A student of Uthman dan Fodio, Ahmadu participated in Uthman’s jihad (or holy war) before settling in the province of Macina (in Mali), where he founded an independent Muslim community. Expelled from Macina by the pagan king of Segu, he established a new capital at Hamdullahi and in 1818 proclaimed a jihad, capturing Macina, and extending his authority around it. He established a strictly theocratic Muslim Fulani state which survived until 1859, when it was absorbed in the Tukulor empire of Umar ibn Said Tal.