The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people are an ethnic group in Sahara, Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, and regions near the Red Sea coast in Sudan. The approximate number of Fula people is unknown, due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity. Various estimates put the figure between 25 and 40 million people worldwide.
Shehu Usman dan Fodio. was a Fulani scholar, Islamic religious teacher, poet, revolutionary and a philosopher who founded the Sokoto Caliphate and ruled as its first caliph. After the successful revolution, the "Jama'a" gave him the title Amir al-Mu'minin. He rejected the throne and continued calling to Islam.
The Jihad of Usman dan Fodio was a religio-military conflict in present-day Nigeria and Cameroon. The war began when Usman dan Fodio, a prominent Islamic scholar and teacher, was exiled from Gobir by King Yunfa, one of his former students.
The Sokoto Caliphate, also known as the Sultanate of Sokoto, was a Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa. It was founded by Usman dan Fodio in 1804 during the Fulani jihads after defeating the Hausa Kingdoms in the Fulani War. The boundaries of the caliphate are part of present-day Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria. By 1837, the Sokoto state had a population of around 10-20 plus million people, becoming the most populous empire in West Africa. It was dissolved when the British, French and Germans conquered the area in 1903 and annexed it into the newly established Northern Nigeria Protectorate, Senegambia and Niger and Kamerun respectively.
Adamawa State is a state in the North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered by Borno to the northwest, Gombe to the west, and Taraba to the southwest while its eastern border forms part of the national border with Cameroon. It takes its name from the historic emirate of Adamawa, with the emirate's old capital of Yola serving as the capital city of Adamawa State. The state was formed in 1991 when the former Gongola State was broken up into Adamawa and Taraba states. The state is one of the most heterogeneous in Nigeria, having over 100 indigenous ethnic groups.
Muhammadu Bello was the first Caliph of Sokoto and reigned from 1817 until 1837. He was also an active writer of history, poetry, and Islamic studies. He was the son and primary aide to Usman dan Fodio, the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate and the first caliph. During his reign, he encouraged the spread of Islam throughout the region, increasing education for both men and women, and the establishment of Islamic courts. He died on October 25, 1837, and was succeeded by his brother Abu Bakr Atiku and then his son, Aliyu Babba.
Northern Nigeria was an autonomous division within Nigeria, distinctly different from the southern part of the country, with independent customs, foreign relations and security structures. In 1962, it acquired the territory of the British Northern Cameroons, which voted to become a province within Northern Nigeria.
Adama ɓii Ardo Hassana, more commonly known as Modibbo Adama, was a Fulani scholar from the Yillaga (Yirlaɓe) clan. He led a jihad into the region of Fombina and established the emirate of Fombina, also known as Adamawa.
The Adamawa Emirate is a traditional state located in Fombina, an area which now roughly corresponds to areas of Adamawa State and Taraba state in Nigeria, and previously also in the three northern regions of Cameroon, including minor Parts of Chad and the Central African Republic.
Abdullahi ɗan Fodio, was a prominent Islamic scholar, jurist, poet and theologian, and the first Amir of Gwandu and first Grand Vizier of Sokoto. His brother, Usman dan Fodio (1754–1817) was the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate. Usman, being more of a scholar than politician, delegated the practical regency of the western part of his empire to Abdullahi and the eastern part to his son Muhammed Bello, who later became the Sultan of Sokoto after his father.
Ali Babba bin Bello was the fourth Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate from 1842 to 1859.
Abu Bakr Atiku was the third Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate, reigning from October 1837 until November 1842.
The Hausa are a native ethnic group in West Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which is the second most spoken language after Arabic in the Afro-Asiatic language family. The Hausa are a culturally homogeneous people based primarily in the Sahelian and the sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria respectively, numbering around 86 million people, with significant populations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, Togo, Ghana, as well as smaller populations in Sudan, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal, Gambia. Predominantly Hausa-speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara, with an especially large population in and around the town of Agadez. Other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the region such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Accra, Abidjan, Banjul and Cotonou as well as to parts of North Africa such as Libya over the course of the last 500 years. The Hausa traditionally live in small villages as well as in precolonial towns and cities where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle as well as engage in trade, both local and long distance across Africa. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Chadic group. The Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture. Still a status symbol of the traditional nobility in Hausa society, the horse still features in the Eid day celebrations, known as Ranar Sallah. Daura is the cultural center of the Hausa people. The town predates all the other major Hausa towns in tradition and culture.
The Fulajihads sometimes called the Fulani revolution were a series of jihads that occurred across West Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries, led largely by the Muslim Fula people. The jihads and the jihad states came to an end with European colonization.
Holma is an extinct Afro-Asiatic language formerly spoken in Nigeria in Adamawa State, near the Cameroon border. Speakers switched to Nigerian Fulfulde.
Tibati is a town and commune in the Adamawa Region, Cameroon. The town and region are ruled by a local monarch, the Lamido.
The Adamawa Wars (1899–1907) were initially a series of military expeditions and border conflicts between the German Schutztruppe in Kamerun and the Fula Sunni Muslim states and tribes that were a part of the Sokoto Empire, particularly the Emirate of Adamawa in the northern half of the region. After these territories were annexed major resistance continued for years and several uprisings occurred.
The Kano Emirate was a Muslim state in northern Nigeria formed in 1805 during the Fulani jihad when the Muslim Hausa-led Sultanate of Kano was deposed and replaced by a new emirate which became a vassal state of the Sokoto Caliphate. During and after the British colonial period, the powers of the emirate were steadily reduced. The emirate is preserved and integrated into modern Nigeria as the Kano Emirate Council.
Modibbo Raji was a 19th-century Fulani Islamic scholar who was part of the community of Usman Dan Fodio, founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, and his brother Abdullahi dan Fodio. After a long career as a teacher, Qadi, Naib and Wazir (vizier) in the Gwandu Emirate under his mentor Abdullahi dan Fodio and his successors, Modibbo Raji emigrated in the 1850s and eventually settled in Adamawa. He is generally regarded as the founder of the Islamic scholarly tradition in Adamawa as well as one of the earliest exponents of the Tijjaniyya Islamic sect in the Sokoto Caliphate. He died c. 1865 and was buried in Yola leaving behind his writings both in Arabic and Fulfulde, and a large scholarly community of his sons, daughters, students and associates.
Shehu Hayatu ibn Sa'id, also known as Hayatu Balda, was a 19th-century Islamic scholar and the leading Mahdist leader in the Central Sudan region. He was the great-grandson of Usman dan Fodio, the leader of the Sokoto jihad and first caliph of Sokoto. Hayatu left Sokoto in the late 1870s to settle in Adamawa, the emirate on the easternmost end of the caliphate. In 1883, he was appointed as the deputy of the Sudanese Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, and was tasked with leading a jihad over the Sokoto Caliphate. Despite several attempts by Lamido Zubeiru of Adamawa to persuade Hayatu to abandon his Mahdist cause, conflict ensued resulting in a disastrous defeat for Zubeiru's forces in 1893. This victory bolstered Hayatu's following and influence, leading to an alliance with Rabih az-Zubayr, a Sudanese warlord and Mahdist sympathiser. Together, they conquered the weakened Bornu Empire in 1893, aiming eventually to conquer the Sokoto Caliphate. Hayatu served as the Imam of Rabih's Bornu, acting as its spiritual leader. However, the alliance eventually fractured, and Hayatu was killed during an attempted escape from Bornu in 1898.
