Nana Asmau
| Nana Asma’u | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1793 Sokoto Caliphate |
| Died | 1864 Sokoto Caliphate |
| Region | West Africa |
| Occupation | Islamic scholar |
| Religion | Islam |
| Denomination | Sunni |
| Jurisprudence | Maliki |
| Main interest(s) | Poetry, Women's education |
| Sufi order | Qadiriyyah |
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Nana Asma'u (full name: Nana Asma’u bint Shehu Usman dan Fodiyo, Arabic: نانا أسماء بنت عثمان فودي; 1793–1864) was a princess, poet, teacher, and daughter of the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, Usman dan Fodio. She remains a revered figure in northern Nigeria. She is held up by some as an example of education and independence of women possible under Islam, and by others as a precursor to modern feminism in Africa.
Nana Asma'u was born some 11 years before the Fulani War, and was named after Asma bint Abi Bakr, a companion of the Muslim Prophet. The daughter of the Sufi-inspired and Fulɓe-led Sokoto Caliphate's founder and half-sister of its Muhammed Bello (the second Sultan of Sokoto), she outlived most of the founding generation of the Caliphate, making her an important source of guidance to its later rulers. From 1805, members of the Caliph's family came to great prominence, including the Caliph's female relatives. While Nana Asma'u became the most prominent, her sisters Myram and Fatima, and the Caliph's wives Aisha and Hawwa played major literary and political roles in the new state. Like her father, she was educated in Qur'anic studies, and placed a high value upon universal education. As exemplars of the Qadiriyyah Sufi school, the dan Fodio and his followers stressed the sharing of knowledge, especially that of the Sunnah, the example of the prophet Muhammad. To learn without teaching, they thought, was sterile and empty. Thus Nana Asma'u was devoted, in particular, to the education of the Muslim women. Like most of the rest of her family, she became a prolific author.
Well educated in the classics of the Arab and Classical world, and well versed in four languages (Arabic, the Fula language, Hausa and Tamacheq Tuareg), Nana Asma'u had a public reputation as a leading scholar in the most influential Muslim state in West Africa, which gave her the opportunity to correspond broadly. She witnessed many of the wars of the Fulani War and wrote about her experiences in a prose narrative Wakar Gewaye, "The Journey". As the Sokoto Caliphate began as a cultural and religious revolutionary movement, the writings of its leaders held a special place by which later generations, both rulers and ruled, could measure their society. She became a counselor to her brother when he took the Caliphate, and is recorded writing instructions to governors and debating with the scholars of foreign princes.
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