From Rebels to Rulers: Writing Legitimacy in the Early Sokoto State

A reinterpretation of the history of Sokoto that provides a new assessment of its leaders and their visions for the Muslim state.

Sokoto was the largest and longest lasting of West Africa's nineteenth-century Muslim empires. Its intellectual and political elite left behind a vast written record, including over 300 Arabic texts authored by the jihad's leaders: Usman dan Fodio, his brother Abdullahi and his son, Muhammad Bello (known collectively as the Fodiawa). Sokoto's early years are one o...