The Hausa traditionally inhabited a broad zone of the central Sudan, extending from the Air mountains in the north to the northern edge of the Jos plateau in the south, and from the eastern border of the ancient Bornu kingdom to the Niger valley in the west. Hausa was described as the only known indigenous language of this area in its earlier history. The territory itself was called kasar hausa, meaning the country of the Hausa language.

The Hausa identity developed through the interaction of language, customs, political institutions, migration, and assimilation. The excerpt states that diverse groups intermingled over time and eventually formed a distinctive cultural identity. Neighbouring peoples sometimes abandoned their own languages and customs to become part of Hausa society, while Tuareg, Zabarma or Djerma, and Fulbe or Fulani groups entered and settled in parts of the region.

The origins of the Hausa remain disputed. Proposed explanations include a southern Saharan origin, an origin among sedentary cultivators on the western shore of the ancient Lake Chad, and local autochthony within Hausaland. The passage also records the view that the Tuareg conquered Azbin or Air in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, forcing many Hausa inhabitants southward toward Gobir, while later migrations from the north, east, and west contributed to Hausa ethnogenesis.

The name Hausa became prominent in written sources only from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before then, communities were often identified by the names of their cities or kingdoms, such as Kanawawa, Katsinawa, and Gobirawa. The term could also refer more narrowly to the former Zamfara, Kebbi, and Gobir kingdoms, especially in writings associated with the western central Sudan.