Islam is a traditional religion in West Africa. It came to northern Nigeria as early as the eleventh century and was well established in the state capitals of the region by the sixteenth century, spreading into the countryside and toward the middle belt uplands. There, Islam's advance was stopped by the resistance of local peoples to incorporation into the emirate states. The Fulani-led jihad in the nineteenth century pushed Islam into Nupe and across the Niger River into northern Yoruba- speaking areas. The colonial conquest established a rule that active Christian proselytizing could not occur in the northern Muslim region, although in 1990 the two religions continued to compete for converts in the middle belt, where ethnic groups and even families had adherents of each persuasion.
The origins of Islam date to Muhammad (the Prophet), a prosperous merchant of the town of Mecca in Arabia. He began in A.D. 610 to preach the first of a series of revelations granted him by God (Allah) through the agency of the archangel Gabriel. The divine messages, received during solitary visits into the desert, continued during the remainder of his life.
Muhammad denounced the polytheistic paganism of his fellow Meccans; his vigorous and continuing censure ultimately earned him their bitter enmity. In 622 he and a group of followers accepted an invitation to settle in Yathrib, which became known as Medina (the city) through its association with him. The hijra, (known in the West as the hegira), or journey to Medina, marked the beginning of the Islamic calendar in the year 622. In Medina Muhammad continued his preaching, ultimately defeated his detractors in battle, and had consolidated the temporal as well as spiritual leadership of most Arabs before his death in 632.
After Muhammad's death, his followers compiled his words that were regarded as coming directly from God in a document known as the Quran, the holy scripture of Islam. Other sayings and teachings of the Prophet, as well as the precedents of his personal behavior as recalled by those who had known him, became the hadith ("sayings"). From these sources, the faithful have constructed the Prophet's customary practice, or sunna, which they endeavor to emulate. Together, these documents form a comprehensive guide to the spiritual, ethical, and social life of the faithful in most Muslim countries.
The shahada (profession of faith, or testimony) states succinctly the central belief, "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet." The faithful repeat this simple profession on ritual occasions, and its recital designates the speaker as a Muslim. The term Islam means submission to God, and the one who submits is a Muslim.
The God preached by Muhammad was previously known to his countrymen, for Allah is the general Arabic term for the supreme being rather than the name of a particular deity. Rather than introducing a new deity, Muhammad denied the existence of the pantheon of gods and spirits worshipped before his prophethood and declared the omnipotence of God, the unique creator. Muhammad is the "Seal of the Prophets," the last of the prophetic line. His revelations are said to complete for all time the series of revelations that had been given earlier to Jews and Christians. God is believed to have remained one and the same throughout time, but humans are seen as having misunderstood or strayed from God's true teachings until set aright by Muhammad. Prophets and sages of the biblical tradition, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, are recognized as inspired vehicles of God's will. Islam, however, reveres as sacred only the message. It accepts the concepts of guardian angels, the Day of Judgment, resurrection, and the eternal life of the soul.
The duties of the Muslim form the "five pillars" of the faith. These are shahada, salat (daily prayer), zakat (almsgiving), sawm (fasting), and hajj (pilgrimage). The believer prays facing Mecca at five specified times during the day. Whenever possible, men observe their prayers in congregation at a mosque under direction of an imam, or prayer leader, and on Fridays are obliged to do so. Women are permitted to attend public worship at the mosque, where they are segregated from men, but their attendance tends to be discouraged, and more frequently they pray in the seclusion of their homes.
In the early days of Islam, a tax for charitable purposes was imposed on personal property in proportion to the owner's wealth. The collection of this tax and its distribution to the needy were originally functions of the state. But with the breakdown of Muslim religiopolitical authority, alms became an individual responsibility.
The ninth month of the Muslim calendar is Ramadan, a period of obligatory fasting in commemoration of Muhammad's receipt of God's revelation. Throughout the month, all but the sick and the weak, pregnant or lactating women, soldiers on duty, travelers on necessary journeys, and young children are enjoined from eating, drinking, smoking, or sexual intercourse during daylight hours. Those adults excused are obliged to endure an equivalent fast at their earliest opportunity. A festive meal breaks the daily fast and inaugurates a night of feasting and celebration. Well-to-do believers usually do little or no work during this period, and some businesses close for all or part of the day. Because the months of the lunar year revolve through the solar year, Ramadan falls at various seasons in different years. A considerable test of discipline at any time of the year, a fast that falls in summertime imposes severe hardship on those who must do physical work.
Finally, at least once during their lifetime all Muslims should make the hajj, or pilgrimage, to the holy city of Mecca to participate in the special rites that occur during the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. For most well-to-do Nigerian traders and business people, the trip was so common that the honorific "hajji" (fem., hajjia), signifying a pilgrim, was routinely used to refer to successful traders.
Two features of Islam are essential to understanding its place in Nigerian society. They are the degree to which Islam permeates other institutions in the society, and its contribution to Nigerian pluralism. As an institution in emirate society, Islam includes daily and annual ritual obligations; the pilgrimage to Mecca; sharia, or religious law; and an establishment view of politics, family life, communal order, and appropriate modes of personal conduct in most situations. Thus, even in 1990, Islam pervaded daily life. Public meetings began and ended with Muslim prayer, and everyone knew at least the minimum Arabic prayers and the five pillars of the religion required for full participation. Public adjudication (by local leaders with the help of religious experts, or Alkali courts) provided widespread knowledge of the basic tenets of sharia law-- the Sunni school of law according to Malik ibn Anas, the jurist from Medina, was that primarily followed. Sunni (from sunna), or orthodox Islam, is the dominant sect in Nigeria and most of the Muslim world. The other sect is Shia Islam, which holds that the caliphs or successors to the Prophet should have been his relatives rather than elected individuals.
Every settlement had at least one place set aside for communal prayers. In the larger settlements, mosques were well attended, especially on Fridays when the local administrative and chiefly elites led the way, and the populace prayed with its leaders in a demonstration of communal and religious solidarity. Gaining increased knowledge of the religion, one or more pilgrimages to Mecca for oneself or one's wife, and a reputation as a devout and honorable Muslim all provided prestige. Those able to suffuse their everyday lives with the beliefs and practices of Islam were deeply respected.
Air transport had made the hajj more widely available, and the red cap wound with a white cloth, signifying its wearer's pilgrimage, was much more common in 1990 than twenty years previously. Upper-income groups went several times and sent or took their wives as well. The ancient custom of spending years walking across Africa to reach Mecca was still practiced, however, and groups of such pilgrims could be seen receiving charity at Friday prayers outside major mosques in the north.
Nigerian Islam was not highly organized. Reflecting the aristocratic nature of the traditional ruling groups, there were families of clerics whose male heirs trained locally and abroad in theology and jurisprudence and filled major positions in the mosques and the judiciary. These ulama, or learned scholars, had for centuries been the religious and legal advisers of emirs, the titled nobility, and the wealthy trading families in the major cities. Ordinary people could consult the myriads of would-be and practicing clerics in various stages of training, who studied with local experts, functioned at rites of passage, or simply used their religious education to gain increased "blessedness" for their efforts. Sufi brotherhoods, (from suf, or wool; the wearing of a woolen robe indicated devotion to a mystic life), a form of religious order based on more personal or mystical relations to the supernatural, were widespread, especially in the major cities. There the two predominant ones, Qadiriyah and Tijaniyah, had separate mosques and, in a number of instances, a parochial school system receiving grants from the state. The brotherhoods played a major role in the spread of Islam in the northern area and the middle belt.
Islam both united and divided. It provided a rallying force in the north and into the middle belt, where it was spreading. The wide scope of Islamic beliefs and practices created a leveling force that caused Muslims in the north to feel that they were part of a common set of cultural traditions affecting family life, dress, food, manners, and personal qualities linking them to one another and a wider Islamic world. At the constitutional conference of 1978, Muslim delegates walked out as a unit over the issue of a separate Islamic supreme court, a demand they lost but which in 1990 remained a Muslim goal. To adapt fully to northern life, non-Muslims had to remain in an enclave, living quasi-segregated lives in their churches, their social clubs, and even their work. In contrast, becoming a convert to Islam was the doorway to full participation in the society. Middle belt people, especially those with ambitions in politics and business, generally adopted Islam. The main exception to this rule was Plateau State, where the capital, Jos, was as much a Christian as a Muslim community, and a greater accommodation between the two sets of beliefs and their adherents had occurred.
Divisions within the Muslim community existed, however. The nineteenth-century jihad that founded the Sokoto Caliphate was a regenerative and proselytizing movement within the community of the faithful. In major centers in 1990, the Sufi brotherhoods supported their own candidates for both religious and traditional emirate offices. These differences were generally not disruptive. Islamic activist preachers and student leaders who spread ideas about a return to extreme orthodoxy also existed. In addition, a fringe Islamic cult, known as the Maitatsine, started in the late 1970s and operated throughout the 1980s, springing up in Kano around a mystical leader (since deceased) from Cameroon who claimed to have had divine revelations superseding those of the Prophet. The cult had its own mosques and preached a doctrine antagonistic to established Islamic and societal leadership. Its main appeal was to marginal and poverty-stricken urban in-migrants, whose rejection by the more established urban groups fostered this religious opposition. These disaffected adherents ultimately lashed out at the more traditional mosques and congregations, resulting in violent outbreaks in several cities of the north.
Influence of Islamic thought and culture
Since the 8th century, Islam has gradually played a role in historical documentation and shaping of language and culture in many West African savanna societies and in the development of an Islamic Umma. Islam has contributed in uniting diverse ethnicities into cosmopolitan society sometimes welding diverse cultural and social groups into a unified state like was the case with Dan Fodio jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate. The jihad which led to the Sokoto Caliphate achieved an end of promoting brotherhood among Muslims across ethnic groups mostly in Northern Nigeria. The spread of Islam was also enhanced by the local adherents who promoted the religion and acted as agents of Islam in the community making the religion easily assimilated and accepted in the community.
Other major impact of Islam are:
- Islamic scholarship introduced the art of writing into many Nigerian and West African communities. Islamic schools and scholarship introduced Muslims in Nigeria to writings by North African and Arabs and many Imams in the country read valuable manuscripts on Sufism, history, theology and poetry.
- A Sharia system of justice.
- Influence on dressing
- Influence of Arabic on Nigerian languages.
- Islamic festivals and religious rite such as Nikkai
Muslims and formal education in Nigeria
When Western education was brought into Nigeria by the missionaries a lot of Muslims parents were reluctant to send their wards to missionary schools in fear of conversion to Christianity. Therefore for a long time, Muslim education was behind those of Christians in Southern Nigeria and in the Middle Belt regions . Formal, western education also encouraged the training of clerks, teachers and artisans with resulting imbalance during the colonial period between formally trained Muslims and Christians. However towards the beginning of the twentieth century, Muslims in Southern Nigeria were privileged to have a government Muslim school established in Lagos followed by various education sponsoring Muslim organizations centered around South West Nigeria including the Ansar-Ud-Deen and Ahmadiyya Societies.
Also, historically, educational facilities were lacking for females in many Muslim societies. The social structure placed more emphasis in providing centers of learning for males while the responsibility for educating females were left to parents. Orthodoxy and the wearing of veils also prevented many women from attending formal schooling with their guardians choosing to educate them at home. The twin situation of rejection of missionary education and the practice of purdah as attracted the perception by some Christians and non Muslims that Islam was against female education and retrogressive in terms of learning and embracing newer concepts.
History of Islam in the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria
Islam in Nupeland
Nupes claim descent from Nubianland but their great leader was Edegi or Tsoede whom several legends trace to nearby Igalaland. The area surrounding the ancient city of Bida holds the largest concentration of Nupes. The first Etsu of Nupe associated with Islam was Etsu Jibril, the fifteenth Etsu following Edegi, however, many preceeding Etsus or kings bore names that signified an Islamic influence, rulers such as Abdu Waliyyi, Ibrahim and Abubabkar Kolo reigned between the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century. Also, there were likely Muslims who practiced a syncretized version of Islam.
Islam in Nupeland gained strength towards the end of the eighteenth century during the reign of Etsu Muazu, it was also during the period Malam Musa Dendo from Baugana village in Kebbi came to Nupeland. Dendo was a learned Islamic scholar who came to preach and was also an emissary of the Emir of Gwandu, In Nupeland, Dendo became an adviser to the Etsu and also acted as a court Malam, on the way, he gained religious and political power during the period. After disagreements with the current Etsu, Dendo with the aid of other mallams some of whom were driven out of Nupeland and some agents of the Fulani empire overthrew the old dynasty and turned the Nupe kingdom into part of the Fulani Empire, subsequently Islam became the official religion in the Nupe emirate after the overthrow of the old traditional dynasty of Edegi. However, at the time, many embraced Islam not out of free will but for the benefits the religion accorded them. The religion was a means to establish a link with the aristocracy and also to prevent oneself from being taken as a slave.
Dendo's grandson, Umaru Majigi later became a Fulani Etsu of Nupe and was instrumental in establishing Islam on firm ground in Nupeland. He waged war against Egbiras and traditionalists in Argungu. In 1870, a mosque was built in Bida.
Islam in Ebiraland
The spread of Islam in Ebiraland was largely through the efforts of migrant mallams especially pupils of Uthman Dan Fodio and those from Ilorin when Shariah was introduced under Emir Abdulsalami.
Leading Malams such as Malam Salih Dan Janta came from Northern Nigeria to the Middle Belt to preach and and others like Mallam Abdulsalami came from Ilorin. Abdulsalami was a scholar who had traveled to Ekiti, Owo and Akokoland to preach. From there he came to Ebiraland and played a pivotal role in spreading Islam as a malam known in the region for his spiritual powers. Due to wide spread knowledge about the efficacy of his prayers many people came to visit him and in return, he preached about Islam. One day, a daughter of the British appointed chief, Iyabe approached Abdulsalami and invited him to her father's house to be their guest. Later the daughter who now had a Muslim name, Zainab married Abdulsalami. In Okene which had now emerged as the center of power in Ebiraland after subsequent battles against Nupe warriors, Abdulsalami built a Qur'anic school where people learned about Islam, the first student of the school was Ibrahim Atta. Atta later became the chief of the area and invited many other Malams from Northern Nigeria. It was during the reign of Atta that Islam spread in Ebiraland. Abdulsalami was appointed the chief Imam of the central mosque succeeded by Yahaya Tajudeen in 1924.
In the Niger-Benue confluence the Tijaniyya order is widely prevalent, the first adherent from Ebiraland was Ibrahim Atta initiated by Abdulsalami. Ibrahim's son Abdulmalik and his friend Ahmad Rufai later played a role in propagating the order in the area.