sentences:  Islamic Shari’a law is loosely the law of the land in Hausa areas, well understood by any Islamic scholar or teacher, known in Hausa as a "m'allam", "mallan" or "malam" (see Maulana).This pluralist attitude toward ethnic-identity and cultural affiliation has enabled the Hausa to inhabit one of the largest geographic regions of non-Bantu ethnic groups in Africa.The Nok culture appeared in northern Nigeria around 1000 BCE and vanished under unknown circumstances around 300 AD in the region of West Africa.