Bolewa records recall that Muhammad Kai was the first Bolewa chief to adopt Islam, and that he went to Bornu, presumably to do homage there. The dating is very uncertain, perhaps about 1700, or perhaps a little later, in conjunction with the campaigns of the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Among the Azna, Hausa-speaking people in the extreme north-west of Hausaland, strangers from Bornu are said to have been the first to establish a state government, apparently in the seventeenth century. Hausaland, like Bornu, experienced the pressure of Tuareg from the north and Kwararafa from the south. In the mid-seventeenth century, when Mai Ali b. Umar of Bornu repelled the Kwararafa, at that time pressing hard on the Hausa, a celebrated cleric of Katsina, Dan Marina, wrote a poem in praise of the mat, whom he addressed as amir al-muminin, commander of the faithful. Dan Marina had been the pupil of Dan Masanih, who though born in Katsina was of Bornu parentage: Dan Masanih is said himself to have taken a prominent part in the defence of Katsina against the Kwararafa. One author has suggested that also the Bolewa, who were neighbours to the Kwararafa, might have submitted to Bornu about the time of Mai All s victory. T o the north, the organized state of Damagaram emerged in the first half of the eighteenth century, as Kanuri leadership. The Cambridge History of Africa Vol 4.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 06:02:21 +0000
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