Shaykh Thierno Sulayman Bal (Arabic: شيخ سليمان بال, c. 1720 - 1775) was an 18th-century African leader, warrior, and Islamic scholar, from the Futa Toro region in what is today Senegal.
Suleyman Bal was born around 1720 in Bode. Inspired by the Jihads of Alfa Ibrahima Nuhu who led the Imamate of Futa Jallon, in 1770 Sulayman Bal led a revolt in the Fulani Denyanke kingdom and their backers among the Brakna Moors, who had a long history of dominating and pillaging Futa Toro. An assembly of Torodbe leaders announced the deposition of Sule Bubu Gaissiri, the last Denyanke king, and the introduction of a theocracy headed by an elected Imam (almami), but Bal refused the title. In 1776 he was killed in a battle against the Moors.
Sulayman Bal was succeeded by Abd al-Qadir who consolidated the Futa Toro state, created a military and clerical aristocracy, and became one of the first of many West African leaders to take the title almami. In 1796, his army was defeated during the battle of Bounghoy by the Cayor kingdom led by the Damel Amary Ngoné Ndella Fall. Abd al-Qādir was killed in 1807, to be replaced by a less oligarchic council of clan leaders.
References
- Institut Fondamental de l'Afrique Noire. Musée Historique de Gorée Exhibit (August 2024).
- Colvin, Lucie Gallistel (1974). "ISLAM AND THE STATE OF KAJOOR: A CASE OF SUCCESSFUL RESISTANCE TO JIHAD" (PDF). Journal of African History. xv (4): 587–606. doi:10.1017/S002185370001389X. S2CID 146699555. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
- Holger Weiss. Attempts to Establish an Islamic Economy: A Survey on Zakāt in some Nineteenth-Century Muslim States of the Bilād as-Sūdān. Paper presented at the SAL-workshop: "State and Everyday Life in Africa", Accra, November–December 2000.
- David Robinson. Chiefs and Clerics: Abdul Bokar Kan and Futa Toro, 1853–1891. Clarendon Press. (1975).
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