Hausa people

The Hausa (

The Hausa have, in the last 500 years, criss-crossed the vast landscape of Africa in all its four corners for varieties of reasons ranging from military service,^[25][26] long-distance trade, hunting, performance of hajj, fleeing from oppressive Hausa feudal kings as well as spreading Islam.

Because the vast majority of Hausas and Hausa speakers are Muslims, many attempted to embark on the Hajj pilgrimage, a requirement of all Muslims who are able. On the way to or back from the Hijaz region, many settled, often indigenizing to some degree. For example, many Hausa in Saudi Arabia identify as both Hausa and Afro-Arab.^[27] In the Arab world, the surname "Hausawi" (alternatively spelled "Hawsawi") is an indicator of Hausa ancestry.

The homeland of Hausa people is Hausaland ("Kasar Hausa"), situated in Northern Nigeria and Southern Niger. However, Hausa people are found throughout Africa and Western Asia. Cambridge scholar Charles Henry Robinson wrote in the 1890s that "Settlements of Hausa-speaking people are to be found in Alexandria, Tripoli, [and] Tunis."

Part of a series on the
History of Northern Nigeria
Timeline Prehistory Hausa States Kwararafa Confederacy Sokoto Period Kanem Bornu Pre-colonial Colonial Period Protectorate Period 1953–1960 1963–1966 1966–1979 1979–1983 1983–1993 1993–1999 1999–present
By ethnicity Hausa People Fulani People Kanuri People Nupe People Igbirra People
By topic Pacification of Northern Nigeria Culture Demographics Diplomacy Economics Historiography Medicine Military Women
By state Adamawa Bauchi Benue Borno Gombe Jigawa Kaduna Kano Katsina Kebbi Kogi Kwara Nassarawa Niger Plateau Sokoto Taraba Yobe Zamfara
v t e

The table below shows Hausa ethnic population distribution by country of indigenization, outside of Nigeria and Niger:^[28][29]

Country	Population
Ivory Coast	835,000[citation needed]
Sudan	3,000,000[30]
Cameroon	400,000[31]
Chad	287,000[citation needed]
Ghana	281,000[citation needed]
Central African Republic	33,000[citation needed]
Eritrea	30,000[12]
Benin	36,360[11]
Equatorial Guinea	26,000[citation needed]
Togo	21,000[32]
Congo	12,000[citation needed]
Gabon	17,000[14]
Algeria	11,000[citation needed]
Gambia	10,000[citation needed]

History

In the 7th century, the

Hausa Bakwai kingdoms were established around the 7th to 11th centuries. Of these, the Kingdom of Daura was the first, according to the Bayajidda legend.^[41]

However, the legend of Bayajidda is a relatively new concept in the history of the Hausa people that gained traction and official recognition under the Islamic government and institutions that were newly established after the 1804 Usman dan Fodio Jihad.

The Hausa Kingdoms were independent political entities in what is now

slaves, animal hides, and henna. Certainly trade influenced religion. By the 14th century, Islam was becoming widespread in Hausaland as Wangara scholars, scholars and traders from Mali and scholars and traders from the Maghreb brought the religion with them.^[44]

By the early 15th century, the Hausa were using a modified

calendars.^[45]

The Gobarau Minaret was built in the 15th century in Katsina. It is a 50-foot edifice located in the centre of the city of Katsina, the capital of Katsina State. The Gobarau minaret, a symbol of the state, is an early example of Islamic architecture in a city that prides itself as an important Islamic learning centre. The minaret is believed to be one of West Africa's first multi-storey buildings and was once the tallest building in Katsina. The mosque's origin is attributed to the efforts of the influential Islamic scholar Sheikh Muhammad al-Maghili and Sultan Muhammadu Korau of Katsina. Al-Maghili was from the town of Tlemcen in present-day Algeria and taught for a while in Katsina, which had become a centre of learning at this time, when he visited the town in the late 15th century during the reign of Muhammadu Korau. He and Korau discussed the idea of building a mosque to serve as a centre for spiritual and intellectual activities. The Gobarau mosque was designed and built to reflect the Timbuktu-style of architecture. It became an important centre for learning, attracting scholars and students from far and wide, and later served as a kind of university.^[46]

Islamisation of Kano, as he urged prominent residents to convert.^[49]

The legendary Queen Amina (or Aminatu) is believed to have ruled Zazzau between the 15th century and the 16th century for a period of 34 years. Amina was 16 years old when her mother, Bakwa Turunku became queen and she was given the traditional title of Magajiya, an honorific borne by the daughters of monarchs. She honed her military skills and became famous for her bravery and military exploits, as she is celebrated in song as "Amina, daughter of Nikatau, a woman as capable as a man."^[50] Amina is credited as the architectural overseer who created the strong earthen walls that surround her city, which were the prototype for the fortifications used in all Hausa states. She subsequently built many of these fortifications, which became known as ganuwar Amina or Amina's walls, around various conquered cities.^[51]

The objectives of her conquests were twofold: extension of her nation beyond its primary borders and reducing the conquered cities to a vassal status. Sultan

Usman Dan Fodio fled Gobir and from his sanctuary declared Jihad on its king and all Habe dynasty kings for their alleged greed, paganism, injustices against the peasant class, use of heavy taxation and violation of the standards of Sharia law. The Fulani and Hausa cultural similarities as a Sahelian people however allowed for significant integration between the two groups. Since the early 20th century, these peoples are often classified as "Hausa–Fulani" within Nigeria rather than as individuated groups.^{[citation needed]} In fact, a large number of Fulani living in Hausa regions cannot speak Fulfulde at all and speak Hausa as their first language. Many Fulani in the region do not distinguish themselves from the Hausa, as they have long intermarried, they share the Islamic religion and more than half of all Nigerian Fulani have integrated into Hausa culture.^[49]

British colonial administrator

On 13 March 1903 at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last Vizier of the Caliphate officially conceded to British rule. The British appointed Muhammadu Attahiru II as the new Caliph.^[54] Lugard abolished the Caliphate, but retained the title Sultan as a symbolic position in the newly organised Northern Nigeria Protectorate.^[55] In June 1903, the British defeated the remaining forces of Attahiru I, who was killed in action; by 1906 resistance to British rule had ended. The area of the Sokoto Caliphate was divided among the control of the British, French, and Germans under the terms of the Berlin Conference.^{[citation needed]}

The British established the Northern Nigeria Protectorate to govern the region, which included most of the Sokoto empire and its most important emirates.^[56] Under Lugard, the various emirs were provided significant local autonomy, thus retaining much of the political organisation of the Sokoto Caliphate.^[57] The Sokoto area was treated as just another emirate within the Nigerian Protectorate. Because it was never connected with the railway network, it became economically and politically marginal.^[58]

The Sultan of Sokoto continued to be regarded as an important Muslim spiritual and religious position; the lineage connection to dan Fodio has continued to be recognised.^[55] One of the most significant Sultans was Siddiq Abubakar III, who held the position for 50 years from 1938 to 1988. He was known as a stabilising force in Nigerian politics, particularly in 1966 after the assassination of Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of Northern Nigeria.^[55]

Following the construction of the Nigerian railway system, which extended from Lagos in 1896 to Ibadan in 1900 and Kano in 1911, the Hausa of northern Nigeria became major producers of groundnuts. They surprised the British authorities, who had expected the Hausa to turn to cotton production. However, the Hausa had sufficient agricultural expertise to realise cotton required more labour and the European prices offered for groundnuts were more attractive than those for cotton. "Within two years the peasant farmers of Hausaland were producing so many tonnes of groundnuts that the railway was unable to cope with the traffic. As a result, the European merchants in Kano had to stockpile sacks of groundnuts in the streets." (Shillington 338).

The

Hausas in the narrow sense are indigenous of Kasar Hausa (Hausaland) who are found in West Africa. Within the Hausa, a distinction is made between three subgroups: Habe, Hausa-Fulani (Kado), and Banza or Banza 7.[63]

• "Habe" are taken to be pure Hausas. They include Gobirawa, Kabawa, Rumawa, Adarawa, Maouri, and others. These groups were the rulers of Hausa Kingdoms before the Danfodiyo revolution (Jihad) of 1804.^[64]
• "Hausa–Fulani" or "Kado" are Hausanized Fulas, people of mixed Hausa and Fulani origin, most of whom speak a variant of Hausa as their native language. According to Hausa genealogical tradition, their identity came into being as a direct result of the migration of Fula people into Hausaland occurring from the 15th century^[61] and later at the beginning of the 19th century, during the revolution led by Sheikh Usman Danfodiyo against the Hausa Kingdoms, founding a centralized Sokoto Caliphate. They include Jobawa, Dambazawa, Mudubawa, Mallawa, and Sullubawa tribes originating in Futa Tooro.
• "Banza or Banza 7" according to some modern historians are people who are of ancient tribes and extinct languages in Hausaland, of whose history little is known. They include Ajawa, Gere, Bankal, and others.^[65]

Genetics

A Hausa gurmi lute player

A man playing a garaya lute.

Hausa drummer

Algaita player, a type of multi-reed instrument like a clarinet or oboe.

Goje fiddle

Kakaki trumpet players from Northern Nigeria. The instrument is similar or related to the nafir, an instrument that traveled with Islam.

According to a

From K = 5-13, all Nilo-Saharan speaking populations from southern Sudan, and Chad cluster with west-central Afroasiatic Chadic-speaking populations (Fig. S15). These results are consistent with linguistic and archeological data, suggesting a possible common ancestry of Nilo-Saharan speaking populations from an eastern Sudanese homeland within the past ≈10,500 years, with subsequent bi-directional migration westward to Lake Chad and southward into modern day southern Sudan, and more recent migration eastward into Kenya and Tanzania ≈3,000 ya (giving rise to Southern Nilotic speakers) and westward into Chad ≈2,500 ya (giving rise to Central Sudanic speakers) (S62, S65, S67, S74). A proposed migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers ≈7,000 ya from the central Sahara into the

Lake Chad Basin may have caused many western Nilo-Saharans to shift to Chadic languages (S99). Our data suggest that this shift was not accompanied by large amounts of Afroasiatic16 gene flow. Analyses of mtDNA provide evidence for divergence ≈8,000 ya of a distinct mtDNA lineage present at high frequency in the Chadic populations and suggest an East African origin for most mtDNA lineages in these populations (S100).^[68]

A study from 2019 that genotyped 218 unrelated males from the Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba tribes using X-STR analysis, found that when studying the genetic affinity, no significant differences were detected. It supported a homogeneity of Nigerian ethnic groups for X-chromosome markers.^[69]