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An Islamic Tradition of Reform in the westei Sudan from the sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

David Cressy
David Cressy
Affiliation:
Pitzer College, Claremont
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Extract

Among the many unpublished works of the Shehu ‘Uthmān dan Fodio three have come to my notice which are of interest in that they illustrate the development of a tradition of reform which, having remote origins in the Almoravid movement of the eleventh century A.D. achieved literary expression in the Muslim empire of Songhay, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and which was continued in the Habe kingdoms almost three centuries later. They also illustrate the continuity of social custom in the Sudan over this period. The works are:

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , October 1962 , pp. 577 - 596
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1962

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References

1 Kensdale, W. E. N, A catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts preserved in the University Library, Ibadan, Ibadan, 1955–8, 14Google Scholar.

2 Bābā, Ahmad, Nayl al-ibtihāj bi-taṭtīz al-dībāj, printed in the margin of al-Dībāj al- of Ibn Farḥūn, Cairo, A.H. 1351, 330–2Google Scholar.

3 Al-Sa‘dī, , Tārī al-Sūdān, translated by Houdas, O., Paris, 1900, 116 ffGoogle Scholar.

4 Baldwin, T. H., The obligations of princes, Beirut, 1932Google Scholar.

5 Smith, H. F. C., Historical Society of Nigeria: Bulletin of News, Iv, 4, 1960, 3Google Scholar. Also Bivar, and Hiskett, , ‘ The Arabic literature of Nigeria to 1804: a provisional account’, BS0AS, xxv, 1, 1962, 107–8Google Scholar.

6 Historical Society of Nigeria: Supplement to Bulletin of News, Iv, 2, 1959Google Scholar. A MS of a hitherto unnotified work by al-, not connected with this correspondence, but being a text on grammar, has been discovered by the present author among MSS in the Library of Shahuci Judicial School, Kano, and has been microfilmed.

7 Kensdale, op. Cit., 12.

1 Kensdale, op. cit., 23.

2 ibid., 13.

3 El, art. ‘ Songhoy ’.

4 SI, f. 9.

1 SI, f. 9.

2 Ed. 0. Houdas, 103 ff.

3 SI, f. 11–12.

1 106 f.

2 SI, f. 3–4.

3 SI, f. 15.

1 SI, f. 4.

2 ibid., f. 5.

1 It is of interest that the Mahdi of the Nilotic Sudan, Muh. Ahmad b. ‘Abdullāh, also used the term ‘ulamā’ al-sū’i, meaning however the ‘ulamā;’ maintained by the khedivial administration who denounced his claim to Mahdiship. The formulation of authoritative responsa in answer to queries on specific points of law and custom, as in the correspondence of , was also a usage of the Mahdi. The probability of certain common points of origin in the tradition of reform in the whole Sudan, from the Niger to the Nile, is substantial, but as far as is known to the present author has not yet been investigated in detail.

4 For example Tazyīn al-waraqāt, f. 56, 1. 9, of a MS in my possession.

5 Mischlich, A. and Lippert, J., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Haussasiaaten, Berlin, 1903, 72 fGoogle Scholar. (English translation, Burdon, , Historical notes, London, 1909, 94)Google Scholar.

1 SI, f. 10.

2 ibid., f. 17–18.

3 ibid., f. 19.

1 cf.Hiskett, M., ‘Kitāb al-farq: a work on the Habe kingdoms attributed to ‘ dan Fodio’, BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 574Google Scholar.

2 ibid., 568.

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4 SI, f. 19.

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1 SI, f. 7.

2 Ba, A.-H. and Daget, J.. L'Empire Peul du Macina, Institut Français d'Afrique Noire, 1955, 17Google Scholar ff.

3 cf.Anīs al-mufīd of ‘Abd al-Qādir; Raud al-jinān of Gidado dan Laima; Infāq al-maisūr of Sultan Bello, etc.

4 For instance, Tazyīn al-waraqāt, passim.

5 SI, f. 6–7.

1 SI, f. 13.

2 SI, f. 15.

3 Bivar, A. D. H. and Hiskett, M., BSOAS, xxv, 1, 1962, 119Google Scholar ff.

1 SI, f. 17.

2 Bivar, A. D. H. and Hiskett, M., BSOAS, xxv, 1, 1962, 109Google Scholar ff.

3 NUM, f. 1.

1 NUM, f. 15.

2 ibid., f. 16.

3 ibid., f. 20.

4 ibid., f. 18.

5 ibid., ibid., f. 20.

1 NUM, f. 5

1 ’ḍā' al-of ‘Abdullah b. Muhammad, translated in Hiskett, , ‘ Material relating to the state of learning among the Fulani before their jihād, ’, BSOAS, xix, 3, 1957, 566Google Scholar.

2 Hausa Chronicle (Burdon, op. cit., 93).

3 NUM, f. 7.

4 NUM, f. 10. See Bivar, and Hiskett, , BSOAS, xxv, 1, 1962, 141–2Google Scholar. for the text of this poem.

5 NUM, f. 12.

1 NUM, f. 17.

2 ibid., f. 13.

5 ibid., f. 13.

5 ibid., f. 13–14.

1 Chatelier, A. Le, L'Islam dans l'Afrique Occidentale, Paris, 1899, 117Google Scholar.

2 Hogben, S. J., The Muhammadan emirates of Nigeria, London, 1930, 7Google Scholar, 75, 111, etc.

3 Olderogge, D. A., ‘ Feodalizm v Zapadnom Sudane v 16–19 vv. ’, Sovetskaya Etnografiya, 1957Google Scholar, No. 4.

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5 Gibb, H. A. R., Modern trends in Islam, Chicago, 1947, 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

1 It is mentioned in Inf. M (Arnett, 8); in KF (Hiskett, 571), and elsewhere in the Fulani MSS.

2 They are listed in Bivar, and Hiskett, , BSOAS, xxv, 1, 1962, 129–30Google Scholar.

3 GAL, Suppl., II, 95.

4 Palmer, H. R., ‘An early Fulani conception of Islam’, JAS,XIII, 52, 1914, 410Google Scholar.

5 loc. cit., 78.

6 KF (Hiskett, 571).

7 ibid., 566.

8 ibid., 566, and in many other places.

9 ḌḤ (Text reproduced photographically by NORLA, Zaria, in the Yaki da Jahilci series), f. 21.

10 ibid., 25.

11 ibid., f. 11.

12 ibid., f. 22.

13 ibid., f. 11.

14 ibid., f. 13–21.

15 ibid., f. 10.

16 KF (Hiskett, 564).

17 ibid., 564.

18 ḌḤ (NORLA text), f. 13 ff.

19 Government in Zazzau, 1800–1950, London,1960Google Scholar.

1 NORLA text, f. 61.

2 f. 22.

3 GAL, II, 335; Suppl., II, 464.

4 NORLA text, f. 29, 102, 117.

5 ibid., f. 60, 63, 74, 99. Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Ḥanbal, and al-‘ are the three non-Mālikī authorities mentioned above.

1 BSH, f. 13.

2 cf. Ibn al-Ḥājj, al , Cairo, 1929/1348, I, 250 ff. (fa๣fī ziyārat al-qubūr).

3 BSH, f. 13.

4 See Sir Hamilton Gibb, op. cit., p. 132, n. 12.

1 ḌḤ (NORLA text), f. 133

1 e.g. the Mozabites of the Mzab (Alport, E. A., ‘The Mzab’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXXIV, 1–2, 1954, 34–44Google Scholar; Dr. Alport has also drawn my attention to Professor Schacht's, article ‘Sur la diffusion des formes d'architecture religieuse musulmane àtravers le Sahara ’, Travaux de l'lnstitut de Recherches Sahariennes, XI, 1954, 11–27Google Scholar).

2 cf. Al-Sa'dī, , 118.

3 TW of ‘Abdullāh b. Muḥammad, f. 12 of my copy.

4 Hausa Chronicle (Burdon, op. cit., 93).