Daura Emirate

Origins

Daura is honoured in the Bayajidda legend as the oldest of the Hausa states. In the jihad of Usman dan Fodio, Fulani forces under Mallam Ishaku took the town around 1806, and the Hausa ruler fled north. Ishaku became the first Fulani emir, under the overall authority of Sokoto, while the exiled Hausa line set up rival courts at Zango and Baure.

Rule and society

The Fulani emirate was small and exposed, lying on the frontier between the Sokoto Caliphate and the unconquered Hausa states of Maradi and Damagaram to the north. It ruled through titled officials on the Sokoto pattern, collected Islamic taxes and joined in the wars of the frontier. Daura remained a place of symbolic prestige for all Hausa.

Decline and legacy

After British occupation in 1903 the old dynasty was restored: the British installed the head of the Zango line as emir, and his descendants still reign. The Anglo-French boundary split the old Daura country between Nigeria and Niger.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.