into the old idolatry and barbarism.
Similarly and almost contemporaneously, Bornu, largely though not so entirely, lost its old military power and progressive force. The Haussa States, left to themselves, showed a like degenerative tendency, and largely lapsed into the old heathen ways.
But in all the mass of idolatry was a leaven of quickening influence, which prevented it from becoming altogether dead and sodden. From Lake Chad to the Atlantic there was scattered one remarkable race who forgot not God, neither lapsed into the abominations of the infidel. Though without political status, and holding no better position than that of semi-serfs—being, moreover, spread broadcast in small groups as shepherds—they yet had in them a bond of union and an inspiring force which supported them in all their trials, and kept them from racial annihilation.
GROUP OF FULAHS.