The 100 Greatest Muslims (2022): 97 - 'Uthman dan Fodio, The 19th Century Nigerian Religious Leader and Reformer Who Founded the Sokoto Caliphate

97

'Uthman Ɗan Fodio

'Uthman dan Fodio 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, 'Uthman's importance lies in his activities as founder of a jama'a, or Islamic community, the Sokoto caliphate, which brought the Hausa states and some neighboring territories under a single central administration for the first time in history. 

ʿUthman dan Fodio (b. December 15, 1754 CC, Maratta, Gobir, Hausaland [now in Nigeria] - d. April 20, 1817 CC, Sokoto, Fulani Empire) was a Fulani scholar, Sunni Islamic religious teacher, revolutionary, and philosopher who founded the Sokoto Caliphate and ruled as its first caliph.

Born in Gobir, 'Uthman was a descendant of the Torodbe clans of urbanized ethnic Fulani people who had been living in the Hausa Kingdoms since the early 1400s of the Christian calendar. It is traditionally believed that 'Uthman was an Arab descendant of the commander Uqba ibn Nafi.  

'Uthman was born in the Hausa state of Gobir, in what is now northwestern Nigeria. His father, Muhammad Fodio, was a scholar from the Toronkawa clan, which had emigrated from Futa-Toro in Senegal about the 15th century. While he was still young, 'Uthman moved south with his family to Degel, where he studied the Qurʾan 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, Jibril ibn ʿUmar, a radical figure whom 'Uthman both respected and criticized and by whom he was admitted to the Qadiri and other Ṣufi orders.

About 1774–75, 'Uthman began his active life as a teacher, and for the next 12 years he combined study with peripatetic teaching and preaching in Kebbi and Gobir, followed by a further five years in Zamfara.  During this latter period, though committed in principle to avoiding the courts of kings, he visited Bawa, the sultan of Gobir, from whom he won important concessions for the local Muslim community (including his own freedom to propagate Islam); he also appears to have taught the future sultan, Yunfa.

Throughout the 1780s and ’90s, 'Uthman’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 appears 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 Mahdi (“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 'Uthman seems 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 'Uthman 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 toward him 10 years earlier and issued his historic proclamation forbidding anyone but the Shaykh, as 'Uthman 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 'Uthman may have been, he did not improve the status of 'Uthman’s community. The breakdown, when it eventually occurred, turned on a confused incident in which some of 'Uthman’s supporters forcibly freed Muslim prisoners taken by a Gobir military expedition. 'Uthman, who seems to have 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, 'Uthman 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.

During the next five years 'Uthman's primary interests were necessarily the conduct of the jihad and the organization of the caliphate. He did not himself take part in military expeditions, but he appointed commanders, encouraged the army, handled diplomatic questions, and wrote widely on problems relating to the jihad and its theoretical justification. On this his basic position was clear and rigorous: the sultan of Gobir had attacked the Muslims; therefore he was an unbeliever and as such must be fought; and anyone helping an unbeliever was also an unbeliever. (This last proposition was later used to justify the conflict with Bornu.)

As regards the structure of the caliphate, 'Uthman attempted to establish an essentially simple, nonexploitative system. His views are stated in his important treatise Bayan wujub 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 favorable. 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, 'Uthman’s forces suffered a major defeat and were said to have lost 2,000 men, of whom 200 knew the Qurʾan 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 'Uthman’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.

Although the jihad had succeeded, 'Uthman 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, 'Uthman’s two principal viziers, Abdullahi and Bello, taking responsibility for the western and eastern sectors, respectively. 'Uthman, though remaining formally caliph, was thus left free to return to his main preoccupations, teaching and writing.

'Uthman's five years at Sifawa were a productive period, to judge from the number of dated works that survive, most of them dealing with the practical problems of the community, including the series of books addressed to “the Brethren” (al-Ikhwan), arising out of the dispute with Bornu and its principal administrator and ideologist, Muḥammad al-Kanemi. At his weekly meetings on Thursday nights, he criticized aspects of the post-jihad caliphate (as indeed did Abdullahi and Bello), especially the tendency of the new bureaucracy and its hangers-on to become another oppressive ruling class. Around 1815, 'Uthman moved to Sokoto, where Bello built him a house in the western suburbs. There 'Uthman dan Fodio died, aged 62, in 1817.

In his early years,  'Uthman became well-educated in Islamic studies and soon began to preach Sunni Islam throughout Nigeria and Cameroon.  He wrote more than a hundred books concerning religion, government, culture, and society.  He developed a critique of existing African Muslim elites for what he saw as their greed, paganism, and violation of the standards of the sharia.

'Uthman began an Islamic religious and social revolution which spread from Gobir throughout modern Nigeria and Cameroon, and was echoed in a jihad movement led by the Fula people across West Africa.  

In 1803, 'Uthman founded the Sokoto Caliphate and his followers pledged allegiance to him as the Commander of the Faithful (Amir al-Muʾminin). 'Uthman declared jihad against the Hausa Kings and defeated them. Under 'Uthman's leadership, the Sokoto caliphate conquered Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Southern Niger and most of Northern Nigeria.

  

'Uthman declined much of the pomp of rulership. While developing contacts with religious reformists and jihad leaders across Africa, he soon passed actual leadership of the Sokoto state to his son, Muhammad Bello.  

'Uthman dan Fodio encouraged literacy and scholarship, for women as well as men, and several of his daughters emerged as scholars and writers. His writings and sayings continue to be much quoted today, and are often affectionately referred to as Shehu in Nigeria. Some followers consider 'Uthman ɗan Fodio to have been a mujaddid, -- a divinely sent "reformer of Islam".

 'Uthman ɗan Fodio's uprising was a major episode of the Fula jihads of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. It followed the jihads successfully waged in the Islamic states of Futa Bundu, Futa Tooro, and Futa Djallon between 1650 and 1750. The Fula jihads led to the creation of those three Islamic states. Additionally, 'Uthman inspired a number of later West African jihads, including those of Seku Amadu, the founder of the Massina Empire; Omar Saidou Tall, the founder of the Toucouleur Empire (and the husband of one of 'Uthman's granddaughters); and Modibo Adama, the founder of the Adamawa Emirate. 

'Uthman was born in 1754. He was a Fulani descendant of a Torodbe family that was well established in Hausaland. His father Muhammad Fodio was an Islamic scholar. 'Uthman's mother, Hauwa,  is believed to be a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad. 

While 'Uthman was young, he and his family moved to Degel where he studied the Qur'an.  Soon after, he became well educated in classical Islamic science, philosophy, and theology and also became a revered religious thinker. His teacher, Jibril ibn Umar was a powerful intellectual and religious leader at the time, and was a staunch proponent of jihad. 

In 1774, 'Uthman began his itinerant preaching as a mallam -- as a Quranic scholar, and continued preaching for twelve years in Gobir and Kebbi, followed by a further five years in Zamfara. Among 'Uthman's well-known students were his younger brother, Abdullah, and the Hausa king, Yunfa.

'Uthman also criticized the Hausa rulers for condoning paganism, worshipping fetishes, and believing in the power of talismans, divination, and conjuring. He also insisted on the observance of Maliki fiqh in the commercial, criminal, and personal sectors. 'Uthman also denounced the mixing of men and women, pagan customs, dancing at bridal feasts, and inheritance practices contrary to sharia. 

'Uthman was also very influenced by the mushahada -- the mystical visions -- he was having.  In 1789, a vision led 'Uthman to believe he had the power to work miracles, and to teach his own mystical wird, or litany. His litanies are still widely practiced and distributed in the Islamic world. 'Uthman later had visions of Abdul Qadir Gilani, the founder of the Qadiri tariqah, and an ascension to heaven, where he was initiated into the Qadiriyya and the spiritual lineage of the Prophet. His theological writings dealt with concepts of the mujaddid "renewer" and the role of the 'ulama in teaching history, and other works in Arabic and the Fula language.  

'Uthman broke from the royal court and used his influence to secure approval for creating a religious community in his hometown of Degel that would, 'Uthman hoped, be a model town. He stayed there for twenty years, writing, teaching, and preaching. As in other Islamic societies, the autonomy of Muslim communities under 'ulama leadership made it possible to resist the state and the state version of Islam in the name of sharia and the ideal caliphate.

In the 1780-1790s, 'Uthman's reputation increased as he appealed to justice and morality and rallied the outcasts of Hausa society.  The Hausa peasants, slaves and preachers supported 'Uthman, as well as the Fulbe and Fulani pastoralists.  These pastoralist communities were led by the clerics living in rural communities who were Fulfulde speakers and closely connected to the pastoralists.  Many of 'Uthman's followers later held the most important offices of the new states.  'Uthman's jihad served to integrate a number of peoples into a single religious-political movement.

In 1797-98, King Nafata forbade shaykhs to preach and to wear turbans and veils.  King Nafata also prohibited conversions and ordered converts to Islam to return to their former religions.  This was highly resented by 'Uthman who wrote in his book Tanbih al-Ikhwan 'ala ahwal al-Sudan (Concerning the Government of Our Country and Neighboring Countries in the Sudan): "The government of a country is the government of its king without question.  If the king is a Muslim, his land is Muslim; if he is an unbeliever, his land is a land of unbelievers. In these circumstances it is obligatory for anyone to leave it for another country." 

In 1802, Nafata's successor, Yunfa, a former student of 'Uthman, turned against 'Uthman, revoking Degel's autonomy and attempting to assassinate 'Uthman.  Yunfa then turned for aid to the other leaders of the Hausa states, warning them that 'Uthman could trigger a widespread jihad.

In February 1804, 'Uthman, along with some of his followers, carried out a hijra (migration) to the western grasslands of Gudu, where they turned for help to the local Fulani nomads.  'Uthman's followers named 'Uthman the Commander of the Believers -- Amir al-Mu'minin -- and elected him as their leader.  They also gave 'Uthman the title Sarkin Muslim -- Head of Muslims.

Also in 1804, 'Uthman began the jihad and founded the Sokoto Caliphate.  This made him a political as well as religious leader, giving him the authority to declare and pursue a jihad, raise an army and become the army's commander.

Afterwards, there were widespread uprisings in Hausaland and its leadership was largely composed of the Fulani.  The uprisings were widely supported by the Hausa peasantry, who felt over-taxed and oppressed by their rulers.

After 'Uthman's declaration of jihad, he gathered an army of Hausa warriors to attack Yunfa's forces in Tsuntua,  Yunfa's army, composed of Hausa warriors and Tuareg allies, defeated 'Uthman's forces and killed about 2,000 soldiers, 200 of whom were hafiz -- memorizers of the Qur'an.  Yunfa's victory was short-lived as soon after 'Uthman captured Kebbi and Gwandu in the following year.  

At the time of the war, Fulani communications were carried along trade routes and rivers draining into the Niger-Benue valley, as well as the delta and the lagoons.  The call for jihad reached not only other Hausa states such as Kano, Daura, Katsina, and Zaria, but also Borno, Gombe, Adamawa, Nupe.  There were all places with major or minor groups of Fulani alims.

By 1808, 'Uthman had defeated the rulers of Gobir, Kano, Katsina, and other Hausa Kingdoms.  After only a few years of the Fulani War, 'Uthman found himself in command of the Hausa state.  The Sokoto Caliphate had become the largest state south of Sahara at the time.  In 1812, the caliphate's administration was reorganized, with 'Uthman's son Muhammed Bello and brother Abdullahi dan Fodio carried on the jihad and took care of the western and eastern governance respectively.  Around this time, 'Uthman returned to teaching and writing about Islam.  'Uthman also worked to establish an efficient government grounded in Islamic law.

The Sokoto Caliphate was a combination of an Islamic state and a modified Hausa monarchy.  Muhammed Bello introduced Islamic administration, Muslim judges, market inspectors, and prayer leaders were appointed, and an Islamic tax and land system were instituted with revenues on the land considered kharaj and the fees levied on individual subjects called jizya, as in classical Islamic times.  The Fulani cattle-herding nomads were sedentarized and converted to sheep and goat raising as part of an effort to bring them under the rule Muslim law.  Mosques and madrasas were built to teach the populace Islam.  The state patronized large numbers of religious scholars or mallams.  Sufism became widespread.  Arabic, Hausa, and Fulfulde languages saw a revival of poetry and Islam was taught in Hausa and Fulfulde.

The Sokoto Caliphate represented a significant place in the Islamization of society in West Africa in which Muslim scholars and teachers gained a primary role in the articulations of the public dimensions of civil society, and the state system was changed from a basically Sudanic monarchy that tolerated Islam to a formally Islamic state that continued to use of the forms and customs of the earlier Sudanic-Hausa monarchies. This laid the basis for much of state and society in modern West Africa.

In 1815, 'Uthman moved to Sokoto where Muhammad Bello built him a house in the western suburbs.  'Uthman died in the same city on April 20, 1817, at the age of 62.  After his death, his son Muhammad Bello, succeeded him as amir al-mu'minin and became the second caliph of the Sokoto Caliphate.  'Uthman's brother Abdullahi was given the title Emir of Gwandu and was placed in charge of the Western Emirates of Nupe.  Thus, all Hausa states, parts of Nupe and Fulani outposts in Bauchi and Adamawa were all ruled by a single political-religious system.  By 1830, the jihad had engulfed most of what are now northern Nigeria and the northern Cameroons.  From the time of 'Uthman dan Fodio to the British conquest at the beginning of the twentieth century of the Christian calendar, there were twelve caliphs. 

'Uthman has been viewed as the most important reforming leader of Africa.  Muslims view him as a Mujaddid (renewer of the faith).  Many of the Fulani led by 'Uthman dan Fodio were unhappy that the rulers of the Hausa states were mingling Islam with aspects of the traditional regional religion.  'Uthman created a theocratic state with a stricter interpretation of Islam. 

'Uthman addressed in his books what he saw as the flaws and demerits of the African non-Muslim or nominally Muslim rulers.  Some of the accusations made by 'Uthman included accusations of corruption at various levels of the administration and neglect of the rights of ordinary people.  'Uthman also criticized heavy taxation and obstruction of the business and trade of the Hausa states by the legal system.  'Uthman dan Fodio believed in a state without written constitution, which was based on the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and the ijma.

'Uthman dan Fodio wrote hundreds of works on Islamic sciences ranging from creed, Maliki jurisprudence, hadith criticism, poetry and Islamic spirituality.  The majority of these works were written in Arabic. 'Uthman also penned about 480 poems in Arabic, Fulfulde and Hausa.

Uthman dan Fodio (Dan Fodio) (Usuman dan Fodio) (Usman dan Fodio) (Usman ibn Fodio) (Uthman Dan Fuduye) was a Nigerian religious leader and reformer.  Shaykh ‘Uthman ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Uthman ibn Salih, known to the the Hausas as Shehu Usuman Dan Fodio, was born into a family of Muslim Fulani clerics in the Hausa kingdom of Gobir in present day northern Nigeria.  The family had abandoned the nomadic way of life several generations earlier and was dedicated to the teaching of Sunni, Maliki Islam.  By the end of the eighteenth century, 'Uthman Dan Fodio had inspired the Muslim Fulani to begin the jihad al-qawl (“preaching jihad”) addressed to the Hausa aristocracy of Gobir and its neighbors.  This aristocracy, nominally Muslim, was in the Fulani view polytheistic, given to “mixed Islam,” maintaining animist practices while at the same time adopting elements of Islam.  Such mixed Islam was common in the aftermath of the collapse of the medieval Islamic empires of the Sahel. 

The preaching jihad, which extended over several years, demanded the political and cultural surrender of this faintly Muslim, largely animist establishment to the strictly orthodox practice of Sunni, Maliki Islam.  This the Hausa refused.  In an escalating climate of tension, hostilities broke out between the Muslim Fulani and the Hausa in 1804.  'Uthman, adopting certain precedents from the struggle of the Prophet Muhammad against the polytheists of Mecca, solemnly elevated this conflict to the status of a “holy war of the sword” that must necessarily follow the “preaching jihad” when the latter fails to be effective.

The campaign was conducted not by 'Uthman himself, a scholarly and somewhat reclusive mystic, but by his brother Shaykh ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad, an equally scholarly but hardheaded legalist who proved himself a brilliant field commander.  He was enthusiastic about the Sufi mysticism espoused by his brother 'Uthman and more inclined to the strict construction of the shari‘ah.

The jihad was successful.  The “Sokoto caliphate,” a centralist Islamic polity to which provincial jihadist emirs owed allegiance, took the place of the hodgepodge of Hausa principalities that had preceded it.  While the Islamic shari‘ah cannot be said to have been imposed on this polity with total conformity – much pagan practice did survive – its writ was nevertheless substantial.  By the time the British occupied Nigeria early in the twentieth century, there was no doubt that what they took over was a Muslim society governed by shari‘ah law.

The jihad had two other immediate consequences.  First, it transformed Islam from a tolerated minority religion into the official religion of the state.  Second, it elevated the Islamic scholars from their previous position as mere advisers of polytheistic rulers who engaged in mixed Islam to a place as the sole custodians of political power and the arbiters of social behavior.  The jihad also altered the trade patterns of Hausaland by destroying the old centers of trade and setting up new ones.

The significance of the jihad for present-day Islam in Nigeria rests more with Shaykh ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad than with his mystically inclined brother 'Uthman, who initially inspired the jihad.  The latter was a Qadiri Sufi given to visions and other liminal experiences greatly revered in his day.  With the rise of modern Islamic fundamentalism, while he still enjoys reverence, he has been largely superseded.  His brother ‘Abd Allah, the down-to-earth legalist, whose platform was not mysticism but strict adherence to the letter of the shari‘ah, has become the admired exemplar for the present generation of Islamists in northern Nigeria. 

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A Partial Bibliography

Abubakar, Aliyu (2005). The Torankawa Danfodio Family; Kano, Nigeria; Fero Publishers.

Ajayi, Jacob F. Ade (1989). Africa in the Nineteenth Century Until the 1880s; University of California Press. 

Esposito, John L. (editor) (1999).  The Oxford History of Islam; London, England; Oxford University Press. 

Ibrahim, Muhammad (1987).  The Hausa-Fulani Arabs: A Case Study of the Genealogy of Usman Danfodio; Kadawa Press.

Jenkins, Everett, Jr. (1998). Pan-African Chronology II: A Comprehensive Reference to the Black Quest for Freedom in Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia, 1865-1915; Jefferson, North Carolina; McFarland & Company, Inc.

Jenkins, Everett, Jr. (2000). The Muslim Diaspora: A Comprehensive Reference to the Spread of Islam in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, Volume 2, 1500-1799; Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland & Company, Inc.

Khan, Muhammad Mojlum (2008).  The Muslim 100: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of the Most Influential Muslims in History, Leicestershire, United Kingdom: Kube Publishing Ltd.

Lapidus, Ira M. (2014).  A History of Islamic Societies; New York City, New York, Cambridge University Press. 

Loimeier, Roman (2011).  Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria, Northwestern University Press. 

Westerlund, David and Svanberg, Ingvar (editors) (1999).  Nigeria; London, England, Palgrave Macmillan.

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Wikipedia Articles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usman_dan_Fodio

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Other related links

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Usman-dan-Fodio

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