Yaji I

Ali Dan Tsamiya (Hausa pronunciation^ⓘ) known as Yaji I or Ali Yaji Dan Tsamiya (Hausa pronunciation^ⓘ) was a king and later the first Sultan of Kano, a state in what is now Northern Nigeria. Yaji I ruled from 1359 to 1385 CE. A prominent figure in the state's history, Yaji used a religious revolution to finally solidify his family's grasp on Kano and its sub-kingdoms after centuries of strife. He was also responsible for the absorption of Rano into Kano.

Since the arrival of the first king of Kano, Bagauda in 999, there had been tension between the newly established aristocracy and the indigenous pagans of Kano. All subsequent Kano Kings engaged in feuds with the pagan population but were unable to gain mastery over them. In 1350, Yaji aided by Soninke Wangara scholars from Mali, relinquished the Hausa Animist Cult of Tsumbubura, and proclaimed Kano a Sultanate.

He violently crushed a subsequent rebellion by the animist cult at the Battle of Santolo, waging in the processes the first Islamic Jihad in Sudanic Africa. He conquered the Kwararafa and the numerous Hausa kingdoms around Kano laying the seeds for Kanoan dominance in the Bilad as-Sudan. He died in 1385 having laid the seeds for an eventual Kanoan Empire.