Djoumbé Fatima, or Queen Jumbe-Souli was born around 1837 in present day Comoros, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean situated near Madagascar and Mozambique. She was born into a Merina royal family, based in Madagascar at the time. Her father, King Ramanataka was a Malagasy prince who left Madagascar after the death of his brother in law, fleeing to Mohéli, one of the islands in present day Comoros. When her father died in 1842, when she was just 5 years old, Djoumbé Fatima became the queen but her mother ruled as regent for a time, marrying Ramanataka’s former advisor. In 1849, as the French colonized the region around Comoros, they helped to coronate Djoumbé Fatima as the Queen of Mohéli when she was just 12 years old. The French government also provided a governess to the young queen but after just two years, she expelled the governess. That same year, in 1851 she married Saïd Mohammed Nasser M’Kadar, a relation of Zanizbar’s Sultan. Through their marriage, he became prince consort and ruled alongside Fatima until 1860 when the French ousted him from his position as a result of the contest of powers between the French colonizers and the Zanzibari Arabs. Fatima continued to rule, marrying two other Sultans and making economic and diplomatic agreements with French traders but declining the requests that Mohéli become a French colony. In 1865 she rescinded on these agreements after just two years, opting to renew her ties with Zanzibar instead. In 1865 she abdicated the the throne in favor of her son, Mohamed bin Saidi Hamadi Makadara but in 1871, when the French returned to the region, Fatima was restored to the throne. She ruled Moheli until 1878 when she passed away at the age of 41.