page_title: Zarma people
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Zarma people / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Habillement des aristocrates Zarma. Le grand boubou est appelé Diabé, le pontalon (Mudune), le Litham (Bontobay). Auteur: Utilisateur:Taway
context_page_description: The Zarma people are an ethnic group predominantly found in westernmost Niger. They are also found in significant numbers in the adjacent areas of Nigeria and Benin, along with smaller numbers in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Cameroon.
  The Zarma people are predominantly Muslims of the Maliki-Sunni school, and they live in the arid Sahel lands, along the Niger River valley which is a source of irrigation, forage for cattle herds, and drinking water. Relatively prosperous, they own cattle, sheep, goats and dromedaries, renting them out to the Fulani people or Tuareg people for tending. The Zarma people have had a history of slave and caste systems, like many West African ethnic groups. Like them, they also have had a historical musical tradition.
  The Zarma people are alternatively referred to as Zerma, Djerma, Dyerma, Zaberma, Zabarma or Zabermawa people.
context_section_description: The Zarma people are an African ethnic group with unrecorded history and no ancient texts. Like other ethnic groups of the region, much of their known history comes from Islamic records after the 8th century, particularly from the medieval accounts of Arabs and North African historians, states Margari Aziza Hill – a professor of Humanities. The Islamic conquest was motivated and facilitated by the pre-existing trade between West Africa and the Mediterranean before Islam arrived, and in turn the arrival of Islam influenced the history of all people including the Zarma. North African Muslims increased the trans-Saharan trade, becoming of growing importance to the fortunes of ethnic groups and their chiefs. The Muslim traders were major actors in introducing Islam. The Sahel, which forms the origins and historic home of the Zarma people, has been the economic and ecological transition zone and travel route strategically located between the inhospitable Sahara desert and dense sub-Saharan forest zone of Africa.
  The Niger delta region already had major settlements of people before Islam arrived. Early Arab documents from the eighth century suggest that Muslims went into West Africa for trade, exchanging salt, horses, dates, and camels they had from the North and Arabian lands with gold, timber, and food from Niger river valley and nearby regions controlled by Songhay-Zarma people. This trade and commerce also ultimately led to cultural and religious conversion. Various theories have been proposed as to how, when and why Zarma people converted to Islam. According to Arabic records, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence became the predominant system of rule in Niger river region and West Africa by the 11th-century, after the Almoravid conquest of North Africa, Niger river, Ghanaian Koumbi Saleh and Senegal river regions. Muslim scholars dispute if these early Islamic documents are reliable, with some disputing the "conquest" language, insisting that it was a peaceful, willing conversion from the old Islamic system to the new Maliki school. For example, Ahmad Baba in 1615 CE stated that black African Muslims willingly adopted Islam, not because of military threat.
  The Zarma people migrated south-eastward from Niger Bend region of Mali where Songhay people are found in high concentration, into their current geographic concentration around the Niger river valley during the Songhai Empire period, settling in many towns, and particularly what is now Southwest Niger near the capital Niamey. Forming a number of small communities, each led by a chief or ruler called Zarmakoy, these polities were in conflict for economically and agriculturally attractive lands with the Tuareg people, the Fula people and other ethnic groups in the area. This medieval era migration is attested by the legends and mythologies within the Zarma community, with some mentioning their historic origins to be Malinke and Sarakholle, one driven by persecution by local Muslim rulers or inter-ethnic rivalries.
  According to Abdourahmane Idrissa and Samuel Decalo, the Zarma people had settled the Dallol Bosso valley, called Boboye in Zarma language, by the 17th-century. In 18th-century, they came under sustained violence from the Fulani people and Tuareg people who attempted to impose their version of Jihads in West Africa. The violence against the Zarma people settlements included raids for grain stocks, burning down standing crop, forced collection or seizure of surplus or wealth from homes, capture, enslavement and forced migration of the people.
caption: Clothing of an aristocratic Zarma
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