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Governing a Theocracy and the Diina's Fall to a Rival Jihad

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Governing a Theocracy and the Diina's Fall to a Rival Jihad

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Seku Amadu's jihad established one of nineteenth century West Africa's most tightly organized theocratic states, ruled by an elected almami advised by a Grand Council, with its capital at Hamdullahi and administration through appointed provincial governors. No contemporary chronicle or modern historical reconstruction gives a reconciled casualty total across the jihad's opening campaigns, its four decades as a functioning state, or its eventual fall; surviving figures describe troop strengths for individual engagements rather than casualties, so this atlas records the toll as unknown rather than adopting an unattributed number.

The Diina endured for over four decades before falling on 16 May 1862, when the rival Toucouleur jihadist forces of Umar Tall entered the capital, Hamdullahi, with little resistance, destroyed the city and executed the ruling almami, Amadu III, Seku Amadu's grandson. Maasina's former territory was absorbed into the short-lived Toucouleur Empire, a reminder that the era's reform jihads across West Africa could as readily conquer one another as they conquered the animist states they had first risen against.

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Sources
Un Empire peul au XIXe siecle: la Diina du Maasina
Bintou Sanankoua, Karthala, Paris, 1990
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