Amina of Zaria (1533-1610"), commonly known as the warrior queen, expanded the territory of the Hausa people of north Africa to the largest borders in history. More than 400 years later, the legend of her persona became the model for a television series about a fictional warrior princess, called Xena.

Amina was the warrior queen of Zazzau (now Zaria). She is known also as Amina Sarauniya Zazzau. She lived approximately 200 years prior to the establishment of the Sokoto-Caliphate federation that governed Nigeria during the period of British colonial rule following the Islamic jahad (holy war) that overtook the region in the nineteenth century. According to most accounts, Queen Amina ruled for 34 years at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her domain of Zazzau, a city-state of Hausaland, was eventually renamed to Zaria and is the capital of the present-day emirate of Kaduna in Nigeria. Although many details...