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/9780520293779.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter provides a history of the rise of Islam in west Africa, in particular to Hausaland, which is today’s Northern Nigeria. The chapter then concentrates on the Sokoto Jihad and subsequent ...
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This chapter provides a history of the rise of Islam in west Africa, in particular to Hausaland, which is today’s Northern Nigeria. The chapter then concentrates on the Sokoto Jihad and subsequent caliphate led by Uthman Dan Fodio. The chapter traces his intellectual history, highlighting his engagement with the Arabian peninsula and championing of unifying the Hausaland region under the textual regimen of the Maliki school of Islamic law. The second layer of the sunnaic paradigm, the role the Sokoto jihad plays in contemporary northern Nigerian idealizations of an ideal Islamic society, is explained. Idealization of scholars and hudud punishments are shown to be reinscribed into Nigeria’s present moment as a source of authentication of the 1999 sharia experiment.Less
This chapter provides a history of the rise of Islam in west Africa, in particular to Hausaland, which is today’s Northern Nigeria. The chapter then concentrates on the Sokoto Jihad and subsequent caliphate led by Uthman Dan Fodio. The chapter traces his intellectual history, highlighting his engagement with the Arabian peninsula and championing of unifying the Hausaland region under the textual regimen of the Maliki school of Islamic law. The second layer of the sunnaic paradigm, the role the Sokoto jihad plays in contemporary northern Nigerian idealizations of an ideal Islamic society, is explained. Idealization of scholars and hudud punishments are shown to be reinscribed into Nigeria’s present moment as a source of authentication of the 1999 sharia experiment.
Charlotte A. Quinn and Frederick Quinn
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195063868
- eISBN:
- 9780199834587
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195063864.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Modern Nigeria was cobbled together in the nineteenth century from over 350 ethnic and linguistic groups, including sizable Muslim populations, especially in the country's north. Formative early ...
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Modern Nigeria was cobbled together in the nineteenth century from over 350 ethnic and linguistic groups, including sizable Muslim populations, especially in the country's north. Formative early figures like Uthman Dan Fodio and the scholar‐jurist Mohammad Bello were important in establishing Islam among the Hausa and Fulani populations, from which it spread elsewhere. Today, Nigeria's Muslim community is divided, and the extent to which Sharia law should be implemented has proved a contentious battleground both within the Islamic community and with other Nigerians. Islam in Nigeria seeks a competitive edge in the struggle with a nearly numerically equal Christian community.Less
Modern Nigeria was cobbled together in the nineteenth century from over 350 ethnic and linguistic groups, including sizable Muslim populations, especially in the country's north. Formative early figures like Uthman Dan Fodio and the scholar‐jurist Mohammad Bello were important in establishing Islam among the Hausa and Fulani populations, from which it spread elsewhere. Today, Nigeria's Muslim community is divided, and the extent to which Sharia law should be implemented has proved a contentious battleground both within the Islamic community and with other Nigerians. Islam in Nigeria seeks a competitive edge in the struggle with a nearly numerically equal Christian community.
