Idris Alooma, mai of Bornu in the later sixteenth century, is the most celebrated of the Sefuwa kings and survives in Kanuri memory in near-legendary colours. His reign is uniquely documented by his imam Ahmad ibn Furtu, whose chronicle of the mai's campaigns presents him as the model Muslim sovereign: a builder of brick mosques, a patron of scholars, a reformer who set the sharia over customary law, and a relentless holy warrior against the Sao, the Bulala, the Tuareg and other enemies. His figure stands at the culmination of the long religious transformation that began with Hummay and Dunama Dibalami, embodying the triumph of orthodox Islam over the older sacral order, even while the folk religion of spirits and protective charms endured beneath the surface of Kanuri Islam.