|
One of the Fulani
who emigrated from Senegambia because of the troubled times was a
member of the Toronkawa called Musa Jakollo. He made his way
eastward and in due course arrived in Hausaland. On a calculation of
known generations the date of his arrival there can be put at about
1450 1.
It is known that Musa Jakollo settled in Birnin
Konni, a town in the province of Adar, and that his family stayed
there for the next eleven generations 2. The Fulani conquerors are
sometimes thought of as being shepherd kings, that is to say nomads
who entered a settled community and soon afterwards seized power.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Musa Jakollo's descendants,
for example, may have been Pullo na'i when they reached Hausaland,
but once they had settled in Konni they seem to have become TorooBe,
still owning cattle, no doubt, but devoting themselves in the main
to religion, law, and learning 3.
They were already there when Askia's armies subdued western
Hausaland, they saw the rise and fall of Muhammadu Kanta's brief
empire, they heard the news that the Jukuns were at the gates of
Katsina, and they witnessed the destruction of Zamfara.
What was perhaps most important of all, however,
was that they had been in Birnin Konni for generations before the
Gobirawa moved down from Aďr to the neighbouring country which is
now called Gobir. This movement, as already noted, probably did not
take place until the late seventeenth century. By the middle of the
eighteenth century, therefore, the nomadic days of the Toronkawa lay
three centuries behind them and it was the Gobirawa rather than they
who were the newcomers to the district.
To this family there was born, in the year 1755,
a boy whose name was Usuman dan Fodiyo but who is usually known to
history as Shehu, the Hausa form of the Arabic word Sheikh. At the
time of his birth messianic prophecies are said to have been made
about him and he himself seems to have been conscious from an early
age that a great destiny awaited him.
Shehu's father, Muhammadu Fodiyo, was a man of
piety and learning. Like most of the Moslems of North Africa and the
Sudan, he was a Sunni and had been brought up in the Maliki School
of jurisprudence. He also belonged to the Kadiriyya fraternity which
was the oldest and most widespread of the Islamic orders 4. He saw to it that his sons,
Shehu and a younger boy called Abdullahi, received the best
schooling that was to be had. In those days education in the Sudan
was based upon the study of Arabic and Islamic theology in much the
same way that education in medieval Europe had been based on Latin
and Christian theology. In the Moslem world, of course, theology
embraced law as well as religion.
Elementary instruction in the basic subjects was
to be had in the mosques and Koranic schools. There were no
established centres of advanced learning, however, much less any
Universities, and so those who wished to pursue their studies had to
seek out the recognized Masters, wherever they might be found, and
enrol themselves as their pupils 5.
The flame that El-Maghili had lit burnt low, it is true, in the
Courts of the Hausa Chiefs, but among the pious and learned there
were still many to tend it and keep it burning brightly.
As with all Moslem boys, Shehu's education began
with the study of the Koran, which was taught to him by his father.
Syntax and grammar he learned from Abdur Rabman dan Hamada, poetry
and other subjects from Usuman Bindawo Bakebbi. He then spent two
years with an uncle, Usuman Bibnuduwu, who played a leading part in
moulding his character. After that he went to Agades, in the
southern Sahara, and spent another year as a pupil of Mallam Jibrilu
6 who
was then recognized as the most learned man in the central Sudan.
Returning to Hausaland he next studied exegesis under Hashimu
Bazamfare and another uncle, Ahmadu dan Muhammadu Amino, and finally
the Moslem Traditions under yet another uncle, Muhammadu dan Raji 7.
Shehu was an apt pupil, with an insatiable thirst
for knowledge, and he absorbed all that his instructors were able to
teach him. We do not know exactly when he himself received the ijaza,
or license to teach, but it was certainly conferred on him before he
reached the age of twenty-five because by then he had become the
instructor of his younger brother 8.
Shehu grew up in a period when the Gobirawa were
at the height of their power. Their victory over the Zamfarawa and
their annexation of northern Zamfara took place soon after he was
born. The construction of their new capital at Alkalawa went forward
while he was a child. Their aggressive attacks on neighbouring
States continued during his boyhood. Finally, when he was a young
man, they renounced their allegiance to Bornu.
In 1777, when Shehu was twenty-two, Bawa
succeeded as Chief of Gobir. He was a son of Sarkin Gobir Babari,
who had defeated Zamfara, and his nickname, “Jan Gwarzo”, showed
that he was a man of unusual energy and drive. By the Fulani,
however, he was considered a tyrant because of the severity with
which he ordered jangali, the tax on cattle, to be assessed and
collected. Those who tried to evade it, as to a greater or lesser
extent the pastoral Fulani have always tried to do, had their cattle
seized 9.
As a result, there was friction and animosity. Some of the Fulani
conceived such a strong sense of grievance that they reacted in
their traditional manner, that is to say they pulled up their roots
and departed 10.
As for the Hausa rulers, they were probably left with the feeling
that the Fulani were contumacious aliens who refused to accept the
established customs of the country. Thus were the first seeds of
serious discord sown.
If the tension between the Fulani and the Hausas
was something new, the quarrel between strict Moslems and their
laxer brethren had persisted for generations. Islam, as we have
already seen, had been introduced centuries earlier and the Hausa
Chiefs and ruling classes were all nominally Moslems. In fact,
however, the impetus which El-Maghili had given to Islam at the end
of the fifteenth century had soon spent itself. Early in the
sixteenth century the memory of the devout and god-fearing Muhammadu
Rumfa had been eclipsed in Hausaland by the spectacular successes of
the rumbustious and worldly Kanta. In the seventeenth century worse
had followed when the Moslem Hausas had been repeatedly and
humiliatingly defeated by the pagan Jukuns. We know from The Kano
Chronicle that the early Hausas tended to value religions according
to their efficacy in worldly affairs 11
and we may surmise that these were among the factors that caused the
zeal engendered by El-Maghili to evaporate during the succeeding
generations.
The decay of Islam during this period did not
pass altogether unheeded, it is true, and the commentary 12
of at least one reformer has survived, but he was probably a Kanuri,
not a Hausa, and in any case his strictures were muted and seem to
have made little impact. They do, however, serve to confirm that in
the allegedly Moslem society of the central Sudan ignorance was rife
and observance lax.
It has often been said that Islam is not merely a
religion but a whole way of life, at once pervasive and demanding.
Generally speaking, therefore, the people of Africa have found it
easier to embrace this faith than to live up to its often exacting
standards and observe its manifold and sometimes novel injunctions.
Just as in Europe certain pagan rites were perpetuated in the
Christian era in covert or transmuted form, so in the Sudan many
ancient customs survived the establishment of Islam even when they
were in direct conflict with its commands.
In Hausaland it was all the more natural that
this should have been so because among the peasantry, who of course
formed the bulk of the population, the proportion that professed to
be Moslem was probably less than half 13
and even among them ignorance and superstition were still prevalent.
For a man fired with religious zeal there were therefore two major
tasks to be performed: the conversion of the heathen among the
peasantry and the eradication of abuses among the nominally Moslem
ruling classes.
Shehu himself, his brother Abdullahi, and his son
Muhammadu Bello were all prolific writers 14.
Thanks to the books and papers that they left we have a clear idea
of the nature of the abuses that Shehu later set out to reform.
First, in a work entitled Nasa'ih al-Ummat al-Muhammadiya,
which was probably written in the period preceding the outbreak of
the jihad 15,
Shehu touched, among other things, on the reprehensible customs of
the common people. Here he made special mention of the mixing of the
sexes at social gatherings, the practice of allowing women to go to
market while the men sat at home, the moral laxity at bridal
festivals where women in their finery danced before men, the custom
of salutation by prostration, and various abuses and aberrations in
the administration of the law of inheritance 16.
His strictures were not very severe, however, and he was concerned
to admonish rather than to expose or denounce.
But in the Kitab al-Farq, a book which was probably
written as a justification for the jihad when the war had already
begun, but which has for its subject the Hausa scene in the period
leading up to it, Shehu turned on the rulers with much greater
severity and gave a catalogue of over twenty charges that he made
against them. These can be classified into four unequal groups under
the general headings of :
·
oppression
·
corruption
·
self-indulgence
·
technical offences against the Islamic code 17.
The first group, the charges of oppression,
is the largest and embraces nearly half the total. It includes
accusations that the ruling classes imposed taxes not sanctioned by
the Shari'a, or sacred law, abducted the women they wanted without
offering marriage, misappropriated the possessions of women who were
wards of court, made forced levies of goods and money in the
markets, commandeered pack animals without paying for them,
sequestrated the goods of strangers who died in their territory,
levied tolls on merchants and travellers, and conscripted men to
their armies, allowing those who wished to buy themselves out to do
so 18.
One of the three taxes that Shehu singled out
here for condemnation was jangali, the cattle-tax which had been
collected in Hausaland for generations past and which in recent
years had become a bone of contention between the rulers of Gobir
and the pastoral Fulani. He pointed out that it was not one of the
seven forms of taxation recognized by Islamic law and he therefore
challenged its legality. If the Hausa authorities troubled to
justify their actions, they probably argued that, as the majority of
the pastoral Fulani were not Moslems, the tax was a form of jizya,
the levy that an Islamic State is entitled to impose on non-Moslem
subjects 19.
To this Shehu might well have retorted that jizya was supposed to be
a poll-tax, not a cattle-tax, and that in any case there were no
grounds for imposing it on Moslems, as more and more of the pastoral
Fulani were now becoming. Whatever course the argument took, the
support of a scholar and jurist of Shehu's standing must have had
the effect of reinforcing the pastoral Fulani in their
recalcitrance. At any rate, the dispute smouldered on and in the end
had significant historical consequences.
The second group of charges in the Kitab al-Farq,
those dealing with corruption, is much shorter. It includes
accusations that the Hausa rulers could only be approached through
intermediaries who had been softened with presents, that in the
exercise of their administrative functions they expected sweeteners 20 to be made to them, and
that in the courts they sold justice to the highest bidder 21.
The third group, also a small one, comprises the
sins of self-indulgence and frivolity. It includes charges that the
rulers lived in ornate and luxurious palaces, indulged excessively
in concubinage, sometimes keeping as many as a thousand women, and
permitted music, drumming, and abandoned dancing 22.
The fourth and last group is another large one
and embraces a variety of offences against the Islamic code. Some of
these, which relate to Moslem injunctions and prohibitions on food,
drink, and clothes, appear at first sight to be of minor moment, but
in those days no doubt carried more significance. Others, however,
clearly had great political and social as well as religious
importance. One such was the charge that the Hausa rulers exercised
their power arbitrarily without regard to the law. Another was that
they imposed illegal taxes over and above those permitted by the
law. A third was that they often set aside the obligatory
punishments prescribed by the law, such as death for certain classes
of murderers, mutilation for thieves, and stoning or flogging for
adulterers, and commuted them for the sequestration of goods 23.
To devout Moslems these charges were of course
all the more heinous in that the law which the Hausa rulers were
accused of flouting was no mere man-made code but the God-given and
immutable Shari'a. In the Wathiqat Ahl al-Sudan, a manifesto which
he almost certainly wrote himself and probably published on the eve
of the war, Shehu drew distinctions between different types of
offenders. First of all there were the backsliders and, a stage
worse, the apostates. These could doubtless be found among all
classes of society. Next there were the oppressors. They obviously
belonged to the ruling classes and were guilty of the kind of abuses
of power that had been described in the Kitab al-Farq. Then there
were the warmongers and troublemakers. They are more difficult to
identify, but were probably all those opponents of the movement who
had recourse to force in order to suppress it or persecute its
adherents 24.
In addition there was a class of learned men whom
the reformers stigmatized under the name of ulama al-su'i and whom
we may call the compromisers or equivocators. They were the men of
learning who betrayed their cloth, stilled their consciences, and
supported the ruling classes in their transgressions of the law,
thereby providing them with a mantle of false respectability. Though
often much less learned than they professed to be, it was through
self interest rather than ignorance that they acted as they did.
They were clearly a more or less permanent feature of society in the
Sudan for El-Maghili had denounced them in his day and when Shehu
appeared, three hundred years later, they were still there to plague
him 25.
Among Shehu's teachers there were two who seem to
have exerted a very special influence over him. One was his uncle,
Usuman Bibnuduwu, with whom he had spent nearly two years of his
adolescence and who was evidently a man of high principle and strong
conscience. We are told that he was renowned for righteousness and
for the fearless manner in which he forbade the wrong and upheld the
right. We know, too, that his pupil took him as a model 26
and it is probable that he played an important part in setting
Shehu's feet on the path of militant reform.
The other teacher who made a major contribution
to Shehu's evolution as a religious reformer was Mallam Jibrilu dan
Umaru. He was generally recognized as the outstanding figure among
the learned men of his generation in the central Sudan, but he seems
to have worn his learning lightly, because he is described as being
so genial that one would have thought all men were his friends 27. There was another side to
his character, however, and he was also the most rigid opponent of
any form of compromise on religious questions 28.
One of the religious issues which had been
sporadically debated in the Sudan for generations and which was now
active again was whether disobedience, or in other words sin or
backsliding, was sufficient reason for anathematizing a Moslem and
casting him out altogether from the brotherhood of Islam. The
problem was to determine when backsliding became apostasy and when
disobedience became so blatant that it had to be treated as
unbelief. These selfsame questions had been put to El-Maghili in
Songhai at the beginning of the sixteenth century and the
correspondence on the subject that followed between him and Askia
Muhammad revealed the existence then of forms of oppression and
corruption strikingly similar to those that were now troubling the
reformers in Hausaland — the same oppressive rulers, venal
jurists, equivocating scholars, and backsliding masses 29. El-Maghili's verdict had
been uncompromising. Those who claimed to be Moslems but continued
to practice paganism he had condemned as polytheists and infidels.
The equivocators and venal jurists he had described as being more
harmful to Islam than all the mischief-makers. And of the predatory
rulers he had said that, while no Moslem should be anathematized
merely because of sin, conduct such as imposing illegal taxes,
levying tolls, and seizing the property of deceased travellers
indicated not mere disobedience but rank unbelief 30.
In Shehu's day Mallam Jibrilu was ready to go
even further and maintain that those who were guilty of such acts of
disobedience as having more than four wives, allowing women to mix
with men or go unveiled, or depriving orphans of their rights ought
to be anathematized unconditionally 31.
Shehu was subsequently to refute this particular doctrine and show
that he himself upheld a more orthodox view 32.
Nevertheless, Jibrilu's forthright assertion of these extreme views
must have helped to prepare public opinion for Shehu's slightly more
moderate but still advanced teaching. Furthermore, there is no doubt
whatever that the later reformers, even if they were not prepared to
go quite as far as Jibrilu, were profoundly influenced by him.
Abdullahi wrote a panegyric in his honour 33.
Bello described him as a lamp that had dispersed the darkness and
revived religion in the land 34. And Shehu himself
acknowledged his debt in the following lines :
" Then, by God, I know not, should we have been guided
to the path of the Sunna, and to the abandoning of these blameworthy
customs, had it not been for this blessed Sheikh?" 35
Another Islamic doctrine that must have
influenced Shehu's evolution as a religious leader was the Messianic
Tradition which taught that in every century God would send a
reformer who would drive injustice from the land and renew the faith
36.
This belief was common throughout Islam and would in any case have
been known to Shehu. Again, however, it was specifically mentioned
by El-Maghili in his correspondence with Askia Muhammad.
" And, accordingly, it is related that at
the beginning of every century God will send a learned man to the
people to renew their faith, and the characteristics of this learned
man in every century must be that he commands what is right and
forbids what is disapproved of, and reforms the affairs of the
people and judges justly between them, and assists the truth against
vanity, and the oppressed against the oppressor, in contrast to the
characteristics of the (other) learned men of his age "37.
There is no doubt whatever that Shehu was
familiar with this correspondence, because he actually embodied it
in one of his own works, the Siraj al-Ikhwan 38.
Moreover, what must have given these old precedents a much greater
significance in his eyes was the fact that they had been laid down
at the time when Askia, proclaiming himself to be the champion of
Islam, had seized power from the sons of his lax and backsliding
predecessor, Sonni Ali. The civil war that had accompanied this coup
had been recognized by El-Maghili as a legitimate jihad and declared
to be not only justified but meritorious 39.
All these were matters on which Shehu,
at the turn of the century, must often have pondered.
Notes
1. Hiskett, Introduction to TW, p. 5.
2. For the Family Tree see Table I in Appendix
II.
3. Confirmed by Alhaji Junaidu.
4. The devotion of Shehu's followers to this
brotherhood can be gauged from the fact that to this day town
criers in all the towns and villages of Sokoto address the
People as “Ya Kadirawa”.
5. Hiskett, Introduction to TW, p. 6.
6. Mallam is the title conferred in Hausaland
on any man of learning.
7. Abdullah ibn Muhammad, Ida al-Nusukh (IN),
edited and translated by M. Hiskett, BSOAS, vol. XIX (1957) 3, pp.
563-4. See also Alhaji Junaidu, op. cit. pp. 9-10.
8. Abdullah, IN, p. 561.
9. Hopen, op. cit. p. 10.
10. Hopen, op. cit. p. 10.
11. K Ch (Palmer, pp. 107-8).
12 Muhammad b. Abdur Rahman's Shurb al-Zulal,
probably written at the end of the seventeenth century. See Bivar
and Hiskett, op, cit. pp. 118-39.
13. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, p. 2 1).
14. Kensdale has listed the following :
Author
Works
Shehu
85
Abdullahi
75
Bello
93
and there are known to be more. See “Field
Notes on the Arabic Literature of the Western Sudan” in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1955, 1956, and 1958.
15. Jihad means, in the Moslem sense, a holy
war.
16. M. Hiskett, “An Islamic Tradition of
Reform in the Western Sudan from the Sixteenth to the Eighteen
Century” (AITR), BSOAS, vol. XXV (1962) 3, pp. 586-7.
17. Kitab al-Farq (KF), edited and translated
by M. Hiskett, BSOAS, vol. XXIII (1960) 3, pp. 558-79.
18. KF, op. cit. pp. 558-79.
19. The Kano Chronicle describes jangali as
jizya (Palmer, p. 119). See also Hiskett's Comments on KF, loc. cit.
pp. 574-5.
20. In Hausa gaisuwa.
21. Shehu, KF (Hiskett, pp. 567-9).
22. Shehu, KF (Hiskett, pp. 567-2).
23. Ibid.
24. Wathiqat Ahl al-Sudan (WAS), edited and
translated by A. D. H. Bivar, Journal of African History, vol. II
(1961) 2, pp. 235-43.
25. Hiskett, AITR, pp. 580-1.
26. Abdullah, IN (Hiskett, pp. 563 and 575),
and Alhaji Junaidu, op. cit. pp. 9-10.
27. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, pp. 10-20).
28. Hiskett, AITR, p. 589. Alhaji Junaidu
agrees with the view that Mallam Jibrilu and Usuman Bibnuduwu
exerted decisive influence in shaping Shehu's thought and character.
29. Hiskett, AITR, pp. 578-83.
30. Hiskett, AITR, pp. 578-83.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Abdullah, TW (Hiskett, pp. 90-94).
34. Bello, Inf M (Arnett, p. 19).
35. Hiskett, AITR, p. 591.
36. Hiskett, AITR, pp. 583-4.
37. Ibid.
38. Hiskett, AITR, pp. 583-4.
39. Ibid.
|
