SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 



learned men) to Kano. The leading event of the sixteenth century 

 was the Songhay invasion and conquest, mentioned in the Tarikh-es- 

 Sudan, and by Leo, the African, but not in the Kano Chronicle. 

 Askia, king of Timbuctoo, compelled his defeated enemy to marry 

 one of his daughters, and pay him the third part of all his tribute. 

 Passing over nearly two centuries, we come to Al Wali, the last 

 Hausa king of Kano, who rebuilt its walls in 1787, and ultimately had 

 to flee to Zaria for refuge from the victorious Fulani. The other 

 States, like Kano, had their ups and downs, their eras of prosperity 

 and adversity, culminating in the unspeakable catastrophe of the 

 Fulani irruption during the early part of last century. This alien 

 domination Hausa was on the point of shaking off, when the British 

 Government appeared on the scene. Much bloodshed was thus 

 averted, and though the British occupation has not been bloodless, 

 yet it is Fulani blood that has been spilt. 



10. RELIGION. 



An overwhelming majority of the 10,000,000 inhabitants of 

 Hausaland to-day profess Islam. But Hausaland has not always 

 been a Muslim country. Islam was accepted only during the reign 

 of Yahya in the thirteenth century. It is generally believed, and I have 

 heard it stated, that Islam was forced upon the Hausas by their Fulani 

 conquerors. The statement involves an almost unpardonable ana- 

 chronism. As a matter of fact the Fulani conquest followed quite six 

 centuries after the adoption of Islam as the national religion. The latter 

 event took place in the thirteenth century, the former in the nineteenth. 

 The idea of force having been used to compel its acceptance is in direct 

 contradiction to history, which tells us that this event was quite peace- 

 ful. The statement that Islam wins its way among the nations of 

 Africa by fire and sword is a pious fraud of Christian missionaries to 

 account for their own failures when in contact with it. Berbushay 

 was a pagan, lived on the Hill Dalla, and is said to have inherited the 

 customs of Dalla, which were handed down through the pagan families. 

 He was Pontifex Maximus as well as king and officiated at religious 



