In 1350, Yaji converted to Islam, 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.