01/09/2026
THE HAUSA, THE FULANI AND THE LEGACY OF THE SOKOTO JIHAD
There is a conversation going on about the Hausa and Fulani that I believe deserves more than social media arguments, ethnic debates and selective history.
This is going to be a long read, so get ready.
I have spent some time reading about the Sokoto Jihad, the old Hausa kingdoms, the emergence of the emirates and the present argument about Hausa identity. The more I read, the more convinced I am that we need to be careful with the way we tell this history.
Because if we get the history wrong, we may end up using the past to create problems for people who had nothing to do with it.
The first thing to establish is that Hausa and Fulani are distinct peoples. But they have lived together for centuries, long before the Jihad of 1804. Fulani communities had gradually moved eastward from the western Sahel and settled in different parts of Hausaland. Some were pastoralists, while others became scholars, teachers, traders and settled members of the communities in which they lived. Many adopted Hausa as their language and became culturally Hausa.
So, the Fulani did not suddenly arrive in Hausaland in 1804.
At the same time, the territories we now associate with Kano, Katsina, Zaria, Gobir, Daura and other parts of Hausaland had established Hausa political systems long before the Sokoto Jihad.
Then came Usman dan Fodio.
Dan Fodio was Fulani by ancestry, but he was born in Gobir and was very much a product of the society in which he lived. His challenge to the rulers was primarily a religious and political one. He and his followers believed that rulers who claimed to be Muslims had an obligation to govern according to the principles of Islam, and that injustice and practices they considered contrary to Islam could not be defended simply because they were committed by established rulers.
This is important because it tells us something about what appears to have motivated the original movement.
It was not initia
