A Reconsideration of Hausa History before the Jihad

Abstract

It is argued in this paper that what happened in the region of Katsina in c. 1492–3 was not a dynastic change, but the establishment of the institution of ‘kingship’. This ‘kingship’ did not grow out of local pre-existing institutions. Rather, it was imposed on the kinship-society by the leaders of the new (Wangara) community of Muslim clerics and traders. These leaders aimed probably at creating a Muslim state in Katsina. However, owing to the resistance of the indigenous population, they failed to achieve this. Therefore, a rapprochement with the indigenous paramount animistic ‘priest-chief’—the durbi—was attempted. This led to the establishment of an institutional structure defined as ‘dual’ or ‘contrapuntal paramountcy’. Within this institutional structure the durbi became responsible for choosing the sarki or ‘king’. As a consequence, the institution of ‘kingship’ took on some of the characteristics of a ‘sacred’ animistic ‘kingship’. It is further suggested that the evolutionary process outlined for the region of Katsina was paralleled by similar processes in Yauri, Kano and Gobir, and possibly also Zaria. However, in Kano the institution of ‘kingship’ did not originate from within the new community of traders and clerics: rather, the Kano ‘kings’, whose power was traditionally circumscribed by that of the local ‘priest-chiefs’, tried to bring about revolutionary changes with the support of the Wangarawa. But they too apparently failed. It is suggested, finally, that the rapprochement achieved with the animistic ‘priest-chiefs’ alienated the community of clerics and traders; i.e. the community which constituted in a sense the very power-basis of the Hausa ‘kings’. This in turn may explain in part the jihad of 1804.

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