Usman dan Fodio

Shehu Usman ɗan Fodio pronunciation^ⓘ (Arabic: عثمان بن فودي, romanized: ʿUthmān ibn Fodio; 15 December 1754 – 20 April 1817)^[4] was a Fulani scholar, Islamic religious teacher, revolutionary and a philosopher who founded the Sokoto Caliphate and ruled as its first caliph.^[5] After the successful revolution, the "Jama'a" gave him the title Amir al-Mu'minin (commander of the faithful). He rejected the throne and continued calling to Islam.

Born in Gobir, Usman was a descendant of the Torodbe clans of urbanized ethnic Fulani people living in the Hausa Kingdoms since the early 1400s.^[6] In early life, Usman became well educated in Islamic studies and soon, he 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, violation of the standards of the Sharia.^[7]

Usman formed and began an Islamic religious and social revolution which spread from Gobir throughout modern Nigeria and Cameroon. This revolution influenced other rebellions across West Africa and beyond. In 1803, he founded the Sokoto Caliphate and his followers pledged allegiance to him as the Commander of the Faithful (Amīr al-Muʾminīn). Usman declared jihad against the tyrannical kings and defeated the kings. Under Usman's leadership, the caliphate expanded into present-day Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Southern Niger and most of Northern Nigeria. Ɗan Fodio declined much of the pomp of rulership, and while developing contacts with religious reformists and jihad leaders across Africa, he soon passed actual leadership of the Sokoto state to his son, Muhammed Bello.^[8]

He encouraged literacy and scholarship, for women as well as men, and several of his daughters emerged as scholars and writers.^[9] His writings and sayings continue to be much quoted today, and are often affectionately referred to as Shehu in Nigeria. Some followers consider ɗan Fodio to have been a mujaddid, a divinely sent "reformer of Islam".^[10] Shehu ɗan Fodio's uprising was a major episode of a movement described as the jihad in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.^[11] It followed the jihads successfully waged in Futa Bundu, Futa Tooro and Fouta Djallon between 1650 and 1750, which led to the creation of those three Islamic states. In his turn, the Shehu inspired a number of later West African jihads, including those of Seku Amadu, founder of the Massina Empire and Omar Saidou Tall, founder of the Toucouleur Empire, who married one of ɗan Fodio's granddaughters.