^{page 104 note 1} Bibliographical note: There is frequent reference in the following pages to the work of Aḥmad Bābā, Nayl al-ibtihāj bi-taṭrīz al-dībāj, of which the following versions have been consulted: TranslationsCherbonneau, M. A., Essai sur la littérature arabe au Soudan, Constantine, 1861Google Scholar (abbreviated as ‘Cherbonneau’). Lithograph, Fez, A.H. 1317 Cairo, printed in the margins of Ibn Farhūn, al-Dībāj al- ahhab fi ma‘rifal a‘yān ‘ulamā’ al-, A.H. 1351. The most convenient edition for general reference (abbreviated as Nayl, with page number following). British Museum, MS Or. 11569. Muḥammad Bello, Sultan of Sokoto, Infāq al-maysūr is quoted in the following versions: Arnett, E. J., The rise of the Sokoto Fulani: being a paraphrase and in some parts a translation of the Infaku'l Maisuri of Sultan Mohammed Bello, Kano, 1922Google Scholar (abbreviated as ‘Arnett’) Bello, Muḥammad, Sultan of Sokoto, Infaku'l maisuri (edited by Whitting, C. E. J.), London, 1951Google Scholar (abbreviated as Inf. M).To avoid extending the footnotes with biographical details of the legal authorities to whom reference is so frequently made in the sources, this information has been collected in the appendix, in the form of an alphabetical list. For the present purposes regarded as including the Republic of Niger, and those parts of Bornu beyond the frontiers of present-day Nigeria, but excluding Bagirmi. Kensdale, W. E. N., ‘Field notes on the Arabic literature of the Western Sudan’, JSAS, 1955, 162–8; 1956, 78‘80; 1958, 53–57Google Scholar.

^{page 105 note 1} Inf. M, 127 (= Arnett, 103). This correspondence was early studied by Houdas, O., ‘Protestation des habitants de Kano’ in Homenaje a Don Francisco Codera, Zaragoza, 1904Google Scholar, a pioneer article which—despite the title being based upon a misapprehension—deserves a place in the bibliography of the subject; cf. Bovill, E. W., The golden trade of the Moors, Oxford, 1958, 221Google Scholar, n. 1, ‘All records of which memory exists can still be found’.

^{page 105 note 2} The tradition attributed to the Qāḍī Maḥmd b. al-Ḥājj al-Mutawakkil Ku‘t (Kati), cf. , ed. Houdas and Delafosse, traduction, 332–3, ‘L'islamisation des gens de Gao eut lieu entre 471 et 475’. Probably to be combined with the established data on the movements of Abu Bakr b. ‘Umar, who left Morocco for the Sahara in A.H. 463 (cf. al-Ḥulal al-Mawshīya, Tunis, 1911, 13) revisiting the briefly in 465, and then returning to the south until his death in A.H. 480.

^{page 105 note 3} Sauvaget, J., ‘Les épitaphes royales de Gao’, Al-Andalus, XIV, 1, 1949, 123 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 106 note 1} If the dates given by Aḥmad Bābā are correct, the teacher must in fact have been the elder Ibn Marzūq (A 21) in the appended list.

^{page 106 note 2} Apparently of al-Khaunajī (A 13) in the appended list.

^{page 106 note 3} Al- died in 909/1504; GAL, Suppl., H, 363; Nayl,330.

^{page 106 note 4} Below, pp. 107–8.

^{page 106 note 5} Marty, P., L'Islam et les tribus du Soudan, 20–1Google Scholar.

^{page 107 note 1} ibid., 35, 41; cf. Smith, H. F. C., ‘Source material for the history of the Western Sudan’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, I, 3, 1958, 244Google Scholar.

^{page 108 note 1} Smith, H. F. C., Historical Society of Nigeria: Bulletin of News, IV, 4, 1960, 3Google Scholar, who reports the presence of another exemplar in the Bibliothèque Nationale.

^{page 108 note 2} Inf. M, 183.

^{page 108 note 3} Haut-Sénégal-Niger, II 85.

^{page 108 note 4} See appendix (A 18).

^{page 108 note 5} Apparently the reading of Cherbonneau; the Cairo edition reads fi 'l-manhīyāt.

^{page 109 note 1} Kensdale, ‘Field notes…’, JRAS, 1955, p. 167, no. 35.

^{page 109 note 2} Ed. O. Houdas, 37.

^{page 109 note 3} Cherbonneau, 8, ‘mon trisaieul’ represents an incorrect text.

^{page 110 note 1} MS Or. 11569, f. 43.

^{page 110 note 2} Bibliothèque Nationale 4628; cf. GAL, II, 618.

^{page 110 note 3} Nayl, 176.

^{page 110 note 4} Appendix (A 30).

^{page 110 note 5} Combining Aḥmad Bābā’s life of al- (Nayl, 335) with data from his life of his relative Maḥmūd (Nayl, 343).

^{page 110 note 6} Such documentation of these personalities as is immediately available will be found under the appropriate names in the appendix.

^{page 110 note 7} ‘Inf. M, 24, with variant spelling.

^{page 111 note 1} Nayl, 344.

^{page 111 note 2} Nayl, 339.

^{page 111 note 3} Not yet published. One of the present authors is currently engaged on an evaluation of the manuscript text.

^{page 111 note 4} pp. 217–18.

^{page 111 note 5} Essai, 18.

^{page 112 note 1} Inf. M, 15. We take no regard here of trifling variants, but quote the several readings as they stand.

^{page 112 note 2} That is to say Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd b. ‘Umar b. Muḥammad Aqīt, the kinsman of Aḥmad Bābā, whose son al-‘Āqib was one of the biographer's teachers.

^{page 112 note 3} Arabic text in Mai Idrīs wa-ghazawātihi, Kano, 1932, 1–51 and 52–129Google Scholar. Translation of (1) in Palmer, H. R., Mai Idris of Bornu, Lagos, 1926, 8–55Google Scholar; of (2) in Palmer, H. R., Sudanese memoirs, Lagos, 1928, 15–72Google Scholar.

^{page 113 note 1} Inf. M, 15.

^{page 113 note 2} Nayl, 348.

^{page 113 note 3} Inf. M, 24 ( = Arnett, 19).

^{page 113 note 4} Kensdale, W. E. N., A catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts preserved in the University Library Ibadan, Nigeria, Ibadan, 1955–8, 18Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 1} Urvoy, Y., Histoire de l'empire du Bornou, Paris, 1949, 85Google Scholar.

^{page 114 note 2} H. R. Palmer, Mai Idris of Bornu, 91.

^{page 114 note 3} Inf. M, 19. This statement is omitted in the version of Arnett, who (perhaps rightly) may have taken it for a doublet of the notice of Dan Masanih.

^{page 114 note 4} As copied in MS (M). The shorter genealogy of (I) omits this and the preceding name, either because being non-Arabic they were misunderstood by the copyist, or because they were alternative names for the persons named in Arabic Muḥammad and ‘Abdullāh respectively. The long genealogy has at least the partial support of Muḥammad Bello.

^{page 115 note 1} Inf. M, 22, 24 (= Arnett, 16, 19). Smith, H. F. C., ‘Arabic manuscript material bearing on the history of the Western Sudan: a seventeenth century writer of Katsina’, Historical Society of Nigeria: Supplement to Bulletin of News, VI, 1, 1961Google Scholar, which differs from the present account in certain particulars and contains several additional entries, came to hand as this manuscript was going to press.

^{page 115 note 2} This information is not immediately to be correlated with the king-list given by Palmer, H. R., ‘History of Katsina’, Journal of the African Society, XXVI, 1926–7, 224Google Scholar, in which the only Sultan similarly named is Suleiman, whose dates are given as 1545–57.

^{page 115 note 3} Since this was written a further copy of this work has been brought to light by Hiskett, in the course of listing the MSS preserved in the library of Shahuci Law School, Kano. There are 100 folios of this MS, which appears to be incomplete. It appears to be of substantial age and is written in a typically jihādī hand.

^{page 116 note 1} The definite article is given by Inf. M, 24 (= Arnett, 19) which provides the further variant fī al-.

^{page 116 note 2} A manuscript copied in Rajab 1070, now in the possession of the Emir of Yauri, Malam Tukur, contains an undated but apparently early note of sale to a certain Imām Ḥabīb b. al-Ḥasan al-Mallāwī al-Yurubāwī, whose date may one day be established.

^{page 116 note 3} Inf. M, 24.

^{page 117 note 1} Historical Society of Nigeria: Bulletin of News, IV, 1, 1959, 7; al-, traduction, 83.

^{page 117 note 2} Inf. M, 11, 22 (= Arnett, 8, 17).

^{page 117 note 3} Inf. M, 23: .

^{page 117 note 4} Arnett, 8; Inf. M, 11, prints: .

^{page 118 note 1} W. E. N.Kensdale, Catalogue of the Arabic manuscripts preserved in the University Library, Ibadan, 18. According to Smith, H. F. C., Historical Society of Nigeria: Bulletin of News, IV, 4, 1960, 3Google Scholar, this personage (whom he calls Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, known as Hajirāmī) died in Ṣafar 1169/1755. This date accords well with the chronology adopted below, p. 130.

^{page 118 note 2} See below, p. 130.

^{page 118 note 3} The text which follows is based on the Bauchi manuscript, (B), which was the oldest available. Subsequently we were able to compare this with the text contained in manuscripts of the Manhal al-sayyāl (discussed on p. 132 below), which we have designated as (M). We have used two manuscripts of the Manhal, one transcribed by a pupil from the copy made by Malam Muntaka Coomassie, by whom it was very kindly made available to us. The second was the Paris manuscript, Bibliotheque Nationale 5708, fols. 104–15 (Vajda, G., Index générale des manuscrits arabes musulmanes de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, Paris, 1953, 450Google Scholar). For the present purpose these two authorities of the (M) recension did not differ materially. It should be added that whilst we have used (M) as an authority for the text, and in certain passages for the interpretation of the , al-zulāl it was not our concern to undertake a critical study of the Manhal itself. For the al-zulāl the text of (B) represents a slightly different recension from that of (M), the most obvious variation being that (M) contains an additional line at the commencement: . We have regarded this line as an interpolation.

^{page 122 note 1} (M) .

^{page 122 note 2} (M) .

^{page note 1} (M) omits.

^{page 122 note 1} (B)

^{page 122 note 2} (M) .

^{page 122 note 3} (M) . In the Paris MS of Manhal (supra, p. 118, n. 3) this whole line is omitted.

^{page 122 note 4} (B) .

^{page 122 note 5} (M) omits.

^{page 122 note 6} (M) .

^{page 122 note 7} (B) .

^{page 122 note 8} (M) .

^{page 122 note 9} (M) omits, but comments upon the line.

^{page 122 note 10} (B) [sic].

^{page 122 note 11} (M) .

^{page 123 note 1} (M) .

^{page 123 note 2} (B) .

^{page 123 note 3} (M) .

^{page 123 note 4} (B) .

^{page 124 note 1} The text is very obscure. This rendering is based on the commentary of al-Būlāqī.

^{page 125 note 1} ef. Hiskett, M., ‘Kitāb al-farq’, BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 571Google Scholar.

^{page 125 note 2} That is, as a condition of the marriage.

^{page note 1} Al-Bᕫlāqī confirms that the reference is to (A 1); possible confusion with (A 2) is thus excluded.

^{page 126 note 2} ‘For rulers have become tyrannous; the process of justice has become perjured, and merchants deal usuriously’, al-Būlāqī.

^{page 126 note 3} Al-Būlāqī.

^{page 127 note 1} Al-Būlāqī.

^{page 127 note 2} A marginal gloss reads ‘as Ibrāhim b. Aa’, see appendix (A 10).

^{page 128 note 1} A concealed form of usury.

^{page 128 note 2} cf. Hiskett, M., ‘Kitāb al-farq’, BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 573Google Scholar. Apparently a reference to the perquisite known as tawāsa, once customary amongst the Hausas.

^{page 128 note 3} Presumably a reference to gaisuwa, another form of customary perquisite paid by those received in audience by Hausa rulers, for which see Hiskett, loc. cit.

^{page 128 note 4} The implications of this passage are discussed below, pp. 132–5.

^{page 128 note 5} This is the explanation given by al-Būlāqī for this obscure passage. It might have seemed more natural to understand sulṭān as ‘head of state’.

^{page 129 note 1} Conceivably a reference to the civet-cat, sinnaur al-zabād, a well-known item in the Trans-Saharan trade. However, al-Būlāqī glosses the word as al-kirr al-wah .

^{page 129 note 2} Ostensibly, according to al-Būlāqī, to acquire religious merit by partaking of the food of the exalted persons present. But in fact the purpose of the request was to escape the risk of unlawful indulgence by confining himself to food that was left over. See further this page, n. 3.

^{page 129 note 3} Al-Būlāqī explains that this is a reference to a certain Sulṭān Abū al-Ḥasan al-Madanī who invited the learned men of his time to a feast. A certain ay Abū Ibrāhīm al-I‘rajī questioned them concerning their attitudes towards the food, and these are their different views, each of which, according to al-Qawrī, is admissible.

^{page 130 note 1} cf. Hiskett, M., ‘Kitāb al-farq’ BSOAS, XXIII, 3, 1960, 572.Google Scholar

^{page 130 note 2} Above, p. 118.

^{page 130 note 3} cf. Hiskett, M., ‘Material relating to the state of learning among the Fulani’, BSOAS, XIX, 3, 1957, 570Google Scholar.

^{page 132 note 1} For al-Muṣṭafā al-Būlāqī see GAL, Suppl., II, 705. The Manhal is not one of his four works issued in print according to Yūsuf b. Ilyān Sarkīs, Mu‘jam al-maṭbā‘āt al-‘arabīya wa ‘Imu‘arrabah,607. Malam Muntaka has a copy deriving from the Nigerian manuscript tradition. Another is listed by Vajda, G., Index générale des manuscrils arabes musulmanes de la Bibliothèque Nationate, Paris, 1953, 450, item 5708, fols. 104–15Google Scholar.

^{page 132 note 2} The spelling given by Lukas, J., A study of the Kanuri language, London, 1937Google Scholar, vocabulary, s.v., is tafâ, which does not exactly coincide with the form of MS (B).

^{page 132 note 3} Read , with the Paris copy of the Manhal al-sayyāl.

^{page 133 note 1} Professor R. B. Serjeant suggests that the true reading should be —from a Turkish word for tobacco—a most interesting emendation.

^{page 133 note 2} There are various discrepancies between the readings of thetwo manuscripts at this point,but the general sense is clear.

^{page 134 note 1} ilā barr al-Rúm: Since al-Rūm is not uncommonly used to designate the European Christians in Arabic sources, the meaning will be ‘the continent of Europe’ rather than ‘the Ottoman Empire’.

^{page 134 note 2} In this context al-majūs will correspond to its Hausa derivative maguzawa, designating the pagan neighbours of the Muslim states in West Africa.

^{page 134 note 3} Apparently Tafilalt, to the south of the Atlas mountains in Morocco.

^{page 134 note 4} Shaw, Thurstan, ‘Early smoking pipes: in Africa, Europe, and America’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xc, 2, 1960, 272–305Google Scholar. idem, ‘Early smoking pipes in West Africa’ (Paper presented at the third Conference on African History and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, 3–7 July 1961). In discussion at the conference Dr. B. Mauny mentioned pipes found at archaeological sites in Mauretania and the Republic of Chad.

^{page 135 note 1} Inf. M, 23 (= Arnett, 18).

^{page 135 note 2} ‘Ajā'ib al fi 'l-tarājim wal- , I, 159–80Google Scholar; cf. Wiet, Gaston, ‘Inscriptions mobilières de l'Egypte musulmane’, JA. CCXLVI, 1958, 273Google Scholar.

^{page 136 note 1} This unfamiliar nisba conceivably represents the Fulani tribal designation Toronke (in Hausa Toronkawa), to which group Usuman dan Fodio belonged.

^{page 136 note 2} This personage is mentioned by Bello (together with his father), Inf. M, 5 (= Arnett, i). His writings included a Manhal fī ‘ilm al-tawhīd, a verse composition Naẓm ‘ala ’l-taqāya, with various qaṣīdas, and other writings in verse. Whitting's text gives the name as .

^{page 136 note 3} For this Fulani name cf. Hiskett, M., ‘The state of learning among the Fulani’, BSOAS, XIX, 3, 1957, 563Google Scholar, n. 2.

^{page 136 note 4} The person mentioned below, p. 139.

^{page 136 note 5} The chronology requires attention, but there is little doubt that this person is the father of Usuman dan Fodio, the celebrated reformer.

^{page 136 note 6} GAL, II, 366; other references to this author are at I, 507, Suppl., I, 924 (29), and Suppl., II, 494.

^{page 137 note 1} p. 117.

^{page 138 note 1} W. E. N. Kensdale, Catalogue, 22.

^{page 138 note 2} Inf. M, 11 (= Arnett, 8).

^{page 138 note 3} Apparently a reference to the well-known ‘praise-songs’ of the Kanuri, for which see Patterson, J. R., Kanuri songs, Lagos, 1926Google Scholar.

^{page 139 note 1} This obscure phrase is perhaps an allusion to the legend that at the time of the Kanuri conquest of the region of Birnin Gazargamo, the invaders were able to overcome the autochthonous So (a people of giant stature) by the strategem of persuading them to dye their hands by placing them in gourds of henna, then binding them and putting them to death. Cf. Migeod, F. W. H., ‘The ancient So people of Bornu’, Journal of the African Society, XXIII, 1923–4, 28Google Scholar.

^{page 139 note 2} Inf. M,24(= Arnett, 19).

^{page 139 note 3} For Whitting's .

^{page 139 note 4} For al-Būṣīrī, see appendix (A 4), below.

^{page 139 note 5} The celebrated poem of Ka‘b b. Zuhayr, cf. GAL, I, 39.

^{page 140 note 1} Inf. M, 25.

^{page 140 note 2} Arnett (p. 19) reads ‘Aliu Jebbo’, but the etymology proposed by Hiskett (for which see n. 4 below) is here adopted.

^{page 140 note 3} Of Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ‘Abdullāh al-Ṭā’ī al-Jayānī (d. 672/1273): GAL, I, 30; Suppl., I, 526.

^{page 140 note 4} M. Hiskett, ‘The state of learning …’, 561.

^{page 140 note 5} Northern Nigeria: Historical notes on certain Emirates and tribes, edited by Burdon, J. A., 93Google Scholar.

^{page 140 note 6} ‘Abdullāh b. Muḥammad, known as Ibn Fūdī, Tazyīn al-waraqāt, f. 12 of Hiskett's MS (A); Inf. M, 27.

^{page 141 note 1} Above, p. 140, n. 6.

^{page 141 note 2} According to H. R. Palmer, Bornu Sahara and Sudan, 83 ff.

^{page 141 note 3} Kensdale, Catalogue, 23.

^{page 141 note 4} f. 13 of Hiskett's manuscript.

^{page 141 note 5} Kensdale, ‘Field notes …, JRAS, 1955, 167; Inf. M, 27; both citing a variant form of the title.

^{page 141 note 6} Inf. M, 31–2.