Shaykh Usman Dan Fodio is considered as one of the most famous figures in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in West Africa thanks to his brilliant achievements in the Hausa land, namely, his foundation of the Islamic Fulani Sokoto Empire in 1809. It seems that he had been inspired by and imbued with al-Maghili’s principles on the duties of a ruler mentioned in his manuscript “Ma yajibu ala al-Amir” (The Obligations of the Prince), a treatise on government, which waswritten to the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Rumfa, containing the eight matters, which should be taken into consideration by a prince in ruling. The approval of these principles by Dan Fodio can be expressed by his reference to them at the end of his manuscript “Uṣūl al- ‘Adl li-Wulāt al-Amr wa-Ahlal-Faḍlwa-al-Salāṭīn (The foundations of justice for legal guardians, governors, princes, meritorious rulers, and kings), which defines the limits of authority of the ruler and his commitments towards the state’s residents under Islamic law. The paper deals with Dan Fodio’s conception of good governance through the principles referred to in the above-mentioned manuscripts. In the context, a comparative study of the two manuscripts on the duties of rulers is carried out to examine the influence of al-Maghili on Dan Fodio. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the original copy of al-Maghili’smanuscript isavailable in the Khizana (traditional library) of hisdescendants, near his mausoleum in Zawyet Shaykh, at about 100 kilometers from Adrar, in the south of Algeria.
Keywords: Usman Dan Fodio, al-Maghili, Hausa land, manuscripts, good governance, Islamic Law