The Sokoto Caliphate
Usman dan Fodio's jihad unites the Hausa lands into one of the largest states in nineteenth-century Africa.
- The Sokoto Caliphate — Murray Last, Longmans (1967)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto: Values and Leadership in Nigeria — John N. Paden, Hodder and Stoughton (1986)
In 1804 Usman dan Fodio, a Fulani scholar and preacher, declared jihad against the Hausa king of Gobir and other rulers he accused of mixing Islam with paganism, unjust taxes and oppression. Within a few years his followers had overthrown most of the Hausa kingdoms.
- The Sokoto Caliphate — Murray Last, Longmans (1967)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
The result was a caliphate of some thirty emirates, including Kano, Zaria and Ilorin, under the caliph in Sokoto, and with Gwandu in the west. It was a centre of Islamic learning, with dan Fodio, his brother Abdullahi and his daughter Nana Asma’u writing prolifically. It also relied heavily on slave labour and raided neighbouring peoples for captives.
- The Sokoto Caliphate — Murray Last, Longmans (1967)
- Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa — Paul E. Lovejoy, Cambridge University Press (2011)
British forces under Frederick Lugard conquered Sokoto in 1903 but left the emirs in place to govern under British supervision, so the caliphate’s structures survived into modern Nigeria.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule — Max Siollun, Hurst (2021)
Why it matters today
The caliphate is the foundation of northern Nigeria's identity. The Sultan of Sokoto is still the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, the emirates survive as traditional institutions, and the north's political elite often traces its legitimacy back to dan Fodio's reform.
The caliphate was one of the great Islamic reform movements of the era, and a centre of Arabic scholarship in West Africa whose texts are still studied.