his former master “granting him credit to a considerable amount.”68 Muslim merchants took their slave caravans south from the central Bilād al-Sūdān, crossing the Niger at Raka, which was located a few kilometers from the Niger River, near its confluence with the Moshi, and then went to Porto Novo, where Tamata served as their contact.
Many of the slaves who originally came from the central Bilād al-Sūdān were retained in Oyo, in Dahomey, or on the coast itself. By the end of the eighteenth century there was a large Yoruba population in Raka, even though the town was originally Nupe. According to Samuel Johnson, “Nearly all the children of influential Oyo chiefs resided there permanently for the purpose of trade.”69 By the early nineteenth century enslaved Muslims had become a recognized and significant element in the Oyo military, especially the cavalry stationed at Ilorin, and in certain crafts in the Oyo capital.70 Even as late as 1804, after the demise of the French trade, Porto Novo remained a principal source of slaves coming from Oyo; in a letter from King Hufon to Prince João of Portugal, 16 November 1804, Porto Novo was described as “the port where there is the greatest abundance of captives; the Ayos [Oyo] and Malês [i.e., Muslims] bring them here,” clearly along the route from Raka through Oyo.71 In 1812 Muhammad Bello described this trade in his geographical description of the central Bilād al-Sūdān. “Yarba,” by which he meant Oyo, was an
extensive province, containing rivers, forests, sands, and mountains, as also a great many wonderful and extraordinary things. . . . By the side of this province there is an anchorage or harbour for the ships of the Christians, who used to go there and purchase slaves. These slaves were exported from our country, and sold to the people of Yarba [Yoruba], who resold them to the Christians.72
Bello’s comments are instructive. They reveal that the learned Muslim leadership was aware that merchants who inevitably would have been Muslims, since all trade passed through a commercial network that was Muslim, were involved in the sale of slaves to Oyo and hence to Christian merchants on the coast. As reports from the early nineteenth century make clear, merchants traveled overland to Porto Novo from the “country of the Joos [Oyo],” which was “the principal negro nation,” passing through the country of the “Anagoos [Anago] and Mahees [Mahi]” but avoiding Dahomey, along “rivers, morasses, and large lakes which intersect the countries between Haoussa and the coast,” apparently referring to the lagoons between Porto Novo and Lagos.73 Indeed, before 1807 Hausa traders “were continually to be met with at Lagos.”74 This was the trade with the Christians that Muslim reformers wanted to stop and that was one of the causes of the jihād in the central Bilād al-Sūdān.
In his discussion of “important matters” in Masāʾil muhimma (1217/1802), ʿUthmān dan Fodio, also referred to as shaykh, wrote that the sale of any “Fulani” as a slave was strictly forbidden. Writing at Degel, which the Muslims had established in the face of political persecution, the shaykh based his ruling on the long-standing recognition that most Fulbe were Muslims. By this time tension between the followers of dan Fodio and the government of Gobir had reached an impasse. In a poem written in Fulfulde, Tabbat hakika, dan Fodio predicted that “one who enslaves a freeman, he shall suffer torment. The Fire shall enslave him, be sure of that!”75 In another song he attributed the “troubles” of the central Bilād al-Sūdān to the disregard of freeborn status, condemning any actions that led to the “capture of a free man, not a slave; then follow this with enslavement.” His definition of who was a “free man” referred to Muslims.76 In response to the questions of al-Ḥājj Shisummas ibn Aḥmad, a Tuareg cleric, the shaykh reiterated the criteria for the enslavement of captives, specifically addressing the concerns of freeborn people who had been enslaved and therefore morally and legally could not be enslaved, although their ransom could be demanded and proof of their status required.77 Similarly, Muhammad Bello in Miftaḥ al-sadād also insisted that it was “not lawful to enslave the Fulani,” despite the fact that in the Bilād al-Sūdān there were some Fulani living between Katsina and Kano and to the west of Katsina whom Bello did not consider Muslims.78 Such frequent pronouncements appear to reflect a situation in which the Muslim leadership thought that there was a serious problem with regard to slavery, not specifically with respect to slavery as an institution but with efforts to distinguish who could be enslaved and who should not be enslaved and what had to be done to regulate enslavement.
The various testimonies of ‘Uthmān dan Fodio, Muhammad Bello, and others apparently attest to the conditions of wide areas of West Africa. These complaints seem to have been common wherever Fulbe herded their cattle and Muslims like the Sulleibawa settled and began to teach. The inspiration of the Fuuta jihāds in Senegambia and the perceived transformation of political society in those states prompted the spread of resistance and criticism. As the level of education of many leaders demonstrates, there was a preoccupation with learning, political reform, and the demand for rights as Muslims. Protection from enslavement was considered the right of freeborn Muslims and recognition of the integrity of anyone who claimed that status. Slavery and the slave trade were factors in the jihād movement, as was autonomy from the European-dominated Atlantic world.
The first phase of the jihād movement that was concentrated in Senegambia had mixed results. On the one hand, the political boundaries of Fuuta Jalon and Fuuta Toro were relatively limited. Fuuta Toro controlled much of the Senegal River valley until 1796, but its territory was reduced thereafter. Fuuta Jalon was confined to the highlands from where the Senegal, Gambia, and Niger Rivers flowed. Political leadership in Fuuta Jalon was fractured among competing dynasties and rival claimants to succession to the position of almami. The regimes of jihād controlled land and concentrated enslaved populations for purposes of production, more so in Fuuta Jalon than in Fuuta Toro. On the other hand, the spread of Islamic education and the consolidation of Muslim societies were important achievements that had a wider impact than in the immediate states of jihād and laid the foundation for the later movement of al-Ḥājj ʿUmar and subsequent leaders who pursued a jihād model of social and political reform.
3
THE JIHĀD OF ʿUTHMĀN DAN FODIO IN THE CENTRAL BILĀD AL-SŪDĀN
The jihād led by ʿUthmān dan Fodio is sometimes called the Fulani jihād because of the predominance of Fulbe in the movement, although the ethnic designation underestimates the importance of Islam. At other times the jihād is referred to as the Sokoto jihād after the capital that was founded on the Rima River in 1809, but again this reference is problematic because Sokoto was often not the seat of government. It is where the tomb of ʿUthmān dan Fodio was located after 1817, but Muhammad Bello actually spent most of his time when he was head of government at his ribāṭ (fortified town) at Wurno, to the north of Sokoto, not in the nominal capital. Sokoto is the current site of the palace of the sultan, the direct descendant of the jihād leadership, as well as the capital of one of the states of modern Nigeria. ʿUthmān dan Fodio as amīr al-Muʾminīn (commander of the faithful), the shehu (Hausa), shaykh (Arabic), sarkin Musulmi (Hausa: leader or commander of the Muslims), and other titles of respect demonstrates that complexity in detail is a feature of the jihād and highlights the centrality of religion. How to do justice to this elaborate nomenclature and a political jurisdiction that included thirty emirates and over fifty subordinate emirates exacerbates the problem. Allegiance was initially focused on ʿUthmān dan Fodio as imām, who delegated authority to specific individuals who were given a flag (tata), although the actual number of flags that were issued is not clear. The plethora of leaders and their retinues can be confusing, which might explain why Murray Last initially designated the state that was established the “Sokoto Caliphate,” a name that was not used at the time.1 Heinrich Barth did refer to the “Empire of Sokoto” in his informative analysis of the 1850s but also referred to the “empire” as “Sudan.”2 Other accounts usually referred to “Sudan” or “Soudan,” as distinct from Borno (Bornu, Bornou), Bagirmi, Wadai, and other sub-Saharan Muslim states.3
