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Let me also help with something, even though my brother from the Scum Department @Sayeed_bello has said alot.
The earliest mention of Amina was in the Kano Chronicle (MS 1890 of Palmer 1908) which was a compendium altered from an earlier Kutumbawa source. https://twitter.com/wardah_abbas/status/1309955646293528581
The earliest mention of Amina was in the Kano Chronicle (MS 1890 of Palmer 1908) which was a compendium altered from an earlier Kutumbawa source. https://twitter.com/wardah_abbas/status/1309955646293528581
It speaks of Amina as a great conqueror who conquered for 34 years defeating in the process the Kwararafa and Nupe, and that she was a contemporary of Sultan Muhammad Daud who ruled Kano from 1421–38. This would negate the possibility of Amina defeating Kano as the
Kanoan Sultanate was then at the height of its power. Indeed the Kano Chronicle records that Daud’s father, Umaru Kanajeji had defeated and made Turunku a vassal state of Kano.
The Kano Chronicle also DID NOT IDENTITY THE ORIGINS of AMINA but states that the King of Nupe gave her forty eunuchs and I0,000 kolas.
It also credited her with bringing eunuchs and kolas into Hausaland and states that “In her time the whole of the products of the west were brought to Hausaland”.
The present record in Zazzau does not mention her as a ruler or a Queen, but tradition states that Amina was the daughter of Bakuwa Turunku, in itself a female name, and apparently meaning the
” female stranger or guest belonging to the Toronkawa or Toronke” (i.e. Tekrur or people of the Melle-Jenne region). According to Zaria chronology Bakwa did not found the present town of Zaria till 1536.
According to Zaria chronology Bakwa did not found the present town of Zaria till 1536. Some scholars have however argued that since, he or she lived at the place called Turunku before that date, it is evident that the Toronke came to Zaria before the century I400-I500.
It seems then that Amina was part of the people from the west called Turunku (Toronke) who gave an impetus to city-building with mud walls on a large scale-during the 1400s-1500s.
Sultan Muhammad Bello, in his Infak Al Maisur WAS THE ONLY FIGURE TO CALL AMINA A QUEEN. While he lived about two hundreds years after her death, he gave no source for his information, only stating that she was “the first to establish government among them,”
and that she forced Katsina, Kano and other regions to pay tribute to her. Bello provided no chronological details about her.
The narrative of Bello’s Infaq al Maisur, though doubtful has found its way into popular culture with Amina symbolizing a fierce warrior queen.
How do you use someone that lived 200 yrs after the supposed QUEEN AMINA’s reign as your source? And he didn’t back up his claim with any chronological details about her?
