The war began when Usman dan Fodio, a prominent Islamic scholar and teacher, was exiled from Gobir by King Yunfa, one of his former students.

[1] Usman dan Fodio assembled an Islamic army to lead a jihad against Gobir and other Hausa Kingdoms of northern Nigeria.

The war resulted in the creation of the Sokoto Caliphate, initially headed by Usman dan Fodio himself, which became one of the largest states in Africa in the 19th century.

Two prominent Hausa kingdoms that were central in the Jihad were Gobir, where Usman dan Fodio's parents settled in his childhood and where he lived until 1804, and Zamfara.

[1] [2] Usman dan Fodio, born in 1754, joined a growing number of traveling Islamic scholars through the Hausa kingdoms in the 1770s and became quite popular in the 1790s.

Yunfa gave dan Fodio the option of exile before destroying Degel, but Usman refused to abandon his followers, instead leading a large-scale hijra of the community to Gudu.

He retaliated by capturing the village of Matankari, which resulted in the Battle of Tabkin Kwatto, a major action between Yunfa and dan Fodio's forces.

[5] Although outnumbered, dan Fodio's troops were able to prevent Yunfa from advancing on Gunu and thus convince larger numbers of people to join his forces.

[6] They then captured the Sultanate of Kano whose king (Muhammad Alwali II) was forced to flee to Zazzau, then the village of Burum-Burum where he was soon killed in battle.

[1] Muhammed Bello, the son of Usman dan Fodio, transformed the semi-permanent camp of Sokoto into a city in 1809, during the Fulani war.

[10] Dan Fodio ruled from Sokoto as the religious leader of the Fulani jihad states from that point until 1815, when he retired from administrative duties.

[2] Bello succeeded Usman dan Fodio as ruler of Sokoto and in 1817 adopted the title of sultan, an office that still exists, albeit stripped of most of its power by the British colonial government of Nigeria in 1903.

Many recently enslaved individuals taken from these areas, who were already trained in military tactics, were highly able to stage numerous revolts in Portuguese Brazil that occurred during the 19th century.