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)

The entire manuscript is available for download as a single PDF file. Higher-resolution images may be available upon request. For technical assistance, please contact open-help@bu.edu. Fieldwork Team: Dr. Mustapha Hashim Kurfi (Principal Investigator), Hauwa Usman (Local Project Manager), Alhaji Abubakar Maikudi Aishat (General Field Facilitator). Technical Team: Prof. Fallou Ngom (Project Director and former Director of the African Studies Center), and Eleni Castro (Technical Lead, BU Libraries). These collections on Gender in Nigerian Ajami Manuscripts are copied as part of the African Studies Center’s African Ajami Library. Access Condition and Copyright: These materials are subject to copyright. All rights reserved to the author. For use, distribution or reproduction contact Professor Fallou Ngom (fngom@bu.edu). Required Citation: Kurfi, M. H., Hauwa U., Ngom, F., and Castro, E. (2020). African Ajami Library: Gender in Nigerian Ajami Manuscripts. Boston: Boston University Libraries: http://hdl.handle.net/2144/41953. For Inquiries: Please Contact Professor Fallou Ngom (fngom@bu.edu).Provenance / Custodial history: This document is owned and authored by Professor Sa’adiya Omar who is the most celebrated author on women in the Sokoto Caliphate of Northern Nigeria. Professor Sa’adiya Omar was born into the families of Khadi Malam Usman Salihu and Fatima (Goggon Takai) in 1952 at Kiru in Kano state, Nigeria. Her background and love for the pursuit of Islamic knowledge had immersed her in the Islamic traditional knowledge system. She holds a BA in Hausa language and Islamic Studies in 1978 from Bayero University, Kano and an MA from the University of London in 1984. Her PhD in Linguistics is from Usman dan Fodio University, Sokoto. She served as the National Amirah (President) of the largest Muslim umbrella organization in Nigeria – Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN). At the present, she serves in many capacities, including being a member of various Islamic committees in Sokoto state and across Nigeria.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.The contents of this collection were developed with support of the Title VI National Resource Center grant # P015A180164 from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government