Usman dan Fodio

Shehu Usman dan Fodio (15 December 1754 – 20 April 1817) was a Fulani Islamic scholar, teacher and writer who founded the Sokoto Caliphate and was its first caliph. According to Wikipedia he was born in Gobir, studied the Quran at Degel, and was first taught by his mother, Hauwa; he wrote more than a hundred books on religion, government, culture and society, and criticised the ruling Muslim elites of the Hausa states for what he saw as their greed and their violations of Islamic law.

The Library of Congress country study describes how, as a member of the Qadiriyya brotherhood, he drew a following among clerics and among the Fulani, and how the jihad he led began in Gobir in 1804. By 1808 the Hausa states had been conquered. Sokoto, founded in 1809, became the capital of the new caliphate. Wikipedia notes that he passed actual leadership to his son, Muhammad Bello, who succeeded him on his death in 1817 (country study).

After studying the Quran with his father, he went to other teachers, among them his relatives Uthman Binduri and Muhammad Sambo, and then Jibril bin Umar, a powerful scholar and an early advocate of jihad, with whom he later disagreed over who should be considered a Muslim. At about twenty he set up his own school at Degel, where he taught and preached while continuing to study (Wikipedia).

One of the first acts of his mission was the mass education of women: he criticised scholars for neglecting half of humanity, and taught his daughters as well as his sons. Several of his daughters became scholars and writers, notably Nana Asma'u (Wikipedia).

The country study calls the Sokoto Caliphate the largest empire in Africa since the fall of Songhai, and says the jihad inspired Islamic states far beyond Nigeria. Wikipedia notes that he encouraged literacy and scholarship for women as well as men.