Muhammadu Maccido, the 19th sultan of Sokoto and spiritual leader of Nigerian Muslims, has died. He was 58.

He was among 96 people who died when a Nigerian ADC airliner crashed on take off in the capital, Abuja, on Sunday.

Maccido was a direct descendant of the Islamic scholar Uthman Dan Fodio, who launched a campaign from Sokoto in 1804 that spread Islam across much of the northern half of Nigeria and parts of neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Benin.

Dan Fodio founded the Sokoto Caliphate that became one the largest pre-colonial states in Africa. Even under colonial rule the British worked as allies with the sultans who have retained both religious and political influence over Nigerian Muslims, who now number at least 65 million.

The sultan approves dates for the start and end of Muslim fasts and speaks on issues of religious policy.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of more than 130 million people, is divided between a mainly Muslim north and a largely Christian and animist south.

Thousands of people trooped to the sultan’s palace in Sokoto to pay respects.

“He lived for peace, worked for peace and died for peace,” Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said Monday as he joined mourners at the sultan’s residence.

Maccido’s official titles included leader of the faithful and head of the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. He became the sultan in 1996,after his predecessor Ibrahim Dasuki was deposed by the then military ruler, General Sani Abacha.

During Maccido’s reign, Nigeria witnessed some of its worst bouts of sectarian violence. Thousands were killed as the imposition of strict Islamic law by 12 predominantly Islamic states in the north increased friction with Christians and other non-Muslims. Through the tensions, Maccido urged peace between all religious groups.

When immunization of children against polio were boycotted by large numbers in northern Nigeria in 2003 over baseless allegations by radical Muslim preachers it was a ploy to sterilize people and spread AIDS, Maccido came out in support of the vaccine.

Vaccination programs resumed in 2004, but the boycott set back global eradication efforts, causing a polio outbreak that spread the disease across Africa and into the Middle East.

Maccido was buried Sunday in his palace in the city of Sokoto, northwestern Nigeria. One of his sons, Mohammed, and a grandson also died in the crash.

The sultanate council usually meets within days to select a successor from among Dan Fodio’s descendants, palace officials said.