An African Vortex: Islamism in Sub-Saharan Africa

A self-proclaimed pan-Islamist, Ahmadu Bello sought nothing less than Nigeriaand the continent’s full conversion to Islam, saying “I hope when we clean Nigeria we will go further afield in Africa.”  To accomplish this, Bellothrew his support behind Saudi efforts.  From the minutes of the Muslim World League’s inaugural meeting in 1962, it can be seen that Ahmadu Bello’s name was second in the list of the body’s founders, and at the MWL’s third meeting in 1963, he was nominated Vice-President of the League.  Through this connection, Saudi money designated for religious purposes began to flow to Nigeria.  Bello’s biographer JohnPaden notes Saudi gifts in 1963 and 1964 totaling £200,000 for the work of spreading Islam, apart from “unofficial donations, probably amounting to millions of pounds.”[25]

More inclined toward Wahhabism was Abubakar Gumi – called by scholar John Hunwick “a conduit through which Saudi/Wahhabi ideas could flow and take root in Nigeria.”[26]  UnlikeBello, Gumi was trained in an austere legal tradition and was rabidly anti-Sufi – the indicium of Wahhabis inAfrica – having lived several months in the Hijaz where he became immersed in Wahhabi ideology.

Gumi’s Islamist program began in 1962, when he persuaded the Sarduana to establish a pan-Nigerian Islamic organization – Jamaat Nasril al-Islam (JNI – Association for the Victory of Islam) – that can be considered the progenitor of today’s Islamist associations in the country.  Immediately at issue was JNI’s solicitation, underBello’s direction, of broad-based support that included moderates and Sufis.  WithBello’s death in 1966, however, the way was cleared for Gumi to fully launch his Wahhabist campaign.

Gumi made great use of mass media in his attempt to transform society along Wahhabi lines.  The angry backlash these campaigns elicited from Sufis eventually led to the disintegration of the JNI into a number of competing factions.  Gumi’s faction, established in 1978 that became the most influential of them all, was the Jamaat Izalat al-Bida wa Iqamat al-Sunnah (the Society for the Eradication of Evil Innovation and the Establishment of the Sunnah), better known as the Yan Izala.[27]

The Yan Izala – in addition to issuing religious edicts – promoted social programs such as the establishment of an Islamic system of education that gained the support of Nigerian Muslims.  Membership in the Izala boomed, as politically active Muslims sought an outlet for their ideas (political parties being banned at the time).  According to the scholar Roman Loimeier, “the new adherents of Yan Izala absorbed nothing of the old, ‘un-Islamic’ system of values, but categorically rejected it and instead accepted a new system of explanation.”[28]

To hedge Yan Izala’s magnetism, the traditionally dominant Sufi brotherhoods were forced to follow a similar path – the Izala and the tariqa each attempting to appear “more Islamic” than the other in a battle to be considered the legitimate defender of Muslim rights in the country – firmly entrenching Islamism in Nigerian political life.