Sokoto is typically written about as a coherent political and cultural system. Power radiated out from the Amīr al-muʾminīn through a system of emirates and sub-emirates who paid yearly taxes and in-kind tributes to the capital. Titled officials in the large and complex courts of the Amirs managed all aspects of day-to-day administration, from the operation of the law courts, to tax collection, the supervision of markets and the design of streets and sanitation systems. Forts, palaces, city walls and gates were constructed in a unique architectural style, while manufacturing centres such as Kano produced a rich material culture of clothing, textiles, leather goods and handicrafts. The system was fuelled by the labours of the approximately one quarter to one half of Sokoto’s inhabitants who were enslaved in the gandu [plantation] system or performing other forms of unfree labour in the homes of the wealthy.

In this stable (and atemporal) depiction, the Sokoto state was legitimate because it competently performed the vital functions of governance, such as securing borders and delivering justice, as well as presiding over an economic system that generated adequate wealth and status for the free inhabitants, while ensuring that the enslaved remained in bondage. This was in addition to functions specific to Muslim statecraft such as the construction of mosques and schools, the management and distribution of zakat and the furtherance of jihad to expand the borders of the state and replenish its supply of captive labour.

The kind of legitimacy associated with states and the good performance of state functions (akin to the bureaucracy which, according to Weber, represented ‘the purest type of legal authority’) came to full fruition under Sokoto’s later rulers, and as such will not be discussed here. However, Muhammad Bello’s unchallenged rule from 1821 until his death in 1837 set many of them in motion.