Introduction
Studies by Peel (Reference Peel2003) and Vaughan (Reference Vaughan2016) have shown that religion played an important role in the making of Nigeria. This present study is in line with their argument, but it goes further by highlighting how a youth-led movement, the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN), has been involved in this process across the nation. More importantly, it shows how the MSSN, founded in the south-west with a contested Muslim population, could spring up to promote Islam in the north, where there is a significant Muslim population and a history of Islamic reform dating back to the Sokoto caliphate. Interestingly, given that many northern Muslims viewed the Islam in the south-west as corrupt, the MSSN rose to enjoy more political support in the north than in the south-west. This reflects the dominance of Muslims in political offices in the north, and, at the same time, it suggests that Muslims in Nigeria are open to each other’s religious practices despite their diverse orientations to Islam. Furthermore, the history of MSSN is about Muslim–Christian encounter in Nigeria, by which I mean the range of ways in which the two religions relate, including confrontation, borrowing and dialogue. As Soares (Reference Soares and Soares2006: 2) points out, Muslim–Christian encounters in Africa ‘cannot be understood as simply existing at a point on a one-dimensional continuum that runs from coexistence to conflict’. Indeed, the boundaries between Nigerian Muslims and Christians have always been open and changing, and they interact in a wide range of ways that include converting to each other’s religion, intermarriage and appropriating each other’s practices. Moreover, the two religions have related not only on religious grounds but also in other areas of social life (ibid.: 2–3). Generally, members of the MSSN not only interacted with Christians through confrontation or borrowing but also by seeking the same training and skills within the same schools.
Furthermore, the history of the MSSN is about the contribution of young Muslims to Muslim–Christian encounters in educational institutions mostly owned or run by Christians. Educational institutions are contexts for such encounters, as are other public spaces in Nigeria (Janson and Akinleye Reference Janson and Akinleye2015), and it is important to conceptualize how young Muslims have shaped the ways in which the two religions have related within them. In addition, the history of the MSSN demonstrates that Muslim activity in one region of Nigeria is rarely contained but is reproduced or contested in other regions. We see this not only in the establishment and spread of the MSSN itself, but also in the policies in which it engages, including those relating to the wearing of the hijab by female Muslim students in public schools and the reintroduction of sharia in south-west states. Revealing such developments can thus lead to a better awareness of relationships among Muslims in Nigeria and their practice of Islam as a whole. Focusing on just Muslims in the north or those in the south-west provides only a few insights into these relationships, as shown in many studies (see Kane Reference Kane2003; Reichmuth Reference Reichmuth1996). But, through the MSSN, we can see the active engagement of Muslims who think of themselves as one group, share a similar discourse of Islam, and are willing to adopt a common Islamic culture despite the challenges posed by Christians and the state.
The MSSN was established in 1954 to promote the Islamic identity of Muslims in the largely Christian-dominated colonial schools in Yorubaland. Over the years, the MSSN has mobilized young Muslims across Nigeria to promote its objectives, including education, Qur’an memorization, modest dressing and sharia implementation. But despite promoting the same objectives around the country, the success of the movement varies in many aspects in each region. This is because Christian opposition to its activities has more effect in some regions than in others. For this article, I draw attention to two areas in which the promotion of MSSN objectives put the movement at the centre of the Muslim–Christian encounter in Nigeria: the colonial system of education and sharia implementation.
In line with the objectives of the movement, the MSSN introduced Islamic education and other practices such as the organization of prayers and picnics for Muslim students. Although there were cases of resistance, Muslim parents and Christians (and Christian authorities in schools) tolerated the MSSN’s objectives up to the 1960s. However, from the late 1970s, when the MSSN began to emphasize the revival of prophetic traditions called sunna and to encourage female students to wear the hijab (veil), many Muslims and Christians changed their attitude towards the movement. In the south-west, for instance, some Muslim parents resisted the MSSN’s adoption of the hijab due to concerns that it symbolizes religious ‘extremism’. Similarly, Christian authorities in the schools believed that the veil aimed to facilitate their Islamization, while the state governors in the region, unlike their counterparts in the Muslim-dominated northern states who welcomed it, considered the hijab to be against the ‘secular’Footnote 1 ideals of the schools.
Also from the 1970s, the objectives of MSSN shifted from mainly religious and educational concerns to socio-political matters. This was inspired by the notion that Islam is a comprehensive way of life and that all aspects of social life should be regulated by religion. This culminated in the MSSN demand for sharia as a system of rule for Muslims, rather than the legal system established during colonial rule; the MSSN considered the latter to encourage corruption and injustice in society.Footnote 2 The MSSN first made its demand for sharia during the constitutional debate in 1975–76; following the return to democratic governance in 1999, the call for sharia was renewed. The demand succeeded in only twelve Muslim-dominated states of northern Nigeria in the 2000s, while Muslims in the Middle Belt and the south-west failed to have sharia implemented due largely to opposition from some Muslims and Christian groups, such as the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA)Footnote 3 and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) (Sanni Reference Sanni2007; Kogelmann Reference Kogelmann and Soares2006).
In general, the MSSN’s activities and the resistance it faced from both Muslims and Christians suggest that the Muslim–Christian encounter in Nigeria is not unilinear. Rather, it is complicated by the attitude of Nigerian politicians to interreligious affairs and the variation in religious demographics across Nigeria. The political elite usually balance appealing to their co-religionists to advance their political goals (Opeloye Reference Opeloye1989) with being careful not to give the impression that they support one religion over others. Religious leaders and organizations play a role in Muslim–Christian relations through their collaboration with politicians, for example, when Pentecostal churches supported Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007 and Goodluck Jonathan during the presidential election of 2015 (Obadare Reference Obadare2006; Reference Obadare2018).
As for religious demographics, there is no reliable data on the population of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria and the few available estimates are controversial. A Pew Research Center (2015) report estimates that the two religious groups have roughly equal numbers nationally, while there is disparity in their populations in various regions of the country (Stonawski et al. Reference Stonawski, Potančoková, Cantele and Skirbekk2016; Nolte et al. Reference Nolte, Jones, Taiyari and Occhiali2016). For example, Muslims appear to be in the majority in the north, Christians outnumber Muslims in the south-east/south-south, and the south-west has an almost equal number of Muslims and Christians (Ostien Reference Ostien2012: 8–10). For many years, this disparity has manifested in the level of influence that each religion exerts on social and political life. Where Muslims are the dominant group in the north, the influence of Islam on life in general has been huge, unlike in the south-west, where Christianity is able to compete almost on an equal footing with Islam. Aware of this variation, the MSSN usually adapts its objectives based on local conditions in each region of the country. This further points to why the success of the movement differs in many aspects between the north and the south. In the following section, I briefly describe the MSSN’s history. This is followed by an analysis of the MSSN’s activities on the use of the hijab in educational institutions and sharia implementation in the north and south-west of Nigeria.Footnote 4 Yet, while the south-west states and the sharia states are the focus of my case studies, it is worth noting that the issues of education and sharia concern Muslims and Christians all over Nigeria.
Historical background
Before the MSSN’s formation, there were Christian associations such as the Scripture Union (SU) and the Students Christian Movement (SCM), which engaged pupils in religious education and social activities. The SU and SCM, which had their roots in Britain, stimulated an interest in the creation of a similar platform for Muslim students. However, the MSSN’s activities were not directly appropriated from the SU and SCM but from a distant Muslim Students’ Society in Burma (now Myanmar). Tajudeen Aromashodu, a student at Methodist Boys High School in Lagos, discovered the Burmese society in a magazine called Islamic Review. Aromashodu shared his discovery with many students, such as Lateef Adegbite, Rahmon Sahid and Akin Laguda, and, having sought the guidance of the Burmese Muslim students’ society,Footnote 5 he and his friends established the MSSN in Lagos (Adedayo Reference Adedayo2006: 132–3). The fact that these students were inspired by a Muslim organization in Southeast Asia reflects how the growing links within the global Islamic world could influence local Muslim responses to education and Christianity (Balogun Reference Balogun2019a; Reference Balogun2019b).
The formation of the MSSN took place in the context of an encounter between Yoruba Muslims’ and Christian missionaries’ educational activities in Yorubaland. As pioneers of Western education, missionaries introduced their religious activities to pupils and actively engaged them in biblical knowledge as part of the broader project of Christianization. Whether in cities such as Ibadan, Lagos and Ijebu-Ode that had a large population of Muslims, or where they were few in number, in Ife, Ondo and Ado-Ekiti, the churches and their agents were in control of most colonial schools, including government-owned schools, as staff and proprietors, and, to a great degree, the student population (Ajayi Reference Ajayi2006). Many Muslim students faced hostility in the mission schools; some were required to adopt Christian names before they enrolled, and many were not allowed to participate in Islamic religious activities such as the daily prayers and fasting during Ramadan (Sulaiman and Kambari Reference Sulaiman and Kambari2014; Rufai Reference Rufai2011: 75–8; Noibi Reference Noibi1987: 14–18). To avoid this hostility, many Yoruba Muslims joined the Ahmadiyya movement, whose programme of Islamic reform encouraged the acquisition of Western education. The movement had been founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889 in India and was introduced in Lagos in 1916 (Katz Reference Katz2019; Fisher Reference Fisher1963). Other Yoruba Muslims also founded their own organizations, such as the Ansar-ud-deen Society, to establish Muslim schools (Reichmuth Reference Reichmuth1996). But the MSSN stayed in the mission schools to challenge the hostility against Muslim pupils and promote space for an Islamic identity. By the 1960s, the activities of the MSSN reached northern Nigeria, including Kano and Zaria, which became its regional centre of operation (Barkindo Reference Barkindo and Brenner1993; Abubakr Reference Abubakr1984). At first, the MSSN was met with suspicion by many Muslims in the region due in part to the widely held assumption that Muslims in the south-west practised a contaminated variant of Islam and were inferior to those in the north (Peel Reference Peel2016: 159; Adedayo Reference Adedayo2006: 139). Nonetheless, many members of the MSSN in the south considered the acceptance of the movement in the north to be inevitable. They believed that the MSSN was accepted because the experiences of the Muslim students who founded the movement were not totally different from those of Muslims in the north.Footnote 6 However, it is important to point out that Christian missionary activities were regulated in the north more than in the south (Barnes Reference Barnes1995; Tibenderana Reference Tibenderana1983).
Clarke and Linden (Reference Clarke and Linden1984) have drawn attention to the fact that the spread of the MSSN to the north might be considered to be due to the desire of Nigerian Muslims to be united in the post-independence era in order to challenge colonial legacies. The desire for unity was actively promoted by the first president of the MSSN, Lateef Adegbite (1933–2012),Footnote 7 in his ideal of Muslim brotherhood, which he believed was necessary to help Muslims address the problem of ethnic politics created by colonialism.
Throughout the country, the MSSN promoted the same objectives and orientation of Islam; these were coordinated by its national executive officers. Due to the variation in the religious and historical conditions of different localities, however, it allowed each branch to implement the objectives and orientation based on what their context permitted. Notable among the MSSN objectives was the strong emphasis on Muslim education in both Western and Islamic forms. In terms of orientation to religion, the MSSN built an understanding of Islam that regarded it as one religion but lived in diverse ways. Muslim leaders in the south and north helped reinforce this orientation by encouraging all Muslim students to join the MSSN and to be seen as one united body, irrespective of the creed they followed in their homes.Footnote 8
However, by the 1970s, the MSSN had gradually shifted to a reformist path that made it contest many aspects of its initial objectives and orientation to Islam. While it continued to emphasize Muslim education, it now contested the claim to an ‘authentic Islam’ made by many Muslims, especially the Ahmadiyya and Sufi brotherhoods. The Ahmadiyya was criticized for being a subversive sect due to the claim that its founder, Ghulam Ahmad, identified as a prophet, since this contradicted the position of many Muslims that Prophet Muhammad was the seal of prophethood (Fisher Reference Fisher1963).Footnote 9 Unlike the Ahmadiyya, the reformers opposed Sufism for promoting bid’a, or unlawful innovation that is considered unacceptable in Islam.Footnote 10 Even after criticizing the Ahmadiyya and the Sufi brotherhoods, the MSSN did not totally abandon its view on the diversity of Islam. Rather, it redefined this diversity to exclude some creeds that, from its point of view, did not represent true Islam.
The MSSN’s shift to a reformist path was caused by both internal and external factors. Regarding the latter, the MSSN was associated with the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood (established 1928), the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) (established 1972) and the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations (IIFSO) (established 1969).Footnote 11 From the late 1960s, these transnational movements contributed immensely to the incorporation of Muslim students in Nigeria into global discourses on Islamic reform. This was achieved through the organization of conferences and the production of literature authored by Islamic reformers such as Hassan al-Bana, Sayyid Qutb and Abul A’la Mawdudi (Niaz Reference Niaz2014; Steinberg Reference Steinberg and Rubin2010). The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran also inspired Nigerian Muslim students. The new government in Iran introduced students to literature about its ideal of reform and Shia Islam (Muhammad and Abdullah Reference Muhammad and Abdullah2019; Isa Reference Isa2018; Umar Reference Umar2001).
Also, by the 1970s, many young Nigerian Muslims who had been exposed to a variety of Islamic reform orientations in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UK returned to engage Muslim students in their newly acquired knowledge (Balogun Reference Balogun2019b: 174–8; Thurston Reference Thurston2009: 1). Notable in Yorubaland was Dr Jibril Oyekan, who studied in the UK. As a student, Oyekan played a key role in the formation of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the UK and Ireland (FOSIS) in 1963. In the north was Shaykh Ahmad Lemu (1929–2020), a principal at Sokoto Arabic College who established the Islamic Education Trust (IET) in 1969 in Sokoto (but now based in Niger State). The IET engaged students in different topics in Islam through workshops (Wara Reference Wara2015: 22). In addition, the local madrasas (Qur’anic schools) also produced graduates who found their way into the MSSN from the 1960s (Umar Reference Umar2001). These local graduates not only learned from the returnees, but they also raised a wide range of topics such as veiling. Thus, the development of Islamic reform in the MSSN resulted from interaction between foreign and local actors rather than imposition from outside.
Even though many students were inspired by global Islamic reform movements, some of the new ideas these introduced proved polarizing for the MSSN’s membership in the 1970s and 1980s. In the south, one of these questions centred on the correct process to embody Islam, with a faction in the MSSN called the Jama’at favouring an outward expression of the religion. For example, on the question of veiling, this faction believed that a girl should use the hijab because it is an instruction from God. However, this position was contested by another faction, the Mainstream, which considered that people should have knowledge about the hijab before using it.Footnote 12 In the north, Shaykh Aminudeen Abubakar also caused a split in the MSSN during his Friday sermon in 1982 when he criticized Ayatollah Khomeini as a demagogue and contested Iran’s claim to being a Muslim country (Kane Reference Kane2003: 79). Later, in 1994, the Muslim Brothers, a faction of the MSSN led by Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, which until then had been a Sunni group, declared itself to be pro-Shia Islam. Later, el-Zakzaky left the MSSN over el-Zakzaky’s opposition to the constitution of Nigeria, which the MSSN accommodates (Isa Reference Isa2018: 117–18; Umar Reference Umar2001: 138; Ibrahim Reference Ibrahimforthcoming). The Jama’at faction in the south, now known as the Muslim Congress, also left the MSSN in 1994 over questions of leadership and the style of reform.Footnote 13
Despite this organizational crisis, the MSSN successfully brought together Muslims of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds in postcolonial Nigeria. This was partly achieved due to its emphasis on the common challenges of Muslims in Nigeria, especially Christianity and the country’s colonial legacies. The MSSN was able to unify diverse groups by making itself open to all Muslim politicians, who are its patrons, irrespective of party affiliation. In its first decade, for example, the MSSN included Sir Ahmadu Bello (1910–66) of the Northern People’s Congress, Alhaji Dauda Soroye Adegbenro (1909–75) of the Action Group, Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu (1915–58) of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens and Alhaji Aminu Kano (1920–83) of the Northern Element Progressive Union (Tajudeen Reference Tajudeen1984).Footnote 14 By bringing Nigerian Muslims of all political and cultural backgrounds together, the history of the MSSN reveals cross-regional linkages of Muslim culture and Islam in Nigeria and illustrates the need to understand the diverse ways in which Muslims in one region of Nigeria relate and influence those in other regions.
Another success claimed by the MSSN is the introduction of Islamic practices in Christian-dominated public schools, particularly in the south-west. This includes the performance of Muslim prayer led by either students or Muslim teachers on school grounds. In terms of sociality, the MSSN also introduced female students to the Sisters’ Circle to facilitate Islamic education and interaction among women, particularly on topics such as modest dressing, proper interaction with men and maintenance of good hygiene. In addition, the MSSN considers the emergence of Muslim professionals and political elites, some of whom are governors and lawmakers, to be part of its success.Footnote 15
But these achievements cannot be generalized because the MSSN’s success has varied across Nigeria. In the north, many students do not identify with the MSSN despite the huge population of Muslims in the region. Besides many students’ lack of interest, the MSSN has been greeted with suspicion in the north from its inception, as noted earlier. This challenge was partly overcome by the efforts of Muslim students from the north who had joined the MSSN while studying in the south-west and then became its promoters. The patrons of the movement in the north also supported its development; these included Alhaji Ahmadu Bello and the emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, who welcomed the executives of the MSSN led by Abdul-Razak Solaja during its conference in 1966 (Alebiosu Reference Alebiosu1986). Meanwhile, the MSSN in the south-west has a large following, but support from Muslims outside the schools (especially after its reform) and from the state is limited. Moreover, in the south-east and south-south regions, where Christianity is the dominant religion, the activities of the MSSN are mostly limited to a few schools, in particular the federal government colleges that attract Muslims from other parts of the country. Also, in tertiary institutions in these regions, only a handful of Muslims identify with the MSSN.Footnote 16 The MSSN promotion of the hijab in school and sharia implementation further demonstrates the disparity of its achievements between the north and the south.
The hijab in school
The hijab (veil) is one of the symbols of Islamic reform promoted by the MSSN in educational institutions across Nigeria since the 1980s. Apart from being an object of reform, the hijab also aimed to challenge the existing style of dressing in schools introduced by Christian missionaries and the state during the colonial period. The promotion of the hijab by the MSSN reflects the path of many Islamic reform movements that identify a particular style of dress as an aspect of piety and in line with prophetic tradition. Renne’s (Reference Renne2018) study of the material expressions of Islam in northern Nigeria shows that items of dress such as the veil, turban and wrapper have been used since the reforms of Shehu Usman dan Fodio in 1804 to emphasize the importance of piety and a return to prophetic tradition. Following the establishment of the Sokoto caliphate, Muslim men wore the turban while women wore the veil. Because of the caliphate’s efforts to promote the textile industry, trade and Islamic education, these sartorial choices continued beyond the nineteenth century.
Until the hijab gained popularity in the north, the textile and style of veiling varied for women. Although women were encouraged to wear something simple and less extravagant, an admonition traced to Shehu dan Fodio and his son Bello, there was a tendency among the emirs and their households to distinguish themselves by using fine grades of cloth. Thus, the idea of veiling encompassed a variety of head coverings and shawl-like body coverings that exposed the woman’s face (Renne Reference Renne2018: 100). An example was the kallabi, a scarf ‘firmly tied from the forehead and knotted at the back of the neck to cover only the head, sometimes only partially’ (Mahdi Reference Mahdi2009: 7). There was also the saro – head ties styled in a form called gwagwaro. Some women covered the saro with a light veil known as gyale (Renne Reference Renne2018: 111).
Some veiling styles in the north were also common among the Yoruba Muslim women in the south. For instance, some women used the gele, covered with a light cloth called iborun (Renne Reference Renne and Renne2013: 62–5). The similarity of veiling styles between the north and the south was made possible by trading relations between the two regions. Some veiling practices among the Yoruba also came from North Africa and the Middle East. Also, Ilorin provided a link through which new veiling practices in the north came into Yoruba society. Having been incorporated into the Sokoto caliphate in 1823, Ilorin welcomed northern clerics who established Qur’anic schools in the city, and through scholars who attended these schools many aspects of the reform in the north were introduced to Yoruba society. Among these scholars was Sheikh Bamidele of Ibadan, who emphasized the importance of Islamic dress for Muslims. For this reason, the male followers of Sheikh Bamidele wear the turban (lawani in Yoruba) while women wear a veil called ‘purdah’, a burqa-like jilbab that has a mesh face covering. The women who wear this type of veil are called eleeha (literally, owners of ‘seclusion’) by the Yoruba (Renne Reference Renne2018: 60). Despite the attempt to promote the burqa-like veil as a representation of good Islamic practice, Yoruba Muslims generally consider this style of veiling to be a form of religious extremism and as having little to do with being a proper Muslim. Many also believe that the eleeha veil is not fashionable in a modern society.
The MSSN began a campaign on the use of the hijab in the 1980s with the introduction of certain veils, some of which originated from Saudi Arabia and Iran. Among these veils were the hijab (which covers a woman’s body to the waist), the jilbab (which covers a woman’s entire body except the face) and the niqab (which covers the woman’s body and face). In the south, the MSSN struggled to convince female students to adopt these veils. Among the few students who started wearing them in the early 1990s was Sururah Waheed of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ife. Even at that time, Sururah was initially denied a registration card due to her use of the hijab at the university, but following protests by the MSSN, she was issued the card. She would later be employed alongside two other women in hijab in the university as an academic in the computer science department.Footnote 17
If the hijab was rarely used in the 1990s, there was an increase in its acceptance by students from the 2000s. Its increasing use in public schools, however, faced strong opposition from regional state governments, Christian organizations, and even Muslim parents who saw the veils as unwanted religious extremism.Footnote 18 Christians opposed the hijab for fear of Islamization of public schools, which for them are secular institutions. Also, the proprietors of the former missionary secondary schools, which had been taken over by the government in the 1970s, also complained that the hijab goes against the religion of the initial founders of these schools (Abubakre Reference Abubakre2018; Ahanotu Reference Ahanotu1983). Thus, Christian opposition to the hijab in government schools is designed to protect not only their secularity but also their violation as symbols of Christianity.
In Lagos, Nigeria’s former capital and now its leading economic centre, this opposition led to a series of dialogues and negotiations involving the MSSN, the state government and many Muslim groups in the state from 2012. The outcome was a state ban in 2013 on the hijab except when students attend Islamic religious knowledge (IRK) classes and during prayers (Dania Reference Dania2016). Lagos State also defined the type of veil to be worn: a small hijab that reaches the shoulder rather than the waist. The government based these decisions on the MSSN’s argument that the Qur’an is usually recited in the IRK class and in prayers and that it is a sin for females to leave their heads uncovered during Qur’anic recitation.Footnote 19 Yet, the MSSN considered the ban a violation of Muslim women’s religious rights. Later, when some students were punished in their schools for wearing the hijab outside the approved period, the MSSN challenged the ban in court (Abubakar Reference Abubakar2016). Even though the MSSN won the case, the Lagos State government did not lift the ban on the hijab; rather, it challenged the judgment in the supreme court. However, in 2022, the supreme court affirmed the right of students to wear the hijab in public schools (Ugbodaga Reference Ugbodaga2018; Aliyu Reference Aliyu2022).
A similar scenario played out in Osun, a state with significant Muslim communities. Upon seeing the growing number of Muslim girls wearing the hijab to school, the state officially forbade it in 2004. This encouraged school authorities to turn away girls in the hijab if they refused to remove it, and some girls who resisted reported being beaten (Adekola Reference Adekola and Green2019). Concerned by this policy and the treatment of the girls, the MSSN, together with other Muslim groups, challenged the government in court in 2013. As in Lagos State, some of the schools where Muslim girls reported abuse were formerly owned by Christian missionaries, and the proprietors expressed a desire to honour the religious identity of their founders. When the MSSN challenged the government’s ban on the hijab in court, these proprietors, led by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), also applied to be a party in the case. In 2016, the court ruled that Muslim girls can wear the hijab in and outside school as part of their fundamental human rights and religious freedom. Not satisfied with the judgment, the Osun State branch of CAN asked the state governor not to obey the verdict and later contested the court ruling (Makinde Reference Makinde2016).
Compared with the south-west, the campaign for the use of the hijab faced fewer governmental restrictions in the north, even though its general acceptance was also contested at the beginning. The MSSN campaign in the north was aided by the Salafi organization, the Izala (Jamaсatu Izalat al-Bidсa wa Iqamat al- Sunna or the Society for the Removal of Innovation and the Reinstatement of Tradition), which made its female members wear the veil in the early 1980s. Later, it was joined by the Shia group called the Muslim Brothers, now the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (Mahdi Reference Mahdi2009: 12–13). The Izala introduced the hijab for women attending their Islamiyya schools, a programme of reform that challenges the established Tijaniyya and Qadiriyya Sufi orders that prescribe the education of Muslim women in their homes and restrict their appearance in public (Renne Reference Renne2012). Through the Izala schools, and the few Muslim girls belonging to the Izala movement in government schools, the hijab gradually became popular in northern Nigeria by the 1990s.
Nevertheless, as in south-west Nigeria, the introduction of the hijab in government schools did not go uncontested in the north. In Kaduna, home to a considerable number of Christians in the southern part of the state, Muslim students demanded the use of Islamic uniforms, including the hijab, at the Advanced Teachers College, Kafanchan (southern Kaduna) in 1987. This led to a conflict with Christian students and teachers who opposed their demand (Renne Reference Renne and Renne2013: 69). Not long after this, a similar conflict erupted at Queen Amina College, an elite women’s secondary school founded by Catholics in Kaduna. The college prescribed a Western-style uniform for students, made up of a blouse and skirt, which the Muslims wanted to replace with an Islamic style of dress. With the support of Izala leaders in the state, some members of the MSSN began to wear trousers, abaya (resembling the jelabiya) and the hijab. To resolve this chaos at the college, the state administrators subsequently approved the wearing of both old and new uniforms, a decision Christian students opposed. Owing to the continuous friction caused by this uniform, the state had to transfer some students and teachers to bring peace to the college (ibid.: 70).
From 2000, the reintroduction of the sharia criminal code in many parts of northern Nigeria further instated the goal of advocates of the hijab. In Kano, Governor Ibrahim Shekarau, who the MSSN celebrates as one of its graduates, tried to make the hijab part of the dress code in government and private schools in 2007 (Mahdi Reference Mahdi2009: 14). This policy was resisted by Christian groups including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria in all the sharia states. As a result, non-Muslim girls were exempted from wearing the hijab (Ludwig Reference Ludwig2008: 614). In addition to Christians, some Muslims in the north opposed the hijab, as had some in the south-west, instead favouring the more fashionable veils, especially the gwagwaro–gyale style; however, advocates of the hijab opposed this style for not concealing the woman’s body properly (Renne Reference Renne2018: 115).
In comparing the success of Muslim students’ use of the hijab in the two regions, one could easily claim that the dynamics of Muslim–Christian encounters affected the MSSN campaign more in the south than in the north. Yet, there are signs of progress on the acceptance of the hijab in the south. As noted in the cases of Osun and Lagos states above, the wearing of the hijab is now accepted in many public primary and secondary schools in the south-west. In higher institutions where Islamic dress had been accepted as a dress code before 2016, the authorities also permit the wearing of the hijab and other types of veils, such as the jilbab. A few of these institutions may place a ban on veils such as the burqa and the niqab, which conceal the wearer’s identity.Footnote 20 This ban reflects the concern of these institutions about violent Boko Haram activists who disguised themselves in such veils to detonate bombs in the north-east of the country (Renne Reference Renne2018: 194–6). However, leaving aside this concern, Muslim women are not mandated to wear the hijab in school either on their own account, by their parents, or by the state government, as was the case in Kano. The inability of the MSSN to make the hijab a symbol of Islam in the south is therefore not only a result of Christian opposition but also due to the resistance of fellow Muslims with divergent notions about their religion.
The demand for sharia
The demand for sharia has been one of the MSSN’s key objectives since the 1970s (Abubakr Reference Abubakr1984: 3). This reflects the change in its orientation due to influence from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other parts of the wider Islamic world, and it results from the belief that Muslims would benefit from a society in which Islam dominates institutions of governance and social life.
That said, sharia has a long history in Nigeria that predates the MSSN. In the late nineteenth century, many Yoruba Muslims unsuccessfully requested that the colonial state implement sharia. In 1894, Lagos Muslims petitioned the governor to permit them to employ Islamic law in their community to regulate practices of inheritance, marriage, naming ceremonies, and so on. Around fifty years later, in 1948, the Muslim Congress of Nigeria, established by Muhammad al-Amin Kudaisi at Ijebu-Ode, also unsuccessfully asked colonial officers to allow Muslims to access sharia (Sanni Reference Sanni2007). In contrast, the colonial administrators allowed sharia in northern Nigeria, as it had been practised under the Sokoto caliphate. However, the colonial administrators made changes regarding its application; as a result of these changes, sharia was placed under British law and colonial administrators ensured that many aspects of the criminal code deemed to be ‘obnoxious’ were discontinued, such as cutting off a hand for stealing (Danmole Reference Danmole1990: 144–5). With independence approaching, the sharia code in the north was revised in 1959 based on the Sudanese model, but without the criminal code (Akande Reference Akande2019). While many Muslims rejected this revised code, the qadis (judges) of the sharia courts continued to enforce the law as they knew it (Danmole Reference Danmole1990). Hence, agitation for sharia in post-independence Nigeria concerned its full implementation, not only in the north but also in the south, where sharia has been ignored.
The MSSN demanded the introduction of sharia by aligning and collaborating with Muslim organizations and individuals across Nigeria. Between 1976 and 1978, the MSSN contributed to the sharia debates that followed the military government’s plan to fashion a new Nigerian constitution as part of the transition to civilian rule. The government proposed establishing a federal sharia court of appeal and sharia courts in regions including the south-west in line with the new constitution. However, the proposal was challenged by many Christian associations and the Christian members of the Constitution Draft Committee (CDC) (Ryan Reference Ryan and Soares2006; Ostien Reference Ostien and Soares2006). Christians saw the proposed courts as a special privilege for Muslims, which they thought contradicted the principle of equality of all Nigerians before the law. They also contended that the establishment of the courts would threaten the unity of the country (Clarke and Linden Reference Clarke and Linden1984). In the north, the MSSN at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria reacted against these arguments by calling on Muslims to ‘stand firm and resist to the last man this effort of non-Muslims to suppress the Muslims and to eliminate the sharia’.Footnote 21 Furthermore, it urged Muslims to support the decolonization of Nigeria’s constitution, which it argued was based on the English common law (ibid.: 84).
The MSSN in the south added its voice to this call by working with key Muslim figures such as Chief M. K. O. Abiola, Dr Dawud Noibi and Lateef Adegbite to request the establishment of sharia courts for Yoruba Muslims (Makinde Reference Makinde2017: 87–90; Makinde and Ostien Reference Makinde and Ostien2011: 925). For Adegbite, the first president of the MSSN, the introduction of these courts was not only a matter of religious freedom and pluralism in Nigeria, but also about the right of Muslims to be administered under divine laws (Clarke and Linden Reference Clarke and Linden1984: 83). Although the proposal for the sharia courts was rejected following the vote against it by Christian members of the CDC (Ostien Reference Ostien and Soares2006), the MSSN in the north and south continued to agitate for the courts in many forums, such as the Islamic Vacation Course (IVC), and in public lectures outside schools. By speaking with one voice, the demand for sharia became a unifying factor between many Muslims in the north and the south. At the same time, it allowed the MSSN to counter the opponents of sharia in any region.
If the central government influenced the 1970s sharia debates, the sharia agitation in the 2000s demonstrates how the northern Muslim community influenced the south-west. In 1999, following the transition to democratic governance in Nigeria, the Zamfara State governor decided to implement the sharia penal code. Between 1999 and 2001, eleven other states in the north also adopted sharia (Ostien Reference Ostien and Soares2006; Sanni Reference Sanni2007).
Christians opposed this in all twelve states, and in some states the governors made some compromises in response. For instance, while states such as Zamfara (1999) and Kano (2000) implemented the full sharia criminal code, Governor Mohammad Makarfi of Kaduna State made concessions to Christians in the state by creating a tripartite court system, which introduced customary courts in non-Muslim areas and sharia courts in Muslim areas, while the magistrates’ courts were preserved (Ludwig Reference Ludwig2008: 625). This shows that, even as Muslim practices in the north are determined by Islamic tenets, there is also room for accommodation of non-Muslims’ concerns within these practices.
Impressed by the achievement in the north, those agitating for sharia in the south-west renewed their efforts. Having called for the introduction of sharia in the past with no success, many Yoruba Muslims hoped that its successful implementation in the north was an indication that their longstanding demand would be respected as a matter of religious freedom under a democratic government. To make its demands in the south-west, the MSSN worked with national Muslim organizations such as the National Council of Muslim Youth Organizations and the Muslim Congress, which are dominated by MSSN members and supporters. They met with state officials to explain the importance of sharia and why Christians must not be afraid of the law. The League of Imams and Alfas that represents the clerics in Yorubaland also supported the position of these Muslim groups. However, opposition to sharia came from the president of CAN, Dr Sunday Mbang, and Reverend Adeola Abiola, CAN Lagos State branch chairman. Worried that the demand for sharia was not being considered by state governments due to this opposition, the MSSN in the south-west states with a substantial Christian population mobilized the youth in public protests in 1999. Even though some governors in the south-west were Muslims, they all rejected the demand for sharia, unlike in the north. In response, many Yoruba Muslim communities set up independent sharia panels (ISPs) in states such as Lagos, Oyo and Osun to privately implement sharia among willing Muslims (Makinde Reference Makinde2017). The MSSN also established a sharia panel in each state for its members. Given the strong opposition in the region, Peel (Reference Peel2016) was sceptical about the possibility of enforcing sharia among Yoruba Muslims in the foreseeable future, but looking at the ISPs suggests that this possibility cannot be foreclosed.
The opposition of Christian groups and individuals, including rejection by significant Yoruba Muslim leaders and politicians, was a major factor behind the failure to implement sharia in the south-west. As with the hijab, Christians feared that the dominant Muslim north would subtly Islamize Nigeria if sharia were implemented, even though a Christian was the president of Nigeria at the time (Makinde Reference Makinde2017: 93; Sanni Reference Sanni2007: 123–4). This fear reflects the common Christian belief that there exists a ‘Fulani’ plan to extend the ideals of the Sokoto caliphate to the south, a feeling that developed following the takeover of Ilorin, a predominantly Yoruba territory, by ‘jihadists’ in 1823 (Danmole and Falola Reference Danmole and Falola1985: 27). Today, many Yoruba Muslims and Christians still believe that the Fulani have not abandoned their goal of overrunning southern Nigeria. Thus, Christian opposition to sharia in the south-west was about their fear not only of Islamization but also of their land being conquered. Besides Christians, many Yoruba Muslims also opposed sharia because they believed that sharia was unnecessary as they were already living a pious life (Makinde and Ostien Reference Makinde and Ostien2011).Footnote 22 Political factors also contributed to the failure of sharia implementation in the south-west. As Makinde (Reference Makinde2017) demonstrates, the governors of the south-west states feared that supporting sharia could affect their political ambitions. Additionally, some states did not have a Muslim majority in their legislative houses to ensure the passage of a sharia bill.
For the MSSN in the south-west, the opposition to the hijab and sharia reflected the weak support of the Muslim political elite for Islamic policy.Footnote 23 The MSSN think that the Yoruba Muslim political elite, even those who sympathize with the MSSN, betray them when they fail to use their political and financial resources to back its objectives. As Taofeeq Yekini, the national president of the MSSN, explains, these politicians sometimes hide under the term ‘liberal Muslims’ (meaning tolerant of religious diversity) to avoid giving the MSSN their support.Footnote 24 This suggests that the politicians see the MSSN as an ‘extremist’ religious movement that must be avoided, a view also held by many Yoruba Muslims and Christians. Indeed, it could be said that these politicians do not want to be seen as favouring one religion over another, as Makinde (Reference Makinde2017) suggested. But many members of the MSSN in the south-west contend that this attitude differs from the north, where they believe that they have received financial and moral backing from the northern Muslim political elite. Still, they are aware of the disparity in the number of Muslim politicians between the north and the south, and they understand that the northern Muslim political elite has more power compared with those in the south-west. Thus, the attitude of Muslim politicians in the south-west to the MSSN is not necessarily due to their religiosity; rather, it is influenced by the reality of their coexistence with Christians. And as the hijab and sharia cases demonstrate, this could mean denying their co-religionists the opportunity to express their religious traditions. In addition, the fear of politicians in the south-west of being seen as ‘extremist’ is itself a reflection of Islamic reasoning (Davids Reference Davids2017). Their position represents one of the intellectual traditions of Islam, and as a result their decision to compromise is no less Islamic than the attitude of Muslims in the north.
Conclusion
The history of the MSSN, its activities in educational institutions and its involvement in sharia implementation reveal the evolution of Muslim–Christian relations in Nigeria. The case of the MSSN suggests that, despite their doctrinal differences, many Muslims have been inspired by Christian activities to such an extent that they have appropriated such activities in their community. It also shows that many Muslims, particularly in the south-west, have adjusted their practices due to the concerns of Christians in their communities, thus preventing them from achieving uniformity across Nigeria, as in the case of sharia. In light of this, scholarship on Islam and Muslim culture in Nigeria needs to take seriously the relationship between Muslims and Christians because the production of Muslim practices in contemporary Nigeria is determined not only by discourses among Muslims but also by the activities and concerns of their non-Muslim neighbours. Given the development that led to the establishment of the MSSN and its activities in schools, the study shows that the concerns of Muslims in the south have impacted on the north. Additionally, Muslims’ relationships with Christians have contributed to the development of a range of Islamic practices. Thus, it is important to see these relationships as a key factor in the understanding of Islam in Nigeria.
The MSSN involvement in Muslim–Christian relations between the north and the south further challenges popular assumptions in studies of Islam and Muslim culture in Nigeria. One of these assumptions has centred around the notion of ‘Yoruba Islam’ or ‘Yoruba Muslims’, understood as ‘tolerant’ and ‘peaceful’; indeed, many ‘Yoruba Muslims’ thought about themselves in this way. This notion of religion is mostly used in contrast to the practice of Islam in northern Nigeria, where violent jihadist tendencies are common, together with bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians. This argument is found in Peel’s (Reference Peel2016: 2) study of interaction among Muslims, Christians and devotees of traditional religion in Yoruba society and has been reiterated by Janson (Reference Janson2021). However, Janson’s study also shows that the encounter between Muslims and Christians in the north did not obliterate peaceful coexistence, borrowing, dialogue or tolerance, as portrayed by the media (ibid.). Likewise, conflict has never been obscured in the relationship between Yoruba Muslims and Christians, with the crisis over the cross at the University of Ibadan in 1985 and the crusade at Ede in 2011 being major examples (ibid.; Ogen and Balogun Reference Ogen, Balogun, Nolte, Ogen and Jones2017). Thus, instead of creating simplistic terminologies to distinguish Muslim tendencies in the south from those in the north, it is better to situate them in different intellectual traditions of Islam. Approaching the tendencies from this perspective would reveal that the ideas of ‘peace’, ‘moderation’ and ‘tolerance’ being promoted in the south are a reflection of a particular Islamic reasoning, one that is also followed by many Muslims in the north.
The tendency to distinguish Muslims in the south from those in the north also fails to make space for the many Yoruba Muslims in the MSSN who, since independence, have wanted to achieve uniformity in their practice of Islam with Muslims in the north. However, as the promotion of hijab and sharia indicate, they are unable to achieve this owing to the strong opposition of their Christian neighbours and some liberal Muslim leaders and politicians. Moreover, many Western-educated Muslims in Yoruba society are not comfortable with the terms ‘Yoruba Muslims’ and ‘Yoruba Islam’ because it suggests to them that one is both a Muslim and a devotee of traditional religion at the same time, a practice they regard as shirk (associating partners with God) in Islam.Footnote 25 But the fact that Islam in Yoruba society is not uniform renders this assumption baseless. Thus, there is a need to be careful in using such terms as they may create a misrepresentation of Islam from the north to the south of Nigeria.
This study also helps us rethink our understanding of the Muslim challenge to Christianity and the legacies of colonialism in Nigeria. Existing literature tends to show that Muslims in the north have been the most active in this challenge against the colonial political infrastructures, and thus most contemporary studies of Muslims in Nigeria are based on this region (see Thurston Reference Thurston2016; Reference Thurston2015; Mustapha Reference Mustapha2014; Adesoji Reference Adesoji2011; Kane Reference Kane2003; Umar Reference Umar1999). However, as a national movement that cuts across regional boundaries, the activities of the MSSN in educational institutions and on sharia demonstrate that Muslims in the north and south are united in their opposition to Christianity and many legacies of colonial rule. Drawing attention to such cases can help us rethink contemporary studies of Islam and Muslims and move beyond a single region, as doing so would elucidate the actual connections, differences and conflicts that define Nigerian Muslims and how they live.
Acknowledgements
I thank the two anonymous reviewers of this article; their invaluable comments and critique contributed to its development. Also, I appreciate the efforts of Sara Katz and Musa Ibrahim, who offered me their feedback and moral support along the way.
Adeyemi Balogun is a lecturer in History and International Studies at Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria, and a LUCAS/LAHRI-UNIOSUN postdoctoral research fellow in the same university. In 2019, he was awarded his PhD at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, for which he researched the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria’s contribution to Islamic reform in Yoruba society. His areas of research include Muslims culture, Islamic reform, interreligious encounter and youth service.
