Zagha

Zagha, the medieval Arabic name for Dia, was a sultanate on the Diaka channel at the western edge of the Inner Niger Delta. Its sultan was a vassal of the Mansa of Mali.

Fourteenth-century Arab accounts, including Ibn Battuta's, attested Dia's standing as a Muslim centre. The Diawara family later ruled as Traore while retaining the old rites. In the Fulani jihad of 1818, Seku Amadu displaced them and installed clerical rulers.