The Life and Legacy of Shehu Uthman d'an Fodiyo
Date
2003
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Publisher
Oxford: Macmillan Publishers Limited
Abstract
Before 1754: The Shehu’s Context; 1754—1773: The Formative Years; 1773-1791: The Shehu’s Teaching Career; 1788-1804: Confrontation in Hausaland; 1804-1808: Conflict and Hostilities; 1808-1817: Establishing the Caliphate; 1817-1837: Consolidation of the Caliphate; 1837-1903: Sustaining the Caliphate; 1903-1960: The Shehu’s Legacy under Threat; 1960-2000: The Shehu’s Legacy Revived
Description
Nearly two hundred years ago the population of Sokoto was one of the most highly educated in Africa. It was the norm to be literate and learned, a condition which owed everything to Shehu Uthman dan Fodiyo, the great Islamic leader. Today Northern Nigeria, including Sokoto, is deemed by many to be ‘educationally backward’. Why there has been such a change in perceptions is something this book sets out to explain. An account is given of the Shehu’s life and purpose, followed by an overview of his successors’ continued reliance on his precepts. There is an insight into the ways the British kept the North isolated and failed to provide the kind of purposeful modern education which would lead to the formation of a professional workforce. Knowledge of the intellectual legacy of the Shehu, suppressed for sixty years, was brought from the safekeeping of the Ulama only after Independence.