Ali III

Writings of Muhammad al-Tahir Sometime during his reign, Ali became close with the Fulani scholar Sheikh Muhammad al-Tahir (also known as Dahiru Feroma). When al-Tahir arrived at the Bornu capital Ngazargamu, he was said to have been advised by another respected scholar Shehu Ajirami (Muhammad bin al-Hajj Abd al-Rahman

Despite accepting Ajirami's advice, al-Tahir became a close confidant of mai Ali, which reportedly led to some jealousy among the other courtiers. There are several stories regarding this jealousy. In one account, a man arrested by the mai was defended by al-Tahir but when Ali refused to release him, the man disappeared. The court official Shettima Magaramma then accused al-Tahir of using magical charms to spirit the man away in a gourd. Al-Tahir then replied with the verse: According to another: Mainin Kunendi would never shake the hand of Shehu Tahr, so one day Shehu Tahr asked the Mai about this. "You are the leader of all the country and you shake my hand. Why does Mainin Kunendi refuse?" The Mai put this question to Mainin Kunendi, saying, "Every Mai has need of an alkali, an imam, one Shehu or learned man, and one master of the Qur'an. Shehu Tahr is my learned man, so why don't you shake his hand?" Mainin Kunendi replied, "You have need of him and he has need of you. You want to use his magical powers, and he wants your throne, but I need nothing from him".Al-Tahir's writings suggest that he advised Ali on religious matters, encouraged him in his military campaigns, and wrote eulogies to him as a pious Muslim. One of his most famous works was a poem he composed for the mai called Fané Fané ("Listen, Listen" in Kanuri), an allusion to gossip-mongering. In it, al-Tahir condemned certain unnamed courtiers for their slander and rumour-mongering. An excerpt reads:

During the 19th century Sokoto jihad, Fané Fané was used as justification for the jihad in Bornu by the jihadist commander and intellectual Muhammed Bello. Bello interpreted the poem as evidence that al-Tahir was an oppressed scholar who faced difficulties at court resulting from his defense of Islam against an unbelieving tyrant. However, historian Louis Brenner argues that this reading misrepresents the poem. Instead, he notes that a broader reading of it would strongly suggest another interpretation: "of a religious scholar who was profoundly implicated in court politics." According to Brenner, al-Tahir consistently viewed Ali as an upstanding Muslim ruler, and much of his poems were composed "to support the policies and the person of Mai Ali."