The Revolutionary Aspect of the Sokoto Jihad
Abstract This paper discusses the diverse views of both Eurocentric and Afrocentric scholars on the Sokoto Jihad movement with reference to their critical assertions. Particularly, the paper explores the fundamental developments that ascribed to the Jihad a revolutionary status. The totality of the paper contributes to existing knowledge by providing a common ground for the presentation and evaluation of diverse views about the Jihad as well as stating how revolutionary was the Jihad. Introduction At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the territory of the present Nigeria enclosed a number of independent kingdoms and states, each having its own peculiar institutions and traditions. [1] For instance, in the north, there were a dozen or so independent Hausa city states, which in the first two decades of the century were transformed into a Caliphate with its headquarters at Sokoto. [2] The cataclysmic event that encouraged this transformation is known as the Jihad movement.