The Military

The military dimension of the Sokoto Caliphate was secondary to its self-identity as a jihadi society founded primarily to propagate good Islamic practice. A scholar had a higher repute than a mighty warrior.

Hence there was no standing army, no staff of generals, no barracks, just a single “commander of the army” (amir al-jaish). The army was an ad hoc muster of men led by their patrons or heads of their lineage, following the announcement at Friday prayer that an expedition was to start the next day.^[2474] Many of the men in an army were armed servants—or slaves, or sons of slaves—who served the large titled households that constituted local government. On a major expedition, the majority walked on foot; only the high-ranking rode horses, with chair-saddles and large stirrups. Armor was made from quilted cotton; chain-mail was rare, and large helmets were of metal. The horses had quilted coverings, especially on their hind quarters, to keep poison arrows at bay: a battle started with a cloud of arrows, so the cavalry initially turned their backs to the incoming arrows (the poison could kill a horse in 20 minutes). The ordinary soldier carried a spear or a javelin, a sword and a knife, or a bow and arrows (poisoning arrows is against Islamic law). Some might have a leather shield but it was cumbersome, and if there was rain, it was of no effect and extra-heavy. There was a white cotton flag for a campaign, as a symbol of command (it usually had a prayer inscribed on it), but otherwise no regimental flags, only drums. But marching was often done in the coolness of the night, with troops losing their way; order was by household or by place of origin; their women went with them. But by mid-century, the amir al-mu'minin had established a corps of full-time soldiers drawn from his slaves to carry out specialized raids against rebels; the corps could do rapid nightmarches to surprise an enemy.

Late in the century, senior households might establish their own small corps of gunmen to assert claims to office; these gunmen were not locals but were hired from outside the state. Their very presence was considered illegitimate, though they were an effective threat to others. Guns had long been regarded as not “proper” weapons, but occasionally specialists had flintlocks and “Dane guns.” There were no cannons or artillery pieces; no crossbows or siege weaponry: 30-foot-high town walls could only be scaled by individuals using two- head axes. There was also no formal training, but most men had their own particular weapons and, through experience as hunters, knew how to use them. Archery and riding practice had been encouraged for the jihad, but target-practice later by the few gunmen seems to have been seen as a waste of precious gunpowder: stores of powder kept in Kano were unused even in a crisis. Tactics such as ambushing an attacker as he crossed a river were not employed, perhaps because, in ordinary warfare, local attackers were not keeping formations (such as a square) that were at risk when fording a river. Instead, surprise cavalry raids or night attacks were the standard tactic, in which care was taken to have silent horses (mares, presumably). Horses were specially trained, too, to disregard the offensive smell of camels.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, such a range of military forces was able to function defensively or preemptively in the two seasons when warfare was feasible—the autumn when ripening crops were a target, and in the spring before the rains and planting began. But military prowess was not as highly regarded at the center as it was on the frontiers of the caliphate, where lines of ribats (“forts”) were established to keep the frontiers closed. In practice, young men were posted to them and they raided their neighbors for prisoners and other booty, and made their names as warriors. They collected “tribute” from subdued neighbors who had made a treaty.

Despite the jihad, they tended not to allow neighbors to convert to Islam, since conversion would give these neighbors the security of being fellow Muslims. Nonetheless, some of these neighboring peoples developed defenses against the caliphal cavalry including trenches and booby-traps; lines of closely planted trees with low branches provided safe routes of escape for those needing to flee a surprise attack. Local people knew which towns were the most defensible, and took refuge there, bypassing nearer but less secure settlements: even pregnant women and children ran. Warning of an impending attack came from literally putting an ear to the ground: horses' hooves on the dry, hard soil could be heard from afar. Some villages sought to hide themselves within a grove of trees; others were sited near a rocky hill steep enough to be secure against cavalry. Most villages had lookout trees by the gate, tall silk-cotton trees trimmed to give a good view of the surrounding countryside.

Armies could be large, several thousand strong if it was mainly infantry, but much of the jihad and subsequent operations were carried out by small units of about 50-70 mounted men.^[2475] To muster an army was as much a symbolic act each year by a ruler: the forces would gather at the mustering camp a little distance away from the great city (usually on a Saturday), with everyone equipped with their food supplies for some five to six days' campaign.

A formal battle often started with a scholar saying prayers ahead of the front line, while an opposing “priest” countered with his prayers: spiritual intimidation was important for morale. A major problem, however, was that not all the units in an army might participate in the fighting—units could stay out of the battle, or maneuver independently. The amir al-mu’minin was no better at enforcing compliance to a call to arms than a subordinate emir, and thereby he might lose a crucial battle: even against an invading British-led force, some senior Sokoto leaders kept their men away from the final decisive engagement on March 15, 1903.

Similarly, sieges were rarely risked: the commander within a walled city could seldom be sure a gate might not be betrayed and the enemy let in (gates were too narrow and twisty for a loaded camel to pass through). Houses within a walled city might be defensible, but attackers could leap from flat roof to flat roof and drop into the courtyards. Alternatively, an enemy might set free pigeons which had lit cotton attached to their feet: when let loose near a thatched village or town, the birds perched on the thatch and set the entire settlement ablaze. As the panicking inhabitants fled the fire, the attackers were hidden outside by the gates, waiting to capture them. There seems to have been no formal strategy to foil such attacks. There was no “fire brigade,” no water cisterns—only borrow-pits that had rain water (and sometimes aged crocodiles, too: they tidied up the corpses of slaves thrown into the ponds). Mud roofs were fireproof, but more expensive, needing annual maintenance; granaries were usually thatched, as were women's rooms and kitchens (if only to let through smoke from a woodfire).

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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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