Mandara people

The origins of the Mandara people are in the Mandara Kingdom, once found in the Mandara Mountains, along the northern Cameroon at its border with northeastern Nigeria between the Benue River and Mora, Cameroon. These oral traditions may have been reconstructed later, when Mandara came under the influence of and cooperated in Fulani jihads, slave raids on other ethnic groups. Islamic historians mention the Mandara people, but also provide inconsistent accounts of their history. One account by Ibn Fartuwa states that they were unbelievers, but they converted to Islam in the 16th century. Another account states that It is their ruler who invited two Moroccans from Fez returning from Mecca, to stay with him. They converted him, and he then mandated the Islamic traditions of circumcision, prayer, zakat and fasting among his Mandara people in early 18th-century. ==Society and culture==

Their historic lands have been midst a densely populated river valley surrounded by volcanic mountains rich in iron ore, famed as a horse breeding area. The Mandara people wear Muslim dress typically of northern Africa, and they carry leather amulets around their neck that contains verses from the Quran. The Mandara society developed into a socially stratified system, with Sultan and royalty, farmers, horse breeders, artisans, iron workers and smiths forming a distinct endogamous occupation-inheriting castes. The caste system among the Mandara people integrated the concept that the strata have innate pollution and therefore they are stigmatized, however there is no evidence that their Islamic belief integrated the differences between the socially differentiated castes in their society to have been divinely sanctioned. ==References==