Shaykh Uthman Ibn Fodio and the Revival
of Islam in Hausaland - 9

[Preamble]   [The Milieu ]   [Birth, Studies & Career ]    [The Phase of Teaching and Public Da'awah ]   [Phase of Organising and Planning ]   [Phase of Hijra and Jihad ]   [Phase of Victory and Establishment of Caliphate ]   [Shaykh Uthman's Contribution & Ideas ]  [Impact of the Shaykh Beyond the Sokoto Caliphate ]  [Concluding Remarks ]  Impact of the Shaykh Beyond the Sokoto Caliphate Naturally the immediate impact was on neighbouring states like Borno to the east, Yorubaland to the south and Agades to the north. In the rowdy atmosphere of the jihad there were skirmishes between the Jama’a and some of these states, but amicable settlement were reached, though not before some territories being conceded to the Jama’a. But in what had remained of theses state, things were never the same again if only because they had to meet the new Islamic expectations of their citizens and the challenge of a towering Islamic neighbour. Outside the immediate theatre of the jihad the consequences were no less serious. Masina, currently in Mali, was chronologically the first to follow suite. Ahamd Labbo was one of those many students of Shaykh Uthman and member of the Jama’a. Like many of the learned members of the Jama’a, he had been running a school in a society which shared a lot of the features of Hausaland. with the events in the neighbouring Hausaland and the rising expectation with his growing following, they came to clash with the authorities in Masina. Not long before Shaykh Uthman died he obtained his permission to start his own jihad and by the following year it was all over and Seku Ahmadu, as he was popularly known, established the Islamic state of Masina with his capital of Hamdullahi. Similarly Shaykh Umar al-Futi who left his native Futa Toro in the Sene-Gambia region, for pilgrimage to Makka, about the late 1820’s. Umar came through Masina, where he was impressed with the changes and then Sokoto, where he stayed for months as the guest of Muhammad Bello. Shaykh Umar must have been impressed with what he saw in Sokoto, for on his return he remained in Sokoto under Bello’s care until the latter died in 1837. On the death of his host and friend Umar returned back to Futa Toro started extensive teaching and building of a movement very much in the fashion of the Jama’a. In 1849 Umar, along with his Talaba, the name he gave his followers, made their Hijra and not long after the jihad broke out. Umar’s Jihad was first targeted to the French and later to the animist state of Bambara, on the ruins of which he eventually built his Islamic state with the capital at Segu. Though the Islamic state at Segu did not last very long as the French, determine the annex and colonise the whole area, were prepared to allow an Islamic state to flourish, the jihad continued to inspire generations of anti-French risings through out the colonial period. Perhaps a more interesting impact of the Jihad of Shaykh Uthman is to be seen in the Nile valley. Following the Jama’a’s capture of Kebbi in 1806, which gave the mujahidun a permanent base, the jihad went swiftly in their favour that rumours started making the rounds that Shaykh Uthman must then be the expected Mahdi. When this reached the Shaykh as it must, he denied being the Mahdi, but said that the Mahdi will appear in the east of Hausaland after him and as soon as he appears the jama’a should migrate to him and give every support. Soon after the death of the Shaykh people started migrating into the Nile valley in search of the Mahdi. Not only did they fuel the expectation of the Mahdi which grew as fast as situation deteriorated in the Sudan under the so called Turko-Egyptian colonial regime. So when in 1881 Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi declared himself the Mahdi these people had no difficulty believing him and they gave him their immediate and unconditional support which in turn gave him the astonishing success he had. The father of Khalifa Abdullahi, who deputised for the Mahdi and took over the leadership of the state after the death of the Mahdi in 1885, was himself part of this migration in search of the Mahdi. When the British over powered the Sokoto Caliphate, rather than live under the British, the Sultan at the time chose to migrate to the East. Even after the British had hunted him and killed him, what remained of his people continued their march until they reached the Nile valley, where their descendants still live today. Even more interesting perhaps is the echo of this jihad in far away Caribbean Islands. Some of the Africans caught in the heinous European slave trade and ended up in the plantations of the Caribbean Islands happened to be Muslims. Some of them may have been caught up while on transit in search for knowledge or while engaged in jihad, for they arrive their final destinations with Arabic manuscripts, concealed to avoid seizure from the ever suspecting white slave masters. A number of them appear to have come from West Africa; the case of Abubakar who was a scholar of some appreciable learning who eventually got freed and even returned to his native Jenne in Masina, in contemporary Mali, has been well documented. It was not unusual for Arabic manuscripts from new arriving slaves to be circulated discreetly among Muslims in the plantations. One such document called the Wathiqah, from all the descriptions, the Wathiqat Ahl Sudan of Shaykh Uthman, arrived Jamaica in the late 1820’s. This document, written by Shaykh Uthman, on the eve of the jihad in Sokoto, was aimed at mobilising the Jama’a for the jihad. It therefore contained the reasons that necessitated jihad in Hausaland and a passionate appeal to Muslims to come out to make hijra and fight jihad. Some of the injustices and oppressions in the slave plantations must have had some resemblance to the ones addressed to in the Wathiqa, for it got a great reception among the slaves in the Jamaican plantations. It was secretly circulated and though in Arabic its message of jihad got through and was well received. In 1832 the slaves in Manchester, an area in Jamaica, under the leadership of Muhammad Kaba, rose up in jihad against their tyrannical white masters. This jihad triggered similar jihads among slaves in these plantations and for the next few years the whole area became restive. These jihads were known by the white plantation owners as the famous slave riots. This posture of Islam as a liberating force has endured to this day and remains one of the most motivating factors for the increasing conversions to Islam among the black Diaspora.