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The
theology of Shehu and his
adherents, like that of El-Maghili
and the Timbuctoo divines whom they broadly followed, was rooted in Maliki
orthodoxy and the overwhelming majority of the authorities that they
quoted belonged to this school 1.
Nevertheless, there was about their doctrines a strong flavour not
merely of reform but of radical or fundamental reform. The question
therefore arises whether there were any direct links between them
and the other Islamic reformers of the day, particularly the
Wahhabis with whom, at any rate at first sight, they seemed to have
much in common.
The Wahhabis, it will be remembered, were the followers of a
reformer called Muhammad b.
Abdul Wahhab, who flourished in central Arabia in the second
half of the eighteenth century. Among his converts was Sa'ud, the
founder of the royal family of Saudi Arabia, and under his dynamic
leadership the Wahhabis first of all made themselves masters of the
interior of the peninsula and then, in 1803-4, captured the Holy
places of Mecca and Medina, which they held until 1812 2.
By conviction the Wahhabis were not merely puritans but
fundamentalists who sought to rid Islam of false doctrines and
degenerate practices. They favoured a literal interpretation of the
Koran, banned tobacco, and frowned on silks and jewellery. Wherever
they gained power they introduced theocratic régimes
of the most austere severity 3.
In the works of Mallam
Abdullahi there are three references to Ibn
al-Qayyini al-Hanbali, whose writings had an important influence
on Al-Wahhab, and this
proves beyond doubt that the Fulani reformers were acquainted with
the sources on which Wahhabism drew 4.
It is also possible that the seeds of the movement itself were
brought back to Hausaland by returning pilgrims. Certainly, among
those who made the pilgrimage during this period were two men who
had great influence on Shehu, namely his tutor, Mallam Jibrilu, and his paternal uncle, Muhammadu
dan Raji. Mallam Jibrilu
seems to have come back from the pilgrimage, which may have been his
second, about 1783 5
and Muhammadu dan Raji in 1794 6.
This means that they were in the Hejaz well before it was occupied
by the Wahhabis, but even so, as they both spent some time there 7,
they must have heard about the reformers, who were already masters
of the neighbouring provinces, and have known what their aims and
doctrines were. It may also be significant that Mallam Jibrilu's
doctrine that disobedience involved unbelief was characteristic of
Walahabism 8.
Certainly, there were marked resemblances between the fundamentalism
of the Wahhabis and the radicalism of the Fulani and between the two
brands of puritanism which flowed from these doctrines. One point
which Shehu emphasized in his writings, for example, was the importance of
studying the lives of the early Caliphs 9,
and his personal predilection for a system of government as starkly
simple as theirs has already been noted. Similarly, many of the
reforms which he advocated were identical to those that the Wahhabis
had already introduced.
To suggest that Shehu may
have been influenced by Wahhabism, however, is not to say that the
Fulani reformation was part of the Wahhabi movement 10.
In fact, there were important differences. Though Shehu,
himself tended to look back to the early days of the Caliphate as
offering the ideal system of Islamic government, even he relied much
more on the jurists of the Abbasid Caliphate than on the earlier
authorities, while the administrative machine that Bello,
and Abdullahi set up to
govern the Empire was nothing like the simple society of Medina but
a complex hierarchy akin to that of the Abbasids 11.
In theological doctrine, too, there were important differences of
outlook. Shehu, as we
have already noted, did not accept Mallam. Jibrilu's view, shared
with the Wahhabis, that disobedience involved unbelief and, indeed,
felt called upon to refute it 12.
Conversely, the Fulani reformers accepted the miracles of the walis,
or saints, whereas it was one of the central tenets of the Wahhabis
to reject them 13.
Most important of all, the Wahhabis' denial of the authority of the
four orthodox jurists of Islam 14
found no place in the beliefs of the Fulani. On balance, therefore,
the most that can be said is that, while the reforming movement in
Hausaland was perhaps influenced by Wahhabism, it was certainly not
inspired by the Wahhabis and it was always separated from them by
important differences of dogma and practice 15.
Whatever the precise nature of this relationship may have been,
there was certainly a connexion between Shehu
and Sekou
Ahmadu, who led a similar movement in the western Sudan. Ahmadu,
who was also a Fulani, studied
under Shehu in his youth and then returned to his native Massina
15b
burning with his master's reforming zeal. After declaring a jihad he first of all freed Massina from its ancient tutelage to the
Bambara kingdom of Segu and then extended his conquests over a very
large area stretching from Timbuctoo in the north to the Black Volta
in the south. Although at the outset he had sent two
of his brothers 15b
to obtain Shehu's
blessing for his enterprise, he subsequently kept his kingdom quite
distinct and never acknowledged Shehu's
political or even religious authority. Indeed, he too styled himself
Commander of the Faithful 16.
Nevertheless, his original inspiration had been derived from Shehu
and his movement developed along parallel lines.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, therefore, there were
powerful influences at work in the Moslem world to purify the faith
and eradicate abuses. Since then it has often been asked whether the
reformers were, in fact, justified in resorting to war to gain their
ends. Was the faith so sullied and were the abuses so deeply
ingrained that blood had to be shed to purify them? Was there no
other method of achieving the same ends? In the central Sudan these
questions were asked at the time by none other than Sheikh El-Kanemi, the man who had saved Bornu, and the best way of
answering them is to follow the great religious controversy which
they provoked.
It will be recalled that in 1808, after the
loss of Ngazargamu, his capital, the Mai of Bornu had enlisted the
aid of Sheikh El-Kanemi,
a man of outstanding ability and distinction, who had succeeded in
checking the disintegration of Bornu and halting the eastward
advance of the Fulani.
Now El-Kanemi, like his
adversaries, was a scholar and a divine as well as a soldier and an
administrator. Besides meeting force with force, therefore, he
challenged the Fulani in their own theological field. His first
move, made after his recapture of Ngazargamu in 1809, was to address
the following letter to Shehu.
Greetings and friendship. The cause of my
writing to you is that when God brought me to Bornu, I found that
the fire of discord had broken out between your followers and the
people of this country. When I inquired why, some said that the
reason lay in religion, others that it was to be found in tyranny.
Being still perplexed, I wrote to your kinsmen who live amongst us
and asked them to explain their pretext for making war on Bornu. In
reply I received a poor sort of justification such as would not come
from a wise man, much less a learned one, and least of all from a
religious reformer. They referred me to certain books and said that
in these books they had learnt of the necessity of waging war. Now
we on our side have examined these books and we do not find in them
what they have found. Thus we remain in our perplexity. Now that
there is a truce in the war we think it best to write to you ... for
we believe that a wise man, when he meets an honest question, will
give a truthful answer. Will you therefore tell me your reasons for
going to war and enslaving our people?
Should you say that it is on account of our heathenism, let me tell
you that we are no heathens and that infidelity is far from our
thresholds. If prayer and the giving of tithes and fasting in
Ramadan and the restoration of mosques amount to heathenism, then
what, I must ask, is Islam?
I have been told that the grounds on which you accuse us of being
infidels are as follows: because our chiefs are reputed to make
idolatrous sacrifices, because our women go unveiled, and because
our judges are said to be corrupt and oppressive. But these things
do not make it lawful for you to wage war on us. They are, it is
true, very great evils, and it is of course our duty to prevent
their being committed, but it is not right to say that those who are
guilty of them are heathens.... It were better to command them to
mend their ways than to make war on them as you are doing.
The only result of your policy is to bring tribulation and suffering
on your fellow Moslems, for your followers have been killing our men
and capturing our women and children. We are astonished that you
should permit such things when you claim to be reforming our
religion and we perceive that your true object is the power to rule
over others. Though you may conceal this aim, even in your own
hearts, it is, we believe, your real ambition.
We have heard much of the character of Shehu
Usuman Dan Fodiyo and we have ourselves read his books.... Know
therefore that if Shehu
is for the truth, then we are for Shehu
but if Shehu departs from
the truth, then we shall leave him and follow the truth 17.
In this letter El-Kanemi
had raised the controversial questions of whether disobedience was
tantamount to unbelief and when backsliding became apostasy. El-Maghili,
as we have seen, had condemned comparable deviations in Sonni Ali as
unbelief and had pronounced Askia Muhammad's jihad
to be justified and indeed meritorious 18.
On the other hand, when Mallam Jibrilu had argued that disobedience
involved unbelief and therefore justified anathematization it was Shehu himself who had refuted him and asserted that the orthodox
authorities upheld the opposite view 19.
Clearly, El-Kanemi had
touched the weakest spot in the argument of the reformers. Bello
admitted as much afterwards when he said that in the whole course of
the jihad nothing had
caused the Fulani leaders as much anxious heart-searching as El-Kanemi's
questioning of their claims. This is not surprising for from the
very outset their cause had been established on religious
foundations. It was the belief that Shehu
was God's chosen instrument and that he was destined not only to
purify religion but to introduce a new order into worldly affairs
that had been the source of the faith and exaltation which had
carried the Fulani to victory and had seemed to justify their
sweeping aside the hereditary authority of the Hausa Chiefs. The
political structure of the whole Empire in fact rested upon these
basic assumptions. Now El-Kanemi,
a man of admitted learning and eminence, after probing and testing
the foundations, had publicly pronounced them to be unsound.
Both Bello and Abdullahi wrote to El-Kanemi
to refute his charges. Bello's letter, which was doubtless inspired
by Shehu, or at any rate
approved by him, was long and forthright. After taking El-Kanemi
to task for reaching his conclusions on false or imperfect
information, he went back to describe the causes which had led to
the jihad
Furthermore, El-Kanemi,
so that you may understand the origin of this affair, let me say
that we did not begin the war for the reasons that you heard. In
fact our reason for fighting was simply to repel the attacks which
were being made on our lives, our families and our faith.... Before
that we had merely been following the truth which Shehu
had revealed to us but for this they began to harry and persecute
us. They drove us from our homes. They confiscated our property.
They robbed us on the roads 20.
Bello then went on to describe at some length
the measures which Sarkin Gobir Nafata had taken to curb the spread
of Islam, Yunfa's overt hostility, the unprovoked attack on Gimbana,
Yunfa's ultimatum, Shehu's
flight to Gudu, the battle of Tabkin Kwatto, and the manner in which
the jihad had spread to
the other Hausa States. So far as Bornu was concerned, he admitted
that the Mai had sent them a message, but contended that the
responsibility for the fighting which had afterwards broken out was
nevertheless his 21.
Shehu
ordered me to write to him. I explained to him all the reasons for
our actions. I told him about the Hausa Chiefs and their heathen
practices. I added that whoever went to their aid would be no better
than they. At the same time I wrote to the Fulani in Bornu and
commanded them to keep the peace. Not long afterwards, however, I
heard that the Mai had had the messenger whom we had sent to him put
to death 22.
Bello then ridiculed the idea that Shehu's supporters regarded the people of Bornu as pagan merely
because they made sacrifices in high places, took bribes, gave
unjust judgements, usurped the patrimony of orphans, and allowed
their women to go unveiled. These abuses did not constitute
heathenism. In fact, Bello admitted, they were common enough among
his own people. He was only surprised that El-Kanemi,
while acknowledging the learning of the Fulani leaders, should have
believed them capable of such ignorance. It suggested that he was
moved by malice and hatred. The Hausa Chiefs, who were in the habit
of making sacrifices to sticks and stones and persecuting Moslems,
were no better than heathens. That was the reason why the Fulani had
gone to war with them 23.
In a second letter to El-Kanemi
Bello came back to this theme:
The first cause of our fighting against your
people is that they are helping the heathen Hausas against us. You
must in truth know that whoever helps infidels is no better than
they. The second reason is that your people are persecuting our
people and driving them from their homes.... None of your prayers
and tithes, your fasting and your founding of mosques, will help you
nor stop us from fighting you, in this world or the next, so long as
you support the unbelievers against us.... Know you, El-Kanemi, that all that you have charged us with is false. God is
our help against you 24.
In the succeeding years Bello wrote further
letters to El-Kanemi,
apparently in a more conciliatory vein, but these seem to have gone
astray and in any case he did not record their text. At last,
however, a letter from Gidado, who was later to become Waziri of Sokoto, reached El-Kanemi
and elicited from him a reply which was also conciliatory and which
mentioned the desirability of making peace. Unfortunately, before
this reconciliation could develop, the Fulani received an earlier
letter from El-Kanemi, his third in the series, which they considered
contentious and provocative. In replying to it Bello for the first
time accused the Kanuri as well as the Hausas of heathen and
idolatrous practices 25
... The reason why we gave our people in Bornu
authority to go to war was the full information which reached us
about the character of your people. We have been told by those who
have lived in the country and must know, that they make sacrifices
to rocks and trees, that they practice certain observances in the
river similar to those of the Egyptians on the banks of the Nile,
and that there are great houses with guardians appointed over them
in which these rites are carried out.
To us, whoever makes sacrifices to sticks and stones is a heathen
and that is why we call the people of Bornu heathens... 26
Nevertheless, Bello conceded that if it was
true, as El-Kanemi had
apparently said in his letter, that the Kanuri had mended their
ways, then it was the duty of the Fulani to stop fighting them. He
went on to say that Mallam Gidado was being sent to the cast to
assemble the Fulani leaders and suggested that El-Kanemi
should dispatch an envoy to meet him and discuss calling a truce 27.
Later, at the time of Mallam
Gidado's mission to the east, Shehu
and Bello both wrote letters which were fairly conciliatory in tone 28.
In his reply, El-Kanemi
first of all set out to refute the charges of persecution and
oppression which had been made earlier and then to prove that it was
the Fulani and not the Kanuri who had been the aggressors.
“... They have raided our villages and
plundered our property. They have killed our menfolk and enslaved
our children. They have set fire to our houses. All we have done is
to rise up and repel them. We have only retaken from them what they
had first taken from us.... It was never I who began any quarrel
with them. . . . ” 29
El-Kanemi
also told Shehu bluntly
that his followers did not always live up to his own high standards.
— You know that your kinsmen who live among us are ignorant
people. Their ambition is to conquer and rule this country.... Had
they been as you are, then we would not have fought them. But . . .
in truth they are not men of high character. Whenever I extinguish a
fire which they have lit, they immediately light another 30.
Nevertheless, he ended on a note of conciliation.
— I will show no enmity to any Fulani, he wrote, except to him who
comes against me in war 31.
In another letter to Bello,
which seems to have been written at the same time, he said that
there was no treating with the Bornu Fulani because they were
intransigent, but that it would be best if the leaders made peace 32.
In answer to these two letters Shehu
and Bello composed a long
reply in which they recapitulated all their arguments 33.
With that the correspondence came to an inconclusive end. None of
these letters are dated and so we cannot relate them exactly to
events in the jihad, but the correspondence probably began in 1810, and went on
until 1812 34.
By that time the war in Bornu had drifted into stalemate. It is
doubtful, therefore, whether these exchanges did anything to shorten
it.
Though neither side can be said to have emerged as the victors from
the theological debate, the whole correspondence is nevertheless of
absorbing interest. It shows that, although the prize happened to be
a great territorial empire, the contest itself was basically one of
ideas and that, as these letters reveal, it was fought out by men of
considerable attainments.
In 1816,
after this controversy had subsided, Shehu
fell ill and in the following
year he died. His death immediately precipitated a succession
crisis between Bello and
his followers on the one hand and Abdullahi
and his supporters on the other. There were two questions to be
decided. First, was the Empire to be divided and, if so, how?
Secondly, who was to assume the title of Sarkin Musulmi with the
spiritual leadership that went with it?
At this time Abdullahi
was just over fifty years of age and Bello
a little under forty. Their claims to succeed were so even that it
was difficult to decide between them. Abdullahi
had been the first to swear allegiance to Shehu
at Gudu and had commanded the Fulani forces both at Tabkin Kwatto
and at the capture of Birnin Kebbi. Bello,
on the other hand, had knocked Zamfara out of the war and held the
supreme command when Alkalawa had been taken. Both were men of
exemplary character, high religious principles, great learning, and
strong personality.
At the time of his death Shehu
was living in the new city of Sokoto. Bello
was there with him, but Abdullahi
was at Bodinga, fifteen miles away 35.
As soon as Abdullahi
heard that Shehu was dead
he collected his followers and rode to the city. He was too late,
however, for by the time he arrived Bello,
in accordance with his father's known wishes, had already been
proclaimed Sarkin Musulmi 36.
There was a good reason why the election had been held in such
haste. The Fulani leaders felt that if Abdullahi
were present it would be difficult for them to appoint anyone except
him, but that if he became Sultan his descendants rather than Shehu's might subsequently succeed and that therein lay the seeds of
future civil war 37.
To avert this danger and comply with Shehu's
wishes they therefore elected Bello
before Abdullahi could
stake his claim.
Soon afterwards, when Abdullahi
and his party reached the city, they found the great gates shut and
barred against them. No doubt this was a wise precaution on the part
of Bello's supporters, for if the two factions had been allowed to
mingle, fighting might easily have flared up between them.
Nevertheless, to Abdullahi
the manner of his rejection must have come as a cruel blow.
Certainly, he took it hard because he at once withdrew to Gwandu and
for several years thereafter he and Bello were estranged.
When Bello succeeded as Sarkin
Musulmi he acquiesced in Abdullahi's retaining the territories which, during the
latter part of Shehu's lifetime, he had been mainly responsible for
administering. The core of the Empire was therefore divided into
two unequal parts and Kebbi
became Abdullahi's Emirate of Gwandu. Abdullahi
was also acknowledged to be the ruler of :
o
Arewa
o
Dandi
o
Kamba
o
Zaberma
which were former provinces of Kebbi.
In addition it was recognized that :
o
Yauri
o
Gurma
which had already been brought within the Empire
o
Nupe
o
Ilorin
which had not yet been won but in which the Fulani were already
active
should fall within the sphere of influence of Gwandu,
not of Sokoto.
The result of these dispositions was that, while Abdullahi was endowed with rank and possessions which made him
almost the equal of his nephew, at any rate in theory, and which
certainly raised him to a higher level than any of the other Emirs, the lion's share of the Empire still fell to Bello. As his
Sultanate, Bello had the
former territories of :
o
Gobir
o
Zamfara
and he became the acknowledged suzerain of:
o
Kano
o
Katsina
o
Zaria
o
Bauchi
o
Adamawa Daura
o
Hadeija
o
Air
o
Gwari 38
What was no less important was that, with the
title of Sarkin Musulmi,
he also inherited Shehu's
immense spiritual authority.
Shehu Usuman dan Fodiyo,
the creator of the Empire which was now being divided between his
son and his brother, was buried
in his new capital of Sokoto. Judged by any standards he was a
most remarkable leader.
·
Though a man of peace, he sustained a lengthy war.
·
Though an unworldly mystic, he created a great
territorial empire.
·
He found Islam in the central Sudan corrupt and
persecuted; he left it purified and supreme.
·
He found the Fulani landless and insecure; he left
them a ruling aristocracy.
One of the greatest of his many gifts was
his spiritual magnetism. From the time when he was still quite a
young man,he had the power to draw others to him. Moreover, once
they had become his pupils or followers, they remained devoted to
him for life. Another characteristic was the moral courage with which he stood on his principles. He showed
this trait at Gudu, immediately after he had raised his standard
against Yunfa, when some
of his followers got out of hand and without provocation attacked
the Hausa people living in the district. In circumstances as
desperate as his, even the most upright and high-minded of leaders
might well have turned a blind eye or at any rate have waited until
after the impending battle before asserting his authority. But not Shehu.
“On the Thursday our people fell upon the
Hausas who were in the district and slew and plundered and enslaved
them. But on the Friday Shehu
rose up and preached to them and commanded them to release those
whom they had captured and to restore that which they had taken. At
this they set free their prisoners and gave back their booty” 39.
Another
characteristic which distinguished Shehu
was his faith in his own destiny.
So intensely did it burn that it fired all those who came into
contact with him. There is no better illustration of its power than
the effect it had at the supreme crisis of the jihad,
when his defeated and half-mutinous army was surrounded in the
unwalled town of Gwandu. His intervention then not only rallied his
demoralized followers but inspired them to win a victory which
proved to be decisive.
The last and in many ways most characteristic of Shehu's
traits was his unworldliness.
Unlike the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmed,
no breath of scandal ever touched
him. Furthermore, Shehu
was never dazzled by success and
remained as unspoilt in triumph as he had been unshaken in disaster.
To the very end, in fact, he led a
life of pious and ascetic.
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