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Shehu
was still a young man of only twenty when, in the year 1774-5, he
began his ministry 1. Thanks to
the excellence of his education, however, and to his great natural
gifts, he was already an authority in his own right on theology and
the law.
It was probably at about the same time that he established himself
in the little town of Degel where he was to live — or rather to
make his headquarters, because he was frequently on the move — for
the next thirty years. Degel lies in open sandy country just north
of the Rima Valley in what was then the province of Adar.
Originally, Adar stems to have been tributary to Air, but by this
time it had either been annexed to Gobir or was at any rate
completely under Gobir's domination. From Degel it was in fact only
about sixty miles to Alkalawa where the Gobirawa had recently
completed their new capital.
Though Shehu made his headquarters in Degel, and was visited there
by increasing numbers of pupils and followers, he spent much of his
time teaching in the surrounding districts 2.
From time to time he also made larger tours of the neighbouring
States and, apart from Zamfara and Kebbi where he was soon to become
well known, we hear of him going as far afield as Illo in the south
and Daura in the east 3.
The abuses which Shehu observed in Hausaland and set himself to
reform have already been described. Except perhaps in Zamfara, he
seems to have concentrated more on the reform of the faith of those
who had already accepted Islam than on making new converts. The
subjects of his discourses were five in number. The first was the
necessity of following, without deviation of any kind, the path of
the Sharia or holy law. The second was the importance of
observing the Sunna or orthodox practices of Islam. The third
was the danger of harbouring religious doubt. The fourth was the
avoidance and prevention of all evil. In his fifth and last
discourse he expounded the Shari'a in detail and encouraged
his audience to become seekers after knowledge and truth 4.
Bello has described the manner in which Shehu used to deliver his
discourses and sermons. He was, he says, at once friendly, patient,
and sympathetic. When he came out on to his platform he used to
smile at his audience and then greet them three times. After that he
would call for silence and begin to speak. He always started with
the words: “I give thanks to God, the Lord of Creation.” He felt
no shyness when speaking and feared no criticism. His faith gave him
strength so that he voiced his opinions forthrightly and never
compromised with the truth. Afterwards he would stay on and answer
the multitude of questions which used to be put to him. According to
the composition of his audience, he spoke sometimes in Fulfulde,
sometimes in Hausa, and sometimes in Arabic 5.
The main subjects of Shehu's sermons, as distinct from his
discourses, were the unity of God, the foundations of faith,
righteousness, sin and punishment, and paradise and eternal
happiness. He also gave instructions where necessary in such matters
of ritual as ablution, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, paying tithes,
giving alms, making vows, taking oaths, and contracting marriages
6.
The first major tour that Shehu made was to Kebbi, which was still
one of the leading States of Hausaland though of course it had long
since lost the pre-eminence it had enjoyed in the time of Kanta. We
do not know the exact date of this journey, but it was probably
around the year 1780. He was accompanied by his younger brother
Abdullahi, then still in early adolescence, and was apparently very
successful in making converts and winning adherents 7.
Hitherto Shehu had neither sought the patronage of Chiefs nor had
any dealings with the ruling classes. News of his successes in Kebbi
doubtless reached Alkalawa, however, and when he returned to Degel
word seems to have been conveyed to him that he ought to present
himself at Court. Shehu was not one to be overawed, even when
confronted by a formidable character like Sarkin Gobir Bawa
8,
and he is reported to have propounded in forthright terms exactly
what the responsibilities of an Emir in a Moslem State were.
Nevertheless, Bawa heard him out and the audience seems to have been
a success. Certainly it strengthened Shehu's hand in his subsequent
dealings with the common people, and no doubt with petty officials
as well, because henceforward it was assumed that his teaching
enjoyed the favour, or at any rate carried the assent, of the Court 9.
Soon afterwards, probably in 1783, Shehu went to Zamfara. It was a
State in which Islam had made less headway than elsewhere in
Hausaland and Abdullahi, who accompanied his brother, described it
as a land where the great majority of the people were still pagan
and where ignorance was supreme. These were probably the very
reasons which induced Shehu to spend the next five years there 10.
Once again, and probably to an even greater extent than in Kebbi, he
succeeded in budding up a large personal following.
During this long absence Shehu seems to have maintained his home in
Degel because he went back there as soon as his work in Zamfara was
finished. Soon after his return, probably in the year 1788-9, he and
all the other learned men of the country were summoned to celebrate
one of the great Moslem festivals in the company of the Chief. After
the ceremony large quantities of alms were offered to the assembled
divines and jurists. At this Shehu, despite the fact that he must
still have been one of the youngest among them, rose to his feet and
told Bawa that he and his followers needed none of his wealth, but
that he asked instead for the grant of other indulgences 11.
He demanded that he himself should have the right to teach and
preach in Gobir, that all should be free to listen to him, that
Moslems should suffer no disabilities, and that the burden of tax on
the peasantry should be lightened. Bawa rather surprisingly granted
all these demands 12.
This episode seems to have marked Shehu's emergence as the leader of
the reformers. Thenceforward, though there were still plenty of
divines and scholars outside the movement who disputed his teaching
and denied his mission 13,
there was none within it to challenge his leadership. Naturally,
however, his assumption of Mallam Jibrilu's mantle marred his
relations with the Court at Alkalawa. Until then he had always been
treated with marked respect, so much so indeed that, on his return
from his tour of Kebbi, Sarkin Gobir Bawa is said to have paid him a
visit at Degel and made him a present of fifty cattle 14.
Certainly, some of the young princes, including Yunfa who was later
destined to become his principal adversary, seem to have studied
under him for a time 15.
But from that day the relationship began to deteriorate.
In 1795 Sarkin Gobir Bawa died and was succeeded by his brother
Yakuba. During Yakuba's reign, which lasted six years, Shehu made
his second major tour of Kebbi. He taught and preached in all the
towns right down to the Niger 16
and enlarged the number of his personal followers. These tours had
an important effect on the course of subsequent events. First of all
they gave Shehu. a standing outside Gobir which enabled him to
uphold the rights of Moslems, even to the point of defiance, while
at the same time making it difficult for the Chief to treat him as
if he was no more than a contumacious subject. Secondly, the support
which he now built up in Zamfara and Kebbi enabled him to survive
the critical second and third rounds of the impending struggle,
whereas without it his cause would almost certainly have foundered.
In 1801 Sarkin Gobir Yakuba made a final attempt to storm the
Zamfara fortress of Kiyawa and was killed. He was succeeded on the
throne by his brother, Bunu Nafata. It is clear that in the twelve
years that had elapsed since Sarkin Gobir Bawa had made his
concessions to Shehu the relations between the reformers and the
ruling classes in Gobir had greatly deteriorated. The cause of the
animosity lay partly in Shehu's fearless exposure of corruption and
oppression, but perhaps even more in the apprehension with which the
Court had been watching the growth of his movement. By this time his
adherents were known as “The Community” (in Hausa Jama'a) and
had become very numerous. Moreover, his fame had spread throughout
the central Sudan so that men came from near and far to join him 17.
Seeing this, the Hausa rulers naturally took alarm. “They saw the
growing number of his following and the hold that Islam had gained.
... Men urged them on saying ‘If you do not disperse this
concourse of people, your power will be gone ; they will destroy
your country by causing all the people to leave you and go to
them.’”18
The concern felt in Alkalawa at these developments explains the
severity of the measures that Bunu now introduced. First of all, he
forbade any man from holding religious meetings and preaching to the
people, excepting only Shehu. Secondly, he decreed that Islam might
only be practised by those who had inherited the creed from their
fathers. Thirdly, he prohibited the wearing of turbans by men and
veils by women 19.
These edicts were proclaimed in every market place in Gobir and the
neighbouring parts of Adar and Zamfara which were under Gobir's
domination. They were aimed directly at the Moslem reformers and the
intention was obviously to curb their growing strength. Considering
that Shehu, was by now the undisputed leader of the movement, it
seems strange that an exception should have been made in his favour.
The only explanation of this apparent anomaly is that the concession
was dictated by fear, not favour, and that the Hausa rulers still
wished to avoid, or at any rate postpone, an open conflict with him.
Taken as a whole, these were paradoxical measures for any nominally
Moslem Chief to have introduced. In fact the touch of desperation
about them betrayed the alarm with which Bunu and his advisers
evidently viewed the strength and cohesion of the reforming party,
while their severity gave the reformers a clear warning of the
hostility with which they were now regarded.
As for Shehu, there is no doubt that until then he, too, had been
trying to gain his ends without provoking an open conflict.
According to Abdullahi one of his sayings was: “I will not
interfere between any man and his Chief: I will not be a cause of
division.” 20
If the successive Chiefs of Gobir had been willing to play the part
of Muhammadu Rumfa, he would have been content with the role of El-Maghili.
Certainly, as his whole life was to prove, he was in no sense a
seeker after temporal power and there is no evidence whatever to
suggest that he had planned the jihad in advance and was now
engineering a breach in order to bring it about 21.
On the contrary, his aim, until very late in the day, seems to have
been to enlist the support of the Hausa ruling classes either by
genuine conversion or, failing that, by moral persuasion and
pressure 22.
On the other hand, it is also true to say of Shehu that, while not
seeking a conflict, he was equally not prepared to compromise in any
way with his conscience in order to avoid one. The fact is that,
having once set his course, he held to it without regard for the
probability that sooner or later it would bring him into collision
with the Hausa authorities. At the start of his mission he had no
doubt been strengthened in his determination by the knowledge that a
few years earlier, as has already been noted, two Moslem reformers
in the western Sudan — Ibrahima Sori in Futa
Jallon and Suliman Bal in Futa
Toro — had succeeded in defying and overthrowing pagan
governments 23.
The fact that both of them were Fulani, and that one of the two
theocratic States which they had established was in the country from
which his own ancestors had come to Hausaland, must also have
influenced him. At any rate, later, when Sarkin Gobir Bunu's
repressive measures suddenly brought the danger of a collision much
closer, he did not flinch or hesitate. On the contrary, his answer
was to permit and indeed encourage his followers to furnish
themselves with arms and prepare for war 24.
He seems to have had no qualms about the justice of this decision,
which was to prove a momentous one, and once again he was no doubt
fortified by the knowledge that in similar circumstances Askia
Muhammad had declared a jihad and had been commended by El-Maghili
for having done so.
Sarkin Gobir Bunu was destined to rule for only two years and when
he died in 1803 he was succeeded by his son Yunfa, Shehu's former
pupil 25.
When Yunfa became Chief, his attitude to Shehu was ambivalent and
seems to have been determined partly by the reverence of a pupil for
his master and partly by the distrust of a ruler for an overpowerful
subject. At first he was conciliatory, but later he summoned Shehu
to his palace and made an attempt on his life. The move miscarried 26
however, and Shehu's escape was naturally ascribed by his followers
to divine providence. War was now almost inevitable and an incident
occurred soon afterwards to precipitate it.
One result of the earlier religious persecution was that a group of
pious Moslems, led by a follower of Shehu's called Abdu Salami,
decided to emigrate. They therefore abandoned their homes, drove off
their herds, and went and settled in Gimbana, a small town in the
State of Kebbi. Angry at their defection, Yunfa sent a message
ordering them to return. They refused. This so incensed him that,
with the concurrence of the Chief of Kebbi 27,
he dispatched an expedition against them. This force took Gimbana by
storm and captured those of Abdu Salami's men who had not fled or
been killed in the fighting 28.
Yunfa's next move was to send a message to Shehu saying that he
intended to do to Degel what he had already done to Gimbana, and
advising him to depart with his family before it was too late. Shehu
returned a message saying:
— I will not leave my community, but I will leave your country,
for God's earth is wide 29.
At this Yunfa recanted and sent a second message, urging Shehu to
stay, but he had shown his hand and the reformers no longer trusted
him.
Like the Prophet Muhammad, Shehu now took refuge in flight. On 21
February 1804, accompanied by his brother Abdullahi, his son
Muhammadu Bello, and all his followers, he left Degel and withdrew
to the west. With them the fugitives took only their families, their
cattle, their arms, their books, a little food, and a few personal
possessions.
As Degel was in the west of Gobir, and Gobir in the west of
Hausaland, Shehu's retreat took him to the extremity of the outer
marches. The country there was an almost empty wilderness of sand,
scrub, and stunted trees. There were a few oases of fertility,
however, and at one of them, a place called Gudu, the reformers now
established themselves. It made as good a fastness as could be found
in those open plains.
At first Yunfa made no move against them. After a month or two,
however, when he heard of the number of men who were flocking to
Gudu to join Shehu, he put out a proclamation forbidding it. As a
further deterrent he also gave orders that the goods of defectors
were to be sequestered 30
and, as a final measure, posted patrols to intercept those who still
tried to get through. Then in May, following another impulse of his
apparently vacillating character, he suddenly changed his tactics
and offered Shehu a reconciliation if he would only return to Degel 31.
But by now Shehu was in no mood for compromise. He told the envoy
that he would not return unless Yunfa repented of his sins, purified
the forms of his worship, restored all the property which he had
confiscated, and turned to righteousness and the true faith 32.
When he received Shehu's answer, Yunfa summoned all his councillors
and learned men and asked them whether he or Shehu was in the right.
They told him that justice was on his side. He therefore sent back a
message saying:
— Tell Shehu that I am preparing for war, and let him make ready
against our meeting 33.
When this declaration reached them the Fulani realized, beyond
doubt, that the die was finally cast. Bello, Shehu's sons and
successor, has described how they received the news.
At
this we gathered together and took stock of our affairs. We decided
that it was not right for men to be leaderless, without a Chief, so
then and there we paid homage to Shehu. We promised to obey his
commands and to follow him alike in prosperity and adversity. He
accepted our allegiance and himself vowed to follow the Book and the
Law. These events took place on the evening of the Wednesday. The
first to do homage were his brother, the Waziri Abdullahi, then I
Bello, then Umaru Mai-Alkammu, and then the whole concourse of
Moslems 34.
It
was on this day that Shehu was addressed for the first time as
Commander of the Faithful. Since then this title, in its Hausa form
of Sarkin Musulmi, has always been borne by the Sultans of Sokoto.
On the following day Shehu raised his standard and the jihad
had begun.
There is no evidence, direct or indirect, to indicate the number of
men who rallied round Shehu at Gudu. By that time his adherents in
Hausaland could certainly be numbered by thousands and his
sympathizers probably by tens of thousands. But to accept religious
direction or support demands for judicial and social reform was one
thing ; to join a rebellion was emphatically another. We can be sure
that it was only the hard core of reformers who at the outset took
this extreme step. It is unlikely that, apart from the women and
children, they numbered more than a few thousand. Yunfa's
counter-measures would have sufficed to hold back the half-hearted
and in any case Gudu could scarcely have supported greater numbers.
The venture on which the reformers now embarked was an extremely
hazardous one and on any rational calculation it had only the
slimmest chance of succeeding. Gobir was still the most powerful of
the Hausa States and could put into the field an army of thousands
of horse and tens of thousands of foot. To pit against this Shehu's
followers had little or nothing —no base, no money, no armour, no
reserves, not much food, and not many weapons, in the decisive arm,
cavalry, they could muster only twenty horses and were weakest where
the Gobirawa were strongest. In fact their only assets were moral
ones — belief in their cause, readiness to stake their lives upon
the outcome, and above all the faith that they were the instruments
of the divine will.
In all that country there was no natural fortress in which the
reformers could defend themselves against the army which Sarkin
Gobir was about to send against them. They knew, therefore, that
before long they would have to fight a pitched battle. Moreover,
instead of waiting passively to be attacked, they now seized the
initiative while Sarkin Gobir was still mobilizing his feudal army.
Their first important move was against Matankari, a town whose
horsemen had already been harrying them and whose continued activity
in the west would threaten their rear as they faced Yunfa in the
cast. They therefore sallied forth from Gudu, fought the first
engagements of the war at Giniga and Matankari, and won two
heartening victories 35.
Their next move was against Birnin Konni, from whence they had also
been harried, and there they first showed their metal. Their forces,
under Muhammadu Gayar, left Gudu on a Wednesday evening, marched
thirty miles during the night, invested Konni at dawn on the
Thursday, spent the whole day breaching the great mud walls of the
town, took the place by storm in the late afternoon, and then,
because of an alarm (which later proved to be false) that Sarkin
Gobir had slipped behind them and was attacking Shehu, made another
forced march through the night to reach Gudu by dawn on the Friday.
This meant that in the space of thirty-six hours, in a climate as
hot as any in the world, they had covered sixty miles on foot and
fought and won a protracted battle. For a force of untried
irregulars, who were subject to no discipline, this was an
astounding feat of arms 36.
— On this day, said Bello, we exerted ourselves to the limit of
endurance.
It was now early June and the first rains had fallen. Though the
report that the Gobirawa were attacking Gudu proved to be an
exaggeration, their forces were in fact on the move. In the interval
since the breach with the Fulani had become complete, Yunfa had not
only been mustering his own feudal levies but had tried to persuade
his neighbours to send contingents to strengthen his army. After the
cavalier treatment that they had received in the past, however, his
brother Chiefs in the other Hausa States were in no hurry to go to
his assistance. They sent promises of help, but no troops. Even the
conquered towns of Zamfara, except for Gummi, managed to evade their
obligations. At any rate, apart from the Tuaregs who were always
spoiling for a fight, no reinforcements arrived 37.
With the rains approaching, Yunfa seems to have grown impatient at
the delay and to have decided that he could safely take the field
without allies. After all, his courtiers must have told him, the
reformers were only a band of poorly armed rebels whom they would
have no difficulty in annihilating. The idea that they might be
defeated was probably never seriously entertained.
When the Gobir army set out, its march was a leisurely affair, for
the fighting men were encumbered with women, camp followers, and a
provision train 38.
Yunfa's strategy, which showed how confident he was and which at the
time seemed perfectly sound, was to make his way round to the rear
of the Fulani in order to force them to do battle and prevent their
escaping to the west 39.
He therefore made a wide circuit to the south, which brought him to
the shores of a little lake called Tabkin Kwatto about twenty miles
west of Gudu.
The Fulani had no difficulty in shadowing the Gobir army as it made
its encircling movement. If they had wanted to avoid fighting they
had plenty of time to extricate themselves before the enemy could
penetrate to their rear. As it was, they waited at Gudu till the
Gobirawa had reached the lake and then made another night march to
challenge them. This was a shrewd tactical strike, because it was
the last move that the Gobirawa expected and it gave them the
advantage of surprise.
On the morning of 21 June 1804 the army of Gobir was encamped near
the lake. It is evident from the poem which Abdullahi afterwards
wrote about the battle that they were taken unawares.
And
we came upon them on Thursday
At Qurdam before midday, in the high places;
And they had spitted meats around the fire,
And gathered ready in tents
Fine vestments in a chest,
And all kinds of carpets, with cushions 40.
After
their long march the Fulani did not attack at once but made their
way to the lakeside to refresh themselves, perform their ceremonial
ablutions, and water their horses. This gave the Gobirawa a short
respite in which to prepare themselves for the coming battle.
To the north of Tabkin Kwatto are two little hills, set close
together, and as the ground rises from the lake to their bases the
bush thins out into fairly open ground. It was here that the
Gobirawa drew up their line of battle. As they had the advantage of
numbers, and needed space in which to deploy their heavy cavalry,
this was tactically the right move for them to make 41.
The Fulani, on the other hand, as they possessed practically no
cavalry and had to rely almost entirely on their bowmen, would have
been well advised to fight a defensive, battle from prepared
positions. They were in a mood of sober exaltation, however, like
the Ironsides before Naseby, and determined to put the issue to the
test. When they had refreshed themselves, therefore, they left the
cover of the trees round the lake and marched out to the open,
rising ground where the great host of Gobir was being marshalled
into a line of battle.
Thanks to Abdullahi and Bello we have a good idea of the course
which the fighting took. It began about midday with the Gobirawa
discharging their muskets which, however, proved ineffective 42.
After that, like Agincourt which it strikingly resembles, the battle
developed into a contest between the shock of heavy cavalry and the
attrition of lightly armed but highly skilled archers. Here is
Bello's characteristically terse description of it.
The
enemy made ready and took up their positions. They had donned mail
and quilted armour, and with their shields they formed their line
against us. We too formed our line against them and every man looked
squarely into the eyes of his foe. Then we shouted our battle-cry
three times, Allah Akbar, and charged against them. At this their
drums beat loudly and they too charged against us. When the two
lines met their right wing overbore our left wing and pressed it
back upon our centre. Their left wing also overbore our right wing
and pressed it back upon our centre. But our centre stood fast and
when our right wing and our left wing came up against it they too
stood fast and yielded no more. Then the two armies were locked
together and the battle raged 43.
It is evident that at this stage of the battle the little Fulani
force, having been compressed into a square and completely enveloped
by the much larger Gobir army, was in imminent danger of complete
annihilation. Indeed, as they had no pikes to keep the enemy cavalry
at bay, it is a marvel that their square was not broken and the
fragments swept from the field. For Yunfa, victory must have seemed
assured. But the square did not break and, just as at Agincourt the
English archers humbled the chivalry of France, so at Tabkin Kwatto
the Fulani bowmen gradually mastered the Gobir cavalry.
Characteristically, and certainly without cant or affectation, Bello
ascribed the glory to God.
The
Lord broke the army of the godless, so that they fell back, and in
their flight they were scattered.... We followed at their heels and
slew them with great slaughter.... God alone knows the number of
those who perished.... All day we pursued them and only at dusk did
we return to say the evening prayer and to give thanks to God, the
Lord of Creation 44.
He
went on to describe it as the greatest battle of the jihad
and compared it to the victory which the Prophet had won over the
Meccans at Badr. To Shehu it was proof that he was the chosen
instrument of God.
Notes
1. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 85).
2. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, p. 46).
3. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, pp. 86 and 96).
4 Bello, Inf M (Arnett, pp. 24-7).
5. Ibid. pp. 27-29.
6. Ibid. pp. 29-43.
7. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 86).
8. Sarki(n) is the Hausa word for a Chief or Emir.
9. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 86).
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid. p. 88.
12. Alhaji Junaidu, op. cit. p. 12.
13. Abdullahi quoted by Shehu in Tanbikhu'l Ikhwan (TI),
translated by H. R. Palmer, Journal of the African Society, vol.
XIV, pp. 189-92.
14. Gazetteer of Sokoto Province, p. 21. Alhaji Junaidu confirms
that at this period Shehu was treated with great deference by Bawa
and his Court.
15. Ibid. p. 19.
16. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 96), and Alhaji Junaidu, op. cit. p.
13.
17. AbduIlah quoted by Shehu in TI (Palmer, JAS, vol. XIV, pp.
189-92).
18. Ibid. p. 190.
19. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, p. 48).
20. Shehu, TI (cf. Palmer, JAS, vol. XIV, pp. 189-90).
21. M. R. Waldman, The Fulani Jihad: A Reassessment, Journal of
African History, vol. VI, 3, pp. 350-5.
22. Ibid.
23. Trimingham, op. cit. pp. 161-2.
24. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 105).
25. Gazetteer of Sokoto Province, p. 19.
26. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 108).
27. Bello, Sard al-Kalam (SK), translated into Hausa in LHdM,
vol. 1, pp. 19-35.
28. Ibid. pp. 19-20
29. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 108).
30. Shehu, TI (Palmer, JAS, vol. XIV, p. 190).
31. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, p. 50).
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid. (cf. Arnett, p. 51).
34. Ibid. Waziri is the Hausa form of Vizier.
35. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, p. 52).
36. Ibid. pp. 53-54.
37. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, pp. 54-55).
38. Ibid.
39. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 109).
40. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, p. 112).
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Bello, Inf M.
44. Bello, Inf M. The place where Bello and Abdullahi said their
prayers is near the lake and can be seen in photograph
No. 3 (b).
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