A new epoch for this wide-spread tribe did not open till the beginning of this century, when, in the year 1802, Báwa the ruler of Góber summoned to his presence the sheikh ʿOthmán, together with the other chiefs of the tribe, and severely reprimanded them on account of the pretensions which they were beginning to put forward. It was then that ʿOthmán, who, being settled in the village Dághel, performed the office of imám to his countrymen, and had begun to give them a new religious impulse, which raised them above their petty interests, filled with indignation at the manner in which he, the great Moslim, was treated by those pagans, was roused to the attempt of making himself and his tribe independent of the will of the native ruler of the country, and having assembled his countrymen, who now conferred upon him the dignity and authority of a sheikh, raised the standard of revolt; but his proceedings, at least as far as regarded Góber and the capital Alkaláwa, were far from proving successful at the beginning, he being vanquished in almost every encounter: but the fanatical zeal of his followers, whom he continually inspired with fresh energy by his religious songs[51], was so great that gradually he overcame all these obstacles, and at length succeeded in laying the foundation of a vast empire, being greatly assisted in his career by his brother ʿAbd Alláhi, who, although his senior, had been the first to pay him homage, and by his son Mohammed Bello. He took up his residence first at Gando, where he was besieged for a long time, and afterwards at Sifáwa, till, as described by Captain Clapperton in the excellent and concise account of this struggle[52] which he has given in the report of his second journey, Othmán ended his life in a sort of fanatical ecstasy or madness.