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Islamic Africa brill.com/iafr
Abdullahi dan Fodio and Muhammad Bello’s Debate over the Torobbe-Fulani: Case Study for a New Methodology for Arabic Primary Source Material from West Africa Paul Naylor
University of Birmingham uk & British Library
[email protected]
Abstract This paper explores the conflict between Abdullahi dan Fodio and his nephew, Muhammad Bello, over the origin of their ethnic group, the Torobbe-Fulani. Initially open to his uncle’s theories of an Arabocentric migration narrative, Bello went on to change his views abruptly and undermine his uncle’s work. Through sketching the background to the conflict followed by a close reading of the documents themselves– Abdullahi’s īdāʿ al-nusūkh and Bello’s critical commentary to it, the ḥāshiya–I suggest these documents offer different models for political legitimacy. Prefaced by a critical analysis of the use of the Fodiawa’s Arabic writings in Sokoto historiography, I suggest that future approaches must take into account the political nature of these documents, the specific contexts in which they were produced and the personal relationships of their authors.
* The writing of this article would not have been possible without a uk Economic and Social Research Council International PhD Partnering Initiative Grant supporting a research trip to Niamey, Niger, where I consulted many of the manuscripts discussed here. I am also grateful to the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois, who hosted me as a visiting pre-doctoral fellow during which I presented an earlier version of this paper at the symposium Sacred Word: Changing Meanings in Textual Cultures of Islamic Africa, A Symposium Dedicated to the Memory of Professor John O. Hunwick. This visit was funded by a Research Training Support Grant from the uk Arts and Humanities Research Council.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/21540993-00901003
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Keywords Sokoto Caliphate – Fulani – Torobbe – Abdullahi dan Fodio – Muhammad Bello – Fodiawa – Nigeria – ethnicity – historiography – intellectual history
Introduction Sometime after 1854, Al-Hājj Saʿīd completed a history of the reformist state of Sokoto, founded fifty years previously by Usman dan Fodio. The book was destined for his patron, the ruler of Masina and was based on some twenty years that the writer had spent observing the court of Sokoto’s second ruler, Muhammad Bello, and his successors. Like other reformist leaders of nineteenth-century West Africa, Muhammad Bello was a prolific writer. As Al-Hājj Saʿīd explains: Questions and disagreements were the reason for the large amount of his compositions. If he was asked something concerning an issue, he would compose a treaty upon it; if it reached him that so-and-so and so-and-so were in disagreement about some issue, then he would compose a treatise upon it.1 For the researcher, such observations should suggest an approach to this body of writing that seeks to unearth and flesh out what these questions and disagreements were about, and to understand why they mattered. In fact, the approachto Sokoto history thus far has been one that seeks to erase such differences. Instead, historians have synthesised the writings of Sokoto’s three most important scholars, Usman dan Fodio, his younger brother Abdullahi and his son, Muhammad Bello–collectively known as the Fodiawa–2 into a comprehensible whole with the aim of creating a chronological, events-based early history of Sokoto. What is more, the impetus for this process was grounded not on a close analytical reading of the texts themselves, but to a large extent on the political needs of the present. This paper suggests that our historical interpretations of the state entity known today as the Sokoto Caliphate need to be re-examined. Key to 1 al-Ḥāj Saʿīd, taqāyīd mimmā waṣala ilaynā min-aḥwāl umarāʾ al-muslimīn salāṭīn Ḥawsa, Paris bn Arabe 5422, f. 4. My translation. 2 In Hausa, the suffix -wa is usually the plural form of ethnonyms and social groups. The term is used in many works on Sokoto history, but is by no means universal.
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this re-examination is our treatment of the large amount of Arabic primary source material associated with Sokoto. The first half of this article makes a methodological contribution to the study of Arabic sources for West African history through engaging critically with both the body of writings attributed to the Fodiawa and their use in secondary studies. My approach to the oeuvre of the Fodiawa is that it comprises the work of three quite different authors who were often in dispute with one another. While Usman, Abdullahi and Muhammad Bello were united around the general aims of their project, such as the imposition of Islamic rule following the precepts of the Sharia and extending their territory through holy war, they clashed frequently over many of the details. Furthermore, after the death of Usman in 1817, Abdullahi and Muhammad Bello both sought to take over the leadership of the Sokoto project, causing what some scholars have referred to as a succession crisis. In my analysis of these texts, I treat each member of the Fodiawa as an individual with personal and political ambitions and understand their writings as expressions of these ambitions. I change the nature of our engagement with these texts from one that is primarily historiographic and focussed on finding common ground, to one that is intellectual, analytical and seeks instead disagreement, divergence and unrealised visions. If we were to trace the various disagreements of the Fodiawa through Sokoto’s formative period, we would have a much better idea of what arguments counted and why, giving us unique insight into the state creation processes underway throughout nineteenth-century West Africa. As a case study for this approach, the main body of this paper concerns one such “disagreement”: the origin theory of the Fodiawa’s ethnic group, the Torobbe-Fulani, expressed by Abdullahi in the īdāʿ al-nusūkh3 and critically dismissed by Muhammad Bello in his response, ḥāshiya ʿalā muqaddimat īdāʿ al-nusūkh.4 In this section, I first summarise the genealogical writings of each author and suggest reasons why writing such works was important. I then chart the worsening relations between the two men in the period 1812–1821 and suggest reasons why genealogical writings became a useful political strategy for each author, before moving on to a close analysis of the two works in question. In my approach, I am taking the lead from other scholars in the field who are engaging critically with Arabic sources for West African history and interrogating the context of their production. Using Paulo Farias’s innovative approach to primary source material as a starting point,5 I am thinking of Paul Lovejoy, 3 “The Repository of Texts”. 4 “Commentary to the Preface of the Repository of Texts”. 5 Paulo de Moraes Farias, Arabic medieval inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, chronicles and Songhay-Tuareg history, Oxford, oup, 2004.
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who has re-examined the Kano Chronicle,6 Benedetta Rossi, who has looked again into the Chronicles of Agadez,7 and Mauro Nobili’s re-interpretation of the so-called Tārikh al-fattāsh and the ʿUqba myths of the Kunta and Kel Es-Suq.8 A focus on the origin story adds to thematic studies of the Arabic writings of the Fodiawa such as Erlmann’s article on music,9 Lofkranz’s work on ransoming,10 Hakim & Ahmed’s study of urban planning,11 and Zehnle’s investigation of geography.12 Such studies examine the Fodiawa’s writings at a level of detail that cannot be attained in general histories of Sokoto. Meanwhile, any study touching on race in West Africa owes a debt to the work of Bruce Hall.13
Writing about Sokoto: The Creation of a Caliphate?
The years between the start of the jihad in 1804 and the death of the second ruler of Sokoto, Muhammad Bello, in 1837, are arguably the most documented in pre-colonial West African history. During this period, the Fodiawa authored approximately two hundred Arabic documents between them, greatly increased by the writings of their contemporaries from the ruling Sokoto elite.14 6
Paul Lovejoy, “The Kano Chronicle Revisited”, Conference paper presented at Landscapes, Sources, and Intellectual Projects in African History, Symposium in Honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias, University of Birmingham, 12–14 November, 2015. 7 Benedetta Rossi, “The Agadez Chronicles and Y Tarichi: A Reinterpretation”, History in Africa, 43 (2016), pp. 95–140. 8 Mauro Nobili and Mohamed Shahid Mathee, “Towards a New Study of the So-Called Tārīkh al-fattāsh”, History in Africa, 42 (2015), pp. 37–73; Mauro Nobili, “Back to Saharan Myths: Preliminary Notes on ʿUqba al-Mustajab”, Annual Review of Islam in Africa, 11 (2012), pp. 79–84. 9 Veit Erlmann, “Music and the Islamic reform in the early Sokoto empire. Sources, ideology, effects”, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 48/1 (1986), pp. 1–56. 10 Jennifer Lofkrantz, “Intellectual discourse in the Sokoto Caliphate: the triumvirate’s opinions on the issue of ransoming, ca. 1810”, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 45/3 (2012), pp. 385–401; “Protecting Freeborn Muslims: The Sokoto Caliphate’s Attempts to Prevent Illegal Enslavement and its Acceptance of the Strategy of Ransoming”, Slavery & Abolition, 32/1 (2011), pp. 109–127. 11 Besim S. Hakim & Zubair Ahmed, “Rules for the built environment in 19th century Northern Nigeria”, Journal of architectural and planning research, 23/1 (2006), pp. 1–26. 12 Stephanie Zehnle, A Geography of Jihad: Jihadist Concepts of Space and Sokoto Warfare (West Africa, ca. 1800–1850), unpublished PhD thesis, Universität Kassel, 2015. 13 Bruce Hall, A history of race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960, Cambridge, cup, 2011. 14 See Arabic Literature of Africa: The writings of central Sudanic Africa Vol. 2, ed. J.O. Hunwick, R.S. O’Fahey, 1995. Hunwick gives the number of firmly established Arabic works as
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This figure does not include the numerous compositions of the Fodiawa in the West African languages of Hausa and Fulfulde, which still have not been catalogued comprehensively. That said, hardly any of the manuscript copies of these documents which exist in our times are cotemporaneous with the lifespans of the Fodiawa. They have been copied and recopied many times. We know very little about how much these documents have evolved since they were first created to the form we have now. Aside from scribal errors, there may well have been deliberate falsifications of parts of documents or entire works. Hunwick and O’Fahey identify many documents attributed to the Fodiawa as being of dubious authenticity.15 However, several documents they accept as genuine are disputed, including lamma balaghtu, attibuted to Usman from which Mervyn Hiskett16 lifted the title for his book The Sword of Truth, initially the most widely-read history of the jihad.17 Meanwhile, several compositions are branded as “forgeries” with only anecdotal evidence. The oeuvre of the Fodiawa covers an extremely broad variety of topics.18 However, historians naturally interested themselves only with those titles in which the Fodiawa chronicled the history of their jihad and provided political justification for their actions.19 Their account of these events is the history of the victor; a history written by and for the socio-ethnic elite of Sokoto. Many of the Fodiawa’s opponents were literate, produced written records of their own and considered themselves Muslims. However, while some oral histories of the jihad years were collected in the 20th century,20 the main source
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100 prose works and 3 poems for Uthman, 87 prose works and 26 poems for Abdullahi, 108 prose works and 67 poems for Bello. This account is generally accepted as comprehensive. Hunwick & O’Fahey ed., Arabic Literature of Africa Vol. 2. Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth, Oxford, oup, 1973. See Murray Last, “The Book in the Sokoto Caliphate”, in The Meaning of Timbuktu, ed. S. Jeppie, S.B. Diagne, 2008, pp. 135–163. See Bruce Hall and Charles C. Stewart, “The Historic ‘Core Curriculum’ and the Book Market in Islamic West Africa”, in The Trans-Saharan Book Trade, ed. G. Krätli, G. Lydon, 2011, pp. 109–74. Notably, Muhammad Bello, infāq al-maysūr fī tārīkh bilād Takrūr, 1812; Abdullahi dan Fodio, tazyīn al-waraqāt bi-jamʿ baʿḍ mā-lī min al-abyāt, 1813; ʿAbd al-Qādir dan Ṭafa, rawḍāt al-afkār, c.1824. See also al-Ḥāj Saʿīd, taqāyīd mimmā waṣala ilaynā min aḥwāl umarāʾ almuslimīn salāṭīn Ḥawsa, c.1854. Al-Ḥāj Saʿīd was a scholar from the Masina region who had been living in Sokoto since the 1830s. See Stanisław Piłaszewicz, Hausa Prose Writings in Ajami by Alhaji Umaru from A. Mischlich/H. Sölken’s Collection, Reimer, 2000; Eduard Robert Flegel, The Biography of Madugu Mohamman Mai Gashin Baki, African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, 1985. See also the “History of Gobir” recorded on the Mission Tilho and the “History of
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of written records from “the other side” are found in the writings of the Fodiawa themselves.21 Whether the lack of alternative sources for the history of the jihad is due to deliberate destruction on the part of the victors or simply a neglect to preserve and create copies of them, is impossible to say. But this is a subject that has received remarkably little attention to my knowledge. Secondary studies on Sokoto in the twentieth century fall into three distinct periods.22 The first was during the early days of British colonial rule of Northern Nigeria, which lasted from the fall of Sokoto in 1903 until Nigerian independence in 1960. Soon after taking control of the administration of Sokoto and Gwandu, the British commissioned the Wazir of Sokoto, Muḥammad al-Bukhārī, and the Wazir of Gwandu, Aḥmad b. Saʿd, to write histories of their respective territories.23 It was upon these documents, along with early translations of Bello’s infāq al-maysūr and other jihadist writings,24 residents’ reports, district notebooks25 and conversations with members of the
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Gobir” recorded at celhto, Niamey, in Jean Boyd Papers, soas Special Collections pp ms 36 “G”. Finally see Zehnle, A Geography of Jihad, who draws on the ethnographic research of Koelle (1854); De Castelnau (1851) and other accounts of people enslaved in the years of the Sokoto jihad. There are also accounts of the jihad years collected by a number of European explorers who passed through Sokoto territory–Clapperton (1826); Lander (1830); Richardson (1853); Barth (1857); Staudinger (1889) among the most significant. For correspondence of Hausa rebel leader ʿAbd al-Salām, see Muhammad Bello, sard alkalām fī-mā jarā baynī wa bayn ʿAbd al-Salām (Hermann Harris’s 1909 translation is available via British Library, eap535/1/2/1/8); For correspondence of al-Kānamī of Bornu, see Muhammad Bello, infāq al-maysūr ed. B. Chadli, Rabat, Institute of African Studies, 1996, pp. 229–287, “A summary of what happened in the land of Bornu with the community of Muslims there”. For this analysis of Sokoto historiography I am indebted to Professor Charles C. Stewart, who allowed me to consult a draft of his unpublished study provisionally entitled A Condensed Summary of Historians and History Writing in Nigeria: Sokoto’s Past Through 180 Years, which he completed in 1979. Muḥammad al-Bukhārī (Wazir of Sokoto 1886–1910). For a list of his works see Hunwick & O’Fahey ed. Arabic Literature of Africa Vol. 2, pp. 191–193; Aḥmad b. Saʿd b. Muḥammad alAmīn (Qadi Gwandu until c. 1906), lubāb mā fī tazyīn al-waraqāt, Niamey, uncatalogued copy of ms from Sokoto (shb). Houdas (1904); Burdon (1908); Delafosse (1912); Palmer (1914; 1916; 1918). See also unpublished translations by residents Gower, McAllister and Hermann Harris held at NA, Kaduna and available at the British Library through the eap 535 project. Summaries of which were made by successive residents: E.J. Arnett, Gazetteer of Sokoto Province, London, Waterlow & Sons, 1920; P.G. Harris, Gazetteer of Sokoto Province, London, Routledge, 1939; Olive and Charles L. Temple, Notes on the Tribes, Provinces, States and Emirates of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria, Lagos, cms bookshop, 1922; unpublished notebooks of Resident H.A.S. Johnston, c. 1953.
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Sokoto elite that the major studies on the Fodiawa were written.26 The second period came in the decade after Nigerian independence. The publications of this second generation are considered the seminal texts on the history of Sokoto.27 Whereas the approach of this new generation of historians–the majority tied to the “Ibadan School” of Abdullahi Smith28–was very different, it was the then Wazir of Sokoto al-Hajj Junaidu who was the final authority on questions of Sokoto history.29 So we see that in both periods, historians uncritically adopted the nineteenth-century writings of the Sokoto elite as their primary sources, while being closely supervised in their reading of these sources by the Sokoto elite of the twentieth century.30 To add another layer of complexity, this scholarly activity was also taking place in the context of a nascent conflict between Nigeria’s newly founded political parties, increasingly divided along geo-ethnic lines. With Sir Ahmadu Bello becoming the first Premier of Northern Nigeria in 1954 as member of the Northern People’s Congress (npc) while at the same time being Sardauna of Sokoto, one can say that the way in which Sokoto’s history was approached had tangible political relevance to that generation of politicians.31 In sum, we can say that neither approach–the colonial nor the early nationalist–was geared toward a critical engagement with the writings of the Fodiawa, but rather used them to create and bolster a strong events-based history of Sokoto for reasons of present-day political capital. As for the third period, in the tumultuous years after 1966,32 present political concerns again outweighed a desire to engage critically with the writings 26
E.J. Arnett, The rise of the Sokoto Fulani : being a paraphrase and in some parts a translation of the Infaku’l Maisuri of Sultan Mohammed Bello, Kano, Emirate Printing Dept., 1922; Sidney J. Hogben, The Muhammadan Emirates of Nigeria, Oxford, oup, 1930. 27 H.F.C. (Abdullahi) Smith, “A neglected theme of West African history: the Islamic revolutions of the 19th century”, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 2(2) (1961), pp. 169– 185; Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate, London, Longmans, 1967; Rowland A. Adeleye, Power and diplomacy in northern Nigeria 1804–1906: The Sokoto Caliphate and its enemies, Longmans, 1971; Hiskett, Sword of Truth. 28 Paul E. Lovejoy, “The Ibadan School of Historiography and its Critics”, in African Historiography, ed. T. Falola, 1993, pp. 195–202. See Zehnle, A Geography of Jihad, pp. 15–19, who discusses Abdullahi Smith and the Ibadan School in detail. 29 Last, Sokoto Caliphate, lii; Johnston, The Fulani Empire of Sokoto, London, oup, 1967, xi. 30 Last, Sokoto Caliphate, xxv–xlvi. 31 Both the Sokoto elite and the British gave their support to the npu rather than the more egalitarian Northern Elements Progressive Union (nepu) in order to preserve the role of the northern elites. 32 A coup d’état saw the assassination of both Ahmadu Bello and Prime Minister Balewa and the temporary fall from power of the Northern elite before a northern counter-coup,
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of the Fodiawa. During this period, study of the writings of the Fodiawa from within Nigeria was linked to larger debates about the validity of Islam as a uniting force for Nigeria, in the backdrop of the growing Izala movement that was demanding strict adherence to Salafi-style reforms in opposition to what it called the heretical innovations of the long-established Sufi orders.33 Given the formal introduction of Sharia law to Northern Nigeria in 1999 and the rise of Boko Haram from 2002, it is inevitable that studies on the writings of the Fodiawa will continue to be linked to present-day political concerns and the resulting discourses on radicalisation, Islamic fundamentalism and global security.34 Indeed, researchers from these fields have of late become interested in Sokoto precisely because of the references to the “Sokoto Caliphate” that appear frequently in the propaganda of Boko Haram.35 To conclude, the writings of the Fodiawa have been used primarily as tools to craft a historiography of Sokoto. Preference was given to analysis and translation of a small number of texts that would aid this endeavour. While the events-based history of Sokoto extrapolated from these texts is of great importance to our understanding of this period, there is a certain limitation to an approach that favours an uncritical reading of texts whose production–and later interpretation–had an overtly political flavour. As we have seen, there are gaps in our knowledge concerning the contextual relation of these documents to the time period in which they were produced, as well as their destined audience. Furthermore, the relevance that the writings of the Fodiawa may or may
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followed by the Nigerian Civil War of 1967. For a detailed analysis on Sokoto scholarship during this period, see Zehnle, A Geography of Jihad, pp. 22–23. See for example Shehu Umar Abdullahi, On the search for a viable political culture: reflections on the political thought of Shaikh ʻAbdullāhi Dan-Fodio, Kaduna, New Nigerian Newspapers Ltd., 1984; Ibraheem Sulaiman, A Revolution in History: The Jihad of Usman dan Fodio, Mansell, London, 1986. See also Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth, Chicago, Northwestern University Press, 1994 edition. In his second preface, Hiskett makes a volteface from the 1973 edition, apologising to the reader for the overly heroic portrait he gave of Usman and lamenting the rise of the Islamist historical camp in Nigeria. See for example Theo Brinkel and Soumia Ait-Hida, “Boko Haram and jihad in Nigeria”, Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, 40, no. 2 (2012), pp. 1–21; Emmanuel O. Ojo, “Boko Haram: Nigeria’s extra-judicial state”, Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa, 12, no. 2 (2010), pp. 45–62; Lise Waldek and Shankara Jayasekara, “Boko Haram: the evolution of Islamist extremism in Nigeria”, Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 6, no. 2 (2011), pp. 168–178. See Abdulbasit Kassim, “Defining and Understanding the Religious Philosophy of jihādīSalafism and the Ideology of Boko Haram”, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 16, no. 2–3 (2015), pp. 173–200.
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not have to contemporary political issues must be firmly discounted, e specially as we bring our study of these writings into the 21st century.
Changing Relationships, Changing Origin Theories: Abdullahi dan Fodio and Muhammad Bello after 1812
Of the three Fodiawa, it was Abdullahi who was most interested in genealogy. The īdāʿ al-nusūkh was his first recorded work on the subject, composed in 1812.36 In this document, he lists the origin of his family and the teachers under whom he studied. This was followed by the tazyīn al-waraqāt, composed in 1813,37 a detailed history of the jihad in which Abdullahi mentioned the origin of the Torobbe-Fulani several times. He extended and elaborated this theory in his kitāb al-nasab,38 which deals exclusively with the genealogy of the Torobbe-Fulani. Although undated, it mentions the death of Uthman so cannot have been written before 1817. There is also a non-dated document on this subject entitled aṣl al-fulātiyyīn.39 Meanwhile, the author of the kanz a l-awlād,40 purportedly composed in 1818, reproduces a letter he received from Abdullahi requesting him to write a history of the Torobbe-Fulani.41
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See Hunwick & O’Fahey ed., Arabic Literature of Africa Vol. 2. Mervyn Hiskett, Tazyin al-Waraqat, Ibadan University Press, 1963, pp. 110–111. Book of Noble Lineage, alternatively entitled bayān al-nasab wa aṣl al-dār “Treaty on Noble Lineage and Family Origin”. Abdullahi mentions that the kitāb al-nasab is the summary of a larger work, bayān al-shuʿūb wa-l-qabāʾil “Treaty on Peoples and Tribes”, but unfortunately seems to have been lost. “Origin of the Fulani”. ms copy in Niamey, mara, 11. A.A. Gwandu, “Abdullahi b. Fodio as a Muslim jurist”, unpublished PhD thesis, Durham University (1977), pp. 205–6, questions its authenticity. “Treasure of the Children”. I accessed two copies: Niamey, mara, 1605 and Cambridge, Centre of African Studies, uncatalogued ms. The history of scholarship on this document is long and confusing. S.U. Balogun (1987) analysed this text without raising any question as to its authenticity. Murray Last (2008; 2011) dismisses this document as a fake. Citing personal correspondence with M.A. al-Hajj and Wazir Junaidu, he affirms that the kanz al-awlād is a forgery produced by followers of the Tijani Sufi order in the town of Gusau in the 1970’s. There is indeed a text of this same title circulating in Tijani madrasas in Northern Nigeria (See Bala, 2011). This text is supposedly authored by Usman dan Fodio who belonged to the rival Qadiri Sufi order, but the text predicts the arrival of the famous 20th century Tijani leader, Ibrahim Niasse. However, it bears no relation to the two texts that I consulted (Niamey 1606; uncatalogued ms at Cambridge, Centre of African Studies). These texts -largely identical–are both over
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In these genealogical studies, we see how Abdullahi–traditionally seen as the “Arabist” of the Fodiawa42–was drawing on the concept of “nasab”. In the tazyīn al-waraqāt, Abdullahi introduces himself as “Torobbe by heritage (nasab)”43 and aside from using the term in the title of the kitāb al-nasab, in it Abdullahi states that his purpose in writing this text is to “ardently explain my genealogies (Ar. ansāb) and retain memory of my ancestors”.44 In the kanz al-awlād, Abdullahi urges its author, Sambo Kulwa, to provide a written record of the Torobbe’s heritage because–he says–this is what is done by the Arabs, who deride anyone whose heritage exists in a purely oral form.45 In the aṣl alfulātiyyīn, Abdullahi draws on the kitāb al-tanwīr of one Dhu al-Nasabayn, “he of two nasabs”. This was a nickname of a twelfth-century Andalusian scholar so-called because he traced his heritage to both Diḥya al-Kalbī (a companion of the Prophet) on his father’s side, and ʿAlī ibn ʿAlī Ṭālib–and through him to the Prophet himself–on his mother’s side.46 In the kitāb al-nasab, Abdullahi uses the logic of Dhū al-Nasabayn to construct a dual origin for the Torobbe-Fulani. The writer of the kitāb al-tanwīr tells us that Ibrāhīm’s son Ismāʿīl fathers twelve sons and one daughter, who are the ancestors of the Arab tribes. Abdullahi states that the father of the Fulani is ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir -an Arab-, making the Torobbe-Fulani descendents of Ismāʿīl. The writer goes on to say that Nasma, the only daughter of Ismāʿīl, marries a son of Ibrāhīm’s other son, Isḥāq, to produce the race of al-Rūm (that is, the Byzantines). According to Abdullahi, the mother of the Torobbe-Fulani is the daughter of the King of the Byzantines, making the Torobbe-Fulani descendents of two sides of the Abrahamic family. It is this logic that allows Abdullahi to state in the kitāb al-nasab that, “our paternal uncles are Arab and our maternal uncles are sons of Israel.”47 While the main component of Abdullahi’s Arabocentric theories of origin hinge on Abrahamic genealogy, linguistics also has an important role to play. 300 folios in length and contain long sections of material on the Qadiri Sufi order followed by the Fodiawa, unlikely candidates for a Tijani forgery. 42 See Abdullahi’s preface to the tazyīn al-waraqāt (Hiskett, Tazyīn al-Waraqāt, p. 84) where he states that he hopes to provide the reader with “something of the sciences of the Arabs, proverbs, wisdom, injunctions, battles, panegyrics, congratulations, elegies, boasting and other things.” All these headings are established Arabic literary genres. 43 Ar. الرتودي ن�سب ًا 44 Abdullahi, kitāb al-nasab, Northwestern University, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Ghana/115/msx, f. 3. My translation. 45 Sambo Kulwa, kanz al-awlād, Niamey, mara, 1605. 46 See F. de la Granja, “Ibn Diḥya”, ei2. 47 Abdullahi, kitāb al-nasab, nu, Ghana/115/msx, f. 3. My translation.
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In the īdāʿ al-nusūkh, Abdullahi states that the Torobbe “are the origin of the Fulani and their language is Fulfulde.” However, in the aṣl al-fulātiyyīn, Abdullahi finds a way to link the Fufulde language to Arabic. He explains that the etymology of the word Fulani itself can be traced to the Arabic root flt, meaning to flee, since the Fulani “flee whenever they sense fitna (discord)”.48 He goes on to say: Arabic is the best language, because it was in this language that the Qur’an was sent down. But of all the languages, that which resembles it the most is–Praise be to God–our own language of Fulfulde.49 Abdullahi continues by giving a short list of vocabulary common to both Arabic and Fulfulde such as daftara (notebook), muʾaddib (teacher) and ṣawm (fasting). Rather than recognising these terms as Arabic loan words, for Abdullahi these linguistic commonalities instead point to a common origin of the two languages. Furthermore: Any [Fulani] who abandons his language and occupies himself with another and uses it in place of Fulfulde is from then on considered as if he abandoned his own parents, except in the case of Arabic.50 Abdullahi seems to be saying that by speaking and writing Arabic, he is both honoring his Arab origin and maintaining his Pulaaku, or “Fulbe-ness”. Indeed, in Hunwick’s survey of the writings of Abdullahi, he could find no Fulfulde works attributed to him at all; not the case for his brother Usman who authored numerous poems in Fulfulde. Not only were the Torobbe the founders of the Fulani, says Abdullahi; they also had an important role in Hausaland. In the īdāʿ al-nusūkh, he claims that “they [the Torobbe] are the first of their age to spread to the land of the Hausa, before the Hausa and Tuareg … and they preceded the Fulani to Hausaland by seven years.”51 While in the aṣl al-fulātiyyīn, he takes this immigration theory even further. In imitation of Ibrāhīm, Abdullahi states that when the Fodiawa’s ancestor Musa Jokollo first came to Hausaland with four hundred followers,
48 Abdullahi dan Fodio (?), aṣl al-fulātiyyīn, Niamey 11, f. 1v. 49 aṣl al-fulātiyyīn, f.1v-2r. My emphasis. 50 aṣl al-fulātiyyīn, f. 3v. My emphasis. 51 Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh, Zaria, Maktab Nūlā, 1958 ed. pp. 1. My translation and emphasis.
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he sent his three sons to live in different locations. One son, named Adam, founded the state of Adamawa.52 In sum, Abdullahi claims that the Torobbe are an ancient people descended from the union of two sides of the Abrahamic family. They in turn are the fathers of the Fulani tribes and by arriving in Hausaland before any other group and in fact naming some localities there, are its rightful owners. In the context of the jihad of 1804, led overwhelmingly by the Fulani who were considered a “foreign” and minority group by the ruling Hausa, these theories of origin have an undeniably political dimension. While no items of Bello’s oeuvre deal exclusively with genealogical subjects, he did reserve a chapter of his infāq al-maysūr, composed in 1812, to a discussion of Torobbe-Fulani origin. In this chapter, he collected various origin theories, including those of Abdullahi, without expressing preference or criticism.53 However, in the ḥāshiya ʿalā muqaddimat īdāʿ al-nusūkh,54 which he wrote in response to Abdullahi’s īdāʿ al-nusūkh of that same year, he strongly cricised the theories of Abdullahi, giving preference to others he had mentioned in the infāq. Here we have a rare instance of a direct confrontation between Abdullahi and Bello, which I believe is significant. This paper explores the reasons for Bello’s change of attitude, and the implications his arguments may have had for his future leadership of the Sokoto project. The īdāʿ al-nusūkh and the ḥāshiya both have the same estwhile purpose: Abdullahi and Bello give chronological accounts of their learning, listing their teachers and what they studied with them. The section in which Abdullahi recounts the origin of the Torobbe-Fulani is a mere thirteen lines of printed Arabic text.55 It is seemingly included only as a matter of course when tracing the lineage of the first of his teachers, his father Muhammad Fodio. As for Bello, in the preface to the ḥāshiya he states that aside from being inspired to compose it after reading Abdullahi’s īdāʿ al-nusūkh, he also felt the need, “to note some of the things he [Abdullahi] mentioned that are untrue” regarding the genealogy of the Torobbe-Fulani.56 In fact, Bello devotes several pages to this task, methodically quoting each of Abdullahi’s statements from the īdāʿ al-nusūkh concerning the Torobbe-Fulani before refuting them. After Bello has concluded his argument, he goes on to list the teachers he has studied with in 52 Abdullahi, aṣl al-fulātiyyīn, Niamey, mara, 11, f. 3r; Mahibou, Abdullahi dan Fodio et la théorie du gouvernement islamique, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010, pp. 22–25. 53 Bello, infāq al-maysūr (Rabat 1996 ed.), pp. 329–336. 54 “Commentary to the Repository of Texts”. 55 Going by the Zaria 1958 printed edition of the Īdāʿ (see above), pp. 1–2. 56 Bello, ḥāshiya, Paris, bn, Arabe 5432, f. 298r. My translation.
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the same manner as Abdullahi. We find that this list includes his uncle, who after being subjected to such harsh and sustained criticism is now richly lauded in the context of Bello’s education: And of them [the Shaykhs from whom I took knowledge] is our teacher, my aforementioned paternal uncle [Abdullahi dan Fodio]. I … benefitted much from him and in fact it was under [his tutelage] that I became distinguished, so for that we ask God to reward him.57 In the past, scholars of African history had taken treatises on origin literally and used them to develop hypotheses about ancient African migration patterns.58 However, as I suggest, arguments about origin can best be understood as a political strategy of legitimacy-making. We should consider the disparity between Bello’s views on Torobbe-Fulani origin in the infāq and in his later work, the ḥāshiya, as a reflection of the rising tension between Bello and his uncle beginning in 1806 and moving steadily towards a period of crisis between 1817 and 1821. In 1806/7, Bello was chosen to lead the second campaign to take Alkalawa. Abdullahi had already expressed doubts about the direction of the jihad after the mutiny of the jihadist army at the battle of Alwassa.59 During the Alkalawa campaign however, Abdullahi composed a poem in which he criticised his fellow jihadists: … whose purpose is the ruling of the countries and their people In order to obtain delights and acquire rank, According to the custom of the unbelievers, and the title of their sovereignty. And the appointing of ignorant persons to the high offices.60 Abdullahi, along with a few companions, then abandoned the campaign and headed east, ostensibly to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.61 In the end, he only 57 Bello, ḥāshiya, Paris, bn, Arabe 5432, f. 299r. My translation. 58 Maurice Delafosse, “Traditions musulmanes”; Herbert R. Palmer, The Carthaginian Voyage to West Africa in 500 b.c, Bathurst, J.M. Lawani, 1931; See also Dierk Lange, Ancient kingdoms of West Africa : African-centred and Canaanite-Israelite perspectives : a collection of published and unpublished studies in English and French, Dettelbach, Röll, 2004, who stands by these theories. 59 Johnston, Fulani Empire, p. 55; Hiskett, Tazyīn al-Waraqāt, pp. 118–119. 60 Hiskett, Tazyīn al-Waraqāt, p. 121. 61 Muhammad Sani Zahradeen, Abd Allah Ibn Fodio’s contributions to the Fulani Jihad in nineteenth century Hausaland, unpublished PhD thesis, McGill University, 1976,
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got as far as Kano, where he composed his ḍiyāʾ al-ḥukkām,62 a guide for Muslim sovereigns. In it, he argues–quoting the words of al-Maghīlī–that it would be improper for a son to succeed his father as ruler.63 At this stage, Abdullahi was evidently concerned that Usman may have been grooming his son, Bello, for leadership. It was shortly after this time–in 1809 or 1810–that Usman moved from Gwandu to Sifawa along with Bello and most of his followers, leaving Abdullahi to travel to Gurma and then Zabarma to continue the jihad campaign.64 Last has suggested that this may have reflected the division between the older generation, as represented by Abdullahi, and the younger generation who looked to Bello as their future leader.65 In the following years, Usman and Abdullahi authored a flurry of writings in which for the first time they criticized each other directly. By way of a reply to Abdullahi’s earlier text, the ḍiyāʾ al-ḥukkām, Usman wrote in his sirāj al-ikhwān66 of 1811 that hereditary succession was “not forbidden” by the scholars.67 The following year, Abdullahi composed the ḍiyāʾ al-sulṭān,68 a critical analysis of a number of rulings Usman had made in his earlier writings sirāj al-ikhwān and najm al-ikhwān.69 Among these rulings was the permissibility of hereditary succession, which Abdullahi–again quoting al-Maghīlī–now stated categorically to be forbidden.70 The confusion created among their followers as a result of these disagreements is tangible, for in this period both Abdullahi and Bello composed treatise to calm people who were misinterpreting Abdullahi’s criticisms and sowing divisions in the community.71 It was in the context of these rising tensions that Abdullahi was writing his īdāʿ al-nusūkh of 1812. pp. 172–173 quoting Johnston, Fulani Empire, p. 264; Hiskett, Tazyīn al-Waraqāt, p. 121. Abdullahi’s poem on the subject is entitled wa lammā maḍā ṣaḥbī wa ḍāʿat maʿāribī. 62 “Light of the Rulers”. 63 M.T.M. Minna, Sultan Muhammad Bello and his intellectual contribution, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1982, pp. 46–47. 64 S.A. Balogun, “Succession Tradition in Gwandu History, 1817–1918”, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 7 (1) (1973), p. 19. 65 Last, Sokoto Caliphate, p. 65. Citing a conversation with al-Hajj Junaidu, seemingly the originator of this theory. 66 “Path of the Brethren”. 67 Balogun, Succession Tradition, p. 18. 68 “Light of the Sultan”. 69 “Star of the Brethren”. 70 Mahibou, Gouvernement islamique, p. 90. 71 Abdullahi dan Fodio, kaff al-ikhwān ʿan al-taʿarruḍ bi-l-inkār ʿalā ahl al-īmān “Restraining the Brethren from Antagonising those who are Believers”; Muhammad Bello, kaff alikhwānʿan ittibāʿ khaṭawāt al-shayṭān “Restraining the Brethren from Following the Steps of Satan”.
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Bello wrote his highly critical reponse, the ḥāshiya, sometime after this period. Exactly how long after 1812 Bello wrote the ḥāshiya is an important and–regrettably–unresolvable question.72 However, when we look at how the relationship between the two men deteriorates after this period, we should not be surprised at finding such outright criticism at any point after 1812. In 1815, Usman moved again from Sifawa to join Bello, who had been constructing the new city of Sokoto since 1809,73 making Abdullahi all the more isolated. In 1817, Usman died and shortly afterwards Bello was declared ruler in his place. Abdullahi’s sabīl al-salāma fī-l-imāma,74 written three weeks after the event, stated that in the situation that there were two suitable candidates for the caliphate, preference should be given to the elder.75 Nine weeks after Abdullahi’s sabīl al-salāma, Bello’s pragmatic response, al-inṣāf fī dhikr mā fī masāʾil al-khilāfa min wifāq wa khilāf,76 suggests that the side with the superior arms and the most support should be in control. Bello argued that to submit to the most powerful candidate would be the “lesser of two evils”, since it would reduce the chance of a breakdown in order and result in fewer Muslim lives being lost. In the sabīl al-salāma, Abdullahi had also reminded his readers that Muslims were within their rights to launch an armed rebellion against a government that was illegitimate, unjust or un-Islamic. Given that it was at this time that the Bā Arewa Hausa leader ʿAbd al-Salām was launching his abortive rebellion against Bello near Sokoto, this had arguably happened already. Shortly after Usman’s division of Sokoto territory, Abdullahi had in fact granted the dissatisfied ʿAbd al-Salām a territory in the western section under his jurisdiction77 and in January 1818, after ʿAbd al-Salām had died of wounds received in
72
Delafosse (1912) states that the ḥāshiya was composed around 1830. However, it was certainly written before Abdullahi’s death in 1828, since Bello includes no reference when mentioning Abdullahi by name. Hunwick & O’Fahey (1995) report that the copy held at the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris is dated 1228/1813, but having consulted the ms I cannot find reference to this. Meanwhile, the accompanying Gallica record gives a date of 1266/1849–50, well after the death of Bello himself. Murray Last (1967) calls this text “Kitāb al-Nasab”, but does not give a date. 73 Balogun, Succession Tradition, p. 19; Sidney John Hogben, An introduction to the history of the Islamic states of Northern Nigeria, Oxford, oup, 1967, p. 220. 74 “The way of Safety concerning the Imamate”. 75 Zahradeen, Abd Allah Ibn Fodio’s contributions, p. 179. 76 “Fair Judgement of conflicting views on questions concerning the Caliphate”. 77 Balogun, Succession Tradition, p. 19.
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battle against Bello, made similar arrangements for his son, Bukhari.78 Abdullahi certainly gave no assistance to Bello in crushing the rebellion and it seems that at this point he had still not acknowledged Bello as successor to Usman. For his part, shortly after becoming ruler, Bello authored a flurry of works demanding obedience to him. In al-ishāʿa fī ḥukm al-khārijīn min al-ṭāʿa,79 he stated that anyone who “stands against the person whom all the people have recognised” would be dividing the Muslims, and should therefore be put to death.80 In the history of al-Ḥāj Saʿīd, the writer states that in January 1818, after the return of Bello’s army from victory in battle with ʿAbd al-Salām: Shaykh Abdullahi moved from Botenga to Gwandu due to how scared people were, for indeed the Commander of the Faithful [Bello] was attacking them as he had attacked ʿAbd al-Salām.81 Was Bello extending these threats to his uncle Abdullahi? As Charles C. Stewart’s analysis of correspondences between Sokoto, Masina and Gwandu seems to show, during the period 1817–1821 Abdullahi was indeed engaged in activities that could be construed as “dividing the Muslims”. In a letter addressed to Muhammad Bello from Ahmad Lobbo of Masina, written sometime after 1821, Lobbo explains why he did not continue his allegience to Sokoto after the death of Usman in 1817: As for the reason for breaking bayʿa, it was because Said ʿAbdullahi [b. Muhammad Fodiye] sent Malik with a letter in his own handwriting, in which he said that he was the Amir al-Muʾminīn.82 Lobbo goes on to say that he could hardly pledge allegiance to two leaders at the same time and it was for this reason that he had dropped his allegiance. In short, there were plenty of events between 1812 and 1821 that may have prompted Bello to adopt a more critical attitude towards his uncle Abdullahi. None of these reasons had anything to do with new discoveries on his part about the origin of the Torobbe-Fulani since he had penned the Infāq. Rather, 78
Sidney John Hogben and Anthony H.M. Kirk-Greene, The Emirates of Northern Nigeria: a preliminary survey of their historical traditions, Oxford, oup, 1966, pp. 419–20. 79 “Making Known the Judgement of those who become Disobedient”. 80 Minna, Sultan Muhammad Bello and his intellectual contribution, p. 61. 81 al-Ḥāj Saʿīd, taqāyīd, Paris, bn Arabe 5422, f. 1v. My translation and emphasis. 82 Charles C. Stewart, “Frontier Disputes and Problems of Legitimation: Sokoto–Masina Relations 1817–1837”, The Journal of African History 17, no. 04 (1976), p. 503. My emphasis.
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his change of heart must be seen in the light of a rising and increasingly dangerous tension between the two men who were both putting themselves forward as the legitimate party to take over the Sokoto project after the death of Usman.
Disputed Genealogy: Muhammad Bello’s Criticisms of the īdāʿ al-nusūkh83
i
The Language of the Torobbe-Fulani
Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh: … and they [the Torobbe] are the origin of the Fulani and their language is Fulfulde.84 Bello, ḥāshiya: This runs contrary to what is well known by historians, who say that the language of the Torobbe before the Fulanis was Wākuru,85 a language of the Bambara. Likewise, it is common knowledge that the children of ʿUqba started to speak Fulfulde when they were growing up […] and most of the tribes of the Torobbe here know no other language on account of their amalgamation with the Fulani and the distance from their homeland.86 ii
Their Arrival in Hausaland
Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh: and they [the Torobbe] preceded them [the Fulani] in the land of the Hausa by seven years87 Bello, ḥāshiya: 83
Translations from the ḥāshiya, below, are my own. Using Paris bn Arabe 5432, f. 298–9 and cross-referencing with incomplete copy at Niamey, mara, 23. 84 Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh. Cited by Bello in the ḥāshiya, f. 298r. 85 Copy in Niamey, mara, 23 reads “Wākar”. 86 Bello, ḥāshiya, f. 298r. 87 Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh. Cited by Bello in the ḥāshiya, f. 298r.
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This we have never heard. On the contrary, what we hear is that the Fulani preceded the Torobbe to the land of the Hausa by seven years, and this is common knowledge.88 iii
Their Geographical Origin
Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh: Their origin, meaning the Torobbe, from what we hear was with the Christians of Byzantium to whom the armies of the Companions [of the Prophet] arrived.89 Bello, ḥāshiya: [This] is not at all reliable. For al-Ḥasan al-Bilbalī90 has informed me that what is upheld among them in Futa [Toro] is that the origin of the Torobbe is the Bambara, a people of the Sudan. The son of their King, Tūra, journeyed to Futa by the two rivers and took possession of it. They established themselves in the vicinity of the Jews and Christians living on the islands there. For this reason it is said of them that they are from the Jews and Christians, and God knows best.91 iv
The Founding Father of the Torobbe-Fulani
Abdullahi, Īdāʿ al-nusūkh: [The Byzantine] King converted to Islam and married off his daughter to ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir, Companion of the Prophet, mujāhid and the Emir of the West. He fathered the famous Fulani tribe.92 Bello, ḥāshiya: And as for his assertion that it was ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir who married the daughter of the Torobbe King and that this ʿUqba was Emir of the West, this 88 Bello, ḥāshiya, f. 298r. 89 Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh. Cited by Bello in the ḥāshiya, f. 298r. 90 Minna (1982) suggests al-Bilbalī was a wali or Sharif from North Africa. For further references to al-Bilbalī, see Bello, infāq; al-qawl al-mukhtaṣar fī amr aI-Imām al-Mahdī al-Muntaẓar. 91 Bello, ḥāshiya, f. 298v. 92 Abdullahi, īdāʿ al-nusūkh. Cited by Bello in the ḥāshiya, f. 298v.
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is simply wrong. ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir al-Anṣārī al-Khuzrajī al-Sulamī93 died a martyr at the battle of Yamāma in the days of [Caliph Abū Bakr] al-Ṣiddīq, before the Arab armies went to Syria and Egypt. And if it was ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir b. Qays al-Juhanī, he died in Egypt when he was governor there. He did not reach the west and was not Emir of the West at all. As is wellknown, this figure is ʿUqba b. Nāfiʿ b. ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī and he was not a Companion of the Prophet but he was born in the age of the Prophet, a son of the maternal aunt of ʿUmar b. al-ʿĀṣ. As it says in al-istīʿāb:94 And it is not correct to attribute companionship of the Prophet to him [ʿUqba b. Nāfiʿ]. He was the son of the maternal aunt of ʿUmar b. al-ʿĀṣ and ʿUmar b. al-ʿĀṣ gave him command of Ifrīqiyya [Tunisia] while he was in Egypt. He came to the Lawāta and Mazāna who first converted to Islam before reverting to disbelief, so it became legal to fight them. In 41/661 he killed and took captives [from among them] and conquered Ghadames in 42/662. In 43/663 he killed and took captives, conquering two districts of the Sudan and the whole of the country of the Berbers. It was he who founded Kairouan in the time of [Caliph] Muʿāwiya and was killed in 63/682 after fighting in Sūs al-Qaṣawī. And by this you know95 that this ʿUqba was the Emir of the West and he was the father of the Fulani tribe, if it is proven and correct. God knows best, and it is by His command that His word is enforced.96 Abdullahi’s account of Torobbe-Fulani origin fits nicely into the genre described by Bruce Hall, who states that from the 17th century onwards, Arab and Berber elites reimagined their role in the Saharan past, inserting local histories into larger Muslim narratives and claiming links to presiguous Arab ancestors;97 specifically, the ʿUqba al-Mustajab myths common to Saharan groups such as the Kunta and the Kel Es-Suq, albeit in a different c onfiguration.98 As Mauro 93 94
Copy in Niamey, mara, 23 reads “al-Muslimī”. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d.1071), al-istīʿāb fī maʿrifat al-aṣḥāb “Full Comprehension regarding knowledge of the Prophet’s Companions”. 95 Copy in Niamey, mara, 23 reads, “it is known”. 96 Bello, ḥāshiya, f. 298v. 97 Hall, Race, pp. 38–39. 98 For more on ʿUqba al-Mustajab, see Harry T. Norris, The Tuaregs: their Islamic legacy and its diffusion in the Sahel, Warminster, Aris and Phillips, 1975; Thomas Whitcomb, “New Evidence on the Origins of the Kunta—I”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38/1 (1975), pp. 103–123; “New Evidence on the Origins of the Kunta—ii”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 38/2 (1975), pp. 403–417.
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Nobili has shown,99 these ʿUqba al-Mustjab myths are not variations on the same story, but serve very different political purposes. For the Kunta, their ʿUqba was very clearly the historical figure of ʿUqba b. Nāfiʿ b. ʿAbd Qays alFihrī (ad 622–683), an army general in the Umayyad Caliphate who began the conquest of North Africa. This figure gave the Kunta an Arab bloodline and, as the first conqueror of North Africa, made them legitimate regional Islamic authorities. For the Kel Es-Suq, their ʿUqba, ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir, is a composite character. Though his name refers to Companion of the Prophet ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir al-Juhanī (d. ad 678), the point of the legend is not to give the Kel-Es-Suq an Arab bloodline, but rather enshrine their role as “Islamizers” and thus justifying their dominant position in the Saharan world. Nobili concludes his analysis by stating that: Far from being in the presence of a case of naive misinterpretation of the sources by an unlearned chronicler, the conflation of different historical figures with the same name in the myth of Uqba al-Mustajab is the product of a manipulation of the sources for specific purposes.100 The ʿUqba myth suggested by Abdullahi gives us yet another manifestation and combination on the ʿUqba theme. Like the Kunta, Abdullahi tied the ʿUqba figure to a historical person as a source of an Arab bloodline, a concept which we have seen had immense importance for him. But like the Kel Es-Suq, Abdullahi names this ʿUqba as ʿUqba b. ʿĀmir and highlights his role as an “Islamiser”. While Abdullahi is consciously and skilfully “manipulating the sources” to create a new origin myth, Bello for his part departs from this tradition of myth-making all together. For his criticisms of Abdullahi’s theories he relies on bonafide Islamic historical texts such as al-istīʿāb, conversations with local savants such as al-Ḥasan al-Bilbalī and, it seems, upon his own observations. By quoting from al-istīʿāb, Bello is demonstrating that what he is proposing is not a myth at all, but the accepted historical version of events. Bello is absolutely right in saying that Abdullahi has here–like the Kel Es-Suq myth–conflated two or perhaps three ʿUqbas. However, like the Kunta myth, Abdullahi also relies on this ʿUqba figure for an Arab bloodline. This double weakness is effectively exploited by Bello to point out both Abdullahi’s need to find an Arab bloodline, and expose his ignorance of Islamic history in doing so. In the īdāʿ al-nusūkh and other genealogical works, Abdullahi adapts Arabocentric narratives of a migration from the east and an ethnic and linguistic connection to the Arab world to single out the Torobbe as a foreign and s uperior 99 Mauro Nobili, “Back to Saharan Myths”. 100 Nobili, “Back to Saharan Myths”, p. 82.
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people who, before coming to Futa Toro, lived in the Middle East.101 Bello on the other hand is at pains to point out that the Torobbe-Fulani are “a people of the Sudan.”102 He states categorically that his people came from Futa Toro and speak a West African language. Though he does call the Torobbe-Fulani “children of ʿUqba” and suggests that their homeland is outside the West African region, he shows little interest in examining their more ancient history. I would argue that aside from any personal conviction of Bello as to the validity of the ʿUqba theory, this position was also a politically sound one. Connection to the Sudan ensured that Bello–surely seen as a foreign usurper–would have the legitimacy to govern Sudanese peoples. As for Abdullahi, it seems he had always wanted to escape this geographic and cultural milieu. As he said in 1807, upon briefly abandoning the jihadist conquest of Hausaland, “I left the army and occupied myself with my own (affairs) and faced towards the East, towards the Chosen One”103 Such attachment to an idealised time and space would hardly have benefitted Abdullahi’s political ambitions to succeed Usman as leader of the reformist community in 1817, nor his subsequent rule over the Emirate of Gwandu; its territory extended far to the south and west of Sokoto, further than ever from any idealised Arab-Islamic world. While the reason behind Abdullahi and Bello’s debate over the origin of the Torobbe-Fulani cannot be answered categorically in this paper, a close analytical reading of this set of Arabic primary sources should at least have allowed us a glimpse into the intellectual and personal struggles of two members of the Fodiawa. Such analytical work should alert us to the fact that while these sources can be used to reconstruct one interpretation of history, the changing views of their authors should be explored and not synthesised out of existence. After all, these “sources” had writers who had personal, political and intellectual ambitions and pre-occupations that changed with time and circumstance. Usman, Abdullahi and Bello, given the closeness of their relation and the similarity of their education, were remarkably different individuals. Only a reanalysis of their writings with these thoughts at the forefront can counteract the objectivising, synthesising frame of mind which has, truth be told, presented us with the solid foundations with which to begin this task.
101 In the īdāʾ al-nusūkh and other works, Abdullahi does state that the Torobbe-Fulani migrated from Futa Toro with the Fodiawa’s ancestor, Musa Jokollo, but that this was only the latest of their many historical migrations. In the aṣl al-fulātiyyīn, Abdullahi posits that the etymology of “Torobbe” comes from the Arabic Ṭūr Sīnāʾ, Mount Sinai. 102 Bello, ḥāshiya, f. 298v. 103 Hiskett, Tazyīn al-Waraqāt, p. 121.
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