Discuss the reasons for the rise of the Sokoto Caliphate.

The question requires that candidates offer a considered and balanced review of the reasons why the Sokoto Caliphate rose to power. Candidates may discuss the development within the Fulani community of an Islamic clerical group that influenced the leaders of several regional Jihad movements. They may also emphasize the importance of Usman Dan Fodio, who became a revered religious thinker and who criticized the Fulanis’ Hausa rulers for combining Islam with traditional African practices. The Hausa emir’s restrictions on trade, their over-taxation of Fulani pastoralists and Hausa peasantry were also causes for discontent. When unrest broke out between Usman Dan Fodio’s supporters and the Hausa in 1804, he fled and proclaimed a new Islamic state. By 1808 this new state had begun the process of conquering the Hausa; a task that was completed in 1812. After this, Usman Dan Fodio was able to assert that he was the ruler of the largest state in Africa, the new Fulani Empire. Other relevant factors, for example social and political issues, may also be addressed to contextualize candidates’ analyses of the rise of the caliphate.