Although there were Muslim communities in the area before the nineteenth century, it was not until Yaʿqūb ɗan Dādi, a flagbearer (and possibly a disciple) of Sh. ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad Fodiye, established an Islamic emirate in Bauchi in 1805 that the religion really took root.¹ Even today, however, the population of Bauchi State is of mixed religious allegiance since Christian missions also undertook proselytization in the twentieth century. ʿAlī Abū Bakr (Thaqāfa, 183-8) gives an account of the Islamic colleges that were established in Bauchi, Gombe and Nafaɗa (half …