NIGERIA 1985
ISLAM
A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FORCE IN NIGERIA TODAY

I am a Christian talking about Islam. For most Muslims this is immediately a problem. Christians and Muslims have had many quarrels over the centuries. In spite of the appeal of Vatican II to forget the past and strive for mutual understanding and cooperation, and in spite of some noble attempts at dialogue, mistrust still rides high. Muslims decry "orientalists" who distort Islam and missionaries who are out to subvert it. The only legitimate student of Islam is one who wants to become a Muslim. A Christian or non-Muslim would find this attitude overly severe. Grant that orientalists have sometimes been mistaken, naive or, above all, patronizing, and that missionaries have not only wanted to convert but sometimes taken unfair advantage of Muslims' need for medicine etc. to fore them to listen to preaching. Nevertheless orientalists have contributed immensely to the understanding of all aspects of Islam and missionaries to the social betterment of Muslim peoples. Friendships have developed, and when missionaries are restricted or expelled by governments, the Muslim common people are often the first to weep.

On the Christian side, the sixties and seventies were a time of great liberal hopes, a time for bridging the gulfs between religions, races, cultures and economic strata. J.F. Kennedy, John XXIII, Martin Luther King, the Peace Corps all were symbols of this era. It was also a time for ever expanding dialogue with Muslims. The Vatican Secretariat for non-Christians and the World Council of Churches organized or participated in many historic meetings, in Broumana, Addis Ababa, Cartigny, Legon, just to mention a few. Both bodies published guidelines for dialogue, and thousands of papers were published or written. the response was good, and Muslims and Christians sent ever higher-level dignitaries on visits to one another.

Then all this euphoria came on hard times. I would say it peaked at the grand dialogue meeting sponsored by Ghaddafi in Tripoli in February 1976. I went in the party of Cardinal Pignedoli and saw the crescendo of enthusiasm in the hundreds of participants which came to an embarrassing crash on the last day. The way the final communique was framed and released left the Christian members of the steering committee with the feeling they were tricked. Pignedoli's chances of becoming Pope were finished, and people blamed one another for being naive. Whereas just beforehand calls were being made for greater openness and the dismantling of defensive tactics, now the new byword was caution.

Islamic fundamentalism was then coming to the fore. Khomeini in Iran was only one of many like-minded men who dreamed after a restoration of an authentic, pure and integral Islam, who fanned the smouldering embers of Islamic consciousness throughout the world. We may be familiar with mob scenes in Teheran, or with some disturbances in the north of Nigeria, but the movement also has a more calculated, rational dimension involving long-range political strategy. The World Muslim League has just condemned "criminals who engage in arson, murder looting and other crimes under the pretext of jihâd", yet its own cooler plans and activities are nonetheless disquieting for Christians.

At this point I want to remark that a fundamentalist resurgence is not unique to Islam. Catholicism has its own variety, epitomized by Archbishop Lefebvre, but indicative of a narrow conservatism shared by many. The Evangelicals have their Moral Majority and similar movements. On the political side, the astounding success of the "Iron Lady" of Britain and of President Reagan in the United States show the popularity of a neo- conservative "get tough" stance. Islamic fundamentalism should be situated in a global social pattern of conservatism stemming from disappointment and disillusionment with the liberalism of the 60s and 70s that either failed or was not given an adequate chance.

Liberalism is by no means dead in the Muslim world, any more than it is in the West. Current Muslim opinion is spread over the full range of thought from one extreme to another. Yet because of its prominence today, I want to analyze what, for what of a better word, is called Islamic fundamentalism, and then review how it is faring in Nigeria.

The logic of fundamentalism

Any religion is a social fact with political implications, but Islam is more so, because religion and state are one thing. Some Muslims disagree with that, but in this section I am talking about the majority view. To understand why Muslims hold this and so many other definite views about religion and society, we have to go back to the fundamental article of Islamic faith: "Lâ ilâha illâ llâh" "There is no divinity but God". Muslim devotional books, with the approval of the theologians, often substitute any of the Qur'ânic 99 names of God for "ilâha", so that we can say": "There is no powerful one but God", "There is no wise one but God" etc. In philosophical terms, all these names or attributes are absolutized and predicated of God as the prime analogate in an analogy of attribution. That means, quite simply, that power, wisdom etc. really exist only in God, and only an illusory shadow of them is found in creatures. A philosophical corollary of this view is occasionalism. God runs a one-man show and all the forces of nature and all human efforts are only masks for God's direct action. Otherwise creatures would be sharing God's attributes in competition with him. If I claim 100% authorship of my actions, God is out of the picture. If I claim 50% and leave him 50%, then he is limited, and I find myself in the greatest sin against Islam, shirk, or giving God a partner. Christian theology, by way of contrast, has another formula of power-sharing with God, whereby he is 100% in charge and we, the junior partners, are also 100% in charge. Such subordinate power sharing presupposes an analogy of proportionality (or 4 term equation), which I will not go into here. Excuse this theoretical digression, but, if we find fault with any system be it fundamentalist Islam or Communism or anything else it is necessary to trace the fault all the way to its source, which in this case is a flaw in basic principles. Otherwise we will only be proposing band- aid solutions.

The practical consequence of this interpretation of Islamic faith is that there is no authority but God, who has revealed his law, called Sharî`a, in the Qur'ân and the Traditions. In an Islamic state the government exists only to enforce, interpret and judge according to this Sharî`a. To make or follow any law besides this is idolatry. Such a confessional or religious state is both a totalitarian and single party state. It is totalitarian in that every aspect of life and society must be controlled by religious law, and single party in that it excludes any party which is not based on the exclusive establishment of Islamic religious law. Conceivably there could be several Islamic parties, but they would each have the same ideology. In practice, no Islamic state is a democracy. They either have monarchies, or military governments, sometimes permanentized by a mock referendum, or single party dictatorships.

Implications for non-Muslims

An Islamic state may be totalitarian, but in theory, at least, it allows some autonomy for sub-communities of Jews or Christians. These people are allowed to retain their faith and worship and raise their children in it, but may not display their faith publicly or propagate it among Muslims. Any Muslim who gives up his faith for another is subject to the death penalty. These and a host of other restrictions which put Christians in a second- class citizenship are described in the classic works of Mâwardî (11th c.) and urûshî (12th c.), which were used by the founder of the Sokoto Empire, `Uthmân an Fodiye, at the beginning of the 19th century, and are still quoted today.

The imposition of Sharî`a in Sudan follows these principles, yet even by Islamic standards Numeiri seems excessive. He flogged a priest even though Sharî`a allows Christians to possess and consume alcohol, but not to sell it to Muslims. Sharî`a provides the death penalty for apostates from Islam and for someone who formally or contemptuously rejects its practice; in the name of this provision Numeiri executed a 76 year old gentleman who opposed his Sharî`a program. I do not doubt that U.S. supplied guns are being used to put down resistance in the South. The developments in Sudan have made Christians all over West Africa worried. Last November the Christian Councils of West Africa held a meeting in Monrovia precisely to discuss the threat of Islamic fundamentalism to Christian civil liberties. The Catholic Association of Episcopal conferences of Anglophone West Africa has similarly taken the same topic as the theme of its 1986 plenary session.

Sharî`a in Nigeria

The alarm among Christians apart, let us give a brief run-down of the history of Sharî`a in Nigeria. Islam and Sharî`a in a diluted form took roots in Borno in the 12th century, and in Hausaland around the end of the 16th century, although foreign Muslims were present in these places somewhat earlier. The laxity of the hausa kings in following Sharî`a was the declared reason why `Uthmân an Fodiye raised a jihâd and overthrew them, establishing an empire over most of northern Nigeria. The British left Sharî`a intact in the Northern Region through their system of indirect rule, except that Lugard banned what he considered inhuman penalties, that is, mutilation, lapidation and crucifixion.

Shortly before independence a series of court cases challenged particular Islamic criminal laws. The situation soon became confused and a panel was set up to study the whole matter. As a result a comprehensive reform was made along the lines of India (Pakistan) and Sudan, providing a single secular penal code and criminal procedure code for all and restricting Sharî`a to personal law. The panel was reconvened in 1962 and the experiment approved.

Matters remained the same until the drafting of the 1979 Constitution. Muslim spokesmen, with few dissenters, were vehemently in favour of restoring the whole Sharî`a. The draft Constitution did not provide that, but it did provide for a Federal Sharî`a Court of Appeal. Christian opinion was mobilized, seeing this (as many Muslims openly said) as just one step on the way to making Nigeria an Islamic state. The motion was defeated and the Muslims walked out of the Constitutive Assembly. A compromise brought them back in, and the issue was dormant for the first few years of Shagari's administration. Yet behind the scenes there was a steady process of consolidating Muslim grip on the nation, such as the banning of alcohol from Sokoto town, Shagari's announcement of the establishment of a presidential advisory board on Islamic affairs, and the appeal to Muslims in Sokoto and Oyo states to vote for the N.P.N., which forced the U.P.N. to come out with better promises supporting Muslim interests.

The coup of 1 January 1984 did not slow down the Islamic drive. The demand for Sharî`a courts in the southern states has become the major immediate goal. The chief patron of the movement is Alhaji Abiola, the owner of Concord newspaper. When, a few months ago, the Are Musulmi of Ogun State said that Muslims do not need such courts and they are divisive, Abiola marshalled all the leading Muslims to denounce him, and succeeded in getting him to recant.

One notable aspect of Islamic strategy is to hide or deny the fact that Sharî`a affects non-Muslims adversely at all. Abiola said that Sharî`a courts are optional, even for Muslims, and they can go to a Magistrate court any time they wish. This may be sincere wishful thinking, but it is simply not true of classical Sharî`a or Sharî`a as understood by the majority of Muslim scholars. The same criticism applies to the book, Non- Muslims under Sharî`a (1979) by `Abdurramân Doi, of the School of Islamic Legal Studies, Zaria. Whatever Sharî`a in theory or a reformed Sharî`a may be, the notorious experience of Christians in the North, which has driven together formerly feuding denominations, is that to gain admission to educational institutions, or a promotion or any good appointment or contract it makes a difference if you are a Muslim. It is a constant struggle to get land for churches or permissions for any number of activities. As long as the Churches struggle they succeed in getting room enough to function, but there is constant pressure either to join the majority or go away.

Islamic movements and tendencies in Nigeria

We may have the impression of a single Muslim block operating in the country. Much could be said about the diversity or divisions within the Muslim community, and I will try to be brief. The main issue that polarizes the Muslim community is the age-old propensity to look either to a charismatic leader or to a document for guidance and security. The first tendency has a cult for the super-human personality of the leader and gives him absolute authority. The second distrusts the human leader and looks to a constitution to limit his powers. In the North of Nigeria the first tendency is represented by the traditional veneration of the Muslims traditional rulers. One Hausa man remarked that the Muslims regard the Sultan of Sokoto (Abubakar) as a little god. A Hausa Muslim teacher in Kano remarked: "You may think that our people go to the central mosque on Friday to worship Allâh. But many go to see if the emir of Kano is alive and well. If he is alive and well then Islam is alive and well." The Jama`atu Nasril Islam, founded by the late Premier of the Northern Region, Ahmadu Bello, who wanted to resurrect and extend to the Sea the empire of his ancestor `Uthmân an Fodiye, typifies the interests of the traditional establishment. Some people are disillusioned by the worldly intrigues and greed that mark some emirs, and turn instead to the ascetic ûfî leaders, particularly of the reformed Tijâniyya order. The cult of its founder, the late Ibrahim Niasse persists even after his death, and is also transferred to his sons. The Kungiyar Fityanul Islam is a youth branch of the Tijâniyya.

Pilgrims returning from Mecca have spread Wahhâbî ideas which are really fundamentalist in the sense that only the Qur'ân and adîth are authoritative, and people are guilty of shirk or idolatry by venerating chiefs or ûfî leaders and seeking their prayers and blessings. They decry also the medicinal use of the Qur'ân in amulets or in drinks containing the ink of Qur'ânic writing as so much superstition. For them the Qur'ân must be read fro understanding, not as a magical incantation. These "constitutional" reformists have formed the Izâlat al- bid`a (removal of innovation/heresy) society, which has frequently clashed with ûfî groups in the north. The Maitatsine movement, which caused three riotous massacres, in Kano in 1980, in Maiduguri in 1982 and in Yola in 1984, has historical roots going back to Râbi ibn-Falallâh at the beginning of the century. Its ideology is basically that of Khârijism, which began in the first century of Islam. Its basic teaching is that the Qur'ân is the supreme law, and anyone claiming to be a Muslim and not practising Qur'ânic prescriptions is an apostate and should be put to death. This is aimed particularly at the Muslim establishment, but generally against anyone outside their own movement. It also maintains the equality of all Muslims and their eligibility to rule; this appeals to the jobless, uneducated people who are the mainstay of the movement. Muslim leaders have disclaimed the movement as altogether un-Islamic, and alleged that its members reject Muhammad as a prophet, drink human blood etc. , but I have never seen an interview with a member of the organization who could speak for himself. In any case, there is no doctrinal authority in Islam. All we can say of a "heresy" is that it is not accepted by the majority of Muslims. The only inconsistency in the Maitatsine ideology was its undeniable veneration for its founder, Muhammad Marwa Maitatsine.

In the South — I speak particularly of the Yoruba — Islam has generally taken second place to family and tribal loyalty, and was not allowed to divide it. Only since the Second Republic has Islam been politicized and used to divide the Yoruba. A particular feature of Yoruba Islam has been the tendency to form an unending number of organizations (egbe), which may not differ in basic teaching, but arise around a particular leader or section of people, very much like the Christian so-called "mushroom churches". The main points of opposition among these groups are: 1) appeal to people of a particular locality rather than general appeal, and 2) modernity versus Arabic traditionalism. I was surprised the other day to see that one of these groups, the Oyo State Council of Muslim Youth Organisation, sent a delegation to Iran to join in the celebrations of the anniversary of Khomeini's revolution. Not all groups would approve of this. Some University of Ibadan students are doing research on the bewildering panorama of Islamic societies in Yorubaland.

The future

Islam in Nigeria is very much in transition. How it will resolve its internal problems and relate with non- Muslim communities depends as much upon Muslim as upon Christian initiatives. I wish to conclude with a quotation from Bishop John Onaiyekan of Ilorin:

There is really no rational alternative to mutual respect, tolerance, understanding and collaboration. Our contacts are teaching us to appreciate the good points of each side. There is, as of now, no formal structure for collaboration between Christians and Muslims. But informal opportunities crop up at every turn, especially for joint action for matters of local concern. On the theoretical level, there is an effort to forge a model of Christian-Muslim relationship that will not be conditioned by the rough history of our respective pasts. There are many Nigerians, convinced Muslims and Christians who are anxious to make sure that we show the world that Christians and Muslims need not necessarily be at each others' throats. The Nigerian Association for the Study of Religions (NASR), a basically academic organisation of scholars of religions, has this as its main objective. While the leadership of both religions has largely a conservative intransigent theological outlook, the younger generation tends towards a more broad-minded approach to religious differences. That is why we can hope for a better future.