Shari'a as De-Africanization: Evidence from HausalandAuthor(s): William F. S. MilesSource: Africa Today, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 2003), pp. 51-75Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4187551Accessed: 24/09/2009 20:38

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Shari'a as De-Africanization: Evidence from Hausaland William F. S. Miles

Terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 overlapped with ongoing movements of Islamic fundamen- talism in sub-Saharan Africa; however, these movements have not been identical, nor have they encountered uniform responses from the governments overseeing them. This is evi- dent in the Hausa borderlands of Niger and Nigeria, where I conducted fieldwork (first begun in the early 1980s) two months after the attacks. Differences in the application of shari'a (Islamic law) on both sides of the border accentuate differences in Hausa culture and society along national (i.e., Nigerien vs. Nigerian) lines. Traditional Hausa customs that have flourished for centuries (praise-singing, drumming, group dancing, and singing) are now proscribed in the north- ern Nigerian state of Katsina, where shari'a is tantamount to de-Africanization. In contrast, Zinder, a neighboring state in the Republic of Niger, has so far resisted a comparable Islam- ization of its legal code. Cultural differentiation across the Niger-Nigeria boundary persists along religious lines, despite the status of Islam as the common faith. This inflected glo- balization of Islam highlights the significance of national boundaries in delimiting the influence of religious revival- ism. Other differences relating to Islamization are inferred from comparing the extent of pilgrimage to Mecca and the incidence of wife seclusion in neighboring Hausa villages on each side of the Niger-Nigeria boundary.

Introduction: Politics and Praise-Singing

How has Islam been evolving in West Africa, particularly in light of the phenomenal rise of global Islamism? What light can daily life in rural, borderline communities shed on this broader trend?

This essay addresses these questions through the prism of a longitu- dinal study of two neighboring Hausa villages on each side of the Nigeria- Niger boundary. Initiated in the early 1980s, the study has investigated the

impact of the colonial partition on the Hausa-the largest ethnolinguistic group in all of Africa-with respect to national identity, economy, lan- guage, education, and religion. Most of the differences distinguishing the two communities were attributed to colonial continuity in the postcolonial era (Miles 1994). Ancillary research focused on partisan politics on the Nigerian side of the boundary, especially with regard to the incorporation of traditional practices of praise-singing as a type of electoral campaigning (Miles 1986a, 1989).

The role of the balladeer in Northern Nigerian society was first elaborated by M. G. Smith (1957). In traditional Hausa society, the maroka (praise-singer, griot) would approach the object of his praise and broadcast declarations about the honoree's ancestry and "notability, his prosperity and influence, the number of his dependents, his fame and its range.... Unfavourable references to the individual's meanness, fortune (arziki), treatment of his dependants, occupation, reputation, and possible disloyalty to his community ... are also liable to be made" (Smith 1957:39).

In Hausaland, praise-singing, when done properly, has a vigorous musical backdrop. In addition to the regular drum, Smith writes:

double-gongs (koge) of a silver-tin alloy, long trumpets of silver or beaten brass (kakaki), wooden horns (fare, pampani), or reed instruments which sound like bagpipes (algaita) figure prominently in the praise-singing addressed to rulers and senior title-holders. (Smith 1957:28)

In an age of national politicking and broadcast media, the persistence of the maroka constitutes a conundrum. That praise-singing has now been actually criminalized on one side of the Hausa border, even as it flourishes on the other, is indicative of a sea change in indigenous cultural life. It epitomizes the de-Africanization currently being wrought by Islamic fun- damentalism, where de-Africanization is the suppression of indigenous customs and folkways on the basis of their supposed incompatibility with the Koran.

Islam in Hausaland: Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial Roles

Since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Islam has been spreading throughout Hausaland, hitherto a land of polytheism and animism. From the east, itinerant Muslim traders (wangawara) enthusiastically praised their faith along with their wares. Since trade was concentrated even more than now in the cities, Islam in Hausaland was at first adopted primarily by urban and royal families. Only from about the middle of the eighteenth century did Muslim missionaries make much of an attempt to evangelize the commoner and rural populations.

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Even the oldest havens for Islam in Hausaland-the palaces-prac- ticed a rather unorthodox, "impure" version of the faith. Many pre-Islamic practices and beliefs coexisted with their ostensibly Koranic-based counter- parts. Men married more than four wives, did not pray "correctly," and dis- regarded Islamic law with regard to inheritance. Above all, institutions and governance were not those characterized by Islam. Islamic (more precisely, Sunni) purists felt compelled to declare war on the "decadent" custodians of the faith. Their jihad was led by a Fulani and cleric, Shehu Usman dan Fodio, who declaimed

Listen to this song and be afraid Leave off following the many un-Islamic customs,

Let us repent and contain our hearts' desires, Let us obey religion and stop putting off our repentance. (Hiskett 1984:161)

From 1804 until 1812, dan Fodio and his followers successfully routed the incumbent Hausa rulers and established a new caliphate, based in Sokoto, over the sometimes confederated, sometimes battling kingdoms that had reigned over what was to become northern Nigeria. Some of the defeated kingdoms succeeded in establishing rump fiefdoms in exile on the northern fringes of the caliphate, including what later became south- central Niger Republic. It is important to note that the Fulani jihad of the early nineteenth century was not one of conversion, but of reform. The aim was not to turn nonbelievers into Muslims so much as to turn nominal Muslims into Sunnah-following ones. After dan Fodio's death, the caliph- ate unity came under great strain, as successors vied for preeminence. The initial alliance between the literate class of Islamic morality (ulama) and rulers quickly dissipated.

When the British invaded Hausaland, at the beginning of the twenti- eth century, religious rhetoric stoked the flames of Hausa-Fulani resistance. "From us to you," replied Attahiru dan Ahmadu, the caliph of Sokoto, to his European enemies' demand for surrender, "there are no dealings except as between Muslims and unbelievers. God Almighty has enjoined war on us." Yet after victory, and while crowning the defunct dan Ahmadu's successor, Lord Frederick Lugard declared:

All men are free to worship God as they please. Mosques and prayer places will be treated with respect by us.... You need have no fear regarding British rule, it is our wish to learn your customs and fashion. (Crowder 1962:201)

This declaration epitomized the British policy of indirect rule. Religion, as least the monotheistic variety, would be unmolested; indeed, to the extent that it conformed to a British sense of justice, shari'a would be formally rec-

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ognized and applied. Indirect rule viewed the indigenous northern Nigerian establishment, including its religious institutions and judicial systems, as legitimate-indeed, expedient-tools for the colonial enterprise. Koran and Sunna conformed to Pax Britannica.

The French in Niger, practicing direct rule, had little tolerance for such multicultural colonialism. Although they were forced to rely on indigenous political and religious institutions to enforce their overall authority, French colonialists in general accorded them little intrinsic respect. Chiefs and clerics were tolerated, not encouraged; controlled, not supervised; suspected, not entrusted. French colonialism did not promote Roman Catholicism over Islam; rather, its republican and secular spirit distrusted any religious interference in colonial governance. Unlike the "British in Hausaland[, who] came to regard the traditional Islamic estab- lishment as an ally[,] ... for many years over the border in French territory ... there was distance" and suspicion between le regime colonial and the colonized Muslims; unlike the British in Nigeria, the French in Niger were "emotionally involved with Islam" (Hiskett 1984:277).

Independence did not fundamentally change the respective attitudes between state and mosque in Nigeria and Niger. For sure, Nigerian federal- ism (itself a legacy of colonialism) gave much greater latitude to regional norms than did postcolonial administrative centralism in Niger. First Republic governance in Nigeria (1960-1966), both in the North and nation- ally, was dominated largely by Muslim political leaders (Ahmadu Bello, Aminu Kano, Tafawa Balewa), who invoked Islam even as they interpreted it to different ideological ends.

The so-called Kaduna mafia-pro-Bello northern Muslim stalwarts, who "represented the backbone of a new technocratic and bureaucratic elite" (Loimeier 1997a:123)-preserved power even under the military interregnum of 1966-1979 and regrouped during the Second Republic (1979-1983). Meanwhile, grassroots Islamic fundamentalist movements such as Izala, and modern-educated ones like the Muslim Students Society, gestated out of the colonial-era and early-independence conservative reli- gious establishment in response to civilian and military incompetence and corruption. Millennial brands of Islam, extremist deviations from which have spawned violent and pseudo-Muslim cultlike groups, such as the 'Yan Tatsine (followers of Maitatsine), have also arisen (Christelow 1985; Hiskett 1980; Isichei 1987; Kastfelt 1989; Lubeck 1985; Watts 1996). "Debates over the role of shari'a in a purportedly secular state" provided part of the con- text in which the Maitatsine phenomenon arose (Pred and Watts 1992:28). Actual implementation of shari'a occurred in a social climate permeated by millenarianism (Last 2000:143).

Thus, in northern Nigeria, postcolonial politicians have exploited Islamic networks and symbolism for electoral gain during spurts of democ- racy, and military rulers have courted Muslim leaders and associations in their own way. Nig6rien rulers, in contrast-whether authoritarian civilian, no-nonsense military, or democratically elected-have in essence contin-

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ued the French colonial style of state subordination over Islamic leadership and establishment.

Hamani Diori, Niger's first independence leader (1960-1973), was a Westernized francophile who placed the Islamic schools (m6dersas) under the ministry of the interior, not the ministry of education. Seyni Kountch6, the lieutenant colonel who ousted him in a military coup, initially rehabili- tated Islam to establish stronger pan-Muslim ties (especially with Libya), but never removed his institutional control over it. Indeed, from 1974 until 1993 there was but one governmentally sanctioned Islamic organization, the Association Islamique du Niger (AIN). Under Koutche's "Development Society," the Association of Muslim Priests was but one of eleven organiza- tions set up to structure input from civil society to government. No other Nigerien ruler has maintained the grip that Kountch6, who died in 1987, did. But even where their control has loosened overall, none of Koutch6's successors, military or civilian, has attempted to gain or preserve power primarily under the symbol of the red crescent. This is so despite the growth of alternative Islamic associations-Association nig6rienne pour l'appel et la solidarite islamiques [ANASI], Association pour la diffusion de l'islam au Niger [ADINI], Association pour le rayonnement de la culture islamique [ARCI], Association des jeunes musulmans du Niger [AJMN])-concurrent with political liberalization in the 1990s (Glew 1996).

Approximately ninety percent of Nigeriens are Muslim, making Niger the most heavily Islamized of all nations of former French West Africa after Mauritania. The overwhelming majority of Nigerien Muslims are Sunni and, since the colonial era, they have come to follow Maliki interpreta- tions of the Koran. By constitution, Niger is a secular republic, though in practice a good deal of domestic dispute (family, land, inheritance) is in fact resolved by customary authorities, who at least nominally invoke Maliki law (Lund 1998). Franco-Arab schools also operate with increasing govern- ment tolerance, further compromising the ostensibly secular nature of the Nigerien state.

Although the newly formed Islamic associations referred to above (such as ANASI and ADINI) "regard the current practice of Islam in Niger as deviating from the correct way and therefore call for the practice of a pure Islam" (Glew 1996:202), the theological influence of the postjihadic, precolonial, anti-Fulani resistance persists, constituting a syncretic Islam infused with indigenous African religion. Of the Sufi brotherhoods that have emerged, the moderate Tijaniyya brotherhood is the most widespread. In the early 1980s, an Islamic university was established in the western city of Say, seat of Islamic learning since the seventeenth century. While ethnic and land-based tensions have long simmered (e.g., Hausa vs. Zarma; Tuareg vs. Hausa; nomads vs. agriculturists), resulting in periodic rebellions and mutinies, Islam has generally been a unifying factor in Nigerien society. Unlike in Nigeria, Islam in Niger does not serve as an identity marker for portions of the population who wish to gain status, prestige, power or wealth over other regions (i.e., non-Muslim).

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With regard to gender, Barbara Cooper has illustrated the differential evolution of Muslim Hausa women in Niger vis-a-vis Nigeria, although she gives more weight to the jihadic-antijihadic struggle than to the differential legacies of British versus French colonialism (Cooper 1998; see also Miles 1994). In what was to become northern Nigeria, the jihadists downgraded women's status, power, and wealth by suppressing bori (a spirit-posses- sion cult) and promoting seclusion. Women of the aristocracy had enjoyed important roles in bori (including titled positions) until the largely female cult was forced underground. Seclusion, by forcing married women off their farmlands (and thereby out of public view) deprived them of an important source of income. In Niger, however, bori has flourished, and women con- tinue to farm as of old. In their favor, the Nigerian jihadists did introduce a tradition of female scholarship in the Koran, one that was hardly matched for Nigerien women.

Izala: The Reformist Spirit

Izala in Nigeria

Underlying the strictly juridical changes in Nigerian Hausaland has been the emergence of a theopolitical movement for Islamic reform. Known as Izala (Association for Elimination of Innovations in the Religion and for Reinforcement of the Sunnah), the movement was founded in Northern Nigeria in 1978 by Ismaila Idris; the one personality most associated with it, however, is the former Grand Kadi of Northern Nigeria, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi (1922/4-1992) (Loimeier 1997b; Umar 1999.)

Gumi outspokenly advocated the enforcement of shari'a throughout the land. He believed that British colonialism-inherently Christian and therefore un-Islamic-had intentionally set out to undermine Islamic law and culture. Merely adapting Western-derived jurisprudence to shari'a prin- ciples was, for Gumi, logically untenable and culturally demeaning (Falola 1998:124-126). Promoting shari'a itself was not Izala's original or primary mission. With its more than two million Nigerian followers, the movement nevertheless created an overall cultural and political atmosphere conducive to radical institutional change in an Islamist direction. Although socially expansionist, the movement enjoys a particular urban sensibility.

The essence of Izala lies in the vehement rejection of local practices and organizations that, while long viewed as properly Islamic, are actually haram, forbidden. Chief among these impure excrescences are Sufi Brother- hoods (tariqa), believers' networks that promote devotion to elders and the veneration of saints. In Nigerian Hausaland, the principal (and often rival) brotherhoods are the Qadariyya, associated with Usman dan Fodio himself, and the Tijaniyya (a mercantilistic network stretching well into Senegal), introduced by Alhaji Umar Tall in the 1830s and popularized by Ibrahim

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Niasse a century later. Izala anti-Sufism produced volatile struggles over denominational power in local mosques, struggles that resulted in the establishment of separate, Izala mosques.

By extension, Izala also inveighs against all popular practices of Islam that favor superstitious ritual (such as amulet wearing), as against literalist study and understanding of the Koran. Abstractly, Izala favors an "individualism in which people hope . . . to extricate themselves from the tutelage of the religious and moral authorities" (Kane 1994:494). It is "more in tune with the rugged individualism of capitalist social relations" (Umar 1993:178). In practical terms, Izala entails a sweeping dismissal of the traditional mallams, the largely rural-based clerics who, when called upon (and compensated), provide Koranic instruction, prophetic guidance, and supernatural intervention. But even family elders may be "dissed" for their ignorance and impiousness if they command obedience that (invari- ably youthful) initiates do not accept as merited on purely Koranic grounds. Rural resistance is thus an important obstacle to Izala, although the move- ment has made inroads in the countrysides of Bauchi, Kaduna, and Katsina (Kane 1994:513). Under Mallam Yakubu Yahaya, the Katsina branch is reputed to constitute "the most active and radical wing" (Sulaiman 1997: 59). Young men are particularly responsive to Izala's weighing in against unnecessarily high expenditures for religious ceremonies, especially mari- tal brideprice. "Dancing and playing the drums are also prohibited by the 'yan izala" for they represent satanic temptation (Masquelier 1996:231).

Gumi individually and Izala in general reflect the influence of Saudi Wahhabism. Austere in doctrine but lavish in aid, petrodollars fuel the supplanting of indigenous African Islam with Saudi-supplied books and schools. The Izala message is propagated by public and broadcast preaching and, especially, the sale of sermons on audiocassette. All these efforts will eventually result, according to Izala aspirations, in an Islamic Nigerian state (Kane 1994:501). Subsequent splintering of the movement into rival fac- tions, led by Ismaila Idris and Musa Mai Gandu, the former of which proved susceptible to governmental cooptation, has tempered Izala's erstwhile grandiose aims. Izala nevertheless remains a potential haven for the most marginalized and dispossessed of the younger common folk (talakawa), who bristle at the norms, strictures, and expectations fostered by the traditional ruling 6lites (sarakuna).

Even though it favors purdah, Izala promotes universal literacy for Koranic study in Nigeria and thereby advances a kind of Islamic quasi- feminism. Women are not only permitted but encouraged to study; and once they are used to studying, they should also feel free to vote. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Gumi viewed the mobilization of the Muslim electorate as critical to his Islamist ambitions. Getting Northern Muslim women to vote may have been culturally innovative but mathematically irresistible. Still, in all, "the dominant view is explicit that Muslim women's political activity should be to ensure that Muslim men get state control, after which

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matters can be safely left where they should be, in the hands of men.... Women's subordination to men and control by men is emphatically a part of the Islamist program" (Imam 1994:134).

Izala in Niger

Izala has made inroads in neighboring Niger, albeit under the backdrop of less transformative economic and political change. With its traditional net- works of social support, having been less disrupted by capitalistic and con- sumeristic pressures than in the oil-driven Nigerian polity, its ethos shocks Nig6rien society all the more. "Because they claim that one's chief responsi- bility is to care for immediate dependents, not to entertain neighbors, 'yan Izala have earned a reputation for being tightfisted, selfish individuals who turn their backs on social obligations" (Masquelier 1999:233).

Classical African syncretism flourishes in Niger, making it a visible target of Izala. "Indigenous elements that have become an integral part of local Islamic life such as wearing amulets, practicing divination, or drink- ing the ink used to write Qur'anic verses" come under Izala opprobrium (Masquelier 1999:232). At the same time, in at least one Nig6rien mer- chant town, Maradi, Izala has come to constitute a new distinctive identity marker for young, upwardly mobile, pious businessmen. There, "the yan izala ... act like new 'jihadists.' Advantageously combining religion with business and social affairs, their doctrine is an ideology 'tailor-made-to- fit' young, rich alhazai" (Gregoire 1993:111). In the town of Zinder, long considered the Hausa "heart of Islam" in Niger, Islamist reformers have formed their own distinctive association (Association pour la Diffusion de l'Islam au Niger, ADINI), eschewing formal links with the Izala of Nigeria (Glew 1996:195-196, 1998:129-146). Whether Izala in Niger will continue to be viewed as an authentic religious alternative as opposed to a suspicious Nigerian import remains to be seen.

Shari'a in Northern Nigeria

Impetus for "full shari'a" in northern Nigeria did not come from the 'yan izala (who did not think it was politically possible) so much as from Western-educated Muslim politicians, who have done so, according to one observer, to "demonstrate their Islamic credentials"-credentials otherwise impugned in a social space saturated by traditional and reformist brands of Islam: "By embracing Islamic fundamentalism, western-educated Muslims equip themselves with the necessary Islamic capital to compete cultur- ally, socially, politically, and economically against Muslim elite trained in modern and traditional Islamic schools" (Umar 2001:144). Another explana- tion is more basic: shari'a represents cultural decolonization, at least from a legal system embodying the legacies of Christian (qua British and Western) jurisprudence (Last 2000:141).

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Shari'a has long been a thorny political issue in Nigeria. Before and during the First Republic (1960-1966) local Islamic district courts (alkali) were used by the dominant political party in the North, the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), to repress its opponents (Last 2000:148). In the lead up to the Second Republic (1979-1983), vehement political conflict over integration of Islamic law within the constitutional-justice system threat- ened the country's unity (Ubah 1990; Laitin 1982). Shari'a was accepted as the basis of civil law adjudication between Muslims in the northern states of Nigeria, but proposals for a Federal Court of Sharia were scotched.

In 1988, this time with the military in charge, a similar theopolitical crisis (see Miles 1996) arose in discussions about revisions to the consti- tution. Christian members of the Constituent Assembly insisted that all references to shari'a be removed from the new constitution. Muslim mem- bers countered by demanding that it should rather be extended throughout the entire republic. So acrimonious did the affair become that the military intervened, superseding the Assembly and deciding to limit the jurisdic- tion of the Shari'a Court of Appeal to civil matters in which only Muslims were party. The military rulers also decided that shari'a would apply only to states that had specifically requested it (Falola 1998:86-93). These debates over shari'a, some believe, served as a catalyst for the emergence of Izala (Yandaki 1997:45).

Since Zamfara (under an Izala governor) adopted shari'a for its crimi- nal jurisprudence in 2000, eleven other Northern Nigerian states have gone the same route. Particularly on account of the death-by-stoning judgments meted out to two female alleged adulteresses, shari'a in Nigeria has received great attention in the West. (One case has been dismissed on appeal; the other is pending.) In November 2002, religious riots in Kaduna over the Miss World pageant also had a shari'a spin to them: the state government of Zamfara endorsed a fatwa (an Islamic decree) calling for the death of Isioma Daniel, the female journalist who had imprudently written that the Prophet Muhammad might have married one of the contestants.'

Shari'a, it may be noted here, is not a single compendium of Islamic jurisprudence uniformly applied throughout the Muslim world. Based on the hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammed) and the sunnah (customs of the first Muslim community), four major legal schools have evolved, each one identified with its signature commentator (Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shaf'i, Ibn Hanbal). Particularly in terms of procedure and appeal, the schools have been subject to a certain degree of local interpretation (Shapiro 1981). Thus, even in northern Nigeria, subtle variations in the codes have come to dif- ferentiate the dozen states that have integrated shari'a into their criminal legal systems.

The introduction of shari'a into state criminal law added more kin- dling to an already volatile situation between Muslims and Christians in northern Nigeria (Bienen 1986; Falola 1998; Gambari 1992; Hunwick 1992; Ibrahim 1990, 1991; Ohadike 1992; Opeloye 1989; Ubah 1990). Between 2000 and the Kaduna riots of 2002, shari'a-related violence had already

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broken out in the states of Bauchi (June and July 2001), Gombe (May 2001), Kaduna (February 2001), and Kano (February 2001). During the same period, Borno and Jigawa also experienced religious-based violence between Mus- lims and Christians. In contrast, there has been little overt opposition to shari'a in more homogeneously Muslim states.

Nigeria's self-definition as a secular state is problematic. Strength of religious conviction and affiliation among virtually all Nigerians precludes the separationist model of church and state as it is applied in the West. In the Nigerian context, "secularism" more accurately refers to an understand- ing that the government will not favor one organized religion over another, while tacitly permitting (if not encouraging) religious activity within the nation's various faith groups (Christian, Muslim, and animist). Inevitably, however, "religious activity" sometimes assumes antagonistic overtones, as proselytizers of rival faiths target their competitors' adherents.

Several reasons can be invoked to explain the popularity of shari'a in modern-day Nigerian politics. Simple consistency with Islamist reform is one. Disillusionment with alien and corruptible Western-based systems of law and order is another. Systemic despair at the Nigerian polity and economy-corruption.and poverty-is a third.2 "[W]hat has been termed the restoration of shariah in the northern states might be reframed as the political and legal response to a sense of economic and moral crisis in northern Nigeria" (Christelow 2002:198). Whatever the ultimate cause or causes, and even within an historical backdrop of periodic Islamic reform- ism, it represents "an entirely new radicalization of Islam, testifying to a no less new influence from Saudi Arabia and the forms of religiosity which it advocates" (Nouhou 2002:82; my translation).

For the most radical Islamists, even the current trend of states' adop- tion of shari'a is insufficient. The pro-Iranian Islamic Movement, headed by Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, aims "to bring about an Islamic revolution in Nigeria" (Sulaiman 1997:64); short of that, the reestablishment of shari'a on a state- by-state basis is theopolitically vacuous (Bach 2003:124).

Damping Radical Islam in Niger

Niger, in contrast to Nigeria, has staunchly maintained a relatively clear- cut separation of mosque and state. Shari'a may be used for civil matters, but there is no statewide legal infrastructure comparable to that which has evolved in Nigeria. As a result, some border towns and villages in Niger have become havens for newly criminalized activities in Nigeria, especially drinking, gambling, and prostitution (Onishi 2001).

Niger's current civilian rulers keep close tabs on Islamic activists, just as the French colonial and indigenous military regimes did before them. Government-sanctioned Islamic councils ensure pacifist preach- ing in the recognized mosques, and nonlicensed preachers are monitored through surveillance. But Islamist spillover from northern Nigeria cannot

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be completely contained. Democratization, introduced in the early 1990s and enduring despite a succession of disruptive military coups d'etat, has also enabled some radical forms of Islam to emerge in Niger.

In the 1990s, a Nigerien expression of Izala arose in Dosso, creat- ing tensions with the conservative Muslim elite in that midsize town. In November 2000, Niamey was a site of violent protests against a fashion show, condemned as profligate by the demonstration's religious leaders. Unlike the protests against the Miss World contest in 2002 in Nigeria, how- ever, Nigerien security forces acted in a uniform, unified manner, arresting nearly 300 persons and keeping forty of them in custody.

It is in Maradi, one of the rump state holdouts against the nineteenth- century Usmanian revolution and still a more homogeneously Hausa com- munity, that the Islamic challenge to Nigerien state secularism is greatest. It is here that Islamic influences from northern Nigeria and Iran have made their greatest inroads. In October 1999, riots broke out in Maradi follow- ing Niger's ratification of the U.N. convention against gender discrimina- tion. Introduction of shari'a in the neighboring Nigerian states of Zamfara and Katsina has galvanized Maradi Muslim fundamentalists, confirming Cooper's earlier observation that "if the [Fulani-led] reformists did not suc- ceed in the jihad against Maradi, they are winning the postcolonial peace" (Cooper 1998:33).

Aid agreements in the areas of energy, mining, and health have introduced the Islamic Republic of Iran as a new player on the donor scene. Private Iranian schools have been established in Maradi and extend an allowance to parents who enroll their children.

Beyond Nigeria and Iran, Saudi Arabia is an important factor in the changing nature of Nig6rien Islam. Pilgrimage to Mecca has been an increasing religio-economic imperative for upwardly mobile rural Nigeri- ens, many of whom spend years in Saudi Arabia before returning with sav- ings, goods, and an expanded view of the outside world (Miles 1986b, 1990). Younger preachers who have spent time in Saudi Arabia, assimilating more Wahhabite perspectives, increasingly view indigenous African expressions of Islam as backward and primitive, yet Islam in Niger has traditionally been syncretic, combining local pre-Muslim beliefs and practices of ani- mism and spirit possession.

The Evolution of Islam in Partitioned Hausaland

Two neighboring villages on each side of the Nigeria-Niger boundary pro- vide empirical evidence of the differential evolution of Islam in partitioned Hausaland. Yekuwa, in the province of Zinder, Niger, is only eight miles from Yardaji, a gateway village into Nigeria. In recent years, Yekuwa has been elevated to the status of arrondissement, and a district chief (hakimi), the son of the canton chief of Magaria, has been posted there. Yekuwa has thus converged even closer institutionally with its Nigerian counterpart

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because Yardaji has long had a village-area chief (mai-gunduma). Population growth since 1988 has been considerable in both communities, although that on the Nigerian side of the border has come close to doubling. Indeed, Yardaji now outdistances Yekuwa in combined population (table 1).

Table 1 Population of neighboring Hausa villages.

Yardaji Yekuwa (Nigeria) (Niger)

1986 3,492 4,035 2001 6,682 6,525 Change + 91% + 62%

More surprising than the demographic growth on the Nigerian side of the border has been the change in rates, both absolutely and comparatively, of pilgrimage to Mecca and wife seclusion. Yekuwa in Niger still outdis- tances Yardaji in the percentage of heads of household who have undertaken the hajj, with nearly half now entitled to be called alhaii, yet the rate of increase in Yardaji has been even more impressive, rising by 17 percent between 1986 and 2001 (table 2).

Whereas pilgrimage has been more pronounced in the Nigerien vis- a-vis Nigerian village, putting one's wife (or wives) in purdah continues to be more emblematic of Yardaji than Yekuwa. Yet on both sides of the border there has been a spectacular increase in the incidence of wife seclu- sion, which has risen by nearly fifty percent in Yardaji and almost tripled in Yekuwa (table 3).

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Table 2 Pilgrimage to Mecca made by heads of household

in neighboring Hausa villages.

Yardaji Yekuwa No. % No. %

1986 142 21% 287 41% 2001 268 38% 513 49%

Table 3 Wife seclusion:

number and percent of married women in neighboring Hausa villages.

Yardaji Yekuwa No. % No. %

1986 211 36% 76 11% 2001 942 84% 422 31%

While pilgrimage and seclusion are local symbols of economic status and religious piety, it is less expensive to confine one's wife to the home than to travel (with or without her) to Mecca. Although diminutive and "bush" by Nigerian standards, Yardaji has a more pronounced urban char- acter and reputation than does Yekuwa in Niger. Inasmuch as purdah is more associated with urban Muslim life, it is not surprising that Yardaji continues to overshadow Yekuwa in its frequency of wife seclusion. People in Yekuwa, on the other hand, attribute their comparative advantage in traveling to Mecca to their greater wealth in livestock, which can be easily sold to procure the price of a Saudi-bound air ticket.

Characteristics intrinsic to the villages may account for much of the continuing religious differentiation between them. Perhaps of greater importance, however, has been the progressive Islamization in Nigeria, a process that affects Yardaji more directly than Yekuwa. On account of the extension of shari'a to Katsina, of which Yardaji is a part, "singing, beating of drum, blowing flute and all sort of evil vices have been banned [and] are strictly forbidden" (Nuhu 2001). In short, many of the traditional Hausa folkways, including public dancing, wrestling, and praise-singing, have now been criminalized.

It is understandable that the most attention should be paid to legal statutes that impose amputation of limbs for petty thievery and capital punishment for extramarital sex. Such punishments offend an emerging universal standard of human rights. Less recognized is the extent to which shari'a, as applied in northern Nigeria, also represents cultural de-African- ization.

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In 1983, differences in the observance of Islamic principles and rituals in Yardaji and Yekuwa were already discernible. One example is the part of a wedding ceremony where the bride is escorted to the groom's home. That experience, as I witnessed in Yekuwa (Niger), bore out historian J. Spencer Trimingham's observation that in this marital "rite of passage . . . the indigenous element remain[s] dominant and the Islamic aspect negligible" (Trimingham 1980:45). The teenage girl was wrapped in elaborate, colorful cloths; a high-brim hat was put on her head; and a large pair of sunglasses covered her eyes. She was then put on a horse, a younger sister sitting just behind. Drummers followed the girls as the horse was led to the groom's house. Along the way, there was much singing and dancing.

In Nigeria, however, this custom had already been declared un-Islamic by the religious establishment. As a result, in neighboring Yardaji (residents of which have long married those of Yekuwa), it was no longer practiced. Instead, the bride was driven in a minivan, accompanied by liberal horn- honking. Today, the bridal horseback procession is no longer practiced in Yekuwa either: "Its time has passed," an Islamic teacher (mallam) of the village informed me. Nigerian norms of Islam are spilling across the border and, even in the remote countryside, gradually de-Hausifying tradition.

"Dividends of Shari'a" in the Borderlands

A weekly ritual demonstrates the reach of shari'a to the furthest reaches of Nigerian Hausaland. Every market day, an impressively turbaned Islamic district court judge (alkali) now rides circuit to Yardaji from Daura, capital of the emirate. He is accompanied by a scribe and a Nigerian policeman, whose ostentatious display of handcuffs reinforces the state sanction of shari'a. There is no equivalent to these procedures in Yekuwa, where dispute resolution is still conducted by the village chief (mai-gari) and the district head (hakimi).

Even though the percentage of non-Muslims in Niger is quite small (no greater than ten percent), people in Yekuwa express concern for similar unrest should the government of Niger follow Nigeria's lead. In general, Nigeria is viewed in Yekuwa as a corrupt, violent, lawless society and, overall, an unsuitable model for Niger. "If a thief is caught [in Niger,] he is severely punished. [In Nigeria,] there is only surutu-talk, talk, talk (Miles 1994:289). Applying shari'a would be ideal from a normative perspective, but from a practical standpoint it might lead to unrest: "It is for the sake of peace that we have not implemented sharia," the district head (hakimi) of Yekuwa stated in an interview (Harouna 2001).

While accepting that shari'a in Nigeria has long been subject to soci- etal corruption, there is another viewpoint, expressed in Niger by an alha ii, who said officializing it might put it under more careful judicial oversight and control. This perspective trusts in the government's ability to monitor what, because of the lack of regulation, is otherwise an easily corruptible application of Koranic law.

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Even on the village level, the popular saying "There is no compulsion in Islam" appears undermined by the loudspeakers that, beginning before dawn, loudly and emphatically call the faithful to prayer. (Loudspeaker prayer-call is more widespread in Yardaji, but is also practiced somewhat in Yekuwa.). Since the late 1990s, the mosque of Yardaji has undergone a major renovation, as if in expectation of heavier use.

During 2000-2002, the local government renovated and constructed Islamic schools in and around Yardaji. Children attend in the afternoons, after regular school. Teachers are paid by voluntary contributions. Across the border in Niger, Yekuwa has also built a new Islamic ("Franco-Arab") school, thanks in part to Saudi funding. Unlike the Islamic school in Yardaji, it is not an after-school program, but a full-day one. Rather than viewing it as a competitor, the principal of the regular government school takes the view that "as long as [the children] go to school, it doesn't matter which one." This West African variety of "school choice" is attributed to the democratic r6gime change that was reintroduced in Niger, following elections in 2000.

The modest garb for women (hijabi) is also now donned in the villages, especially by schoolgirls. In Yardaji (Nigeria), there are hijabi-style school uniforms. It is striking to see women wearing hijabis in Yekuwa, where, well into the 1980s, women commonly performed household chores, par- ticularly in dry seasons and hot periods of the day, with chests bared.3

State ratification of shari'a in Northern Nigeria has contradictory effects in the borderlands of Niger. On the one hand, it legitimizes Nigerien Islamists who advocate greater orthodoxy in their own communities; on the other hand, it has led borderline market communities to peddle goods, services, and pastimes (alcohol, prostitution, gambling) that have been now criminalized in nearby Nigeria. Such are the ironically dubbed "dividends of shari'a" (Bach 2003:121).

De-Africanization Debated

Within the house old rituals and habits are being phased out: private bori seems less common[,] ... and certain traditions at childbirth are no longer practised. The "traditional" domestic culture that I used to know thirty years ago is no longer there. (Last 2000:148)

To what extent is the Islamization of Hausa cultural life actually a form of de-Africanization? Is it a voluntary process for all classes and genders, and does this make a normative difference?

To be sure, de-Africanization is not an indigenous notion, at least not in rural Hausaland. I use the term in this essay to refer to the deliberate elimination of longstanding local customs and practices in the name of religious orthodoxy. Yet the very idea of being African-indeed, of belong- ing to a continent called Africa-is not, at least in the areas where I conduct

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fieldwork, widespread. (Among most of my informants in the early 1980s, the very word Afirka was only vaguely recognized and understood, if at all.) Local actors do not themselves view the expansion of shari'a as de-Afri- canization, partly because they have little consciousness of any original Africanization. Being Hausa, Muslim, Nig6rien, or Nigerian, yes; being African, no (Miles and Rochefort 1991). The closest approximation to such an identity-being black-does exist, but only in contextual contradistinc- tion to the distant white or European world (Miles 1993). Only educated West African elites are aware of Kwame Nkrumah and similar exponents of transcontinental pride and solidarity. Ideological consciousness of expanded categories of identity may be somewhat wider in Hausa cities than in the countryside (see Barkindo 1993); but even there, disagreements over shari'a are conducted more along Muslim-vs.-Christian lines than along Islamic- vs.-African ones.

Among the rural Hausa, there is little ingrained pride in pre-Islamic culture. This is why one can always be assured a conversational laugh by bringing up the Maguzawa, the "pagan" non-Islamized Hausa. When dis- cussing pre-Islamic times, people commonly invoke the terms ignorance and darkness-(jahilci and duhu); the same is true with references to the precolonial era (Miles 1994:99-101). Even where bori cults of spirit posses- sion persist (see below), they do so more in a context of mild embarrassment than cultural pride. That the de-Africanization paradigm has not (yet?) been integrated into local consciousness does not, however, invalidate it.

As should be clear from the earlier discussion of the precolonial era, de-Africanization in the name of religion is hardly new to Hausaland. Two centuries ago, the reformist jihad of Usman dan Fodio set out to achieve a similar aim: the purification of Islam. Even if the specific practices the Fulanis attempted to banish were not the same ones targeted now, the spirit behind the shari'a campaign today, and the earlier jihad of dan Fodio, is remarkably similar.4 Even those who dismiss the shari'a campaign as a political ploy by northern politicians to gain popularity must admit that the Fulani-led jihad also resulted in a power shift, with benefits accruing to a new group, albeit along ethnic, as opposed to demagogically democratic, lines.

For sure, in the early 1800s, few maintained that indigenous African culture possessed much intrinsic value. On this score, European imperial- ists and missionaries were in basic agreement with their Fulani counter- parts. They would differ, of course, over the superior religion and culture that ought to displace African varieties: Christian-based Western civiliza- tion for the former, Arab-based Islam for the latter.

African Islamists argue that Islam is more indigenous to Africa than is Christianity; that position, however, overlooks the ancient lineage of the Coptic Church in East Africa. It also delegitimates coastal Christian movements in West Africa, even if they are of more recent vintage. My overarching point is not that Islam is any more or less indigenous to Africa than is Christianity; rather, both Christianity and Islam have, at different

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points in history and in different regions of the continent, de-Africanized indigenous mores, customs, and values.5 Neither religion is more imperial than the other-but neither is less imperial. At this moment in African his- tory, at least in Nigerian Hausaland, the suppression of indigenous culture is coming from fundamentalist Islam. Is it because "Hausa culture ... has been all too ready to be Islamicised" (Mazrui 1988:506)? There is, in any event, decreasing local sympathy for the viewpoint, expressed two decades ago, that African "pre-Islamic survivals ... characterised as 'fringe' or 'mar- ginal' Islam are, on closer inspection, sometimes so intimately connected with 'core' Islam that they seem part of a single complex" (Lewis 1983: 56): "For many northern Muslims ... reconciliation [of I Islam with their traditional faiths ... is sacrilegious; they regard all things associated with cultural revival and traditional religion as paganist, and therefore unholy and unacceptable" (Falola 1998:233).

Cultural flexibility, adaptability, and syncretism-the hallmarks of African evolution and transformation-are being impeached. The most tolerant of religions in Africa, the indigenous traditions, are on the down- swing, under pressure from a "cockeyed phenomenon of Islam seeking to rivet the chains of orthodox conformity on people" (Sanneh 1997:22).6

Is this de-Africanization voluntary? Does it make a difference? Upholders of the tradition-in the case of the fieldwork site invoked here, the emir of Daura-proudly proclaim new prohibitions to the people. Implicit is the notion that a more advanced and mature version of Islam, as practiced internationally, should be in place in Nigeria too. From this perspective, shari'a represents a kind of development, a manifestation of (Islamic) modernity. Just as there are now cybercaf6s in Kano, so ought there to be sharia. Koranic purity is on a par with computer literacy: each is a manifestation of progress. From this perspective, the prohibition on tra- ditional manifestations of culture (song, dance, praise-singing, traditional medicine, etc.) is not de-Africanization, but an authentic African evolution- ary tradeoff-for some, an African spiritual takeoff.

It is not clear that the ordinary people (talakawa) completely embrace the cultural uprooting proclaimed by local 6lites (manya-manya). It is no secret that when these elites gather among themselves, pleasurable excep- tions are permitted: at a housewarming for a prominent alhaji's new resi- dence in Daura, for instance, none of the highly placed guests objected to the praise-singer's high-volume accolades. In fact, they encouraged him by handing over the customary acknowledgment in cash. Similarly, prosecu- tion for more serious violations of shari'a-theft, adultery-is more likely against ordinary people than 6lites.

Local elites are empowered to make discretionary decisions that go well beyond the powers of ordinary people. Live singing is banned in public; yet state radio continues to broadcast music. Ordinary people are submis- sive to, or perhaps complicit with, the Islamic legislation that proscribes local social practices; to posit that this de-Africanization is entirely volun- tary, however, overstates the case.

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This is all the clearer when one considers gender. Women are arguably more affected by emerging Islamist norms of behavior and comportment than men-secluded wives can no longer farm, for instance-yet are the least-consulted segment of the population. Historically, the expansion of Islam, particularly in rural areas of Hausaland, has been commensurate with a shrinking of female powers and prerogatives. For sure, Islamization has also had some positive features: women are less likely to be drawers of water and hewers of wood. It is the absence of female input into the Islamist decision-making process that militates against its supposed voluntarism.7

Islamist-inspired de-Africanization can be viewed as on a par with the cultural homogenization that accompanies Western globalization. The "choice" of austere Islamism is tantamount to the steamrollering, culture- stifling process that, when occurring in the West, is pejoratively called McDonaldization (Ritzer 1993; see also Barber 1995; Barnet and Cavanagh 1994; Friedman 1999). Yet if global Islamization is to be a worthy competi- tor to Western globalization, as some claim (see Mazrui 2001), it also must hold itself to equivalent standards. Western globalization is redeemable via the benefits that accompany it, especially in terms of technology. For its part, Islamism in Africa, to redeem itself culturally, must also proffer something of value to replace the expressions of communal soul-dance, music, song, etc.-that it is currently suppressing.

Nigerian Hausa adepts of spirit possession ('yan bori) on pilgrimage have been offered as rebuttal to the claim of Saudi-style globalization. Marginalized and denigrated in their native Hausaland, bori specialists have become valued, and consequently prosperous, experts in exorcism in Saudi Arabia, which has lost its own indigenous mastery over disruptive spirits: "Rather than enjoining more uniform conduct according to a set of universal and authoritative beliefs, increased travel to Mecca in this case has served to authorize and perpetuate very local practices and beliefs which have long been condemned as un-Islamic" (O'Brien 1999:34). Yet even in Saudi Arabia, where the 'yan bori are supposed to be especially appreciated, they must work in secret: "'it is illegal there.... If they find you practicing bori, they will catch you"' (O'Brien 1999:28). African spirit exorcists' individual success in Saudi Arabia does not translate into insti- tutional rehabilitation of bori back in Hausaland; indeed, it remains part of the same deviant subculture encompassing prostitutes, homosexuals, transvestites, and musicians (Besmer 1983:150). Bori remains subject to the same Islamist drive of de-Africanization as do other cultural practices deemed as being noncompliant with shari'a. The case of bori-practicing Hausa migrants in the Middle East conjures the possibility of indigenous customs surviving only in exile after they have been Islamically eradicated from the Hausa homeland.

Does Saudi Arabian law, in fact, explicitly prohibit bori? Does legis- lation in Kano, Katsina, or Zamfara, for that matter? Are the "evil vices" listed earlier-singing, dancing, drumming, praise-singing-actually outlawed by written statutes in Nigeria? These practices are not explicitly

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mentioned in published shari'a legislation (see Peters 2001), and yet local communities are convinced that indulging in them will result in punish- ment. Even if the state has not formally singled them out for sanction, the ban on them is, for all intents and purposes, real. Thus, there is an arbi- trariness to the grassroots application of shari'a in northern Nigeria, an indeterminacy between shari'a on the page and on the ground, the contours of which require investigation.

Just as colonialism proved to be inexorable within a given historical epoch, neither the Western nor the Islamic types of globalization can, in all likelihood, be stopped or limited. Artistic and literary critiques of the process, however, do represent contributions to the human condition. The question, then, is not "Can de-Africanization be resisted in Hausaland?" but, rather, "Will there be a Hausa Chinua Achebe, lamenting the passing of the old ways in favor of the 'enlightened' new?" Another related issue is the Hausa response to Islamist violence that has been perpetrated, in a collective religious name, against Western globalization.

Bin Laden in the Bush

Niger was the first African nation to publicly support the U.S. campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. President Tandja took decisive action when leaders of two Islamic organizations (including the Nig6rien Islamic Organization) composed a letter accusing the Bush administration of infring- ing human rights and democracy and threatening retaliation. These organi- zations were banned, and the letter writers suspended from their posts.

Nigeria, too, officially supported the United States in its military actions immediately after 9-11, yet in Kano, by the third week of October, pro-Bin Laden posters and stickers were already plastered throughout the city, including on automobile bumpers and windows. A market clash at the time of U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan degenerated into a lethal anti-Christian, anti-American riot, leaving 200 dead. On the face of it, pro-Bin Laden sentiment in Nigerian Hausaland would seem to have been high.

In Yekuwa (Niger) fallout from 9-11 was contained as the government wished:

If anyone here went around yelling, 'Bin Ladin Only!' the chief would call him to order. If he continued, the chief would have him arrested by the gendarme. (Mansour 2001)

Villagers unanimously condemned the attack on the World Trade Center as an affront to Allah, and to commerce: "Islam does not condone terrorism." Yet some did express doubt about the authorship of the act. "Those who are not in anger should investigate and judge. Neutral par- ties should decide" (A.M.H., preacher). Overall, the attack on the "market

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center of the world" (i.e., the Twin Towers) was also perceived as an assault on major Hausa cultural values: not only on innocent life, but on trade and commerce. Popular, too, was an ambiguous assimilation of 9-11 into Hausa historiography: kunam baken wake (burning black beans). The black-bean parable enjoyed great currency in Hausaland in the weeks and months fol- lowing 9/11. Few persons knew the story with the detail and authority of an elder of Yekuwa village, Mallam Ya'u, who recounted it to me, with verve:

There once was a tyrannical ruler who forced his subjects to carry him long distances. He rode them like horses, abusively. A man named Daga, hearing what was happening, declared, "Next time the prince is looking for a porter, put the saddle on me. There won't be any more 'person riding' after I do it." So Daga found himself carrying the prince. Near the path, the prince noticed a group of people, and a fire blazing. The prince ordered Daga to bring him closer, so that he could see. So Daga went 'trotting' forth-right into the fire, burning himself-and the wicked prince-to death.

Daga-he was the first black-bean burner. (Ya'u 2001)

R. C. Abraham (1958) renders the expression burning black beans to mean "reckless courage." Village informants, however, described it to me more as "demonstration of manliness." While they condemn the killing of inno- cents as terrorism and un-Islamic, "burned black beans" hardly suggests an outright condemnation of suicidal action against injustice and oppres- sion. Rather, it expresses an undercurrent of admiration-on the part of the storyteller and the audience-for the self-sacrificial action of Daga against the prince's tyranny. Self-sacrifice in the face of oppression appears encoded within Hausa legend, even if the standard for gauging the tolerance limit of oppression is unspecified. It must be admitted, however, that the rural Hausa with whom I spoke were skeptical about identifying the 9-11 hijack- ers with Daga.

Conclusion

One of the allurements of shari'a is that it represents a persuasive source of unity for neighboring Muslim communities in Africa otherwise divided along sundry lines (Miles 2000). Such divisions, to take the case of Hausa- land, can be national (Nigerian vs. Nig6rien), ethnic (Yoruba/Tuareg/Zarma vs. Hausa-Fulani), doctrinal (Sufi vs. Izala), denominational (Qadariyya vs. Tijaniyya), class (talakawa vs. sarakuna), and electoral (populist/progressive [e.g., NEPU/PRP8] vs. conservative/traditional [NPC/NPN9]). What Muslim movement worthy of the name could oppose restructuring its society's legal structure according to Islamic law?

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Still, despite the status of Islam as the common faith, cultural dif- ferentiation across the Niger-Nigeria boundary does persist along religious lines. This inflection of Islamic globalization highlights the significance of national boundaries in delimiting the influence of religious revivalism, despite the "hegemonic vocation" of sharia (Bach 2003:121). It also reflects the continuing role of colonial policy in influencing modern government's responses toward Islam. Is there no relationship between the indirect rule practiced by Britain in Northern Nigeria and the significant space occupied by Islam in Nigerian civil society today? Likewise, even if Niger is currently experimenting with democratic governance, can one not attribute the more quiescent role of Islam there, in part, to the colonial legacies of militaristic direct rule? Various factors, including the type of colonialism, influence the extent to which shari'a succeeds in de-Africanizing particular societies.

Despite Islamist pressure to ban indigenous Hausa customs, distinc- tions in Muslim practice and behavior between neighboring borderline vil- lages in Nigeria and Niger serve as a reminder that religion in Africa-fun- damentalist and not-does not necessarily supplant norms and identities based on the nation-state. Islam's interaction with national, economic, and sociological realities forces it to adapt. Outsiders wishing to contain the expansion of Islamic fundamentalism have a much greater chance of influ- encing these other factors than they do of directly shaping the theological direction of the faith.'0 It is perhaps at the margins of the Muslim world-in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance-wherein lies the greatest opportunity for shoring up a redemptive Islam.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Fieldwork for this article was conducted in November-December, 2001, thanks to a travel grant from

the American Philosophical Society. It extends research initially undertaken under the auspices of

the Fulbright program in 1983-1984 and the summer of 1986. A version of this paper was delivered

at the 45th annual meeting of the African Studies Association, panel on Civil Society and Grassroots

Politics, under the title "Islamic Fundamentalism in Hausaland: Nigeria and Niger." It has benefited

significantly from the comments and queries of panel discussant Peter VonDoepp, copanelist Dennis

Galvin, Professor Momodou Darboe, the editor of this journal (John Hanson), and two anonymous

reviewers. For directional guidance (literally!) and outstanding accommodation at the ASA meeting

in Washington, D.C., the author is indebted to Dr. Larry Diamond.

NOTES

1. The information minister of the federal government immediately dismissed the fatwa as

"null and void."

2. Falola (1998:81) mentions the sociopathology of anomie in this context.

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3. In rich theological and sartorial detail, Masquelier (1999:237-239) discusses the advent of

the hijabi in a Nigerien, albeit non-Hausa, community.

4. Note, however, the view that, "most of the Hausa customary practices on the threshold of

Izala's advent" resembled those that dan Fodio condemned in writing (Yandaki 1997:47).

5. For a debate between two African Africanists regarding the thesis that "indigenous" Africa

has served as a pliant "cultural bazaar" for vying Western and Islamic values and ideas (and

which also considers Judaism alongside Islam and Christianity in Africa), see Mazrui 1984

and Habtu 1984.

6. See also Mazrui (1988:500-502), which refers to the tolerance of pre-Islamic (and pre-Chris-

tian) African religions as "indigenous ecumenicalism."

7. Whitsitt (2003) makes a similar point in his analysis of the emerging genre of Hausa market

romance literature; the audience for this, however, is urban.

8. Northern Elements Progressive Union and Peoples Redemption Party of the First and

Second Republics, respectively.

9. National Party of Nigeria was the Second Republic version of the NPC.

10. Schmitt and Shanker 2002. The program envisioned "setting up schools with secret Ameri-

can financing to teach a moderate Islamic position laced with sympathetic depictions of

how the religion is practiced in America." The next day, according to the same newspaper,

the White House repudiated the plan.

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