Sharia And Islam In Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars

Click to get our FREE MOBILE APP and stay connected

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 242

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

Ogbu U. Kalu

Introduction

In 2003, Nigeria featured much in the global news. First, some women were condemned to be stoned to death with regular stones for alleged adul- tery. Second, there was a riot in which many were killed and churches torched in the northern parts of the country because a beauty pageant event was staged during Ramadan and an article appeared in a newspaper, This Day, that some thought ridiculed the Prophet.1 The ostensible reasons were the rise of a violent face of Islam and the enactment of “sharia states” in the northern sectors of the country in 2002. The global community was aghast and protested vigorously.

This reflection will center on the influence of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement in the violent aspect of religious, in particular, Islamic politics in Nigeria. First it will explain the sharia in Muslim religion and life, sketching the history of Islamic politics in Nigeria through four phases, from its initiation up to the contemporary democratic dispensation. Commentators have canvassed a number of explanations for the radical- ization of Islamic politics; they include the competition for dwindling eco- nomic resources, a response to modernity, the dilemma of pluralism in a modern African state, and the “clash of fundamentalisms” induced by the insurgence of Pentecostal and Charismatic forces in Islamic strongholds. Those who favor this last explanation argue that this elicits the reasser- tion of local identities and compels the manipulation of religion as a cultural signifier. How does the Pentecostal/Charismatic rhetoric image Islam and the sharia?

1

ngrguardiannews.com/news/article21.

© 2004 Brill Academic Publishers, Inc., Boston pp. 242–261

1

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 243

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

The Sharia in Islamic Religion and Life

An understanding of the place of the sharia in Islamic life is germane to this reflection. Sharia is the warp and weft of the Islamic faith and the core of its ethical system. Its intricacy lies in its two sources, divine and human. The divine constituent is in the Quræan and the Prophet’s Sunnah. It contains revealed principles, exhortations, and laws. The Sunnah is the elaboration and exemplification of the content of the Quræan. Thus, one can arrive at an ethical decision by contending that it was done this way in the time of the Prophet.

The human component derives from the writings of Muslim scholars and sages. There is a certain fluidity or flexibility (muruna) and evolution (tatawwur) because it is not an inherited code that devotees merely apply. It has been possible for various communities to inculturate and craft codes to solve their problems as each seeks the best means of applying the divine aspects of the sharia. The interior of sharia demands that judges should contextualize rulings (mazahib). The flavor of the practice of the sharia in different contexts is brought about by the people’s self-understanding, peculiar circumstances, and changes in human conditions and experiences. It is not a fossilized code but a dynamic process that enables ancient knowl- edge to be applied in a modern setting. This is what is called itjihad, a human activity, prone to error and subjectivities. Its binding nature is often limited to defined contexts though its purview embraces all of life. Sharia law can be defined as both strict and flexible because it is both based on absolute principles and yet responds to changing conditions and human experiences. It combines the seemingly incompatible twin impulses of primitivism and pragmatism—the ability to hold in tension otherworldly aspirations and this-worldly shrewdness. The primitivistic impulse or the idealistic side is the determination to return to first things, to be guided solely by Allah’s will in every aspect of one’s life. Pragmatism is the will- ingness to work through social and cultural forces, which explains why sharia is practiced differently in various cultures. Sharia, it could be argued, evokes moral principles that are eternal and resonate with Christian and secular principles. The perspective here is that major problems arise when sharia is not properly indigenized—where codes woven in some contexts are applied with inflexibility in others without local initiative.

Yet, sharia is a prescriptive divine law rather than an existentialist ethic and does not permit the relativist, liberal theology of Christians. Like the Talmud, its application is choreographed systematically through a maze

243

2

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 244

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

of authoritative voices in an exegesis that uses human wisdom to expli- cate the divine without injury to the former. This explains the frustration of the devotees at the spate of protests. As the Grand Khadi and judges of the Sharia Court of Appeal, Sokoto, argued on March 25, 2002: “It is not allowed for a person to beg for another who has been brought before a court for the offence of theft or zina punishment. It is compulsory to punish them with Hadd punishment if they are found guilty. Even if they swear not to do it again; and they change to good people. Because the issue of Hadd, if it is before an Imam and the suspect is found guilty, this is Allah’s right; it is not proper for a person to save another from Hadd punishment.”2 However, all do not arrive at the same positions and, there- fore, there are at least four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hanafi, Shafii, Hanbali, and Maliki. Following the Zamfara examples, Nigerian sharia states opted to rely heavily on the Maliki School that was designed in Arabia and introduced by the Almoravids. This is fraught with problems that are both ideological and too intricately legal for our con- cern here.

Suffice it to say that sharia is an agent of social control that leaves the socialization process to the Quræan and blends the restrictive and deter- rent models with punitive instruments. The Sokoto judges argued that through an unflinching application of Hadd, sharia would extol virtue (mahrufat) and cleanse the society of vices (munkarat). Advocates claim that Hadd extirpates prostitution, burglary, social violence, and hedonis- tic lifestyles, and that sharia may even be the antidote to the scourge of HIV/AIDS. The jury is still out.

Historicizing Islamic Presence in Nigeria

In constructing a historical portrait of Islamic presence in Nigeria, peri- odization is crucial because the face of Islam has changed through time. Islam in Nigeria is a part of the trans-Saharan movement of the religion that developed after it captured the Maghrib in the seventh century. Soon, Dyula traders followed the River Niger into trading cities such as Zaria and Kano and across to the Borno-Kanem empire around Lake Chad. Thus, by the ninth century, northern Nigeria was woven into the tapestry of Central Sudanic culture. In Kano city, there is a section called Dandalin Turawa where the Arabs first settled. They still maintain an identity that

2

Certified True Copy, Transcript of Sharia Court of Appeal, Sokoto State, 25/3/2002: 44.

244

3

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 245

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

traces their origin to Libya. Their District Head, the Mai Unguwar, still recites the oral traditions of their caravan route to Kano, and the distinc- tive architecture, cuisine, and other cultural ingredients confirm their Arabic origins.3 Islam appealed to the people because of its magico-spiritual tech- niques involving prayers and charms, social affability, the prestige of its international network, and its political and military clout. Its divination process soon absorbed the indigenous techniques. A key aspect of the pre- colonial history of the region is that nine jihads or assertion of orthodoxy occurred before the turn of the nineteenth century. Each involved state creation as the Fulani reshaped the map of West Africa. The Uthman dan Fodio jihad that created the Sokoto Caliphate in Nigeria by 1804 was typ- ical of the evolution of new administrative structures that followed the change of Islamic presence from quarantine through mixing to jihads.4

This backdrop colors Islamic presence in the colonial setting. The British colonial officers were intrigued by the sophistication of the emi- rate administrative structure of the Sokoto Caliphate that extended from northern Nigeria southward to northeastern Yorubaland. Emirs and viziers collected revenue and dispensed justice. The harsh exploitation of the poor Habe Hausa by the elite escaped their attention. Indirect rule, compelled by lack of manpower, happily adopted the structure. The British were fas- cinated by the architecture, durbars and horses, the speed of the cavalry, and tone of skin color of the Fulani and concluded that this was a non- African people with a culture worthy of protection and preservation. A protectionist policy by “Christian” Britain ensured that Islam benefited most from the colonial presence. Missionaries were barred from emirates; much lobbying modified this to a “one mission, one emirate” policy. Muslims utilized the railway and new communication facilities to trade in the south. The British, however, severely restricted sharia ethics to mat- ters of personal law. Criminal matters rested under the purview of the new judiciary and administrative structures. Indeed, by 1958 an internal debate ensued among Muslims in the pages of the Nigerian Citizen newspaper that threatened the rump of the sharia. The debate followed in the wake of the abolition of Islamic courts in Egypt by Nasser. Three positions emerged: some argued that the interpretation was too conservative and lacked the spirit of the Quræan; others argued that it was built on a syncretistic

3

See mtrustonline.com/dailytrust/feature162003.htm.

4

Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (London: Longmans, 1967); Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (London: Longmans, 1984); Ross Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battutta (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

245

4

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 246

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

version that emerged through the contact of the Almoravid culture with the European legal system and, therefore, was not true to the Quræan; a third urged its retention on pragmatic grounds: that while the decision in Egypt was welcome, Northern Nigeria did not possess the manpower with the legal expertise to imitate Egypt.5

But the early independence period between 1960 and the end of the civil war in 1970 witnessed a vigorous attempt to root an Islamic con- sciousness and presence in the independent state. The lightning rod was the Premier of Northern Nigeria, the Sardauna of Sokoto, a grandson of Uthman Dan Fodio, a scion of the ruling dynasty in the Caliphate. He used the state apparatus to evangelize by enticing individuals and com- munities with monetary rewards and promotion in the civil service. A polit- ical party, the Northern Peoples’ Congress, was another sharp instrument in the endeavor. The Premier’s goal was to unite the whole of the north- ern region of the country under Islam. This is the One North program of the period from 1960 to 1966. The fact was that the Jihad of 1804 did not conquer all the communities in the north; many un-Islamized ethnic groups became Christian under the evangelical missionary impulse of the Sudan United, Sudan Interior Missions, and Dutch Reformed Christian Mission. The Sardauna imposed Muslim rulers on many of them and lured the elite of the Plateau and the Middle Belt zones. He initiated the use of money from Saudi Arabia to fund Islamization policies in Nigeria. Muslims felt insecure in the new amalgamation of ethnic groups called Nigeria. They had neither mineral resources such as oil nor a seaport, but possessed a robust invented history and cultural pride.6 Moreover, Islam perceives state power as central in promoting religion; thus, control of the center of the federal government remained a cardinal goal.

It could be surmised that oil wealth enabled Nigeria to recover from the devastating three-year civil war (1966–70) by providing the resources for reconstruction efforts. But the oil boom had its dark sides. The war created a new moral context as it gave bitterness, greed, and raw ethnic emotions a free space in which these could be mistaken for ethnic or national varieties of patriotism. Ethnicity became the major harvest from the battlefields of the civil war while corruption ate the innards of the sociopolitical culture. Meanwhile, the military dictatorship was controlled by Muslims and, with its unitary structure of command, vitiated the federal

5

John Paden, Ahmadu Bello (Zaria: Gaskiya Press, 1986), 205–6.

6

John Paden, Religion and Political Authority in Kano(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).

246

5

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 247

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

polity and militarized the social space. The story of Nigeria henceforth would be dominated by the virulent competition for “the national cake.” It became tempting for the elite to manipulate religion and ethnicity.

Under the military dictatorship between 1970 and 1999, the internal changes within Islam could be illustrated in two time frames, between 1970 and 1979 and 1980 to 1998. During the leadership of Sarduana, two power nodes controlled Islamic politics, namely, the political party (NPC) and Jamatu Nasril Islam (Victory for Islam) that operated as the religious van- guard of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islam, chaired by the Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual head of the umma. A sufi brotherhood, Qadriyya, dominated the interior of the sunni spirituality. But opposition was rife. On the political front, the Tiv community led the rebellion against encroach- ing Fulani pastoralists while the rest of the Middle Belt elite sponsored a political party, the United Middle Belt Congress. In the city of Kano, oppo- nents of the Caliphate preferred the Tiyaniyya sufi order under the charis- matic leadership of the Senegalese Niass and formed their own party, the Northern Elements Progressive Union, led by the populist Alhaji Aminu Kano. Kano contended that Uthman dan Fodio was a leader who cared for the poor but that his scions became elitist consumers who ignored the poor and were unworthy of the heritage of the jihad leader.

But in the post-civil war era, the hub of political activism shifted rad- ically to the youths and students. In 1977, the Moslem Students Society (MSS) was formed; Radiance Magazine and Movement for Progressive Nigeria became the radical critics of the elite. The youth perceived a gap between Muslim realities and Islamic ideals. They alleged that the Muslim elite neither observed the ribah laws, nor practised zakat, nor used their political influence to install the true Muslim ethical system, the sharia. Meanwhile, other groups such as the izalatu and Wahabis were opposed to the occult misuse of the sufi orders. They became the conservative movements for the restoration of orthodoxy. All these groups became polit- ically radicalized and forged a social movement for political action. The trend in the literature explains the phenomenon by appeal to the socio- economic background of Nigeria that acted as the template for the religious script from the late 1970s into the 1980s.7 The perspective here is that the

7

Allen Christelow, “Religious Protest and Dissent in Northern Nigeria,” Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 6, no. 2 (1985): 375–93; Paul Lubeck, “Islamic Protest under Semi-industrial Capitalism,” Africa 55, no. 4 (1986): 369–97; E. Isichei, “The Maitasine Rising in Nigeria, 1980–1985: A Revolt of the Disinherited,” Journal of Religion in Africa 17, no. 3 (October 1987): 194–208; M. Hiskett, “The Maitasine Riots of Kano, 1980: An

247

6

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 248

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

explanation scheme should include more variables and should not portray the interior of Islam as if it were monolithic.

Internal differences include the Shiite votaries patronized by Iran. The impact of international Islam in the post-Iranian revolution changed the face of youthful Islam in Nigeria. Within the radical student body emerged the darikaand anti-darika. The Sunni who dominated the government per- secuted the Shiites.8 Meanwhile, the level of rural-urban migration cre- ated new negative social forces. A band of youths emerged by the late 1970s just as the oil boom turned into oil doom and coups and counter- coups betrayed the Nigerian military as armed bands of power adventur- ers. These were the yan almajiris, unemployed followers of mallams. They beg, steal, and provide the personnel for riots; they serve as thugs for politicians. From the 1980s, the danger posed by the combined forces of radical students and unemployed youth deepened as the face of Islam turned violent. Consistently from 1980 to the present, all manners of prob- lems have turned into riots and the burning of churches. Commissions of inquiries would deploy socioeconomic analyses that argue that the soft- ness of the state and collapse of economies have created poverty and poten- tials for rebellion among the unemployed.

Once, a charlatan preacher from the Republic of Niger, Mohammed Marwa, led the rioters as a pied piper; at other times, fights would break out in secondary schools, polytechnics and universities, and envelope towns. Meanwhile, Islamic insurgents took a number of routes: some pro- moted Quræanic schools and education (islamiyya); others sought to bridge the gap between the north and south in Western education (madrassa); some forged deep contacts with patrons from Libya, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and especially Saudi Arabia. Commercial relationships, banking, membership in the highly politicised OPEC and Organization of Islamic Countries cemented the obvious efforts to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state. The linkage of Islamic radical politics to international Arab geopol- itics is a crucial dimension that explains the rhetoric, funding, and strate- gies, especially the diatribe against real or perceived Western cultural influence and its modernity project. Islam imaged Christianity as a ves- tige of Western presence and the revolution in Iran as the hope for the future. At many points in time, the enactment of sharia laws would serve

Assessment,” Journal of Religion in Africa 17, no. 3 (October 1987): 209–23; J. Takya, “The Foundations of Religious Intolerance in Nigeria,” Bulletin of Ecumenical Research 2, no. 2 (1989): 31–41.

8

oneworld.org/euconflict/sfp/part2/245.

248

7

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 249

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

as the clarion call for uniting the centrifugal forces within Islam. It is important to underscore that the politicization of Islam and the violent ten- dency created a populist type of Islam that sought to control the elite even when the elite pretended to hold the reins of power.

This is important for understanding the face of Islam in the new demo- cratic dispensation from 1999 to the present. The return of democratic rule created a public space for the free pursuit of religious and political pro- grams without fear of Secret Service harassment. It was possible for pop- ulist politicians to mobilize against the wealthy Muslims and tap into the radicalism of either students or almajiris. The “new breed” politicians lacked restraint, discipline, and redemptive social goals.

The driving force in Islamic politics in this period focussed on the threat posed by the rotational presidency provision in the new Constitution that enabled a southerner to enter the Aso Rock in Abuja (where the Presidents of the country live and work). It does appear that the Muslim military leaders who built the complex hardly anticipated that a non-Muslim would ever live there. Inside Aso Rock, there are three mosques and no Christian places of worship. Even the domestic allocation of space assumes that the occupant would have at least four wives. At the back of the huge com- plex is a ritual space where some mallams would daily bury live rams as sacrifices to maintain the baraka (power) of the leader. It is public knowl- edge that huge amounts of public funds were spent on the design of this ostensibly public space along explicitly Muslim lines.

In conclusion, sharia provisions had always existed in the Nigerian Constitution and in practice. Christelow argues that Emirate councils con- tinued to implement the criminal prescriptions of the sharia under the colo- nial rule until the last decade of the 1950s.9 The major shift is that the new rulers reintroduced the purview of sharia to cover criminal processes (Huddu and Qisasi) and invoked the punishments from the Maliki legal structure. The class factor is crucial in understanding the sharia. The masses want the sharia in the belief that it would help them in legal, social, and economic matters; that sharia ethics prescribe a humane and nonexploita- tive relationship among social groups. Women believe that sharia laws protect the rights of women in a predominantly patriarchal culture in mat- ters over divorce and rights to land and property.10

9

A. Christelow, “Islamic Law and Judicial Practice in Nigeria: An Historical Perspective,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 22, no. 1 (2002): 185–204.

10

Ghazali Bashri, Nigeria and Sharia (Leicester, England: The Islamic Foundation, 1994); see also gamji.com/sharia-conf.htm. and sharia2001.nmonline.net.

249

8

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 250

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

Anatomy of Islamic Politics, 1970–2003

With the historical background delineated, the politics of religion can be analyzed, starting from broad themes to specific discourses in the lit- erature. First, the ecology of the religious landscape should be painted with bold strokes of the brush. In the modern political space, religion has been resilient and ignored the predictions of its demise by the prophets of secularism. Second, many of the contesting religious forms have histori- cal backgrounds that make them innately dysfunctional forces in the mod- ern public space. They are all religions of protest; they operated separately with mutually hostile perceptions for much of the time; each is imbued with a vision and endowed with sacred texts; competing claims of unique- ness obviate fruitful contacts, and the patterns of insertion and modes of appropriation belie the rhetoric of being peaceful religions. Thus, in cases of the worst forms of manifestations, devotees could claim that fervent forms are not true to core affirmations. Thus, the fundamentalists on either side of the divide could be disowned.

Third, most of West Africa is Muslim, with about 80 million devotees. A survey made between 1992 and 1996 indicates that the population of the West African states is ranked as follows, with (1) as the predominant level and (2) and (3) as second- and third-ranking, respectively:

Muslim Christian African Traditional Religion

18 5 5 22 6 10 38 7 3

Out of eighteen states in West Africa, most are Muslim states and pri- mal religion is a strong force.11 Thus, Nigerian Muslims want to act as other Muslim countries in the region. The political dimensions to OPEC, OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries), and ECOWAS (Economic Organization of West African States) create further pressures. With a pop- ulation of over 120 million, Nigeria has the largest and definitely the wealthiest concentration of Muslims in the region. Thus, there is a

11

O. U. Kalu, “Themes in West African Church History at the Edge of the Twenty- first Century,” Missionalia 30, no. 2 (August 2002): 235–64; see p. 237; Charlotte and Frederick Quinn, Pride, Faith and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3–32.

250

9

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 251

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

psychological pressure to demonstrate this character, with Christians and the state perceived as hindrances. Geopolitics, therefore, explains an aspect of Muslim insurgence.

Among the privileged discourses is that contemporary Islam is chal- lenged and compelled to respond to insurgent modernity, symbolized by global cultural forces and the posture of secularity, by the imploding power of the state and its use of liberal ideology. These forces collide with the predominant theocratic conception of power that informs Islamic domes- tic and public arrangements.12 Therefore, there is a rejection of the sepa- ration of religion and politics because Islam covers all aspects of life; it is a total way of life. Even those who move toward a notional separation only mean to say that the religious sphere is non-identical although con- nected with the political sphere. But state power should be used to pro- vide the coercion that ensures religious integrity. It is not safe to assume that Islamic political thought has been monolithic. Some Muslim clerics are concerned that there should be enough distance between the crown and turban to prevent the manipulation of the sacred by political entre- preneurs. All the nuances have been canvassed as Islam struggles to respond to the challenges of modernity.13 Fundamentalists stand out as sore thumbs because of the head-on attack on modern confidence in political ultimacy and the futility of the state. In all genres of Islamic political theology, the urge is always there to create a certain environment for the umma in which Islamic ethics and culture predominate and to reject violently any politi- cal arrangement that marginalizes the umma. The use of force in religious matters that was a core aspect of premodern European culture is still hale and hearty in Nigeria.14 Within the democratic dispensation in contempo- rary Nigeria, Muslims believe confidently that the time has come to boldly create a vibrant Islamic cultural space. In doing so, they deploy anti- Western diatribe based on new forms of literature produced by the Muslim Diaspora in the West. The measure, provenance, and message of this genre of literature invite study.

For some social analysts, the radicalization of Islamic politics brings to the fore the dilemma of pluralism. What happens to non-Muslims living

12

John O. Hunwick, Sharia in Songhay: The Replies of al-Maghili to the Questions of Askia al-hajj Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

13

Lamin Sanneh, Piety and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa(Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996).

14

Toyin Falola, Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies (Rochester: Rochester University Press, 1998).

251

10

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 252

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

under the sharia?15 There was a widely discussed case of a southerner Igbo, Livinus Obi, who was flogged by one hundred Muslim youth on the night of December 30, 2000 outside his home for drinking beer.16 In a contested political space, less time is spent on cultivating dialogue.

Charismatic-Pentecostal Insurgence, 1970–2003

This paper argues that the explosion of Pentecostal/Charismatic spirit- uality among Christians only partially explains the militancy in contem- porary Islam imaged as the response to insurgent forms of Christianity that have challenged an assured sacred space. All over Africa, a new form of Charismatic movement appeared in the 1970s. Unlike the earlier prophe- tic movements, young “puritan preachers” led the new movement. By the next decade of the 1980s, the movement proliferated; global cultural factors mediated by American prosperity and televangelistic ministries became important. In the 1990s the indigenous factor regained preemi- nence as the Intercessors for Africa reemphasized a holiness ethic and turned the focus to nationalist ideology and God’s grand designs for the continent and the black race.17 Two things happened: young people threat- ened mainline churches and were forced out by the late 1970s. These founded Pentecostal churches and indulged in antiestablishment diatribes. But soon the mainline churches were compelled to stop the haemorrhage with encapsulating strategies that created religious space for the Charismatic young people and women and thereby became increasingly Charismatized. The political ideology of Nigerian mainline churches gradually abandoned the doctrine of the two kingdoms and became engaged in reshaping the political terrain.

Equally crucial is the fact that from the mid-1970s, after the civil war, Charismatic Christianity flooded Northern Nigeria.18 This period of rapid expansion coincided with the rise of youthful radical Islam. University students from the south who joined the National Youth Service Corps in the north established vigorous evangelical programs that differed from the

15

A. R. Doi, Non-Muslim under Sharia (Lahore: Kazi Publications, 1990). This pub- lication grew out of a lecture given by the author at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

16

New Nigerian Newspaper, January 8, 2001.

17

O. U. Kalu, Power, Poverty and Prayer (London and New York: Peter Lang, 2000), chap. 5.

18

M. A. Ojo, “Growth of Charismatic Movements in Northern Nigeria,” Seminar on Contextualization of Christianity in Nigeria, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, 1989.

252

11

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 253

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

muted, accommodationist, quarantined forms of Christian presence sym- bolized by the mission churches located in enclaves known as “strangers’ quarters.” It is argued that Charismatic Pentecostal forces reshaped Christian- Muslim relationships in about ten ways. Their invigorated evangelical strategy that privileged the conversion of Muslims re-memorialized the temper of old evangelicalism that inspired the “Sudan parties” in the nine- teenth century.19Along with this was a deliberate high profiling of Muslim converts. Such people as Pastor Shaba Adams, an Islamic scholar who converted in the late 1970s, were paraded as keynote speakers in many public conventions and outreaches. Some converted Muslim clerics such as Pastor El-Isa Buba confessed that they had led armed bands of young men to kill Christians. Meanwhile, Pentecostal churches proliferated and competed among themselves by developing evangelical tours that linked ancient Muslim spaces to international Pentecostal cultural forces. Evangelical ministries in the West were excited with the revitalization of dreams of crosscultural mission. The 2000 AD and Beyond Project, for instance, plunged into the opportunities for converting Muslims and funded a num- ber of the projects. Typical was Reinhard Bonnke’s outreach in Kano city, where over a million people filled the Race Course every night for a week. He dispatched vans to gather lame people from the streets and many were healed. It was such blatant proselytizing among Muslims that provoked opposition when arrangements started in 1991 for a repeat performance. The Muslim rioters claimed that the walls of the ancient city were dese- crated with Christian posters and that the venue should be changed. In anger, they burnt churches.

A number of major changes occurred within the Christian churches dur- ing this time frame. By the end of the 1970s, the bulwark of resistance against Pentecostal forces collapsed. The Charismatization of the main- line churches provided new resources for Pentecostal evangelism. Thus, many southern businessmen and lay Christians rose to the challenge of rebuilding the burnt churches. The demographic character of Pentecostalism changed as the upper middle class, comprised of professionals, joined the Charismatic band. Both the critical mass and quality and wealth of mem- bership would be important in its public profile. Its youthful character and appeal to the upward mobile sector of the population meant that it attracted

19

Typical of this temper is Ethel Miller, The Truth about Muhammed (Minna: The Niger Press, 1926). The author was the sister of the peppery medical doctor Walter Miller, who contested the British protection of Islam and the onslaught against Christian missions.

253

12

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 254

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

females and young people who constituted the core demography of mem- bership of all types of churches. By a quirk of historical conjuncture, as each church was still negotiating its brand of encapsulation strategy, Islamic political radicalism intensified.

Meanwhile, Christians challenged the Islamic monopoly of power. This is exemplified in the constitutional battle to enshrine the sharia. At the Constitutional Drafting Committee of 1979, Muslim delegates sought to broaden the purview of the sharia by insisting that Sharia Courts of Appeal should be established outside the northern region into every part of the country. Eighty-three of them staged a walk-out against the body that refused to accede to the demand. The tactics backfired because the churches became even more unified in their opposition to Islam. Charismatic influence flowed into the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria, formed in the late 1970s as a new ecumenical venture by Christians of all hues to checkmate the Jamatu Nasril Islam and Supreme Council for Islam. This venture became a radical political pressure group. Enwerem dubbed this trend as “a dangerous awakening.”20

An interesting aspect of the new religious landscape was the emergence of highly visible Christian spaces in northern regions of Nigeria. In every northern city, space is divided between the ancient sites and strangers’ quarters on the outskirts, called Sabon Gari. As the commercial power of the southerners developed, these areas bore a distinct southern, Christian identity that Charismatic groups constructed as redeemed spaces or arche- typal Goshen. In Kaduna, for instance, the Christian habitat situated across the river from the ancient city that was a part of Central Sudan in the medieval period is known as “New Jerusalem.” Somini Sengupta’s report for the New York Times, points to the power of identity and otherness embedded in that name and how it conjured negative responses from Mus- lims.21 Many worship centers dotted the interstices between bustling shops and industries. This profile attracted Muslim hostile attention as if Christians had seized holy land for infidel activities. In Bauchi town, for instance, the local officials decided to relocate all churches on one site on the outskirts

20

I. M. Enwerem, A Dangerous Awakening: Politicization of Religion in Nigeria(Ibadan: IFRA, 1995); M. H. Kukah, Religion, Politics and Power in Northern Nigeria (Ibadan: Spectrum Press, 1994); S. O. Ilesanmi, Religious Pluralism and Nigerian State (Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 1997).

21

Somini Sengupta, “Piety and Politics Sunder a Riot-torn Nigerian City,” New York Times, Friday, February 21, 2003.

254

13

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 255

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

of the town as if to quarantine them. Muslims who had been protected from Christian proselytes by colonial officers in earlier times were aghast at the boldness of Christian entrepreneurs.

Another index of the hostile environment is the rise of an intense rivalry over the appropriation of modern media as propaganda. Muslims coun- tered the Charismatic insurgence by imitating the propaganda techniques of the Christians that employed radio, TV, tracts, and cassettes. The attrac- tion of the media for the Pentecostal groups has become a major area of research.22 Muslim vendors invaded the motor parks and public places with cassettes blaring Muslim songs and sermons. The dahwah call com- pelled Islamic evangelism to surge from the mosques into the public space. The geography of religious expression became important in understand- ing the new face of religion in Nigeria. Competition in the religious mar- ket intensified. This explains the easy resort to violence. A typical incident occurred in a motor park in Kano. In 2001, Muslim young men claimed that a Christian driver reversed his truck onto a bench; the Qur’an on it fell down and the tires went over the holy book! He was lynched.

As mentioned earlier, the jihad did not cover all communities, and Muslim rulers had been imposed on many such communities. The minor- ity ethnic groups that were missionized by the old evangelical groups (such as the Sudan United Mission, Sudan Interior Mission, and Dutch Reformed Christian Mission) started to assert their autonomy, recover years of bat- tered identity, and reject the politics of cultural domination and exclusion. They recruited Christianity as the cultural signifier and mark of identity just as their opponents employed Islam. A number of issues became the flash points, such as chieftaincy matters, pilgrimages, equal allocation of time and space in state-owned media, and the share of political offices. They revisited the imposed concept One North and insisted that no longer shall Muslim leaders govern them. In the case of Zango Kataf, a vio- lent encounter ensued as the Muslim Hausa rulers balked at the cultural renaissance.

Another sore point is that the Federal Government of Nigeria participates in and sponsors Islamic pilgrims to Mecca. It set up a Pilgrims Board and sends an official delegation. At a certain point in time about 50,000 people went on the hajj in one year. Saudi Arabia has since forced a reduction of such large numbers. The pilgrims enjoyed subsidized foreign currency

22

Rosalind Hackett, “Charismatic/Pentecostal Appropriation of Media Technologies in Nigeria and Ghana,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28, no. 3 (1998): 258–77.

255

14

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 256

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

exchange; many could afford to engage in trade and other profitable non- religious activities. Christians insisted that they should be sponsored to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Rome. In Nigeria, those who perform the hajj are called Alhaji/Alhaja. Christian pilgrims started to write JP or Jerusalem Pilgrim after their names! Roman Catholic and Anglican patrons started a lucrative trade in bottles of water from the River Jordan and crucifixes that have been blessed by being placed on the marble stones in the holy sites on Mount Olive and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The environment became volatile because school youths became the vanguard. Conflicts boiled over in many secondary schools, polytechnics, and universities. At the tertiary levels, elections into Students Union posi- tions took the character of religious battles. The unemployed, artisan apprentices, houseboys, and street urchins supplied the fodder for these battles. A certain theology among the Christians that could be dubbed as the “third slap doctrine” sustained the new determination to avenge vio- lent attacks: it was argued that when the Bible encouraged them to turn their cheeks, it provided for only two slaps. But after the second slap, the Bible went silent and, therefore, one could avenge on the basis of the silence. There shall be no comment on the exegesis. Suffice it to say that many Christians decided that they would defend themselves under attack.

The Bondwoman: Demonization of Islam in Pentecostal Theology

It should be emphasized that the Charismatic and Pentecostal groups demonized Islam in their theology and practices: first, they used the bond- woman concept to critique the state and the dominance of Muslims in the governance of the country. It was pointed out that the Book of Ecclesiastes said that it was a strange sight when

Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low places.

I have seen servants upon horses and princes walking as servants. (10:6–7)

So, years of Muslim control of the governance must be unnatural; it was time for Christians to regain their lost saddle. They are the children of a rich potentate and should sit in the high places and ride on horses. A sec- ond strand of the motif treated Ishmael as outside the covenant and Islam as the illegitimate religion of the bondwoman. As Ishmael’s descendants constituted a threat to the children of Isaac, so does Islam constitute a threat to the Christians. This particular threat was a punishment because of lack of faith, in that Ishmael was born out of the impatience that tried

256

15

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 257

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

to help God. This perspective was the standard fare of the nineteenth- century evangelical missionary era in spite of E. W. Smith’s attempt to rescue Islam from hostile perceptions.23 A survey of the favorite sermons among Pentecostals confirms the centrality of this political theme.

Third, from here the doctrinal assault would ascend to what Muslims would regard as blasphemous heights as it queried who Allah was. Allah, it was claimed, was one of the 360 gods in the Ka’abah in pre-Islamic period of Arabia and survived the reorganization of this temple after Mohammed’s victory because his father was the priest of that particular deity before he died. Pentecostal rhetoric condemns the idolatry in Islamic divination, magic, charms, amulets, and sufi rituals and potions, includ- ing the water from washing the Quræanic tablet. Pentecostal cosmology demonizes the core symbols such as the moon, star, and the rituals of power in Islam. Pentecostal cosmology is constructed with a three-dimen- sional perception of heaven: the highest heaven or the third heaven is where God dwells, though it is agreed that the “heavens of heavens” can- not contain him. The second heaven below is where Satan and his cohorts were demoted after the unsuccessful rebellion. From there, they control the first heaven where the constellation system is located: the sun, moon, stars, Orion, Pleiades, Arcturus, and Mazzaroth (Job 38:31–32). The prin- cipalities and powers in the second heaven use the powers located in the constellations in the first heaven to control the destinies of individuals and communities. Early morning calls from the minaret are imaged as invo- cations to the princes of the air that control the second heaven and as incantations for tapping power from the first heaven for controlling the destinies of cities and the nation. Such prayers are political actions in the struggle for the soul of the nation. They urge Christians to counter the pow- erful pronouncements instead of “being at ease in Zion.” All-night vigils or tarrying on prayer-mountains and the practice of early morning shouts serve as viable rebuttals in the competition for controlling the air space and destiny of Nigeria.

Fourth, the demonization of Islam in Pentecostal rhetoric and practice move ineluctably into the international political arena. Crucial is the con- cept of Christian Zionism. A favourite text is David’s high profiling and construction of Jerusalem as the Lord’s delight and premier cultic centre. He encouraged all to

23

Andrew F. Walls, “Africa as the Theatre of Christian Engagement with Islam in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Religion in Africa 29, no. 2 (1999): 155–74.

257

16

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 258

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

They shall prosper that love thee;

Peace be within thy walls: and prosperity… (Psalm 121:6–7)

Pentecostals pray for the well-being of Jerusalem and support Israel. At the religious level, this yields blessings. But this politics of difference con- tests international Islam. Christian Zionism takes different shapes and dynamics in different contexts. In Nigeria, there are indigenous cultural roots: many ethnic groups trace their origins to Hebraic sources. Johnson’s History of the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria did so in the nineteenth century; G. T. Basden’s Niger Ibos repeated this for the Igbo of the south- east in 1937.24 Scholars and missionaries have pointed to the attraction of the Old Testament to Africans. The myths of origin utilize the resonance in cultural, ritual, and cultic symbolic forms between Hebrew and Nigerian ethnic groups. Christians start from a self-perception as the New Israel and tap into the rich symbolic and cultural resources. The ideology moves from here to the African renaissance discourse in political analysis that reconstructs Africa’s destiny by rejecting the discourses on “new realism” and “African pessimism” propagated by Western scholars; it rejects the pejorative Hamitic theory that alleges a curse on Ham’s descendants. Much to the contrary, the Bible did not say that Noah cursed Ham. Africans are not descendants of Canaan. Africans or black people tap into the ances- try of the early Jewish patriarchs because Abraham and Moses married black women. Many Pentecostals watch videos and read books by John Hagee’s ministry, which unabashedly supports Israel, and the magazine produced by a Zionist group, Israel My Glory. It should be stressed that this ideology is not derived from America but rather is validated and rein- forced by the American sources. In the politics of independence, Yoruba and Igbo states patronized Israel contractors and agriculturalists in devel- oping the new regions.

Within this perspective, Pentecostals image the introduction of the sharia as a component of an insidious project to Islamize Nigeria and declare the Maghrib as Arab instead of being a part of Africa. They recapture the force of the passage in Psalm 68:31 that inspired “Ethiopianism” and African religious and cultural nationalism in the nineteenth century to weave a black theology of engagement.

24

See a discussion of Johnson’s History in J. D. Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 2000): 304–9; G. T. Basden, Niger Ibos (repr. London: Frank Cass, 1966), chap. 21.

258

17

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 259

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

Pentecostal rhetoric is built on a conspiracy theory that Muslims have completed a grand design to make Africa a Muslim continent by 2005. This was the key concern of the seventh International Ministers and Christian Leadership Conference and Prayer Retreat at Port Harcourt in 2003. Speakers “exposed” how Ghaddafi, the President of Libya, has used money to trap African leaders and how Muslims are setting up Islamic schools and buying up property in the continent. Key target countries are Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The report alleges that a “world renowned missionary to Muslims, Dr Bahjat Bataresh, exposed the details of the plot.”25 The economic dimension to Pentecostal rhetoric is that the sharia project in Nigeria affected southern business very badly. Ironically, these businessmen control the sale of alcohol, hotels, and the entertainment and tourist businesses. However, the sharia threatens the southerners as the alkali court judges might be biased against foreign elements.

Muslims perceive the Christians as supporters of the provision that Nigeria is a secular state, an idea that is Western. The Christians employ enough liberal arsenals to support the state on the issue of secularity under- stood as partial separation. They do not see the concept as in any way diminishing God’s control over history. However, Christian political the- ology remains ambiguous. A major element is that Christians in Nigeria have moved rapidly from political apathy into a theology of engagement. Pentecostals critique the state but appear ready to work with it if given the opportunity. The Intercessors for Africa, for instance, have developed the concept of land deliverance to reclaim lost covenant opportunities for the nation and to claim a command position to work with God in the end times.26 Its new program, dubbed SALT, has joined the fight against corruption by holding leadership workshops for civil servants and top gov- ernment functionaries. The theology has many strands borrowed from many sources, but all acknowledge a responsibility to improve the moral basis for leadership. Some argue that saints should go into politics because when the righteous are in authority, the people will rejoice. Some pastors have transformed pulpits into soapboxes, urging Pentecostal congregations

25

nigeriachristiannews@yahoogroups.com, February 3, 2003.

26

Emeka Nwankpa, Redeeming the Land (Achimota: African Christian Publishers, 1994); Steve Okitika, The Battle for Nations: The Ministry of Interceding for Our Nation (Lagos: Moinab Ltd., 1996); O. U. Kalu, “The Practice of Victorious Life: Pentecostal Political Theology in Nigeria, 1970–1996,” Mission: Journal of Mission Studies 5, no. 2 (1998): 229–55.

259

18

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 260

Pentecostal Theology, Volume 26, No. 2, Fall 2004

to register as a voting block, and many pastors attract the patronage of the political class by asking for either prayers or the votes of the congrega- tions. The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Lagos Branch, announced that four million of their members registered during the Voters’ Registration exercise in 2002 and would vote for people who will carry out the social welfare agenda of the fellowship.27

In conclusion, faced with a new political landscape, religious politics in Nigeria has changed significantly. Islam has used the sharia as the light- ning rod of their politics, a rallying cry. Christian resurgence through Charismatism has enabled the mainline churches to become keenly aware of Islamic efforts to capture the public space. When a Muslim military leader surreptitiously registered Nigeria as a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries in 1986, the uproar mobilized by the Christian Association of Nigeria forced the country’s withdrawal.28 The insurgence has inspired Muslim violence, thereby raising the old question whether religion is a dysfunctional force in the modern public space, especially when politicized.

The discourse on dialogue has failed to move beyond theory to prac- tice because it often fails to accept plurality in the worldview and cultural backgrounds of communities. Certain theological strands within the world religions, especially when combined with a streak of conservatism, rein- force the rejection of pluralism. Few accept the possibility of being rooted in one’s belief system while being open to others. This explains the priv- ileging of violence as a means of coercing others in spite of the claims to Abrahamic roots and shared moral concepts. Both Muslims and Pentecostals mine the resources of the worldview in constructing their theologies and in contending for the control of the public space. Both face the dilemma of implementing a religious law and ethics in a contemporary modern state. Multiculturalism may be more feasible in worldviews that delimit religion to the periphery. Thus, global cultural influences, such as pur- veyed by NGOs, that emanate from an enlightenment worldview may not always assist. It may be argued that Islam and Pentecostalism are influenced by external forces and are vulnerable to fundamentalist voices.29 Global information technology creates multiple centers of conflict as the events in one center are brought vividly home in other centers. Muslims in Kano

27

ngrguradiannews.com/news/article23.

28

See New Nigerian Newspaper, no. 6812, Tuesday, February 6, 1986, 1. 29

Paul Gifford, The New Crusaders (London: Pluto Press, 1991).

260

19

Pneuma 26,2 f4_242-261I 2/27/06 11:55 AM Page 261

Sharia and Islam in Nigerian Pentecostal Rhetoric, 1970–2003

could burn churches because they watch on television the American attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan. Indeed, as the world protested over the sharia stones in punishing adultery (zina) and the key of Rome was given to a woman who committed zina, Muslims perceived incitement and frus- tration because these actions ridiculed Islamic ethics as barbaric. Global processes induce the intensification of local identities. Equally, the reli- gious conflict in Nigeria is home-grown in response to declining resources and the softness of the state. Sharia is a complex matter and the Nigerian Pentecostals would need to develop a concept of dialogue for the sake of a stable public space. The conjuncture of radical impulses in time (1970– 80), space (Northern Nigeria), and context (among the youths) within Islam and Christianity turned religious politics in Nigeria into shark-infested waters.

261

20