Hausa–Fulani

Medieval Arabic sources refers to the area as Sudan or as Bilad Al Sudan (English: Land of the Blacks; Arabic: بلاد السودان‎). This designation may have given rise to the term Negroland which was used by Europeans until the 19th century to refer to the inner poorly explored area north of the region of Guinea consisting of the Slave Coast, Gold Coast, Grain Coast in West Africa.[7]

Since the populations were partially affiliated with the Arab Muslim culture of North Africa, they started to trade and be referred to by the Arabic speakers as Al-Sudan (meaning "The Blacks") as they were considered an extended part of the Muslim world. There are early historical references by medieval Arab and Muslim historians and geographers which to refer to the Kanem-Bornu Empire as the regions major centre for Islamic civilization. It is likely that the medieval Hausa Kingdoms formed trading ties with the Bornu Empire, which became increasingly wealthy as the main African transshipment centre for the Arab slave trade. Hausa rulers also likely provided Sudanic peoples as a tributary to the Bornu Empire in order to avert war with the Empire.

The Sudan was gradually fulanised with the spread of Islam from the 7th century AD, when the liturgical language Arabic was first brought to the Sudan via Bornu. Until this point, the Fulani a nomadic ethnic group primarily traversed the semi-desert Sahelian region, north of the Sudan, with cattle and avoided trade and intermingling with the Sudanic peoples. Fulanisation was at least partly strengthened in the rural areas in the early 16th century with the emigration of the settled Dambazawa wealthy trading clan from Bornu. However, many parts of the Sudan were only fulanised relatively recently in the 19th and 20th centuries, following the Fulani Jihad led by Sheikh Usman dan Fodio which established the Fulani-led Sokoto Caliphate.

The Fulani Empire emerged strong after the jihad under the leadership of Usman dan Fodio (c.  1754–1817), whom a council proclaimed as the Amir al-Mu'minin or Commander of the Faithful. The empire with Arabic as its official language grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast landlocked empire connected the East with the West Sudan region. There was a need for the Fulani to settle in the conquered densely-populated Sudanic Hausa states in order to establish administrative structures and a ruling elite. This settlement eventually gave rise to the gradual cultural assimilation of the conquered Hausa elite culture by the settled Fulani elite in major Hausa cities (or Hausa Bakwai) of: Daura, Hadeija, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Rano, and Gobir, leading to the mass education and promotion of Hausa language and culture through schools and later mass media, during the 20th century, by the British colonial administrations, is regarded as the strongest contributor to the later Hausasization process in the Sudan.

• Fulani War
• Fula people
• Hausa people
• Sokoto Caliphate
• History of West Africa