Administration

Given the size of the area to be governed and the lack of quick transport, the amir al-mu'minin at Sokoto only exercised oversight as the supreme leader of the cal­iphate. He could advise and appoint—or confirm selections for appointment made by others—but primarily he relied on the emirs in each emirate to maintain the security of their realms and ensure good, just government as spelled out in Shari‘a law.

To help the amir al-mu'minin to run the 13 emirates in the east and north of the caliphate were certain key officials whose role was hereditary. The most senior was the vizier, himself a scholar and author, who was married to the learned sister of Muhammad Bello, Shaikh ‘Uthman's daughter Asma'u.^[2471] Their house was next, on the north/right side, to the amir al-mu'minin's (west-facing) house in Sokoto; he had a large household of servants, and was relatively wealthy—he built a mosque some distance from his house. Another official (on the south/left side) was the Galadima, with responsibility as the go-between (or “gate”) for two emirates; third and fourth officials were the Magajin Gari and the Magajin Rafi. The amir al- mu'minin had a council as well as a judicial court in which an expert judge (qadi) sat as an advisor. The defining characteristic of the caliph's judicial role was that he alone could order the execution of a Muslim; any subordinate emir who exe­cuted a person was thereby declaring his autonomy and thus had become, in formal terms, an enemy of the caliphate. But the amir al-mu'minin's court (for mazalim) was the last resort of complainants from all over the caliphate, and any subordinate emir who was found to have misjudged a case had to repeal his decision.

The economy of the caliph's household was based on (a) foodstuffs produced on large plantations manned by slaves; (b) taxes in the form ofyearly “alms,” border fees (paid by transporters), tribute from non-Muslims; (c) merchants giving “presents” to the local ruler; (d) gifts from subordinate emirs at each of the two festivals, gifts that might often include large numbers of captives which could be sold on, to for­eign buyers, as slaves; (e) annual raids on non-Muslim or enemy communities from which captives could be acquired. In Sokoto itself, there seem not to have been annual taxes (kharaj), and Fulbe were held to be exempt (as mujahidun?). Other emirates, however, did impose kharaj on free, subordinate households (talakawa).^[2472] But as there is no contemporary written documentation that survives on taxes and other income during the caliphate, we cannot be more precise.

Soldiers were paid by a share of the loot (including prisoners, some of whom might later be ransomed by their kin). There was no salary structure: the major households/lineages were allocated territory as fiefs, from which they drew both food and finance. The currency was primarily cowries, but with values calculated in them; inflation over the century seems to have been low. There was a state Treasury and a formally appointed treasurer, but it is not clear how long it continued to func­tion as a store of public property. Tax-collecting seems not to have been the major issue that it became under British colonial rule. A proportion of whatever revenue was collected was expected to be creamed off on its way to the Treasury: but pri­marily the core wealth of the state remained personal and never became institu­tionalized. Even the amir al-mu'minin's house was his lineage's property—it was not “state” property (as a “palace”), so that if an amir al-muminin was appointed from another lineage, he lived in his family's house (story has it that Muhammad Bello, when amir al-mu'minin, used “state” oil to light his lamp when writing state texts, and switched to his own oil when writing personal texts).

Labor supply was dominated by slavery. In Kano city in 1824, a group of merchants estimated that slaves outnumbered free people by 30 to one, but this may have been exceptional: prisoners of war were being relocated to plantations fol­lowing the “second jihad” against rebellious villages seeking their autonomy again.^[2473] Otherwise it has been assumed by modern historians that the ratio ca. 1850 was 1:1, but there are no precise statistics. Children born to slaves were themselves slaves but had more rights (as cucanawa, from the old Coptic term shushan). Slaves had the right to labor time in which to earn enough money to buy their freedom, and many were emancipated by their owners or their owners' heirs. Hence the numbers of freedmen were high; they were liable to pay taxes and act as free men, but they usually retained links to their former owners' household. Patron-client networks remained central to the system, both among men and women, and can last over generations. Some households also owned eunuchs who served the women of the house, but they were brought in: castration was not done by Muslims (it is against

Islamic law). Slaves wore distinctive clothing and did not wear hats; they could be used for dangerous work, like well-digging. Many ran away, especially from the extra-large rural farmsteads where they were housed. A major feature of adminis­trative correspondence was reporting escaped slaves; they often ran to nearby hills or plateaus, where they joined communities of runaways out of reach of the caliphal cavalry; returning to their original homes was impractical as their home villages had been destroyed and their fellow villagers widely dispersed.