Muhammad Bello

Ruler of Nigeria’s Sokoto caliphate (r. 1817-1837)

• Born: 1781
• Birthplace: Hausaland(now in Nigeria)
• Died: October 26, 1837
• Place of death: Sokoto (now in Nigeria)

As the son and successor to ՙUthman dan Fodio, the head of the first Fulani-led Islamic jiḥad in West Africa, Muḥammad Bello served as both sultan and caliph in Sokoto. He continued his father’s campaign to bring about a religious and political confederation of Hausa states, within which ethnic Hausas and Fulanis would live as equals.

Early Life

Muḥammad Bello was one of several sons of ՙUthman dan Fodio and was the best-known early successor to head the Fulani-led jiḥad movement created by his father. However, the actions of his father after launching his jiḥad movement in 1804 so dominate the sparse historical records of the period that little is known about Bello prior to his accession. One thing that is known is that from an early age, he was expected to develop military skills that would help strengthen his father’s reform mission. In that respect, he differed from his father and his father’s generation in not being expected to follow either of the occupations traditionally open to Fulani men, pastoralism and trading.

Although recorded details are lacking, he probably contributed much to the success of the Sokoto sultanate before he became its official head. Moreover, not only did he learn the importance of military discipline in the ranks of his father’s armed forces, he must also have learned a great deal about the various Hausa city-states and other peoples whom he would eventually rule.

Life’s Work

What Muḥammad Bello inherited shortly after his father’s death in 1817 represented the initial stages of the caliphate, and eventually, the sultanate of Sokoto. The polity founded by his father held hegemony only over a part of the Hausa city-states in the northern region of what is now Nigeria. With time, and particularly under Bello’s leadership, the Sokoto sultanate would eventually extend its control over peoples of different ethnic and religious origins to the south of the traditional Hausaland region. In addition to groups that came under Sokoto’s sway during his father’s reign—including the main Hausa city-states of Katsina, Kano, and Zaria—Bello extended indirect control southward to Nupe and zones associated with Ilorin, thus penetrating the limits of Yoruba territory near the confluence of the Benue and Niger Rivers.

In his efforts to extend Sokoto power, Bello had to contend not only with traditional religious issues connected with jiḥad, but also with the problem of creating a polity that could accept the principles of Fulani/Hausa social and political integration that his father had begun to preach. The initial aim of the Fulani jiḥad, which had started around 1804 in Gobir, was to call for a purging of questionable practices followed by different, presumably Islamic rulers of the Hausa city-states. Beyond such issues, the jiḥad aimed at correcting perceived injustices and discrimination in relations between “native” Hausas and the traditionally pastoral Fulani population, who had previously occupied a subordinate status vis-à-vis the Hausas.

A confrontation with Sarkin Yunfa, the ruler of Gobir, had been delayed when Yunfa promised to recognize ՙUthman dan Fodio’s right to organize his own religiously based Fulani community away from Gobir, in the settlement of Degel. ՙUthman’s local followers urged him to widen the bases of his support, and ՙUthman then called upon both Fulani and Hausa Muslim supporters from several Hausa states to join in a jiḥad. His forces won their first victory against conservative supporters—including some Fulanis—of Yunfa. The next step, which definitely affected Muḥammad Bello’s future tenure as ՙUthman dan Fodio’s successor, involved “temporary” acts of submission by other Hausa city-states that feared advances by the jiḥadists against them.

Leadership responsibilities for jiḥad were divided between elaborating and announcing its religiously based principles and carrying on military activities more directly designed to bring different Hausa states under jiḥadist control. ՙUthman first delegated the latter task tovhis sons Abdullahi and Muḥammad Bello. Successful military operations headed by Abdullahi and Bello produced results. By 1809, the major Hausa state at Kano was under the control of the jiḥadists. It appears that by that date, Muḥammad Bello had already distinguished himself, not only as a military commander, but also as someone with effective writing skills. He put the latter skill to work by composing letters for distribution to potential supporters of his father’s cause.

Muḥammad Bello’s success in ruling the Sokoto sultanate should be seen in the context of the ethnically mixed polity’s religious and political characteristics. Instead of assuming a single center for rule from Sokoto, Bello retained the pattern of divided responsibilities that had been established by his father. He himself governed the western part of the sultanate, while his brother Abdullahi administered areas in the east from a second political base at Gwandu.

This system did guarantee that the component parts of Bello’s largely symbolic regime would remain continuously loyal to Sokoto. However, the boundaries of the sultanate expanded, reaching their fullest extent around 1831, when fourteen Fulani emirates held sway over both Hausa and non-Hausa states in the northern and central regions of what eventually became Nigeria. However, Bello found that after that date he could maintain his authority only with force in the face of multiple revolts. By the time he died in 1837, he had organized at least fifty different military campaigns. Ironically, he even had difficulty controlling Gobir, where his father’s jiḥad had begun but which lost its preeminence after Sokoto was founded.

Even during the reign of his immediate successor, Abubakar Atiku, between 1837 and 1842, and then the ascendancy of his son ՙAli ibn Bello, who was caliph from 1842 to 1859, multiple military campaigns had to be undertaken to try to maintain the effective allegiance of territories that had accepted Bello’s leadership.

It appears that Europeans took no serious interest in establishing communications or ties with Bello’s capital during his lifetime. Western involvement would grow after the 1860’s, culminating in a late nineteenth century British military campaign against Sokoto under Sir Frederick Lugard. Although Lugard occupied Kano and Sokoto in 1903, he left the symbolic structure of the Sokoto sultanate in place.

It was during Muḥammad Bello’s period of rule, however, that prominent visitors from other areas of West and East Africa, especially those who were interested in carrying the impetus of the original Fulani jiḥad to their lands, came to Sokoto for guidance in both religious and political matters. The most outstanding example of this involved a five-year sojourn in Sokoto by Sheikh ՙUmar (Fall), originally from the Senegal Tukulor region, and the future founder of a major jiḥadist state in what became modern Mali. Sheikh ՙUmar forged bonds with Muḥammad Bello by marrying the latter’s daughter during the 1830’s. Many years later, ՙUmar’s son by Bello’s daughter, Ahmadu, became ՙUmar’s successor. When Ahmadu himself was later forced out of the remaining core of his father’s jiḥadist empire by advancing French forces, he became an exile in Sokoto under the protection of his grandfather’s successors.

Significance

Two historically important developments are associated with Muḥammad Bello’s tenure as sultan of Sokoto. The most obvious is the fact that he was able to forge sufficient political continuity to enable West Africa’s first jiḥadist state to survive—symbolically, at least—into the colonial era of the twentieth century.

Muḥammad Bello also stands out as one of the few nineteenth century West African political and religious leaders to leave behind an extensive corpus of personal writings. Not only did he write a near contemporary account of his father, ՙUthman dan Fodio’s, life, he also left a number of didactic tracts that have drawn the attention of Nigerian translators into English.

Bibliography

Ballo, Muhammad. Ballo’s Fatwa on Urbanization of Nomads. Edited and translated by Omar Bello. Sokoto, Nigeria: Islamic Academy, 2000.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Embellishment of the Minds with the Necessary Provisions to the Wayfarer. Sokoto, Nigeria: Milestone Publishing House, 2000. These modern translations of Bello’s writings illustrate his interest in a variety of subjects. Ballo’s Fatwa is political and social in nature, while Embellishment of the Minds is more spiritual in nature.

Bello, Muhammad. Infaku’l Maisuri. Translated by C. E. J. Whitting. London: Luzac, 1957. An important source for the life and teachings of ՙUthman written by his son Bello.

Fuglestad, Finn. “A Reconsideration of Hausa History Before the Jihad.” Journal of African History 19 (1978): 319-339. This article provides insights into the type of society, as well as the religious setting prevailing in Hausaland before Bello’s father declared his religious and political cause.

Kanya-Forstner, A. S., and Paul E. Lovejoy. “Editing Nineteenth Century Intelligence Reports on the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno.” History in Africa 24 (1997): 195-204. Analysis of rare primary source documents dealing with relations between the Sokoto caliphate and its primary political rival to the east.