¹ ‘Arabic documents of Northern Nigeria’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XXII, 2, 1959, 326.Google Scholarcf. Kensdale, W. E. N., ‘Field notes on the Arabic literature of the Western Sudan: Shehu Usuman dan Fodio’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1955, 164, n. 4: ‘All efforts to trace the originals have been unsuccessful.’Google Scholar

² The golden trade of the Moors, Oxford 1958, 225–32.

³ Hausa versions of many of the works best known in Arabic have been found in circulation. Whether the Hausa texts originate with the author, or were subsequently prepared, is not yet established. For specific compositions in Hausa and Fulani, see below.

⁴ The Tanbīh al-ikhwān alā ahwāl ard al-sūdān was translated by Palmer, H. R. as ‘An early Fulani conception of Islam’, Journal of the African Society, XIII, 1913–1914, 407–14; XIV, 1914–1915, 53–9;Google Scholar the Nūr ai-aibdb (a description of typically non-Muslim religious practices not without ethnographic interest), by Hamet, Ismail, Revue Africaine, XLI, 1897 297–320; XLII, 1898, 58–70.Google Scholar Most recently and systematically, the ‘Kitāb aI-farq: a work on the Habe Kingdoms attributed to ‘Uthmān dan Fodio’ was published by Hiskett, M., BSOAS, xxiii, 1960, 558–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ It seems worth noting the first lines of two of Usuman's ulani poems which have passed through the writer's hands during recent microfilm operations: (a) Miduwet Allah shenido batina zahiri Jatew iki 'am yuminadu Abdulqadiri (b) Nget Allah shenido mando nulnudūbē Burnado mangu tangefi kanda yarībe I understand that my colleague Dr D. W. Arnott has collected a more considerable list of these Fulani poems.Google Scholar

⁶ The translation of this title will be given on p. 241.

⁷ This paper appears to have been made in Northern Italy, near Venice, and mainly perhaps at the town of Pordenone by the firm of Andrea Galvani, for export to the Ottoman Empire, especially during the seventeenth century, cf. BSOAS, XXII, 2, 1959, 327, n. 2.Google Scholar

⁸ In Fulani usage the title Sāi designates the official charged with the collection of the jangali ‘cattle-tax’, and the supervision of relations with the nomadic Fulani.Google Scholar See now Smith, Michael G., Government in Zazzau, 1960, 93. In origin the word is Arabic, meaning ‘messenger’, and still in common use in that sense at Aden, as I learn from my colleague, Mr Norris.Google Scholar

⁹ I am obliged to the Madawaiki of Daura for the following list of this dynasty for the period from 1807 to recent times: (1) Ishāq. (2) Yūsuf. (3) Muhammad. (4) Zubair. (5) Mubammad Bello. (6) Mubammad Altine (a Fulani sobriquet signifying ‘born on a Monday’). (7) Mubammad Maigardo— the last reigning Emir. [(8) Benfirana Safiji. (9) Magajiya Mamai.]

¹⁰ The commander of Usuman's supporters in the campaign against each of the Hausa cities was invested with a flag, whence the term ‘flagbearer’ for these dynastic founders.

¹¹ I accept, perhaps in a slightly restricted sense, the term Ajami adopted by Hiskett, , ‘Material relating to the state of learning among the Fulani’, BSOAS, xix, 1957, 550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹² Kensdale, W. E. N., ‘Field notes on the Arabic literatures of the Western Sudan: Muhammadu Bello’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1958, 56, no. 38.Google Scholar

¹³ BSOAS, XXII, 1959, 345.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Bello, Muhammad, Ināq al-maisūr (ed. Whitting), p. 48 (=Amett, Rise of the Sokoto Fulani, p. 28).Google Scholar

¹⁵ ‘Material relating to the state of learning…’, BSOAS, XIX, 1957, 551.Google Scholar

¹⁶ ‘Source material for the history of the Western Sudan’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, I, 3, December 1958, 246. Mr Smith, who had occasion to peruse a draft of this article in 1959, kindly pointed out several omissions in the transcript of the Arabic text, and has made a number of suggestions elsewhere.

¹⁷ The Muslim legal concept of jmā' may be defined as the unanimous agreement of those qualified in the law. It forms one of the sources of Muslim legislation.

¹⁸ The words have the appearance of a quotation, but the source has not been traced.

¹⁹ i.e. God.

²⁰ i.e. the Prophet, Muhammad.

²¹ e.g. of Muliammad b. ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Maghīlī, to judge from Ahmad Bābā, Nayl al-ibtihāj, Cairo 1351, 331. It was no doubt from Maghīlī that Usuman derived the phrase.

²² cf. Abdullahi, Tazyin al-waraqāt apud Hiskett, M., ‘Material relating to the state of learning…’, BSOAS, XIX, 1957, 576.Google Scholar

²³ See n. 4, above.

²⁴ See n. 4, above.

²⁵ Unpublished. I have used two manuscripts of this work in the Palmer Collection at Jos. The item is listed by Kensdale, W. E. N., “Field notes on the Arabic Literature of the Western Sudan: Shehu Usumanu dan Fodio’, JRAS, 1955, 167, no. 49, with a minor variant of the title.Google Scholar

²⁶ No less than war can be implied by the words (para. xiii) ‘to take the government from him is obligatory by assent’.