“Where is My Region?” Geographical Representation and Textuality in Sokoto

Abstract

This paper is devoted to geographical knowledge of the world and the definition of homeland and outland among the elite of the early Sokoto Caliphate (ca. 1800–1840). It argues that with the creation of a territorial jihadist state, geography became an important tool within religious and political discourses because in Sokoto warfare was predicated upon a precise mapping of the “Land of Islam” and the “Land of Unbelief”. The circulation of contradictory accounts about landscapes and rivers in the Sahel via medieval Arabic books, traders, pilgrims and soldiers, will receive special attention. The key argument is that written geographical accounts and cartography from Sokoto were not only restricted by the information available for this task, but also by the characteristics of the genres: texts can express uncertainties about concepts of space, in contrast, cartography requires geographical definition and spatial exactitude. This article is thus dedicated to the analysis of content and form of geographical discourses in the early Sokoto State by the comparison of texts and a map.