A PAGE OF HISTORY AND ITS MORAL
If we have the imagination to grasp the true significance of the events
which led, a century ago, to the break-up of the Hausa dynasty by the
Fulani, we shall find the key to the moral side of permanently successful
government in Northern Nigeria. The motive of the Fulani _jihad_ has
usually been attributed either to mere religious fanaticism or to
personal and racial ambition; or, again, as an incident in the prolonged
struggle for power on the part of this or that ruler or dynasty which
has destroyed the fertile uplands of Western Africa south of the Sahara
since the shattering of the ancient Niger civilizations by the Moorish
invasion at the end of the sixteenth century. It appears to me that
this appreciation is superficial, and that we must look deeper than the
surface results. I am not sure that these surface results themselves do
not suggest the need of doing so. A man of letters galvanizing a whole
countryside to revolt against oppression. Shepherds and cowherds flinging
away their sticks and staves and rallying to his standard. Initial defeat
turned into victory. A number of independent States converted into a
homogeneous entity acknowledging a temporal and spiritual over-lord. An
immense region ill-provided with means of internal communication brought
to recognize one common authority—and all within a year or two. These
are remarkable occurrences. They insinuate the existence of some driving
force below the surface. Is it possible to trace that force in the
chequered annals of this part of Africa?
The Moorish invasion dealt the great Negroid Empire of the middle
Niger—the Empire of the Songhay—a blow from which it never recovered.
The invasion did not actually swamp the Hausa States, but its indirect
consequences must have been felt throughout them in everywhere shaking
established order, and in the decay of spiritual influence following
upon the heels of anarchy. In the absence of any continuous written
records, the history of the period following the advance of Morocco’s
musketeers into the Western Sudan, appears to Western minds as a confused
medley of internecine strife without defined objects of any kind. One
can imagine, let us say, a Chinese historian picturing the history of
England from the tenth to the fifteenth century much in the same light,
if his materials for composing it were almost wholly confined to oral
traditions. But a close study of the few documents at our disposal
must, I think, induce the belief that, dating from the introduction of
a higher spiritual influence into the country—Mohammedanism had begun
to acquire a footing by the eleventh century—the land was never free
from an agency which sought the uplifting of society. Before the Moorish
generals carried fire and sword into the Niger Valley, holy voices were
raised in protest against the “decay of faith with the increase of
infidelity.” “Not one of the acts forbidden by God”—lament learned Arabic
historians—“but was openly practised; wine was drunk, and adultery had
become so frequent that its practice seemed to have acquired legality.”
The terrible punishment which ensued was ascribed to these lapses: “It
was on account of these abominations that God avenged Himself by calling
in the victorious Moroccan army.” We seem to be listening to another
Moses denouncing the wickedness of the people of Israel. In the midst of
all these disordered turmoils, when the worship of the true God was being
swept aside by a wave of recrudescent paganism, when mosques were being
destroyed and desecrated and social lawlessness reigned supreme, little
knots of true believers gathered, forming as it were islands in the sea
of turbulence and moral abasement, to which Christian Europe added a
renewed element of subversion by her demand for slaves, thus intensifying
internal warfare by furnishing it with a new and deadly incentive.
There is evidence that in the middle and towards the close of the
eighteenth century the Hausa Kings were relapsing into paganism (in
Zaria, for instance, the old Hausa “Tsafi,” customs—rock worship—had been
revived). It was at this period that the spark of a spiritual renascence
arose in the most northerly of the Hausa States, Gober. Othman Fodio,
a Fulani, ultimately the leader of the uprising, was above all a moral
and spiritual reformer, as was his teacher the Mallam Jibrila. He sought
to raise the whole tone of society. He used his influence at the Court
of the Hausa King to secure the building of schools and the spread of
letters. He himself and his brother and his son—into whose hands he
placed affairs of state after the conquest—wrote a number of books whose
titles are sufficient to indicate their character. Here are some of them:
“The Book manifesting the Path of Righteousness and Unrighteousness,”
“The Book for the saving of the People of the Time and the Teaching of
the Ignorant to understand the Knowledge of the Word,” “Explanation to
the Rulers as regards their Duties and what is due from them in the
execution of their Duties,” “The Book expressing the Difference between
Right and Wrong,” “The Book the Window for Students in the holding of
the Doors of the Faith in God the Giver,” “The Book to prevent others
from following the promptings of the Devil,” “The Book plainly showing
that the love of the World is the cause of every Fault.” A reflection by
the way. When the Fulani reformers were composing these works, and for
many years afterwards, European and American slavers were periodically
visiting the lower Niger, six hundred miles south, and, by presents of
guns and powder, hounding on the natives to raid one another for the
benefit of the Western plantations!
Othman’s converts were by no means limited to men of his own race, as was
subsequently shown in the adherents he obtained. But it was not unnatural
that such a man should have been an offence to many; that his converts
should have been molested; and that finally, by his personal action in
releasing a number of them from bondage, a collision with the authorities
should have been precipitated, which eventually led to the proclamation
of a holy war. Othman engaged in the struggle with the words: “If I
fight this battle that I may become greater than my fellows, may the
unbelievers wipe us from the land.” Upon its successful termination, the
statesman and the warrior became once more the social reformer. Othman
returned to his preaching and to the compilation of his books.
A consideration of these facts irresistibly suggests that the root causes
of the Fulani outburst were spiritual in their nature. Othman led a moral
and spiritual revival, among a people who, like all negroes and negroids,
are naturally more accessible to spiritual influences than are the white
peoples of the earth. He gave a renewed inspiration to letters. That the
country, after half a century, fell back once more into political chaos
does not in the least weaken the moral to be gleaned from these events.
The religious revival has not gone back. From that political chaos
the country has been rescued by the British power. One of the obvious
duties of the Administration is to continue the work of the great
Fulani reformer in everywhere extending and broadening the intellectual
horizon, and doing nothing to weaken the national spiritual influences,
of the people of the land. The creation of a system of education which
shall be truly national is imperative at this moment when the whole
fabric of native society is being shaken by disturbing elements. The
field is clear: the slate clean. We are here unfettered by those bitter
experiences of the West Coast of Africa and of India which are perpetual
reminders of past blunders and daily handicaps to true progress.