Historical Amnesia

Page 10
Q-News, Issue 361
March 2005

• Qasa, Queen of Mali, was the wife of famed king Mansa Suleiman in the 14th Century. Ibn Battuta reported that, “the queen is his partner in the kingship, after the custom of the blacks. Her name is mentioned with his from the pulpit.” She helped rule over a magnificent empire that was the richest in Africa, encouraging trade, scholarship, the arts and building mosques.
• Amina, Queen of Zazzua who in the 16th Century ruled over a Hausa state located in modern-day Nigeria. Amina was a skilled warrior and as a princess led her kingdom’s cavalry into battle and brought immense wealth and power to her people. During her thirty-four year reign, she expanded her state dominating trade and commerce in the region, made her lands safe for passage and is credited with building innovative earthen wall fortifications around nascent cities that helped the process of urbanisation.
• Nana Asmau was the daughter Shehu Uthman dan Fodio, the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, and who until her death in 1864 advised on the running of the state. She was the author of 55 works (including a large multi-volume commentary of the Quran), a poet, an administrator and teacher who founded the Yan Taru movement, which educated women and is still in existence today. As her father’s diplomat, she was corresponding with the Shehu of Borno, the head of the first Islamic state in Nigeria on issues of Islamic jurisprudence and her views were well respected. She spoke and wrote in Arabic, Fulfulde and Hausa.