Nana Asma'u: A Legacy They Couldn't Erase (Part 3)

The final episode in the Nana Asma'u series follows the Yan Taru network forward in time, from Asma'u's death in 1864 through the British conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1903, the colonial period, Nigerian independence, and into the twenty-first century.This episode examines why the Yan Taru survived when almost every other institution of the Sokoto Caliphate did not. It explores how British indirect rule inadvertently preserved the social infrastructure the network depended on, and how the Yan Taru's operation in women's domestic spaces made it invisible to colonial administrators who were focused on political control and tax collection.The episode also covers the work of scholars Jean Boyd and Beverly Mack, who traveled to Sokoto in the 1980s and 1990s and found the Yan Taru still functioning, with women reciting Asma'u's poems from memory in an unbroken chain of transmission stretching back nearly two hundred years.Sources include Jean Boyd's "The Caliph's Sister," Beverly Mack and Jean Boyd's "One Woman's Jihad" and "Collected Works of Nana Asma'u," and Murray Last's "The Sokoto Caliphate."Content Warning: This episode discusses the British conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate and the death of Sultan Muhammad Attahiru I. Enjoyed this episode? Dive deeper into Islamic history with the Archives app - bite-sized lessons, real stories, and daily adventures you can finish in 5 minutes.📲 Download the Archives app here🌐 Learn more here 📸 Follow Basel on Instagram here If this episode helped you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Assalamu alaykum, and we'll see you in the next one.