#fulani

Fulani: The People Who Carried Islam Across the Land

By Abu Hudhayfah Edwards

Before European ships crossed the Atlantic, before ledgers reduced human lives to cargo, there were people who lived between horizons.

They were known as Fulbe. The world would later call them Fulani.

They did not build their identity around cities or walls. Their lives moved with the seasons, across the Sahel, along cattle paths that stretched for miles across open land. But what they carried was heavier than anything tied to their herds.

They carried Islam.

By the 14th and 15th centuries, Fulani communities were already moving through Senegambia and into regions like Futa Jallon. Their mobility made them something unique in West Africa. While others rooted Islam in courts or cities, the Fulani rooted it in people.

A young boy might learn Qur’an beneath the sky instead of inside a madrasa. A teacher might travel from camp to camp, spreading knowledge not through institutions, but through presence. Learning was not fixed to a place. It lived in memory, discipline, and repetition.

This matters more than it may first appear.

Because a دين (Deen) tied only to buildings can be lost when those buildings are taken away. But a دين (Deen) carried within people travels.

The Fulani understood this long before history would test it.

Their reputation grew not from conquest, but from consistency. They became known as people of knowledge, people of prayer, people of structure. Even when they were not rulers, they influenced rulers. Even when they did not control cities, they shaped the moral and religious direction of the societies around them.

In places like Futa Jallon, their presence began to transform entire regions. Networks of scholars formed quietly. Families became known for teaching Qur’an generation after generation. What looked from the outside like simple pastoral life was, in reality, a moving system of education.

And this system would not stay small.

Generations later, it would give rise to reform movements that reshaped West Africa, most notably through figures like Usman dan Fodio. But long before his name entered history, the groundwork had already been laid by countless unnamed Fulani scholars who chose discipline over visibility.

They were not writing for recognition. They were building continuity.

And continuity is what survives disruption.

This is the part of the story that often goes missing.

When the Atlantic slave trade began pulling people from West Africa, it did not encounter empty or unstructured lives. It encountered people who had already been shaped by systems of belief, education, and self-regulation.

Among them were Fulani.

Men who had memorized Qur’an. Men who understood law and ethics. Men who had spent years training their minds and hearts long before they were ever forced onto ships.

So when we later read accounts of enslaved Muslims writing in Arabic, organizing prayer, or maintaining discipline under impossible conditions, we are not seeing something new emerge.

We are seeing something old refuse to disappear.

The Fulani remind us that identity is not always tied to place.

It can be carried.

It can move.

It can survive.

And sometimes, the most powerful systems are the ones that do not depend on walls at all.

ABUJA, Nigeria — Fulani terrorists killed eight Christians in Plateau state, Nigeria, earlier this month, including three in a district that had been attacked just days before.

The assailants attacked Jol village, Riyom County, on Saturday night (April 11), killing Geoffrey Infinity and another Christian identified only as Kefas, area residents said.

“Last night, April 11, there were gunshots everywhere by Fulani terrorists,” resident Blessing Bature told Christian Daily International–Morning Star News in a text message. “Please pray for Gwa-wereng, Gwa-Rim, Rim and Jol communities of Riyom LGA Plateau state of Nigeria. We pray that God continue to protect his people.”

Bature identified one of the Christians killed as “Kefas, my classmate,” and asserted that the killers “will not know peace.”

Resident King Joshua said those who attacked the area villages were armed Fulanis.

“Fulani terrorists have killed a Christian, Geoffrey Infinity,” Joshua said in a text message. “He was my roommate in school at the Jos Campus of the Plateau State Polytechnic in Barkin Ladi. He was killed in the attack that occurred last night in Jol Riyom LGA.”

In Riyom County’s Bachi District, Fulanis on April 6 killed a Christian in Dum village, residents said.

“A student of Federal University of Education Pankshin, Mr. Badung Sunday Alamba, a Christian and the only male child of his mother, was killed by Fulani militia,” Zere Samuel told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.

Community leader Rwang Tengwong confirmed a series of killings in a press statement he issued from Jos.

“There was a premeditated attack carried out by armed Fulani terrorists in Dum village of Bachi District, Riyom Local Government Area,” Tengwong said. “The incident occurred at about 7:49 p.m. on April 6, when the terrorists, who had already positioned themselves to attack the village, laid an ambush at the entrance of Dum village. Tragically, Badung Sunday, 29, a third-year student of the Federal University of Education, Pankshin, was shot and killed by the terrorists, cutting short the life of a promising young man who was the only child of his mother, and whose future held great hope for his family and community.”

Another Christian, Dachomo Habila, narrowly escaped the ambush unhurt despite attempts by the terrorists to end his life, Tengwong said.

In Jol village on April 3, area resident Victor Mangwe told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News in a text, “Fulani terrorists attacked Jol community of Riyom LGA this morning at about 6:56 a.m., April 3, killing Mr. Dalyop Betobeje, 51.”

Resident Maria Dauda added, “Our government says Christians are not being killed, but Fulani herdsmen killed one Christian in the early hours of April 3, in Jol community.”

Barkin Ladi attacks

In Barkin Ladi County, Fulanis attacked Nding village on April 8, residents said.

“Fulani terrorists ambushed three Christians, killing one of them and injuring two others in Nding community,” Joshua Bot told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News in a text message. “The incident occurred near the offices of the Great Commission Movement of Nigeria at around 4:15 p.m.”

He identified the slain Christian as Ayuba Pam of Nding and the wounded as Alfred Dung and Nathaniel Bitrus.

“Both injured Christians are currently being treated at a hospital,” Bot said.

Resident Ayuba Roba corroborated the account of the attack.

In Barkin Ladi County’s Heipang District, where Fulanis had attacked on April 1, Fulani terrorists attacked again on April 5, killing three Christians in Pwomol village, sources said. Mercy Yop Chuwang, spokesperson for Barkin Ladi Local Government Council chairman, confirmed the killings in a press statement.

“The Heipang community has been thrown into mourning following an attack by armed Fulani men on Pwomol village in the early hours of Sunday, 5 April, which claimed the lives of three Christians: Daniel M. Dung, 60; Bitrus Pam, 30; and Marvin Dung, 27,” Chuwang said. “One Christian, Pam Davou, 45, sustained injuries and is currently receiving treatment at the Jos University Teaching Hospital.”

Council Chairman Stephen Gyang Pwajok and the outspoken Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo took part in a subsequent funeral service.

Police spokesman Alfred Alabo said personnel and other security members were been deployed to the area after receiving reports of gunshots early on April 6.

“The Plateau State Police Command wishes to inform the general public that on 6th April, 2026 at about 04:30 a.m., we received a distress call from Barkin Ladi Local Government Area reporting gunshot sounds around Pwomol village in Heipang District,” Alabo said in a statement. “Upon receipt of the report, the Commissioner of Police mobilized a Joint Response Team comprising of the DPO Barkin Ladi, the Military, and other security agencies who engaged the attackers in a gun duel. Due to the superior firepower of our team, the attackers were forced to flee into the surrounding mountainous forests.”

During the attack, three persons lost their lives and another sustained injuries, he said.

“In a follow-up clearance operation carried out by the team, one suspect identified as Suleiman (male) was arrested around the Redemption Camp [of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG],” Alabo said. “The suspect was apprehended with visible blood stains and is currently in custody.”

Inspector General of Police Olatunji Rilwan Disu has reinforced security in the area with additional deployments, intensified patrols and synergy with other security agencies, he added.

More Christians were killed in Nigeria than in any other country from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025, according to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List. Of the 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for their faith during that period, 3,490 were Nigerians, an increase from 3,100 the prior year. Nigeria ranked No. 7 on the WWL of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.

“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.

Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.

In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.