Sarah Eltantawi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520293779
- eISBN:
- 9780520967144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293779.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter is a step by step recounting of the trials and appeals of Amina Lawal from 2002-2003. The chapter analyzes the form and substance of both the prosecution’s and the defense’s arguments. ...
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This chapter is a step by step recounting of the trials and appeals of Amina Lawal from 2002-2003. The chapter analyzes the form and substance of both the prosecution’s and the defense’s arguments. It also focuses on legal education in Northern Nigeria and traces changes to the Nigerian penal code brought forth by the colonial encounter. Such changes include the use of the Nigerian constitution in an Islamic trial and eschewing jurisprudential arguments for arguments that eminate from primary texts, a practice that I call indicative of “post-modern shar’iah.” The chapter further expands on the concept of “legal warfare” initiated by the British against Islamic law.Less
This chapter is a step by step recounting of the trials and appeals of Amina Lawal from 2002-2003. The chapter analyzes the form and substance of both the prosecution’s and the defense’s arguments. It also focuses on legal education in Northern Nigeria and traces changes to the Nigerian penal code brought forth by the colonial encounter. Such changes include the use of the Nigerian constitution in an Islamic trial and eschewing jurisprudential arguments for arguments that eminate from primary texts, a practice that I call indicative of “post-modern shar’iah.” The chapter further expands on the concept of “legal warfare” initiated by the British against Islamic law.
Sarah Eltantawi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520293779
- eISBN:
- 9780520967144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293779.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Eltantawi became interested in the case of Amina Lawal in 2002 when she was working in Washington DC in media and communications after the 9-11 attacks and was inundated with media phone calls about ...
More
Eltantawi became interested in the case of Amina Lawal in 2002 when she was working in Washington DC in media and communications after the 9-11 attacks and was inundated with media phone calls about Lawal’s trial. This chapter introduces the book’s themes and lays out its guiding framework, the “sunnaic paradigm”: the concerns of Nigeria’s present, read back into the nineteenth century Sokoto Caliphate, which is then read back into the classical, Prophetic period of Islam. The sunnaic paradigm gave a sense of power to Nigerians as they embarked on the 1999 shar’ia experiment to overcome their societies’ significant challenges. The book wrestles throughout with how the seventh century past (birth of Islam) affects the twenty-first century present (demanding shar’ia).Less
Eltantawi became interested in the case of Amina Lawal in 2002 when she was working in Washington DC in media and communications after the 9-11 attacks and was inundated with media phone calls about Lawal’s trial. This chapter introduces the book’s themes and lays out its guiding framework, the “sunnaic paradigm”: the concerns of Nigeria’s present, read back into the nineteenth century Sokoto Caliphate, which is then read back into the classical, Prophetic period of Islam. The sunnaic paradigm gave a sense of power to Nigerians as they embarked on the 1999 shar’ia experiment to overcome their societies’ significant challenges. The book wrestles throughout with how the seventh century past (birth of Islam) affects the twenty-first century present (demanding shar’ia).
Sarah Eltantawi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520293779
- eISBN:
- 9780520967144
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293779.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
In November, 1999, hundreds of thousands of Northern Nigerians took to the streets of Zamfara state to demand the (re)implementation of full shar’iah penal law. Insisting on the laws of God where the ...
More
In November, 1999, hundreds of thousands of Northern Nigerians took to the streets of Zamfara state to demand the (re)implementation of full shar’iah penal law. Insisting on the laws of God where the laws of man had failed, Nigerians believed shari’ah would stem massive corruption and deepening poverty in their society. Two years after shar’iah, a peasant woman from Katsina state, Amina Lawal, was sentenced to death by stoning for committing the crime of zinā, or illegal sexual activity, raising world wide concern about her fate and that of Nigeria. This book critically examines this western reaction, and asks how a revolution for total restructuring of society to bring justice and poverty alleviation most immediately affected a peasant woman accused of sexual crimes. Through the lens of Lawal’s case and its dramatic outcome, Eltantawi examines original Nigerian archival material, her ethnographic fieldwork in Northern Nigeria, premodern and modern Nigerian history, histories of Hausaland’s colonial encounter, the early legalization of stoning in Islam, Islamic legal theory, and contemporary debates around gender and geopolitics to piece together the histories that gave rise to latest Islamic revolution in Northern Nigeria -- the failure of which empowered terrorist group Boko Haram.Less
In November, 1999, hundreds of thousands of Northern Nigerians took to the streets of Zamfara state to demand the (re)implementation of full shar’iah penal law. Insisting on the laws of God where the laws of man had failed, Nigerians believed shari’ah would stem massive corruption and deepening poverty in their society. Two years after shar’iah, a peasant woman from Katsina state, Amina Lawal, was sentenced to death by stoning for committing the crime of zinā, or illegal sexual activity, raising world wide concern about her fate and that of Nigeria. This book critically examines this western reaction, and asks how a revolution for total restructuring of society to bring justice and poverty alleviation most immediately affected a peasant woman accused of sexual crimes. Through the lens of Lawal’s case and its dramatic outcome, Eltantawi examines original Nigerian archival material, her ethnographic fieldwork in Northern Nigeria, premodern and modern Nigerian history, histories of Hausaland’s colonial encounter, the early legalization of stoning in Islam, Islamic legal theory, and contemporary debates around gender and geopolitics to piece together the histories that gave rise to latest Islamic revolution in Northern Nigeria -- the failure of which empowered terrorist group Boko Haram.
Sarah Eltantawi
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520293779
- eISBN:
- 9780520967144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520293779.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter is an ethnography of Eltantawi’s research in Northern Nigeria conducted in 2010. It describes and analyzes her conversations with key players in Amina Lawal’s trial. These conversations ...
More
This chapter is an ethnography of Eltantawi’s research in Northern Nigeria conducted in 2010. It describes and analyzes her conversations with key players in Amina Lawal’s trial. These conversations illuminate how central the Islamic identity is in Northern Nigeria, and critically examines what “Islam” actually signifies for Northern Nigerians, highlighting how difficult it is to campaign for any kind of change outside the framework of “Islam.” Other interviews highlight the sense of rampant material and moral corruption in Nigeria. The chapter also introduces the distinction between “idealized” and “political” shari’ah, and shows how the heavy handedness and corruption of the current sharia experiment is labeled “political” in order to preserve the sense of Islam as an ideal.Less
This chapter is an ethnography of Eltantawi’s research in Northern Nigeria conducted in 2010. It describes and analyzes her conversations with key players in Amina Lawal’s trial. These conversations illuminate how central the Islamic identity is in Northern Nigeria, and critically examines what “Islam” actually signifies for Northern Nigerians, highlighting how difficult it is to campaign for any kind of change outside the framework of “Islam.” Other interviews highlight the sense of rampant material and moral corruption in Nigeria. The chapter also introduces the distinction between “idealized” and “political” shari’ah, and shows how the heavy handedness and corruption of the current sharia experiment is labeled “political” in order to preserve the sense of Islam as an ideal.
