Usman dan Fodio
Shaihu Usman dan Fodio (also referred to as Shaikh Usman Ibn Fodio), 1754-1817 was a writer and Islamic reformer who lived in what is today Nigeria. Living in the Hausa federation he became a revered religious thinker. The leaders of the Hausa worried about his growing power and reputation and decided to move against him and his followers. While many of his supporters were imprisoned dan Fodio escaped to the Fulani.
The Fulani were an ethnic group, one to which dan Fodio belonged, neighbouring the Hausa federation. Very decentralized they were pastoralists nomads controlling the large steppes north of the Hausa.
Dan Fodio turned to the Fulani and united them in a jihad, against the Hausa in 1804. He was immensely successful the Hausa were defeated and dan Fodio founded the Fulani Empire. Expansion continued and the empire soon became the largest state in Africa. He established a new caliphate at Sokoto and set up a theocratic form of government.
In 1815 dan Fodio retired and the Caliphate passed to his son Muhammed Bello.
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