WI: Failure of the Fulani jihads

What if the Fulani religious leader Usman dan Fodio's jihad campaign against the Bornu empire in the 1800's had ultimately failed, preventing the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate?
Could Bornu's weakening as a power player in West Africa not happen? What about the other, earlier-estabilished Fulani states further west?
How does this affect the nature of Islam in West Africa? Would syncretic traditions flourish for longer (as Fodio apparently denounced)?
 
Hm, with no re-islamization of west Africa terrorist groups like Boku Haram may not be around today.

The brand of faith practiced by Boko Haram is an import from outside Nigeria and I'm not sure how this would even be relevant in the face of butterflies, dude, but aight.

Could Bornu's weakening as a power player in West Africa not happen? What about the other, earlier-estabilished Fulani states further west?
How does this affect the nature of Islam in West Africa? Would syncretic traditions flourish for longer (as Fodio apparently denounced)?

I think Bornu would eventually have to deal with the issue of younger, more vigorous state entities bumping up against them anyway, given the forces already coalescing in the region prior to Usman and his squad curb-stomping everyone. I totally agree that this doesn't necessarily mean less Islam but different Islam. Though the good Shehu's opposition has never really stopped the majority of Nigerian Islam from being syncretic to some degree or another, I wonder if an entirely new Sufi order is born in modern-day Nigeria instead of the primarily North African Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya finding such success.

One interesting thing that shifts is ethnic considerations - the Fulani conquest of Hausa cities served to Hausa-ize the Fulani culturally just as much as it Islamized the Hausa religiously. Hell, many Fulanis today only speak Hausa and some demographers are even claiming that the Nigerian sections of these ethnic groups have essentially merged into one Hausa-Fulani entity. All that likely isn't happening here.

By far the darkest implication of this, however, is that without the great dan Fodio, there never would be a Malê Rising TL.
 
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