Aḥmad al-Kabīr (c. 1834-97) was the oldest son and successor of al-Ḥājj ʿUmar Tall (d. 1864), leader of a jihād against "paganism" in the western parts of present-day Mali between 1852 and 1864. Aḥmad, also called Amadu Sheku and Lam Julbe, "commander of the Faithful" in the Pulaar (Fulfulde) language, was appointed caliph by his father in 1860, during the campaign against the "pagan" Bambara kingdom of Segu, which had flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Shortly after this appointment ʿUmar embarked on his last