Muḥammad Bello

Muhammad Bello, emir of Sokoto in Nigeria, offered him his daughter Maryam in marriage. Enriched by this princely alliance, ʿUmar had become an important personage when he reached Mecca about 1827. He visited the tomb of the Prophet in Medina, returned to Mecca, and then…

…first pupils, and his son, Muhammad Bello, both distinguished teachers and writers. But his own scholarly clan was slow to come over to him. Significant support appears to have come from the Hausa peasantry. Their economic and social grievances and experience of oppression under the existing dynasties stimulated millenarian hopes…

…the empire to his son Muḥammad Bello, who settled in Sokoto, and the western (with its capital at Gwandu) to his brother Abdullahi. All three continued the Fulani denunciation of Bornu. The empire reached its zenith under Muḥammad Bello, who, like Usman, administered it according to the principles of Muslim…

…brother, Abdullahi, and his son, Muḥammad Bello, who were men of action as well as considerable scholars. These two eventually became joint viceroys of the new empire, Bello ruling its eastern half from Sokoto and Abdullahi the western half from a seat of government at Gwandu. They oversaw the installations…

Muḥammad Bello, his son and successor (1817), began construction of the town’s walls in 1806. After the Fulani victory over the Gobirawa at Alkalawa in 1808, Usman split his vast empire, which then extended over most of what is now northern and central Nigeria, into…

…brother Abdullahi and his son Muhammad Bello carried on the jihad and laid the basis of administration. When Usman died in 1817, Muhammad Bello succeeded him as amīr al-muʾminīn, while Abdullahi, as emir of Gwandu, was given charge of the western emirates, notably Nupe and Ilorin. In this way, all…

…sectors and made his son Muhammad Bello overlord of the eastern emirates. Muhammad ruled from Sokoto, but it was not until Usman’s move (1814) to the town and his death there in 1817 that it became the spiritual headquarters of the Fulani people. Usman’s tomb and other holy shrines have…