Mallam Muhammad Bakatsine and the Jihad in Eastern Kano

Extract

Mallam Muhammad Bakatsine was one of the most outstanding figures in nineteenth-century Kano history. He stands out in tradition as a figure who is almost luminescent—his virtues seem overpowering and his faults, if any, totally unrecorded. And yet we know surprisingly little about him; we don't know when he was born nor when he died. Although praised as a great scholar, we don't seem to know of anything he wrote. He was, in short, a legend in his own time, and as with most legends the personal traits and characteristics that are so necessary for us to grasp the personality of a historical character have been completely eliminated from the record. It is troublesome that the record is so vague for such an important historical figure, but even more upsetting is that the modern literature has distorted Mallam Muhammad Bakatsine's role, even to the extent of accusing him of being a collaborator with the anti-jihad forces in Kano and of being an opportunist.

I believe that these distortions have resulted from a very uncritical use of colonial sources. These colonial sources were not the product of careful scholarly historical research, even though they often reflect something from the oral traditions about the jihad. These colonial recorders were generally opportunists themselves, as indeed were many of those Kano citizens supplying them with information, and so we must be very cautious when using the information they provide. Too frequently—as with the story of Bakatsine's sister Habiba's alleged interview with Sheikh Usman dan Fodio resulting in a new name for their clan—they have been repeated over and over again in the literature without being examined to see if there is any merit in them.