Note 40 — Chapter XI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, a remarkable man, Shayk͟h ʻUt͟hmān Danfodio,40 arose from among the Fulbe41 as a religious reformer and warrior-missionary. From the Sudan he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, whence he returned full of zeal and enthusiasm for the reformation and propagation of Islam. Influenced by the doctrines of the Wahhābīs, who were growing powerful at the time of his visit to Mecca, he denounced the practice of prayers for the dead and the honour paid to departed saints, and deprecated the excessive veneration of Muḥammad himself; at the same time he attacked the two prevailing sins of the Sudan, drunkenness and immorality.