Background to the conflicts

The two conflicts that are the focus of this article are those between the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ/ISWAP and the Nigerian state and between Katiba Macina and the Malian state. In terms of ideology, the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ/ISWAP are an offshoot of Nigerian Salafism. Both Yusuf and Shekau claimed supremacy in the interpretation of law and of defining who was a Muslim even though neither leader had sufficient formal secondary and postsecondary education in Salafi thought and jurisprudence to be considered an expert in fiqh. While the exact origins of the group are disputed (see Comolli Reference Comolli2015, 45–51 for the origin stories), by 2003 Yusuf had established a group of followers he named the “ahl al-sunna wa-l-jama’a wa-l-hijra” (the people of the Sunna and the community as well as [those who accept the obligation] to emigrate), but who were often referred to and referred to themselves as the Yan Yusufiyya. Under Yusuf’s leadership, the group created a proto-state across northern Nigeria that provided social welfare services to its members. During this period the group remained largely peaceful, albeit with some clashes with police and some attacks on churches and Christians, and advocated migration away from the rule of so-called non-Muslims instead of direct confrontation with elements of the state.

Following Yusuf’s death in 2009 while in custody of Nigerian security forces and the naming of Shekau as leader, the group shifted focus. This was reflected in the name change to jama’at ahl al-sunna li-l-da’wa wa l’jihād ‘ala minhāj al-salaf (the community of the people of the Sunna who fight for the causes by means of jihad according to the method of the Salaf) (JASDJ). Instead of promoting—as Yusuf had—withdrawal from public life and eventual emigration away from the governance of the state, Shekau encouraged active armed struggle against the Nigerian state and followers of the Sokoto intellectual tradition. During this period where it faced an increased military response, the group went underground and began raiding banks and police stations; bombing national, Christian, and Muslim symbols; and kidnapping civilians including women and girls (Mohammed Reference Mohammed and de Montclos2015, 4–5; Jacob Reference Jacob2017; Nagarajan Reference Nagarajan2020; Lofkrantz Reference Lofkrantz2024, 214–15).

JASDJ subsequently recruited members from across rural areas, capturing significant territory in northeast Nigeria. Between 2014 and December 2016, the group established a geographic stronghold in the Sambisa Forest, made alliances with international Salafi Jihadist groups, and conducted large-scale attacks. In this period the conflict became even more complex as local communities formed or redirected existing groups into community militias, often working with security forces, to engage directly with JASDJ. The year 2016 was also significant as this was the year that the group split into two groups due to tensions over the commission of civilian harm and harsh punishment of members for alleged wrongdoing. Shekau continued to lead the “original” group, JASDJ, until his death in May 2021 while the Islamic State-allied group—Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP)—was originally led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi (d. 2021) who was allegedly Yusuf’s oldest son, Habib Yusuf. Since 2016, JASDJ has engaged in more indiscriminate attacks and killings particularly against civilians whereas ISWAP has focused more on military and police targets and the community militias that support them (Nagarajan Reference Nagarajan2020; Stoddard Reference Stoddard2023, 32–60).

Katiba Macina is one of several Salafi Jihadist groups that emerged in central and northern Mali since the fourth nationalist Tuareg rebellion in 2012 in which the National Liberation Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) tried to establish an independent state based on ethnic Tuareg nationalism. Although the MLNA Tuareg nationalists were unsuccessful in their separatist aims, their rebellion created the space for the emergence of groups based on Salafi Jihadist principles. These groups dislodged the MNLA and were able to establish themselves in the northern regions of Mali (Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal) and later in Douentza in the Mopti region. The conflict moved south into central Mali (Segu, Mopti, and Koulikoro) in 2013 with an attack on the town of Konna near Mopti. Even though there are strong ties between northern and central Malian Salafi Jihadist groups with different alliances forming and falling apart over time, the conflict in central Mali is fueled by local factors rather than northern concerns. Local factors in the conflict include resource competition between fishermen, farmers, and pastoralists (often tied to ethnicity) fueled by climate change; a feeling of political marginalization within the modern state of Mali; and social stratification between nobles and descendants of slaves, rural and urban residents, traditional Muslim leaders and “new” religious leaders, and youth and elders, among other grievances (Atallah Reference Atallah2013; Haidara, Reference Haidara2023; Thiam Reference Thiam2017, 18–25).

Katiba Macina itself emerged in 2015 in Masina under the leadership of Kouffa and has been the dominant Salafi Jihadist group in the region since then. Similar to the leaders of JASDJ and ISWAP, while Kouffa has a much stronger secondary religious education than the leaders of JASDJ and ISWAP, he does not have sufficient education in Salafism nor the other schools of Islamic law to be considered an expert in fiqh. Kouffa’s ideology is based on his particular interpretation of the Qu’ran and Hadith and on protecting what he views as the rights of nomadic Fulbe against both the Malian state and traditional political and religious authorities. He considers his principal enemies and targets to be the French Army, which sent air and land forces to combat the Salafi Jihadist groups following a December 2012 United Nations Security Council resolution and a request from the Malian interim government (Operation Serval, later Operation Barkhane); the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), established in April 2013; the Malian Armed Forces; and civilians who denounce him and his group. In territory that he controls he has instituted his version of Islamic law and of taxation and imposed strict behavioral laws especially over women. Kouffa’s goal is to both gain political control and to also change the local practice of Islam. As such, he has targeted civilians more so than any other Salafi Jihadist group in Mali and has publicly executed local imams and traditional leaders who have disagreed with him (Bourgeot Reference Bourgeot2020; Haidara Reference Haidara2023; Eizenga and Williams Reference Daniel and Williams2020). Indeed, according to Daniel Eizenga and Wendy Williams (Reference Daniel and Williams2020), 75 percent of the violence attributed to the Salafi Jihadist alliance, JNIM (Jamā’at nuṣrat al-islām wal-muslimīn), between 2018 and 2020 was conducted by Katiba Macina. In 2017 Katiba Macina joined JNIM, an alliance of the Ansar Dine, Katiba Macina, Al-Mourabitoun, and AQIM under the leadership of Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghali with Kouffa and Katiba Macina maintaining an important leadership position.

The nineteenth-century jihads being remembered

The nineteenth century was a period of immense political and social change in the Sahel region that resulted in the formation of the Sokoto Caliphate, the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi, and the Umarian states. How these events are remembered in the present and how their memories are mobilized in the current JASDJ/ISWAP and Katiba Macina related conflicts are dependent on one’s positionality in current society and on one’s understanding and knowledge of one’s ancestors’ positionality in the nineteenth-century conflicts. The movements that resulted in the formation of these three states were part of the movements that started with Nāṣir al-Dīn’s failed seventeenth-century movement along the Senegal River and ended with the establishment of the Umarian states in the mid-nineteenth century in contemporary Mali. These movements are known collectively as the West African jihads. They have variously been interpreted as Fulbe ethnic movements, rural uprisings of pastoralists against urban farmers, religious movements, anti-slavery movements, and as part of the Atlantic Age of Revolutions (for recent works see Ware Reference Ware2014; Lovejoy Reference Lovejoy2016; Nobili Reference Nobili2020; Naylor Reference Naylor2021; Lofkrantz Reference Lofkrantz2023). These jihad movements were led by trained scholars who wanted to establish states based on their interpretation of the Mālikī madh’hab and the Qādiriyya ṭarīqa, except for the Umarian jihad which was based on ‘Umar Taal’s interpretation of the Mālikī madh’hab and the Tijāniyya ṭarīqa.

The Sokoto, Ḥamdallāhi, and Umarian jihads were intellectually connected (Lofkrantz Reference Lofkrantz2023, 113–42). The Sokoto jihad was led by the scholars ‘Uthmān b. Fodiye, his brother ‘Abdullahi, and his son Muḥammad Bello, with his daughter, Nana Asma’u, being instrumental in the promulgation of the Sokoto interpretation of Islam (see Mack and Boyd Reference Mack and Boyd2000). The state that resulted from the Sokoto jihad, the Sokoto Caliphate, was one of the largest states in precolonial Africa. It was a confederation with the majority of power residing with the Sarakuna (emirs) of the thirty-three emirates. Sarakuna were chosen from and by local emirate leaders with the approval of the central government. The unity of the Sokoto Caliphate was dependent on cooperation between emirate and central elites, respect for the intellectual foundations of the jihad, on the prestige of the Sarakuna Musulmi in Sokoto, and the willingness of the local Sarakuna and local power holders to be governed by them and the central government (Lofkrantz Reference Lofkrantz2023, 92–93).

The way that the Sokoto Caliphate expanded was by the proffering of a flag, indicating support, by the Sarkin Musulmi and its acceptance, indicating loyalty, by a local regional leader who the Sarkin Musulmi believed shared his core beliefs. For example, Adamawa Emirate was established after 1809 by Modibbo Adama, a Fulbe scholar from Wuro Chekke near contemporary Yola. Adama had pledged his allegiance to ‘Uthmān in return for ‘Uthmān appointing him as the leader of all the Muslim communities south of the Bornu Empire and east of Gombe and gave him the mandate to conduct jihad in the region. Adama’s conquest was supported by Hausa and Fulbe soldiers from Sokoto, by local Fulbe power-holders, and by Fulbe and Shuwa Arab refugees from Sokoto’s war against the Bornu Empire (Njeuma Reference Njeuma2012). Indeed, how Kanuri communities (the dominant ethnic group in the Bornu Empire) in contemporary Borno State remember the Sokoto expansion and the Sokoto intellectual tradition is a factor in their response to the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ/ISWAP ideology (on Bornu, see Hiribarren Reference Hiribarren2017). Moreover, resistance to Sokoto encroachment into both the Bornu Empire and the Mandara Mountains, and the wrestling for control over territory by these states, also created the insecurity that allowed for warlordism to flourish. Therefore, also important to the historical memory being evoked in the JASDJ/ISWAP related conflicts is the conquest of the Bornu Empire by Rābiḥ Faḍlallāh in 1893, including the raiding and enslavement of local populations in his attempt to impose his rule, as well as the warlordism of Hamman Yaji, the Lamido (Emir) of Madagali (1902–27) in the early twentieth century on the frontiers of the French, German, and British Empires (Adeleye Reference Adeleye1970; Sikainga Reference Sikainga1989; David Reference David2014; Vaughan and Kirk-Greene Reference Vaughan and Anthony1995). Indeed, Chétima, van Beek and MacEarchern (Reference Chétima, van Beek and MacEachern2021) argue that on the Cameroon side of the Mandara Mountains, residents make direct parallels between the raiding conducted by Yaji and JASDJ. Further complicating how the Sokoto jihad is remembered is that during the colonial period, British rule—through its system of Indirect Rule established by Lord Lugard—expanded the authority and power of certain emirate power-holders, which helped spread the influence of the Sokoto intellectual tradition beyond the initial Caliphate’s territory. This led to the Sokoto intellectual tradition, along with the Bornu intellectual tradition, becoming the “established” intellectual tradition throughout the colonial and early independence-era period (see Reynolds Reference Reynolds2001; Ochonu Reference Ochonu2014, 22–44).

The proffering and acceptance of a flag was also one of the connections between Aḥmad Lobbo, the founder of the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi, and the Sokoto Caliphate. Lobbo had been one of several local scholars who had been trying to overthrow Ardo rule in Masina at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1816, Lobbo pledged allegiance to ‘Uthmān upon which ‘Uthmān sent Lobbo a flag. However, after ‘Uthmān died in 1817 and the Sokoto Caliphate was embroiled in the succession crisis between Bello and ‘Abdullāhi, Lobbo distanced himself intellectually and politically from the Sokoto Caliphate and established his independence. Upon Lobbo’s death, he was succeeded by his son Aḥmad Seku who reigned until 1853 and then by Seku’s son Aḥmadu b. Aḥmadu who was ruling when Taal invaded (Bā and Dajet Reference Bā and Daget1968, 22–32; Sanankoua Reference Sanankoua1990, 33–42).

Even though the Umarian states were founded on an interpretation of the Mālikī madh’hab and the Tijāniyya ṭarīqa, they also shared an intellectual connection with the Sokoto Caliphate. Taal had held senior positions within Bello’s administration and contributed to the intellectual thought of the Caliphate. After Taal left the Sokoto Caliphate when he failed to secure the position of Sarkin Musulmi following Bello’s death in 1837, he settled his followers on land he had leased on the Tinkisso River. He then launched his jihad with an attack on Tambo in 1852, seizing Kaarta in 1855 and Segu and Masina in 1862 (Diop Reference Diop2000, 31–34; Robinson Reference Robinson1987; Lofkrantz Reference Lofkrantz2023, 125–36). An important difference though, between the movements that established the Sokoto Caliphate and the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi and the Umarian jihad, which is especially important in how these nineteenth-century movements are remembered in the twenty-first century and especially in the context of the Katiba Macina conflict, is that while the Sokoto and Ḥamdallāhi movements were led and supported mostly by people who were local to the area, the people who participated in the Umarian jihad were mostly outsiders coming from Fuuta Jaalon, Fuuta Toro, and Fuuta Bundu (Robinson Reference Robinson1990, 248).

Memory mobilization: Contesting interpretations of the nineteenth-century jihads

The evocation of the collective historical memory of the nineteenth-century jihads and their aftermath by both JASDJ/ISWAP and Katiba Macina and those opposing them demonstrate contestations and differing interpretations of the past. Both the Salafi Jihadist armed groups and the nongovernmental actors countering them have mobilized collective memory of the nineteenth-century jihads to aid their cause. Armed fighters in both central Mali and northeastern Nigeria are judicious in their use of memory of the jihads, tailoring it to particular audiences. In northeast Nigeria, JASDJ and ISWAP reference the Sokoto jihad of the early nineteenth century and the raids conducted by Rābiḥ in the Lake Chad basin and Mandara mountains in the 1890s. In central Mali, Kouffa refers mostly to the nineteenth-century jihad of Lobbo and secondly, to that of ‘Uthmān.

In the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ/ISWAP interpretation of the Sokoto jihad and of Rābiḥ’s conquests, the leaders of the Sokoto Caliphate and Rābiḥ shared similar messages of Islam. Depending on the situation, these groups have tried to use the prestige of the Fodiye to gather support. Indeed, members of the Muslim Council of Adamawa State who were present in northeast Nigeria throughout both the Yan Yusufiyya and JASDJ preaching periods speculate that Yusuf’s and Shekau’s reference to the Fodiye was an attempt to gather support from the Muslim community at large. JR6, a local village head in the Yola region, who had observed Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ actions throughout the region, theorized that the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ preachers brought up the Fodiye as a “hook” to get people to listen to their message (interview with JR4, JR5, and JR6, in Yola, 2023; see the Appendix for details on the anonymized interviewees).

Interviewed former JASDJ and ISWAP fighters discussed how both sets of leaders told them that ‘Uthmān and Rābiḥ had fought for Islam and stressed the continuities between the past and their actions. These fighters were told by their JASDJ/ISWAP teachers that it was the actions of foreign, Western powers that had curtailed the work of the Fodiye and Rābiḥ and corrupted their descendants, as seen by their acceptance of Nigeria’s current democratic state, and that it was imperative to return to what had been before (interview with CR11, CR12, and CR13, in Maiduguri, 2023). Demonstrating the ISWAP attempt to manipulate ethnic pride, positionality, and historical memory, according to CR11, a former ISWAP commander, “especially the Fulani [Fulbe] among us, they would tell us that Usman dan Fodio is also a Fulani and he is the one that brought Islamic rule to Nigeria and then democracy removed it so why not go back?" Similarly, CR13 who had been kidnapped by JASDJ when he was twelve years old and who had joined ISWAP after the death of Shekau in May 2021, recounted that he had been taught by his JASDJ teachers that “Rābiḥ had fought for Islam. He had done jihad in Bornu. They were telling us that what Rābiḥ did and what we are doing has similarity. They said that what Rābiḥ did was jihad, what Islam says but you, the young ones, may not know [what this means] except you follow us.”

ISWAP preachers also preached to civilian populations that what the Fodiye did was correct and that ISWAP was doing the same thing that the Fodiye had done (interview with CR11). The mobilization of this particular interpretation of the past was confirmed by civilians who had lived in territory with a strong JASDJ and ISWAP presence. According to one woman, CR14, these groups told her and other civilians that:

However, while civilians may have been forced to listen to JASDJ and ISWAP preaching and their interpretation of the past, it did not mean that they agreed nor accepted it. As CR15, who had also lived in territory with a strong JASDJ and ISWAP presence stated, this version of the nineteenth-century movements contradicted his own understanding of the past. CR15 contrasted the level of violence perpetrated by ‘Uthmān b. Fodiye and Rābiḥ with that of JASDJ saying, “We never heard of [‘Uthmān] killing people … and now, Shekau is fighting and killing people anyhow, how can this be possible? What Usman dan Fodio did is different from what Shekau did,” and “but if you see the level of the killing that Rābiḥ did … The numbers of what Shekau did are even greater than what Rābiḥ did” (interview, in Maiduguri, 2023).

While Yusuf gained a stronghold in Mubi and farther north in Adamawa State, this influence did not extend southwards beyond that city. Yusuf was able to preach frequently and openly in Mubi and gained many supporters there. According to JR6, a village head in the Yola region, Yusuf’s followers from Mubi tried to preach in Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, but were rebuffed. Indeed, according to JR5, a member of the Muslim Council of Adamawa State who has been present in Adamawa State since Yusuf began to preach, in the early years of the movement, Yusuf tried to preach in Yola Town proper (exclusive of the more ethnically diverse Jimeta) but was rejected by the local imams. The only reason, according to JR6, that some of Yusuf’s preachers and later JASDJ preachers were able to preach in Yola/Jimeta mosques is because they tricked local imams. After prayers, when the imam opened the floor to discussion, the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ preachers would take the opportunity to try to spread their message. However, according to JR6, once an imam realized that this was a Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ preacher, the imam would stop him. Moreover, according to JR6, local residents would actively contradict the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ preachers who were saying things that were counter to their understanding of Islam and of the past. JR4, a Yola member of the Muslim Council of Adamawa State, stated that he personally confronted a JASDJ preacher trying to preach in an open field. Indeed, according to local community leaders, both before and after the death of Yusuf, local scholars in Yola watching what was happening in Mubi would actively preach against the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ message and explain why their interpretation of Islam and the past was “wrong” (interview with JR5, JR6, JR10, JR4, JR9 in Yola, 2023).

The difference in the reception that the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ encountered in Yola as opposed to northern Adamawa State and central and northern Borno State is somewhat explained by the collective memory of the nineteenth century and civilian views of the positionality of themselves and their ancestors. This difference in the memory of the past led to resistance to the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ and to their messaging. Here, a very different interpretation of the nineteenth-century past from that which was promoted by the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ was evoked and mobilized. According to both JR4 and JR5, members of the Muslim Council of Adamawa State, the reason that the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ was rejected in Yola Town is because it is a Fulbe town and people “know” both Islam (the Sokoto tradition) and their history, and they also have respect for leadership. In Yola Town, religious leaders and civilians used their own collective memory of the Sokoto jihad to combat the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ messaging. In Yola Town the Mālikī madh’hab and the Qādiriyya ṭarīqa roots of the Sokoto tradition were emphasized as well as an acceptance that in the nineteenth century, the Sokoto Caliphate and the Bornu Empire, including under Rābiḥ, were in opposition to each other. According to JR5, the Fulbe of Yola Town “know” that both Yusuf and Shekau were wrong in their interpretation of Islam and the nineteenth-century past and that their claims to be fulfilling the mission of ‘Uthmān were false. Here, positionality in historical memory is important. When Yola had been established as Adama’s capital when he conquered the territory that became Adamawa Emirate, the Fulbe became the politically dominant ethnic group. Moreover, according to JR5, local Fulbe are conservative in the sense that they have a great respect for authority and therefore, reject any calls to overthrow the local and national power structures. Reinforcing the views of the majority of the residents of Yola Town itself, according to JR6 and local community leaders JR9 and JR10, metropolitan Yola (Yola Town and Jimeta) is an elite and educated city, a government town, whose people stopped listening to Yusuf’s message when they said that people should not send their children to school nor work for Government (interview with JR4, JR5, JR6, JR9, and JR10).

Similar to the situation in Borno State, Kouffa, the leader of Katiba Macina, also evokes the memory of nineteenth-century movements to garner support for his ideology and actions. Kouffa primarily evokes the memory of Lobbo and second that of ‘Uthmān—the leaders of the two “local” jihads. ER4, a civilian from Tenenkou (Mopti), noted Kouffa’s admiration of Lobbo’s success in establishing the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi. Indeed, according to ER1, a civilian from Sévaré (Mopti), even after Kouffa settled in the village of Sinankoro near Ḥamdallāhi after 2012, he still talked about Lobbo. Kouffa mostly refers to Lobbo, but as ER1 has stated, Kouffa was also inspired by ‘Uthmān and discussed him as well (interview with ER4 and ER1 in Bamako, 2023). While one of Kouffa’s concerns is the status of Fulbe, and many Fulbe herders are attracted to Katiba Macina for Fulbe ethnic solidarity reasons, Kouffa’s evocation of Lobbo and ‘Uthmān is primarily due to his admiration of their ability to gather pan-ethnic support for a particular religious message. He admired Lobbo’s and ‘Uthmān’s ability to convert people to their interpretation of Islam, although he does not support nor follow their interpretations. As Issiaka Kansaye, a Dogon PhD candidate in Anthropology at Université des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Bamako at the time of communication states, “reference to a glorious Peulh [Fulbe] past has rarely been the leitmotif of the Katiba Macina, which intends to rise above ethnic quarrels to impose a pure, orthodox Islam” (personal communication, October 2023). Indeed, as many observers, including ER10, a former classmate of Kouffa’s, have noted, Kouffa does not get along well with Tijāniyya and Qādiriyya preachers, is critical of Lobbo’s descendants, and as ER3 describes it, has a more “rigorous” interpretation of Islam in contrast to the “tolerant” Mālikī tradition (interview with ER5 and ER3 in Bamako 2023; ER10, WhatsApp, 2023).

While ER10 emphasized that Kouffa’s preaching and tafsīr have been much appreciated in the Mopti region, there is a class difference among his supporters. Here, we can see parallels to the situation in Yola Town, the historic capital of precolonial Adamawa Emirate, where the established Fulbe families rebuffed the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ leaders and emissaries to the town. Few marabouts from Masina’s great maraboutic families have agreed to follow Kouffa. Instead Kouffa’s religious message resonates mostly with “small” marabouts from lower social classes such as the rimaibés (descendants of slaves) and the Fulbe herdsmen of the Seeno and Hayré floodplains who, among other marginalized groups, were already frustrated by the management of the grazing land in the inner Niger Delta (interview with ER10, JR4, and JR5).

The Dan Na Ambassagou is an example of a Dogon militia resisting Katiba Macina that has also mobilized collective memory in order to help convince young Dogon men to join its cause. According to Ibrahima Poudiougou (Reference Poudiougou2022), self-defense groups in Dogon country, Djenné and Masina, view the sieges and embargoes that the Salafi Jihadist groups impose on villages who resist them as the manifestation of a plan to appropriate land and subjugate villages. These self-defense groups view their actions as part of a counter-insurgency strategy as they believe that the Salafi Jihadist groups want to subjugate them in the name of Islam. According to Dogon informants, the leader of the Dan Na Ambassagou, Youssouf Toloba, interprets the nineteenth-century jihads of Lobbo and Taal as the assertion of Fulbe domination of the inner Niger Delta (personal communication with Kansaye, October 2023; interview with ER9 in Bamako, 2023). Toloba interprets Katiba Macina as trying to revive Fulbe domination of the inner Niger Delta. While Kouffa, Kouffa’s ethnic solidarity Fulbe supporters, and the Dan Na Ambassagou share a similar understanding of the nineteenth-century jihads, they mobilize different aspects of it. Kouffa emphasizes the pan-Islamic aspect that crossed ethnic barriers whereas both Kouffa’s ethnic solidarity Fulbe supporters and the Dogon militia emphasize the Fulbe leadership aspect of the nineteenth-century movements. However, while Kouffa’s Fulbe supporters and the Dan Na Ambassagou share a common interpretation of the nineteenth-century jihads as Fulbe ethnic movements, they draw radically different lessons from it. Kouffa’s Fulbe supporters view the mobilization of the nineteenth-century past as reason to support the Katiba Macina, while the Dogon militia mobilizes the same collective memory to oppose Katiba Macina. Toloba has asserted that in his lifetime, “the Dogon country will never be anyone’s slave” and that the “Fulbe are no longer going to impose their diktat on the Dogon territories” (personal communication with Kansaye, October 2023; interview with ER9). Toloba was able to mobilize his status as a warrior and his knowledge of armed groups (hunters, mercenaries, etc.) around the collective memory of the treatment of the Dogon by both the Caliphate of Ḥamdallāhi and the Umarians. As ER9 stated:

Thus, collective memory and how one views one’s own positionality in the present as well as the positionality of one’s ancestors in the past informs how one views the conflict in central Mali and which side to support.

Contestations over public memory sites and symbols of Qādiriyya and Tijāniyya traditions

Related to the contestations over collective memory and sliding over the boundary into public memory are conflicts over the public expressions of contested narratives. Both Katiba Macina and JASDJ have attacked sites of public memory associated with the past jihad movements and the interpretations of Islam that they established, although this appears to be more prevalent in the conflict in central Mali than in the conflict in northeast Nigeria. Katiba Macina has systematically attacked the tombs of the saints in Ḥamdallāhi because it considered that the Zihara is a mercantile practice to be combated. Since then, the Zihara in the area has been suspended for fear of attacks by Katiba Macina fighters (interview with ER4 and ER10). Likewise, Katiba Macina has outlawed the Yaaral festival at Diafarabé and the Degaal festival at Dialloubé. The acknowledgment of the cultural significance of these two ceremonies was formalized by their 2008 recognition by UNESCO. In the past, numerous VIPs have attended both festivals, such as President Modibo Keїta in the early 1960s and President Ahmadou Toumani in 2008. As Mohamed Diagayeté, General Director of the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research, Timbuktu in 2023 explained:

In terms of attacks on public memory sites of the symbols of the Sokoto intellectual tradition and the legacies of the Sokoto Caliphate and the Bornu Empire, JASDJ has not been as blatant nor as systematic as Katiba Macina and has limited itself to targeting emirs (including their families), and attacking their palaces, as descendants and representatives of the nineteenth century Sokoto Caliphate and Bornu Empire leaderships, in addition to mosques affiliated with these “established” intellectual traditions. Under British colonial rule in the twentieth century, the Sokoto and Bornu intellectual traditions were twinned together and viewed as the “established” interpretation of Islam in northern Nigeria. JASDJ justifies such attacks, even though it purports to be fulfilling the mission of the Fodiye, because according to them, the present representatives of the Sokoto tradition have lost their way. An example of this type of attack was the January 2013 attempted assassination of a major figure of the Sokoto tradition, the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, as he was leaving the graduation ceremony of a Qu’ranic school, which killed three of his guards and his driver and injured two of his sons (Adefaka and Muhammad Reference Adefaka and Muhammad2013). Kano had been the economic center of the Sokoto Caliphate and is the second largest city in modern Nigeria. Its emir is viewed as being among the top three officials of the Sokoto tradition. In another symbolic attack in May 2014 in Borno State, the Emir of Gwoza, Idrissa Timta, was killed when JASDJ attacked him and the Emir of Uba, Ismaila Mamza, as they were traveling together to attend the funeral of Sheku Abubakar, the Emir of Gombe (Audu Reference Audu2014). Likewise, JASDJ has attacked the palaces of emirs as symbolic targets. For example, in February 2014, JASDJ burnt the Emir of Bama’s palace and abducted Queen Hajju and two of her children (BBC 2014; Marama Reference Marama2016; Point Blank News Reference News2014). JASDJ—but not ISWAP, which mostly does not target civilian Muslims in this way—has also attacked mosques associated with the Sokoto intellectual tradition and with the Mālikī madh’hab and Sufism throughout northern Nigeria, including mosques in Mubi which JASDJ had occupied in 2014; in Kukawa, Borno State, the former capital of the Bornu Empire; and in Maiduguri the birthplace of the group under Yusuf (Al Jazeera Reference Jazeera2017, Reference Jazeera2017, Reference Jazeera2018; Nossiter Reference Nossiter2015; Audu Reference Audu2016).

Historical memory of slavery and contemporary social and economic grievances—joining the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ/ISWAP and Katiba Macina

Both Katiba Macina and the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ/ISWAP have also combined contemporary social and economic grievances with the historical memory of enslavement to mobilize support, especially among men of slave descent. Slave trading, but not slavery, was formally abolished in Mali in 1905. As a result, descent-based slavery has continued in Mali despite the 2012 law criminalizing human trafficking and the failed 2016 attempt to pass a law outlawing descent-based slavery. In northern Nigeria, slavery was formally abolished in 1936. However, as work by Benedetta Rossi and Marie Rodet, among others, have shown, there is a difference between legal abolition and social abolition of slavery within West Africa, and that these contestations continue in the present where people of slave descent continue to face discrimination based on their ancestry (see Klein, Reference Klein1998; Lovejoy and Hogendorn Reference Lovejoy and Hogendorn1993; Rossi Reference Rossi2015; Rodet Reference Rodet2015).

Yusuf, the first leader of the group that became JASDJ, had a particularly high following in areas of Maiduguri where the descendants of those enslaved during the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate lived and communities who migrated from slave settlements in Hausaland had settled. Areas seen to have “supplied” enslaved people in the past (such as Gwoza, Madagali, and Michika) also saw higher recruitment into JASDJ and generalized civilian support (personal communication with Garba Ibrahim, May 2023). Indeed, members of the local Muslim Councils of Madagali and Michika confirmed that it was marginalized members of their communities who were most likely to join JASDJ (interview with JR1 and JR2 in Yola, 2023). In this conflict, collective memory of past enslavement and oppression of communities is connected to and implicitly informs other push factors such as being subjected to perceived injustice by state officials and social exclusion. For example, members of the Matakam ethnic group from Madagali and Michika are seen as outcasts by other ethnic groups, living in separate areas away from towns, not able to intermarry nor share markets, schools, and places of worship, and are often turned away from health services because of their ethnic identity. Some Matakam people reportedly joined JASDJ as an escape from and to avenge this social exclusion as well as to find opportunities for power, status, and belonging (Nagarajan Reference Nagarajan2019). Indeed, historic issues of perceived unjust taxation, predation, and abuse by security forces, and lack of benefits from being part of the state remain salient. Garba Ibrahim, professor of history at the University of Maiduguri, makes direct parallels between their relationship to the Bornu Empire and to Nigeria, saying:

Similarly, according to JR5, a Yola member of the Muslim Council of Adamawa State and JR6, a village head from the Yola area, while the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ was thoroughly rejected in Yola Town proper, there were some pockets of support in Jimeta and from non-elite residents who were attracted to the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ’s political and economic messaging. At the time of the British conquest of Yola in 1901 enslaved individuals made up about 50 percent of the Adamawa Emirate population (VerEecke Reference VerEecke1994, 23). According to JR6, the support that the Yan Yusufiyya/JASDJ received in the Yola region was from non-elite residents of outlying villages (interview with JR5 and JR6).

While the legacies of slavery implicitly inform and combine with other push factors in the conflict in northeast Nigeria, the legacies of slavery and contestations between people of free and enslaved descent are more explicit and direct in central Mali. Katiba Macina was able to use as a recruitment tool, the frustration of Fulbe of slave descent who were aggravated by their lack of social mobility, such as men of slave descent being unable to marry women of free descent, the unwillingness of people of free descent to respect men of slave descent as scholars and imams, and men of slave descent being barred from becoming a chief of a mixed free and enslaved descent village (interview with ER4, ER5, ER7, ER8, and ER12).

Historical memory of slavery has also combined with contemporary economic grievances to help determine positions and loyalties in the conflict. In the past, the traditionally herding Fulbe had lived alongside the traditionally farming Dogon (Mopti region) and Bambara (Segu region). Over time, especially in the twentieth century, many Fulbe had become sedentary and invested in agriculture. As for the Dogon and Bambara, in the past they had entrusted their livestock to the Fulbe, but then some of them became major livestock farmers in addition to their farming activities. This change in economic activity led to competition for pastoral resources and cropland. Even prior to 2012 this situation had led to numerous conflicts over resources particularly in the Mopti region. Indeed, Poudiougou (Reference Poudiougou2022) in his research on land conflicts and the politics of memory argues that the agrarian dimension of the armed conflict has revived the trauma of the nineteenth century for both people whose ancestors benefited from Lobbo’s and Taal’s movements and those, such as the Dogon, who had suffered from them. Kouffa has taken advantage of this and has promised shepherds that they would have free access to the bourgoutières (floating pastures in the wetlands of the inner Niger River delta). According to Kouffa’s former classmate, the Katiba Macina is essentially made up of Fulbe displaced by flooding, former cattle rustlers, rimaïbés, adventurers, and Qu’ranic pupils (interview with ER10). These are people who are frustrated by the dispossession of their land, the justice system, and the social order, and who have a problem with the management of the bourgoutières in the interior delta, among other grievances. As a Dogon informant explains, the nexus of social and economic grievances with social class is significant, especially for people of slave descent:

Memory mobilization: Defensive strategies against Katiba Macina and JASDJ/ISWAP

In both the Katiba Macina and the JASDJ/ISWAP related conflicts, historical memory of nineteenth-century defensive strategies have been employed by civilians protecting themselves, their families, and their communities from attack. The leader of the Dogon militia, Toloba, often takes refuge on the cliffs of Bandiagara Cercle. In the past, this hard-to-reach area was also used as an entrenchment and protection zone for Dogon communities fleeing aggression from Umarian forces (interview with ER6 and ER9 in Bamako, 2023). Likewise, in multiple communities in southern Borno State and northern Adamawa State, people used the same strategies to hide from JASDJ attacks as were used by their ancestors in response to raids, perceived unjust taxation, forced conscription by the British, and the presence of dangerous animals such as lions. Indeed, as both Thierno Mouctar Bah (Reference Bah2003) and Dennis Cordell (Reference Cordell and Diouf2003) have noted, hiding in caves and waiting for the attackers to leave the region was a common protective strategy in the Lake Chad region against nineteenth-century raiders, including from Bornu, Adamawa Emirate, and Rābiḥ. Protective strategies have been taught and have been handed down locally over the generations through storytelling in homes and compounds, public ceremonies, and other forms of memorialization and education in schools, thus complicating and intertwining passed down individual memory, collective memory, and public memory (personal communication with Garba Ibrahim, May 2023; interview with CR7, CR8, and CR10 in Maiduguri, 2023).

In Villages A, B, and C (anonymized for the safety of the residents), from a young age, community members were taught about the predation by outside forces (Haji and his men in the case of A and C and Bornu Empire and of Rābiḥ in the case of B) and the protective strategies developed by their ancestors. They then used this knowledge to try to protect themselves from JASDJ attacks. According to CR3, a university student from Village A, “our parents used to take us to that place before to show us. They told us that there is a place that when you enter, you can hide yourself.” (interview, Maiduguri, 2023) CR7, an NGO worker from Village B, described how when they were children he and his friends would find items in hill caves which their parents told them had been left by their ancestors while evading violence linked to taxation by Bornu representatives, enslavement raids by Rābiḥ, and feared forced conscription by the British prior to the First World War. “That is why my house is less than 500m from the mountain. The idea is that if anything happened, you could quickly escape” (interview, Maiduguri, 2023). Likewise, CR1 a farmer and trader also from Village B, recounted how, upon being told of an attack in the middle of the night she woke up her children and they fled and hid in a cave: “we went to a place where we could hide in the top of the mountain.” Once on the mountain, people know where to find water and roads to follow to escape and leave the community (interview, Maiduguri, 2023). According to a retired civil servant familiar with Village C, although the local primary and secondary school was constructed during a time of relative security, its location was chosen near a cave so it could be used for evacuation in times of insecurity. This foresight came into use when during one JASDJ attack the headteacher was able to safely evacuate all the pupils to the cave (interview with CR8).

However, these individual and collective memories of particular hiding places are most valuable when they are kept secret. In Village B, the knowledge and memory of these sites were protected by community members. According to CR7, young men of Village B once wanted to show some of Yusuf’s emissaries around the town and its surroundings but were told by an elder not to take them to the caves. While frustrated by this perceived lack of hospitality, they listened to him, enabling their community to use these locations to hide from later JASDJ attacks. This secrecy was in contrast to Village A, where some community members who had joined JASDJ told the group about the strategies used by the people of the village, such as hiding in caves or men dressing in women’s clothing. As CR3, the university student from Village A recounted, “people in [Village A] joined them so they knew everywhere to hide, whereas in [Village B] nobody joined them and if you do not know the place, you cannot achieve anything without [the help of] a person who knows the place.”