BABATU

Babatu (18?-?), also known as Mahama Dan Issa, played a major role in the latter part of the 19th century in creating Grunshi (Gurunsi), the first centralised Islamic state in what is now northwestern Ghana.

Babatu was born at Indunga, in Zabarima (Zabrama), in what is now the Republic of Niger. He came to Grunshi in the 1860s. Here he joined a small group of Zabarima fellow horsemen who had recently settled in Sisala after participating in Dagomba slave-raiding expeditions.

Under the leadership of Alfa Hano and, later, Alfa Gazare, this group had won control over a vast area in the region of the Grunshis – a term which included the Sisalas, Builsas, Kasenas, Nankanis, Awunas, Dagartis, and other non-Muslim groups who occupied the territory between the relatively centralised states of Mossi (Moshi) in what is now Upper Volta, Mamprusi in what is now northeastern Ghana, Dagomba, also in northeastern Ghana, Gonja, in what is now north central and northwestern Ghana, and Wa in the northwest.

The Zabarima group had gained this dominant position partly by peaceful settlement, and partly by intervening in local disputes, but principally by conquests launched as part of a jihad (religious war to spread the domain of Islam). When Alfa Gazare was killed in warfare in the early 1880s, Babatu was elected in his place as leader of the Zabarimas, who by then numbered several hundreds, and who had also been joined by Walas, Hausas, Fulas (Fulanis), Yorubas, and Mossis, as well as many Grunshis, several of whom rose to positions of command. Unlike his predecessors, Babatu was not a religious leader. He concentrated upon consolidating and extending the Zabarima conquests, but did so without regard for the system of alliances which his predecessors had carefully built up with the neighboring Muslim leaders of the states of Seti, Wa, Walembele, and Boroma-Wahabu.

In alliance with the Karantao leader of Boroma-Wahabu, however, Babatu campaigned far into the northwest but was heavily defeated at Safane. A revolt in Sisala, provoked by this defeat, was assisted by a second Dagomba invasion. Both the Sisala and Dagomba forces were defeated by Babatu at Basiasan. After this, the remaining towns of the Grunshi region which had refused to recognise Babatu’s flag were subdued.

During Babatu’s leadership of the Zabarima, they were at the height of their power, and established garrisons in such towns as Lalle and Wa. In an attempt to tighten the central administrative control over the conquered area, Babatu ended the exemption from tribute which several of his Grunshi supporters had enjoyed. This unpopular measure, and other causes of friction, provoked a rebellion in 1895, led by Amaria, a Builsa who had held high rank in the Zabarima state.

Although Babatu’s loyalists gradually gained control, the situation was complicated by the arrival on the scene of one of the armies of Samory, the talented military adventurer whose power extended from the Upper Volta region to the Futa Djallon highlands in what is now the Republic of Guinea, as well as of French, British, and German forces. Babatu fought against all three European powers, but was forced into exile in Yendi, capital of the Dagomba state. The state which was his “by right of conquest,” as he expressed it, was then partitioned between France and Britain.

During the brief Zabarima rule over the Grunshi region, many mosques and schools were built, and many teachers attracted to them. New trading centers grew and flourished, with slaves inevitably forming an important element of the trade. By the time that the colonial powers partitioned Babatu’s state in the later 1890s, Islam had made a significant and permanent advance among the population.

J.J. HOLDEN