Hausa

Member of a people living along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, especially in northwestern Nigeria, southern Niger, and Dahomey, and numbering 9 million. The Hausa are Muslim farmers and skilled artisans, weavers, leatherworkers, potters, and metalworkers. Their language belongs to the Chadic subfamily of the Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) language group.

They came under Islamic influence about the 13th century, at which time they formed themselves into seven city-states – Daura, Biram, Gobir, Kano, Katsina, Rano, and Zazzau – with extensive bureaucracies and hierarchical social structures. The states controlled the trade routes across the Sahara, and Kano and Zazza, the most powerful, also developed trade links with states to the east, south, and southwest. Their language is still used today as a trade language throughout West Africa. Most of the states were conquered in the Fulani jihads of the 19th century and then by the British at the beginning of the 20th century.

Fighting between Nigeria's two largest ethnic groups, Hausas and Yorubas, in the southwest of the country broke out in July 1999, resulting in many deaths.