THE JIHAD OF SHAYKH USMAN DAN FODIO AND
ITS IMPACT BEYOND THE SOKOTO CALIPHATE - 7

[Background]   [Impact Beyond the Caliphate:Borno]  [Masina ]    [Senegambia ]   [Nile valley ]   [African Diaspora in the Carribean ]   [Factors Facilitating Spread:Conclusion ]  Some Factors Facilitating the Jihad's Spread But how did a movement located in 19th century Hausaland spread its ideas throughout the Bilad al-Sudan and beyond within less than half a century, despite the distance and poor communication. Clearly several factors were at play. First the vast region of Bilad al-Sudan had over the centuries been effectively linked by a network of scholars and pilgrims ceaselessly plying the trade routes that criss-crossed the region. So ideas had channels to flow and they did. Secondly the movement which Shehu Usman led was essentially an intellectual movement made up largely of scholars and their students. But more fundamentally the movement produced an unprecedented plethora of writing, the Shaykh Usman, his brother Abdullahi and his son Muhammad Bello, together authored some three hundred works of varying fields and sizes, and the literary culture they instituted continued to turn out more authors. Indeed many of the Amirs who headed the various emirates were renowned scholars who continued to write until the arrival of British colonialist at the beginning of this century. Thirdly the socio-economic and political conditions of the region for the most of the 18th century were such as to provide fertile soil for ideas of change. This was particularly the case in the slave plantations of the Caribbean Islands. Concluding Remarks The Movement led by Shaykh Usman Dan Fodio started in 18th century Hausaland, in the Central Bilad al-Sudan, but triggered off a chain of similar movements which, like the waves in the ocean, reached the shores of the Atlantic in the West and that of the Red Sea in the East. Where ever the movements reached they radically transformed their societies and established new Islamic polities, sinking deeper the roots of Islam in the region. Even though the echoes of this movement in the Caribbean Islands did not succeed in total transformation the Caribbean communities, for fairly obvious reasons, they triggered a process of revolt and rejection against the injustices and made Islam a symbol of this dissent, a factor which has since fuelled the conversions to Islam among the African Diaspora in the Americas in Particular and the West in general. And Allah Knows Best.