Malamai Mata a Daular Usmaniyya a Ƙarni Na Sha-tara da Karni Na Ashirin (Women Clerics of the Usmaniyya Empire [Sokoto Caliphate] in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries)

Abstract

This document contains information on some forty (40) Muslim women educators from Usman dan Fodio’s Sokoto Caliphate. Written by Professor Sadiya Omar in 2017, the work focuses on women clerics who were famous for their knowledge, teaching, and literary writings. They contributed greatly to the spread of Islamic knowledge in their communities. They left a positive impact on the communities. With perhaps the exception of Nana Asma’u, who is widely known, most of the female educators in the manuscript are unsung heroines who are little known beyond the Sokoto Caliphate. The manuscript, Women Clerics of the Usmaniyya Empire in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, identifies the forty Muslim women clerics who lived in three different eras: 1) those who lived before the Sokoto Jihad, 2) those who lived during the Jihad in the 19th century, and 3) those who lived after the Jihad in the 20th century. The manuscript provides details on the Ƴantaru leaders (“The Associates”) who laid the foundation for the various Modibbos (Female Education Supervisors), a system that has endured to this day. The manuscript also examines the literary works of these women scholars, especially their poems, sermons and admonitions. The author explains that the rationale for writing this book was to serve as a reference point and a source of inspiration and motivation for her fellow women. The forty women educators in the manuscript had worked hard to be educated and to have a positive impact on the lives of many people in their communities, which made some of them famous in the Sokoto Caliphate. This work can serve as the basis for policy formulation on women and girl-child education in Muslim Africa and a means to empower women that is compatible with Islamic traditions.