Leadership (Abuja)
Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf
2 October 2008
opinion
The month of Ramadan is best known as the month of fasting but it is also the time for spiritual growth and reflection for Muslims. During that period, Muslims in my part of the country take over the airwaves through sponsored programmes to disseminate the sessions on the meaning of the Qur'an tafsir undertaken by preachers from various mosques.
For anyone who is interested in studying two things, the variety of commentary on the Qur'an, the competition for public space and group dynamics among Islamic scholars, the ulama the tafsir sessions which are conducted in Hausa mainly in the predominantly Muslim cities offer an opportunity to do so. I take a keen interest in the tafsir sessions because they serve as a barometer for measuring the socio – political temperature and thoughts of a vocal segment of the Muslim community with a large captive audience of Hausa speakers. The broadcasts from some of the stations reach neigbouring countries of Benin Republic, Ghana, Niger, Burkina Faso and Cameroun. Technological advancement in the media sector has made the monitoring assignment quite easy for me, so I was able to move from one mosque to the other listening to the various scholars. What were the major issues they raised even as they commented on the meaning of the verses of the Qur'an?
I discovered that the majority of the scholars spent more time discussing intra Muslim squabbles and some contemporary social issues than they did on giving their audiences the translations and documented commentaries on the Qur'an. My intention is to share information so I will refrain from mentioning the names of the various scholars to avoid being caught in the unnecessary heat and crossfire of rejoinders from their teeming supporters. Such rejoinders would only spark off another round of controversy, blame allocation and hostility. During the tafsir sessions, there were no ground rules for interventions and questions and answer; so there were frequent interruptions often unrelated to the verse being read. So the setting was not conducive for learning the Qur'an. The preachers also kept diverting from the main focus. There was a general tendency to de emphasise the substance which is the actual translation of the Qur'an, perhaps under the fallacious assumption that people already know. The temptation was to engage in frivolities and hair splitting in spite of the fact that Muslims have been warned to desist from that dangerous past time that ruined past communities.
A particular scholar seized the opportunity to fuel Izala versus Tariqa controversies by attacking certain tariqa practices and raking up the time- worn controversy on the acceptability or otherwise of salatul fatih, a particular type of zikr known as wazifa; whether it is permissible to revere saints without descending to saint worship, and the position of Sufism in Islam. The audience cheered with shouts of Allahu Akbar! as he denounced all these as bidia (innovation) which makes them unacceptable in Islam because they erode the faith of Muslims! The celebration of Maulud, the birthday of the Prophet SAW was also added to the list of unIslamic acts that do not earn any reward. Again the audience cheered! What one would have found funny, were it not so tragic, was listening to some Muslims who said they were there to revert from Izala to Tariqa at the same time that the scholar was also receiving non Muslims who were converting to Islam and administering kalimat shahada to them. Who knows, before long we might soon hear the Tariqa 'converts' to Izala reciting it too? The Sheikh also had a parting shot for those Muslims whom he called "Masu kare walliyayai' who are not Tariqa but believe in and promote the superiority of the blood relations of the Prophet SAW the Ahalul bait and revere them just as the Tariqa do their saints. He denounced them for being allies of the Tariqa and declared that they should be treated like them. He asked a rhetorical question- Are there more pious saints than the four rightly guided Caliphs whom these allies of the Tariqa do not respect?
From the Tariqa side, I heard them retort that the nineteenth century reformer and founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, Sheikh Usman Danfodio, and those who led the Caliphate after, him were members of the Tariqa brotherhood and the Islamic propagation work Sheikh Usman Danfodio did through his jihad, his writings and preaching to purify Islam from heathen practices in Nigeria and indeed West Africa is yet to be matched by any Izala zealot to date. One of the Tariqa scholars who wanted to hit where it hurt most even denounced a prominent late Izala leader's work on translation of the Qur'an into Hausa language as sub standard and therefore contributed nothing to expanding the frontiers, of knowledge in the field of Qur'anic tafsir. This devaluation of each other and exaggerated doctrinal differences aside, both the Izala and Tariqa adherents still pray together and have the same cardinal beliefs so they are not even sects as applied to other religious groups. The consolation is that no one is yet to be appointed a registrar of Muslims so they all remain Muslims and both groups know that they cannot oust each other out the Islamic fold.
A particular group of scholars have made tafsir sessions a battle ground not only for contentious religious debates but also a forum for mudslinging, character assassination and denigration of the Islamic credentials of their colleagues with whom they differ on dogma. I could not believe the venom with which the war of words and wit was being fought and could not help wondering what type of message our respected scholars were sending to their numerous followers, particularly the young ones. If scholars can engage in such distasteful name calling, who will admonish their followers? Yet Muslims are supposed to be the ummati-wasat and our ulama are supposed to be the inheritors of the prophets by being the guiding light for the followers of the last Prophet sent to humanity. As I listened to the ulama, I felt a deep sense of sadness. Given the myriad of problems facing our communities, among them endemic poverty, pervasive ignorance, disease and squalor, poverty of ideas, primitive technology and voicelessness in the national media, the task of societal orientation and empowerment is daunting. Muslims can least afford to waste time on frivolities, petty intra faith squabbles and dissipation of energies in needless, ruinous competition and diatribe.
While nursing the injury in my mind, I got a dose of relief from listening to the messages sent out by some of the scholars to mark the closure of this year's Ramadan tafsir. I will try and reproduce the unedited version of what I heard from the scholars. From the Zaria-based Islamic Trust of Nigeria, ITN, the preacher said: 'We have reached the cross roads in this country and it is the time to take action. The crisis we are facing in this country has some link with what is happening at the global level. There is a global socio-economic and political crisis because of inequity in global trade, exploitation and marginalisation of poor countries by the rich industrialised ones. It is a crisis of capitalism without morality which in our country is responsible for the pauperisation of the majority of the people and the enrichment of a powerful minority. We know that free for all capitalism that is based on interest banking is devoid of a human face and unIslamic, so we Muslims must return to the Sharia. America is in a deep crisis that is why its people are speaking of an inevitable change of leadership. This Ramadan is the time for us to dedicate our selves to initiating change. It is a task for those who believe in Allah's promise that He will assist people who genuinely believe in him and want to change all the wrong things in their community. Each one of us should join the army of change and begin to preach the message of change to our audience and it should begin with our families our colleagues. We intend to continue this tafsir even after Ramadan to ensure that the message of change is carried to all Muslims'.
At the Kaduna Polytechnic Tafsir, the preacher had this to say: 'there is need to identify our priorities in this country and this will only happen if we make input into policy and hold our leaders accountable. Most of our problems in this country are due to leadership crisis. We lack honest and visionary leaders. Those we put in positions of leadership are not interested in working for the people. Their priority is amassing wealth. We must remind them that Allah will ask them to account for every kobo of public fund they misappropriate. We in the North are particularly disadvantaged because of our high level of poverty. Nine years ago, we were anxious to have a responsive civilian leader, but our elite misguided us by recommending to us that we should vote for Chief Obasanjo and we did. After eight years of Obasanjo, we have nothing to show and the north is worse off. If our current leaders want to address the underdevelopment of the north, they should invest in four critical sectors. They are education, health, security and poverty alleviation through job creation. On their part, the youth need re-orientation to shun drugs, laziness, develop the right work ethics, acquire education and contribute to national development. We also want our leaders to know that we are opposed to the proposed privatisation of FRCN and NTA. It is a wrong step to sell off our media heritage."
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