Security

While there was no formal intelligence system, traders and other travelers formed a network of informants that the state could use. News moved relatively fast—street talk disseminated rapidly—some of it basically mercantile, like prices of foodstuffs at different markets.

There was no press or state-controlled news service, but “spies” were often sent out—and aliens were often suspected of being spies; the paranoia over spying could lead to mass executions of those suspected—there seems to have been no formal way of uncovering the truth of such suspicions (we know of tortures, but as a means more of lethal humiliation than of extracting truth?). If the government did infiltrate, say, a radical group and the agent was discovered, he would be killed. Secrets, whether domestic or governmental, were a constant concern, with prayers to Allah to keep them hidden. But with slaves everywhere, gossip was beyond anyone’s control. Rumor, therefore, could be a useful tool of misinformation, creating panic or tactical misjudgments.^[2476]

Nonetheless, rebellions did take place, as did murders within the household. Rich men slept with a pistol beneath their pillows in case a concubine (or someone) tried to kill them. Political leaders might have several tents set up in their courtyard, with no one knowing in which tent the household head was sleeping that night. There was clearly a sense of insecurity: though there was no police force, the household slaves were de facto a security detail to protect their master; young slaves often slept in the public entry-spaces of the house, and the complexity of a large house, where there were no lights in the many passageways, made a silent entry difficult. There were usually only two ways in and out of major houses, as only tiny windows might exist to let in air—the main front entrance with its entry halls (often at oblique angles to obscure sightlines), and a back entry reserved for slaves, both males and concubines who might go out after dark with an escort.

Many concubines were elderly: a son inherited his father's concubines, who could therefore be quite a burden and autonomous. It was always possible for a man to dress in women's clothing in order to escape detection, but slaves usually knew everyone who had a right to enter; there was always a guard on duty there.^[2477]

Rebellions where a whole town or territory rejected allegiance to their emir were much more serious, signaled symbolically by a failure to send the biannual presents, or by refusing to see a messenger sent by the local emir or even killing him. The response would normally be to muster as large a force as possible from neighboring groups, and threaten an attack—say, near harvest time—with the expectation that the rebel's supporters would fade away. In some notable cases, the rebel won, as did Shaikh Hayatu at Balda or Emir Bukhari at Hadejia, but in the latter's case his successor on Bukhari's death simply rejoined the caliphate. A large army, led by the vizier from Sokoto, had tried to reclaim allegiance of Hadejia, but failed. Such joint operations were very rare; it was not as if the vizier was an active military figure— his role was diplomatic or political, as the amir al-mu'minin's representative beyond Sokoto. The amir al-mu'minin himself never left the Sokoto hinterland—for him to do so would signal to all the Muslims that the world's end was nigh and that the amir al-mu'minin was therefore heading east to meet the expected Mahdi: panic would then ensue.

More subtle dissent was shown by joining the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood and abandoning the Qadiriyya which was the brotherhood of Shaikh ‘Uthman ibn Fudi and all the Sokoto scholars. The Tijaniyya was new, and was brought to Sokoto by al-hajj ‘Umar, a very ambitious scholar (also a Pullo but from Futa Toro in the far west) on his way back home from Mecca.^[2478] Al-hajj ‘Umar al- Futi thought he had a claim, on the grounds of being the best scholar, to becoming the caliph once amir al-mu'minin Muhammad Bello died.

The electoral council in Sokoto thought otherwise, so al-hajj ‘Umar left Sokoto to go further westward (where he founded his own state that later conquered an existing reformist state). Those who had joined the Tijaniyya in Sokoto therefore kept their new spiritual allegiance secret. But in the course of the century, the Tijaniyya attracted many emirs and major scholars, thus ideologically splitting the eastern half of the caliphate in two.^[2479] Although the amir al-mu’minin in Sokoto always remained a Qadiri, the Tijaniyya was seen as the more “modern,” the more exciting Sufi brotherhood, with its long group recitations on Friday afternoons. The Tijanis were not the only “radicals”—there were millenarian movements that prompted thousands to head east on the pilgrimage in expectation of the Mahdi, while smaller groups formed their own extra-righteous communities deep in the countryside. In short, the caliphate never enforced a single mode of religious practice everywhere—in part because, outside an urban milieu, control was simply too hard to maintain. But within the big cities the emirs did not permit preachers proclaiming teachings that were regarded as highly unorthodox, and if the preacher persisted, he was executed, usually with some brutality (crucifixion and impaling were possible punishments; beheading by a single cut of a sword [from behind as he walked] was reserved for the ordinary criminal).

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Source: Bang Peter F., Bayly C.A., Scheidel Walter (eds.). The Oxford World History of Empire. Volume Two: The History of Empires. Oxford University Press,2020. — 1352 p.. 2020

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