The Jihad of Usman dan Fodio Begins

In 1804 a jihad led by the Muslim scholar Usman dan Fodio began in Gobir, one of the Hausa states. According to the Library of Congress country study, many Muslim clerics had become dissatisfied with the insecurity of the Hausa states and Borno, and some, including Usman dan Fodio, a member of the Qadiriyya brotherhood, began to work for the overthrow of the existing rulers. He drew support from clerics and especially from the Fulani, whose clan leaders and cattle owners provided most of the troops. The study notes that the cleric whose actions actually started the jihad, Abd as-Salam, was Hausa.

Uprisings broke out at the same time across Hausaland and Borno, and by 1808 the Hausa states had been conquered. Their ruling dynasties withdrew to new walled towns such as Abuja, Argungu and Maradi. In Borno the old capital, Birni Gazargamu, was destroyed, but the cleric al-Kanemi organised resistance and the jihadists were driven back.

The Library of Congress country study traces the background to the eighteenth century: rivalry and wars among the Hausa states, the weakness of Borno, and severe droughts and famines across the Sahel in the 1740s–1750s and again in the 1790s, which brought many Fulani into Hausaland. Muslim clerics began to voice the grievances of ordinary people, and attempts by rulers to control them only increased the tension. Usman dan Fodio himself, according to Wikipedia, criticised the ruling elites for their greed and their violations of Islamic law.

The jihad created the Sokoto Caliphate, with its capital at Sokoto from 1809: a confederation of emirates that at its height stretched about 1,500 kilometres across the savanna. The country study describes it as the largest empire in Africa since the fall of Songhai in 1591, and says that it inspired related holy wars and Islamic states far beyond Nigeria.