Shaibu Usman Dan Fodio And The Sokoto Caliphate In History (Part 9) By Mike Ozekhome, SAN

INTRODUCTION

In our last eight parts of our discourse on the above topic, we have been able to show the importance of studying history and why it should be encouraged in our educational curriculum. Today, we shall x-ray this great issue with the study of the personae of Shaibu Usman Dan Fodio.

SHAIBU USMAN DAN FODIO

(15 DECEMBER, 1754 – 20 APRIL, 1817)

BIRTH

Usman was born in the Hausa state of Gobir, in what is now northwestern Nigeria. His father, Muhammad Fodiye, was a scholar from the Toronkawa clan, which had emigrated from Futa-Toro in Senegal about the 15th century. While he was still young, Usman moved south with his family to Degel, where he studied the Qurʾān with his father. Subsequently he moved on to other scholar relatives, traveling from teacher to teacher in the traditional way and reading extensively in the Islamic sciences. One powerful intellectual and religious influence at this time was his teacher in the southern Saharan city of Agadez, Jibrīl ibn ʿUmar, a radical figure whom Usman both respected and criticized and by whom he was admitted to the Qādirī and other Ṣūfī orders.

HOW HIS LEADERSHIP SURGED

Throughout the 1780s and ’90s, Usman’s reputation increased, as did the size and importance of the community that looked to him for religious and political leadership. Particularly closely associated with him were his younger brother, Abdullahi, who was one of his first pupils, and his son, Muhammad Bello, both distinguished teachers and writers. But, his own scholarly clan was slow to come over to him. Significant support appeared to have come from the Hausa peasantry. Their economic and social grievances and experience of oppression under the existing dynasties stimulated millenarian hopes and led them to identify him with the Mahdī (“Divinely Guided One”), a legendary Muslim redeemer, whose appearance was expected at that time. Although he rejected this identification, he did share and encourage their expectations.

During the 1790s, when Usman appeared to have lived continuously at Degel, a division developed between his substantial community and the Gobir ruling dynasty. About 1797–98, Sultan Nafata, who was aware that Usman had permitted his community to be armed and who no doubt feared that it was acquiring the characteristics of a state within the state, reversed the liberal policy he had adopted towards him 10 years earlier and issued his historic proclamation forbidding any, but the Shaykh, as Usman had come to be called, to preach, forbidding the conversion of sons from the religion of their fathers, and proscribing the use of turbans and veils.

In 1802 Yunfa succeeded Nafata as Sultan, but, whatever his previous ties with the Shaykh may have been, he did not improve the status of Usman’s community. The breakdown, when it eventually occurred, turned on a confused incident in which some of the Shaykh’s supporters forcibly freed Muslim prisoners taken by a Gobir military expedition. Usman, who wished to avoid a final breach, nevertheless agreed that Degel was threatened. Like the Prophet Muhammad, whose biography he frequently noted as having close parallels with his own, the Shaykh carried out a hijrah (migration) to Gudu, 30 miles (48 km) to the northwest, in February, 1804. Despite his own apparent reluctance, he was elected imam (leader) of the community, and the new caliphate was formally established.

THE JIHAD

With regards to the structure of the caliphate, the Shaykh attempted to establish an essentially simple, non-exploitative system. His views are stated in his important treatise Bayān wujūb al-hijra (November 1806) and elsewhere: the central bureaucracy should be limited to a loyal and honest vizier, judges, a chief of police, and a collector of taxes; and local administration should be in the hands of governors (emirs) selected from the scholarly class for their learning, piety, integrity, and sense of justice.

Initially the military situation was far from favourable. Food supplies were a continuing problem; the requisitioning of local food antagonized the peasantry; increasing dependence on the great Fulani clan leaders, who alone could put substantial forces into the field, alienated the non-Fulani. At the Battle of Tsuntua in December 1804, the Shaykh’s forces suffered a major defeat and were said to have lost 2,000 men, of whom 200 knew the Qurʾān by heart. But, after a successful campaign against Kebbi in the spring of 1805, they established a permanent base at Gwandu in the west. By 1805–06, the Shaykh’s caliphal authority was recognized by leaders of the Muslim communities in Katsina, Kano, Daura, and Zamfara. When Alkalawa, the Gobir capital, finally fell at the fourth assault on October 1808, the main military objectives of the jihad had been achieved.

 NOW THIS THE LEGACY

Although the jihad had succeeded, Usman believed the original objectives of the reforming movement had been largely forgotten. This no doubt encouraged his withdrawal into private life. In 1809–10, Bello moved to Sokoto, making it his headquarters, and built a home for his father nearby at Sifawa, where he lived in his customary simple style, surrounded by 300 students. In 1812, the administration of the Caliphate was reorganized, with the Shaykh’s two principal viziers, Abdullahi and Bello, taking responsibility for the western and eastern sectors, respectively. The Shaykh, though remaining formally Caliph, was thus left free to return to his main preoccupations, teaching and writing.

Usman was the most important reforming leader of the western Sudan region in the early 19th century. His importance lies partly in the new stimulus that he, as a mujaddid, or “renewer of the faith”, gave to Islam throughout the region; and partly in his work as a teacher and intellectual. In the latter roles, he was the focus of a network of students and the author of a large corpus of writings in Arabic and Fulani that covered most of the Islamic sciences and enjoyed—and still enjoy—wide circulation and influence. Lastly, Usman’s importance lies in his activities as founder of a jamāʿa, or Islamic community, the Sokoto Caliphate, which brought the Hausa states and some neighbouring territories under a single central administration for the first time in history.      

AND THIS

Readers, to see that these were all done in primary schools, not secondary school!

Fast forward to secondary school. The real big history started with renowned teachers like Mr. Ilevbare and Pabo Ozimi. We were taught the history of important historical figures and great Empires; their rise and fall. (To be continued).

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“You can’t change history. These things happened the way they did. What you can change is how you look at it and how you understand that it takes the good moments and it takes the difficult moments to move forward.” (Margot Lee Shetterly).

LAST LINE

I thank numerous readers across the globe for always keeping faith with the Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project, by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, OFR, FCIArb., Ph.D, LL.D. I enjoin you to look forward to next week’s bumper treatise. We must revive our history. It helps us renew and rediscover ourselves and eschew past mistakes.