Uthman dan Fodio

Nigerian Islamic reformer

• Born: December 1, 1754
• Birthplace: Maratta, Gobir, Hausaland (now in Nigeria)
• Died: April 1, 1817
• Place of death: Sokoto, Fulani Empire (now in Nigeria)

A Fulani teacher, ՙUthman began a holy war for Islamic renewal and reform that eventually led to the creation of northern Nigeria’s Sokoto caliphate—the largest empire in West Africa since Songhai in the sixteenth century.

Early Life

ՙUthman dan Fodio (UHTH-man dahn FOH-dee-oh) was born into an urbanized and scholarly Fulani family living within the Hausa city-state of Gobir in what is now northern Nigeria. His father, Muḥammad Fodio, was a member of the Torankawa Fulani tribe and was a respected Muslim scholar. From his early childhood through adolescent years, ՙUthman took Qur՚ānic lessons from his father and several uncles—scholars with whom he studied hermeneutics and translations (tafsīr), the recorded sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad (hadith), biography of the Prophet (sīrah), jurisprudence (fiqh), mysticism (taṣawwuf), mathematics, astronomy, and Arabic.

In 1774, ՙUthman and his younger brother and loyal follower, Abdullahi, began a period that would last several years as wandering teachers and preachers, traveling throughout Hausaland. In 1786, they took additional lessons from their uncle Alhaji Jibrīl ibn ՙUmar, a celebrated scholar from Gobir who was living at Agades after being expelled from Gobir because of his radical reformist ideas. ՙUthman and Abdullahi then started giving sermons and lectures that decried widespread syncretist practices and superstitions, while urging a return to the path of Islamic purity and righteousness. The brothers also took lessons from another scholar named Alhaji Muhammad ibn Raj. Meanwhile, ՙUthman wrote a number of religious treatises for the educated classes and poems for the ordinary people in an effort to reduce what he regarded as a general state of ignorance in the Hausa-Fulani community.

Life’s work

ՙUthman soon earned a reputation for his scholarship and religious zeal and attracted a considerable following to his cause. At the same time, his call for reform and change incurred the ire of some scholars who contested many of the issues that he was addressing, such the education and role of women in society. Moreover, his indifference to the theological niceties of Islamic scholasticism in favor of his interest in what he regarded as more relevant issues of understanding the basics of Islam resulted in verbal and written recriminations from traditional scholars and clerics. Meanwhile, he composed nearly fifty essays denouncing scholars whom he regarded as venal.

Despite the opposition that he faced, ՙUthman emerged from the scholarly controversies unscathed. In 1783, he impressed the sultan of Gobir, Bawa, with his refusal of the royal largesse offered to him as a reward for his scholarship. He instead asked for these favors: reduction of taxes on the people, release of prisoners, freedom to preach, and suspension of government harassment of women wearing proper Islamic dress and of men wearing turbans.

In 1793, when he was approaching the age of forty, ՙUthman settled down in the town of Degel in the state of Gobir with a wide network of followers and students throughout Hausaland. By that time he had the honorific title of shehu (or shaikh), which was traditionally awarded to wise elders. Under his leadership, Degel was transformed into an autonomous town and developed as the site of a university that spearheaded a community movement (Jama՚a). The movement’s ever-widening and increasingly open denunciations of social and political corruption and its calls for reform and renewal of Islamic ideals and recognition of Shehu ՙUthman’s messianic stature led to the movement’s persecution by Hausa rulers of Hausaland, including the Gobir sultans Nafata (r. 1796-1803) and Yunfa (r. 1803-1808).

Fear of government reprisals further radicalized the Jama՚a, and ՙUthman urged his followers to prepare for a hijra—recalling the Prophet Muḥammad’s flight from Mecca to Medina—as a prelude to the impending holy war (jihad). Harassed by Sultan Yunfa, ՙUthman and his followers went from Degel to Gudu, some thirty miles to the northwest, in February, 1804. There ՙUthman was proclaimed by his followers to be the “commander of the faithful” of a jihad. The holy rebels repulsed attacks by the ruler of Gobir and created a permanent base at Birnin Kebbi, the capital of Kebbi, in April, 1806. At Kebbi, ՙUthman finished writing Bayān wujūb al-hijra ala’l-ibad, which explained the necessity of hijra and jiḥad and provided a blueprint for an ideal Islamic polity.

ՙUthman endeared himself to his followers not only with the strength of his teachings but also by his personal example. His asceticism, self-discipline, and affable disposition laced with erudition brought him a massive following. His jihad spread throughout Hausaland and the neighboring state of Bornu, to the east. By 1808, the jihadists had conquered the Hausa states; however, members of the ruling dynasties retreated to the frontiers and built walled cities that remained independent.

ՙUthman’s movement failed to subdue Bornu, where another cleric, Muḥammad al-Kanemi, overthrew the traditional ruling dynasty of the Sayfawa and established his own lineage as the new ruling house. By 1809, ՙUthman’s jihad had created a large Fulani state known as the Sokoto caliphate—a loose confederation of emirates stretching nearly one thousand miles from east to west—that recognized ՙUthman’s suzerainty. Shehu ՙUthman divided his newly created state into two parts, each with its own headquarters: Gwandu in the east and Sokoto in the west.

In 1810, ՙUthman retired from active life to the town of Sifawa. He continued his intellectual pursuits, while leaving his brother Abdullahi and his son Muḥammad Bello to administer the caliphate. In 1815, he returned to Sokoto, where he resided until his death in April, 1817.

Significance

ՙUthman dan Fodio founded a large empire, and his jihad inspired many similar uprisings in other parts of West Africa’s savanna and Sahel regions and even into North Africa. Later in the nineteenth century, Islamic states were founded in what are now Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Chad, the Central African Republic, and Sudan. Dan Fodio’s holy war was more than a religious upheaval; it was at once a struggle for social, political, and cultural change, presaging West Africa’s modern era.

ՙUthman’s teachings contained in his Wathiqat ahl al-Sudan (dispatch to the people of the Sudan) inspired the rebel Muslim slave leader Muhammad Kaba of Manchester in distant Jamaica during the late 1820’s. Kaba’s jihad—regarded by the imperial government as a slave riot—against white plantation owners triggered similar upheavals on other Caribbean plantations.

When Great Britain colonized Nigeria at the end of the nineteenth century, it preserved the basic structure of ՙUthman’s emirate system and accorded considerable autonomy to the local rulers under a principle that was articulated as “indirect rule.” In the early twenty-first century, the reigning sultan of Sokoto was a descendant of ՙUthman dan Fodio and was still regarded as the primary religious leader of independent Nigeria’s Muslim citizens.

Bibliography

Ballard, Martin. Uthman dan Fodio: Commander of the Faithful. London: Longman, 1977. A brief and readable but nonetheless comprehensive account of ՙUthman dan Fodio’s life. A must for beginners.

Balogun, Ismail A. B. The Life and Works of ՙUthman dan Fodio: The Muslim Reformer of West Africa. Lagos, Nigeria: Islamic Publications Bureau, 1975. Originally a doctoral dissertation, this is a succinct account of ՙUthman’s life and a critical analysis of his important work, Ihya’ al-Sunna wa-Ikhmad al-Bid’a.

Bello, Muḥammad. Infaku’l Maisuri. Translated by C. E. J. Whitting. London: Luzac, 1957. An important source for the life and teachings of ՙUthman by his son, Muḥammad Bello, the sultan of Sokoto who died in 1837.

Hiskett, Mervyn. The Sword of Truth: The Life and Times of the Shehu Usuman dan Fodio. 2d ed. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1994. Chronicles the revolutionary movement in Hausaland and ՙUthman dan Fodio’s role in that movement.

Jameelah, Maryam. Shehu Uthman dan Fodio: A Great Mujaddid of West Africa. Lahore: Mohammed Usuf Khan, 1978. Brief but useful biographical sketch for beginners.

Metz, Helen C., ed. Nigeria: A Country Study. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1992. A reliable source for basic background information on ՙUthman dan Fodio’s jihad and the Sokoto caliphate.

Sagari, Alhaji Shehu, and Jean Boyd. Uthman dan Fodio: The Theory and Practice of His Leadership. Lagos, Nigeria: Islamic Publications Bureau, 1978. An account of ՙUthman’s life and teachings by a Hausa teacher who became president of Nigeria. Based on essays by ՙUthman’s brother Waziri Abdullahi. An eminently readable work of sound scholarship.