[2] Islam is predominantly concentrated in the northern half of the country, with a significant Muslim minority existing in the southern region.

The Sokoto Caliphate, founded by Fulani Islamic scholar Usman dan Fodio, dominated northern Nigeria throughout the 19th century during the Fula jihads, until it was annexed by the British Empire in 1903.

[7] Writings by Ahmad Fartua an Imam during the period of Idris Alooma provided glimpse of an active Islamic community in Bornu[7] while religious archives showed Islam had been adopted as the religion of the majority of the leading figures in the Borno Empire during the reign of Mai (king) Idris Alooma (1571–1603), although a large part of that country still adhered to traditional religions.

It had spread to the major cities of the northern part of the country by the 16th century, later moving into the countryside and towards the Middle Belt uplands.

The Nigeria-born Muslim scholar Sheikh Dr. Abu-Abdullah Abdul-Fattah Adelabu has argued that Islam had reached Sub-Sahara Africa, including Nigeria, as early as the 1st century of Hijrah through Muslim traders and expeditions during the reign of the Arab conqueror, Uqba ibn al Nafia (622–683), whose Islamic conquests under the Umayyad dynasty, during Muawiyah's and Yazid's time, spread all Northern Africa or the Maghrib Al-Arabi, which includes present-day Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco.

[10] In the early 19th century, Islamic scholar Usman dan Fodio launched a jihad, which is called the Fulani War, against the Hausa Kingdoms of Northern Nigeria.

[12] The Sokoto Caliphate became one of the largest empires in Africa, stretching from modern-day Burkina Faso to Cameroon and including most of northern Nigeria and southern Niger.

[13] In its hold, the caliphate ruled through much of the 19th century, until 29 July 1903, the second battle of Burmi concluded its dissolution by British and German forces.

In his Movements of Islam in face of the Empires and Kingdoms in Yorubaland, Sheikh Dr. Abu-Abdullah Adelabu supported his claims on early arrival of Islam in the southwestern Nigeria by citing the Arab anthropologist Abduhu Badawi, who argued that the fall of Koush southern Egypt and the prosperity of the politically multicultural Abbasid period in the continent had created several streams of migration, moving west in the mid-9th Sub-Sahara.

[14] According to Adelabu, the popularity and influences of the Abbasid dynasty, the second great dynasty with the rulers carrying the title of 'Caliph' fostered peaceful and prosperous search of pastures by the inter-cultured Muslims from Nile to Niger and Arab traders from Desert to Benue, echoing the conventional historical view[15] that the conquest of North Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate between AD 647–709 effectively ended Catholicism in Africa for several centuries.

[16] Islam in Ancient Yoruba is referred to as Esin Imale, which folk etymology states it comes from the word "Mali."

[23] Second, there was a mass movement of people at this time into Yoruba land, many of these immigrants were Muslims who introduced Islam to their host.

[25] Islam came to Lagos at about the same time like other Yoruba towns, however, it received royal support from Ọba Kosọkọ, after he came back from exile in Ẹpẹ.

[30] A fringe and heretical group, led by the cleric Mohammed Marwa Maitatsine, started in Kano in the late 1970s and operated throughout the 1980s.

These disaffected adherents ultimately lashed out at the more traditional mosques and congregations, resulting in violent outbreaks in several cities of the north.

[38] According to Pew Research Center in 2010, Muslims in Nigeria overwhelmingly favoured Islam playing a large role in politics.

A majority of Muslims in Nigeria favoured stoning and/or whipping adulterers, cutting off hands for crimes like theft or robbery, and the death penalty for those who abandon Islam.

[40] Maintaining that the wide adoption of Islamic faith and traditions has succeeded to lay impacts both on written and spoken Nigerian vernaculars, Sheikh Adelabu asserted nearly all technical terms and cultural usages of Hausa and Fulani were derived from Islamic heritages, citing a long list of Hausa words adopted from Arabic.

In furthering supports for his claims, Sheikh Adelabu gave the following words to be Yoruba's derivatives of Arabic vocabularies:[41] In 2008, twelve states located in northern Nigeria had fully implemented Sharia law.

[47] Despite this, there remains a divisive stance on whether hijab should be allowed to be worn by Muslim women and girls in schools, public spaces, and workplaces.

[50] However, the court decision was overturned two years later on July 21, 2016, ruling that “the ban on the use of hijab in public schools in the state was discriminatory against Muslim pupils.” The Lagos State government made another attempt to re-institute the ban in February of 2017 and was blocked, affirming the decision to uphold the right to hijab.

The practice of Almajiranci by students primarily from rural areas (who are called Almajiri—a transliteration of Al Muhajirun, the Arabic word for emigrant—.

One witness noted that the imam was about to begin prayers when a car attempted to force its way into the mosque, and the occupant detonated the bombs after being stopped.