Imamate of Futa Toro

The Imamate of Futa Toro, also known as the Almamate of Futa Toro, was an Islamic state that emerged in 1776 along the middle course of the Senegal River in what is now Senegal, replacing the earlier Denanke state that the Fulani ruler Koli Tenguella had founded in the early sixteenth century. It was governed by Islamic religious leaders known as almaami and populated chiefly by Pulaar-speaking Fulani and Haalpulaar'en, also called Toucouleurs, who organized themselves around fertile floodplain provinces along the river, with land rights typically controlled by kin groups. Only a narrow band on either side of the Senegal River remained well watered and fertile, while the dry interior limited agriculture and contributed to recurring internal political tension, and the imamate became a major source of religious reform movements and jihad armies through the nineteenth century.