Jihad of the Pen. Rudolph Ware

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       Introduction

      Shaykh ‘Uthman bin Muhammad bin ‘Uthman bin Salih (1754–1817) was the founder of the Sokoto Empire, the largest and most populous precolonial state in nineteeth-century sub-Saharan Africa.¹ It ultimately spanned much of modern Nigeria, Niger, and Chad, encompassing several million people within it.² Although Shehu ‘Uthman was famously known as Dan Fodio in Hausa, among his Fula-speaking compatriots he was called Bi Fudi; among his many Arab and Tuareg students, he was known as Ibn Fuduye’.³ The shehu was well trained in all the core disciplines of the Islamic religious sciences, and ultimately authored works that touched upon almost all fields as well—ranging from law to political theory to Sufism.

      Dan Fodio is remembered by historians mainly as a state builder, and his achievements have been well chronicled by historians in European languages. However, little is mentioned of the spiritual development of the shehu over the forty-three years of his social reform of West Africa. Especially in his Fula-language poetry (not translated here), he engaged in self-reflection on the development of his spiritual ideas and his own spiritual transformations. And in lucid classical Arabic texts, too, he wrote extensively, though perhaps not as personally, about the spiritual path. In the end, his social—and ultimately political—appeal was based on his standing as a scholar and as a Sufi, and so we seek to recover his voice in these domains.

      Numerous studies have traced the history of the Sokoto state, but far fewer have outlined its connection with the intellectual and spiritual journey of the shehu himself. Roughly, Dan Fodio’s social and spiritual reform can be divided into two distinct periods: the jihad of the tongue and pen (1774–1804), and the struggle of the sword (1804–17).

      The first period began with Dan Fodio’s public preaching and writing about ethical, spiritual, and social renewal (tajdid) in and around his clerical community of origin, Degel, in the hinterland of the Hausa state of Gobir. During this period, he composed Arabic prose, as well as Hausa and Fulfude verse, on the core precepts of the religion, and the sciences of ethical and spiritual purification.

      Gobir was among a number of ethnically mixed, but predominantly Hausa, city-states in what is now northern Nigeria. Dan Fodio’s critiques of moral and political corruption in the region were regarded with increasing discomfort in the 1780s and 1790s, with tensions escalating around the turn of the century. The sheer size of the shehu’s community also must have begun to threaten the Hausa authorities, who responded with periodic skirmishes against his followers. This hot-and-cold war continued until 1804 when, responding to the enslavement of three hundred Qur’an reciters from his community, the shehu broke off relations with the sultan of Gobir. He had a vision wherein the Prophet handed him the Sword of Truth, and he was given explicit permission to take up arms. This began a political movement that led to the creation of Sokoto.⁴ He migrated from his learning center in Degel to a settlement called Gudu on Thursday, the 12th of Dhu-l-Qa‘da 1218 (February 23, 1804).⁵ From 1804 to 1812, the shehu led his community in military campaigns against the seven Hausa states. By 1812, he had encompassed and reorganized all of them, establishing a new capital at Sokoto. He divided the new territory and appointed amirs over 23 emirates, with their judges, chiefs of police, inspectors of markets, and other civil servants. Throughout this period, the shehu continued to teach the fundamentals of Islam and compose original works on the science of Sufism; however, the key intellectual concerns of the shehu during this period between 1804 and 1812 were largely political, focusing on consolidating the sovereignty of the new state. To this end, the shehu composed scholarly texts clarifying the rules and boundaries of government, the responsibilities of the ruler and the ruled, and the establishment of justice.

      From 1812 until his death in 1817, he gradually withdrew from political life, prioritizing a return to spiritual pursuits. The shehu did compose works in order to criticize injustices of the officials of Sokoto, but he focused more intently on Arabic and ‘ajami works on the Prophet, Sufism, and Islamic eschatology—particularly, the appearance of the awaited Mahdi, and other signs of the End of Time. One of the most important works of the shehu, which he composed during this final period, was a work that is considered to be akin to a last will and testament to his community. In fact, he called it al-Wasiya (The Testament), composing this work in his own hand (rather than dictating to a scribe) only days before his death.

      In it, the shehu encouraged his followers to distance themselves from secular government and authority by removing the love of leadership and rank from their hearts. He advised those involved in government to place authority in their hands but not in their hearts. He also warned about the corruption that would engulf those who held positions of authority in the End of Time. The Testament was his final reminder that government and authority were not an end in itself, but a means to more lofty and transcendent ends. The shehu said,

      I, Uthman, am not a king or a ruler, nor am I the son of kings and tyrannical rulers. I hope that I am among the Imams who answered the call of God . . . [that] I am only a leader of his people who guides them towards what is virtuous in their affairs, inviting them to the religion of God; seeking thereby His forgiveness, His mercy, and desiring therein His pleasure (Ridwan). . . . We are about that mission, without being kings and rulers who practice oppression and injustice. And whoever follows me in that [mission] is from me. And whoever does not, is not!⁶

      Here, the shehu sums up his mission of reform. It was not jihad, although he did take up arms in defense of his community. Nor was it government and authority, although he ultimately came to see political sovereignty as necessary in order to effect social change. The key goal of the shehu was to call humanity to God through the cultivation of СКАЧАТЬ