Lamido: Between a Rationalist and Ethnic Bigot Scholar

Yakubu Musa

A recent piece titled Identity, Political Ethic and Parochialism: Engagement with Sheikh Ja’ afar by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has once again laid bare, the tragedy of our society. The plethora of hysteria that greeted the said wonderful intellectual presentation has shown how intolerance, towards even intellectual argument is gradually pervading our society. However, one was compelled to join the debate, after seeing the tons of balderdash, pontification and superficiality published as rejoinders against Lamido. I still find no justification in the way they bared their fangs against the writer, who was merely responding to constant harassment of a dogmatic scholar. While some went from the sublime to the ridiculous, majority treated us with mere gargantuan equivocation. Perhaps because of insufficient understanding of the issues raised, or their laziness, which prevent them from making an intensive research like his own or combination of both, they labored with their verbosity to impress, even though in vain. They left the substance and devoted their time and energy in beating about the bush instead hitting the nail straight on its head. They ended up only exposing grasp of the issue. They achieved nothing other than bringing to the fore the paradoxes and contradictions surrounding their dogmatic understanding of Islam.

Most of those, who did the shallow work of defending-albeit in futility - Mallam Ja afar Adam or is it Ja’Afar Katsina, failed to answer the begging questions raised by Lamido’s piece. None of them indeed justify tribalism, the “virtue” Ja ‘Afar is promoting, probably in an attempt to find a place in the class of self-appointed northern leaders or spokespersons. The principal sin of Lamido here is his discountenance of the position of some section of Muslim leaders from the North on the appointment of Reverend Hassan Mathew Kuka as the scribe of the on –going National Conference on Political Reforms. Lamido, a rationalist (in my assumption) saw no fault in the appointment a nd went ahead defend it in a write up “In Defese of Hassan Mathew Kuka. To him it is the personality or rather morality of the person that should be considered not his ethnic background. But some section of scholars like Ja ‘Afar who thrive in fanning the amber of religious conflict, would later descend on him. They ate him alive for daring to say the truth from his own perspective.

The truth, however, is that tribalism, racism or any form of ethnic chauvinism is unIslamic. It is against the teaching of our great prophet. Thus it is unfortunate to see that it’s being promoted by some section of Muslim scholars under whatever guise. Islam is universal religion that champions the course of civilization. So what is wrong with Lamido’s refusal to agree with an intolerant and jingoist scholar like Ja ‘Afar? Or is Ja ‘Afar also infallible? Or does he claim to know and understand the working of politics economics and even the national political confab more than any other one else in the north that things must be seen from his own perspective always? Or is everybody duty bound to respect all the views of scholars like Ja Afar, who are suffering fro m delusions of grandeur?

However, the furore over Lamido’s article is understandable. One doesn’t have to search to far for the raison d etre. In explaining himself over his engagement with the scholar he has shown how unwilling he is to be a captive of Wahabites’ sentiments. He went to the extent of displaying not only his disagreement to the doctrines of the creed, but he has shown a considerable disdain to it. What might have aggravated their anger is the fact that Lamido’s venomous pen has inflicted a lot of harm to the haughty followers of this sect, who erroneously believe that Islam is confined only within the cocoon of ibn Tayyima’s or ibn Abdulwahab’s understanding. And their tragedy is that, they appear to have lacked the antidote that will remedy the havoc caused by Lamido’s toxic pen. Thus I am not surprised some of th em, including a graduate of Hausa language, who struggles and stammers while speaking the white man language, went to the extent of picking fault in Lamido’s English instead of the fundamental issues he raised.

Perhaps flaggerbasted at the enormity of his knowledge both religious and western, one of them, Muhammed Jamil Yusheu described him as one of the “societal chameleon who could be bankers today, political analyst tomorrow economist the day after tomorrow and the next morning appear as Mallikite with a dose of Shia doctrines”. I still cannot see the wrongs here. What I see is the greatness of a man, who shone brilliantly in intellectual analysis of different disciplines. Indeed Lamido deserves plaudits for his deep understanding of the postulations of classical Smiths, Kaldors Ricardors, etc and even the contemporary Jingahns of th is world. He should be respected for his ability to analyze the ancient philosophies of Aristotles, Galileos, Socrates et al and at the same time he is able, with air of authority to explain the positions of Malikite, Hambalite, shia and even Mu’utazlite school of thoughts on Islamic discourse. His unshakable tenacity will not alow him to ignore the works of Kwame Anthony Appiah, Segun Gbadegesin, Sohail Hashmi and many others. How can one then expect him to see thing from the perspective of a bigot scholar.

This brings us to one of the salient issues in his argument. Should we now entrust our socio-political future in the hands of impressionist Ulams like Ja ‘Afar, who absolutely rely on the memorization of the 13^th centaury perspective of ibn Tayymiyya? For instance if there is now a conference to review the nation’s revenue allocation formula should we send Ja ‘Afar or an economist like Lamido to represent us? I am sure even if there is a need for the review of Sharia I would not vote for Ja ‘Afar to represent me as I know the brand of sharia, which he stands for.

Indeed one of the reasons given by Lamido as the genesis of his conflict with Ja’Afar was his position on capital punishment pronounced on Safiya Tungar Tudu by a Sokoto Sharia court after finding her guilty of adultery. No doubt some of the bloodthirsty scholars like Ja ‘Afar had stoutly defended the sentence. But instead of joining the bandwagon, Lamido chose the path of reasoning. He hence flawed the verdict, which he showed that contradicted the general principles of sharia and even Malikite Law. Many who could not see beyond their nose were not happy with him even though they could not fault the strength of his argument. They soon forgot that when the the Zamfara State government announced its intention to adopt the Islamic legal code, Lamido was outstanding in defending it as a concept. And when the implementation was contrary to the actual sharia, he rose against it.

Today, Lamido is more than vindicated, as the Sharia in Nigeria has not gone beyond the level of means of achieving political relevance. Lack of sincerity by its adaptors and implementers has been its bane. Certainly it would have been a monumental tragedy if Safiya were executed. It would have been disastrous if we had supported selective injustice against the woman while millions have been and still committing worse offences with impunity. Today our Sharia is farce. What we see is anti-thesis of what we clamoured for. Our own sharia is straight from the book of Nicollo Machiavelli. Ahmed Sani Yarimas of these world can continue to get award of good governance (or is it peace of the grave yard) purchased from a road side church run by a greedy pastor, but the reality in Zamfara makes him a laughing stoke. He can go ahead and get an international award by a Jewish synagogue and allow million of tax payers money to be spent on congratulatory messages (riya)on him to enhance his laughable 2007 presidential ambition, but we the truth. He is riding a state of the arts four-wheel- derive cars at a time when his people are wallowing in abject poverty. Is that how the Danfodios did their Sharia. Or was Omar ibn Khattab richer than his subjects. Thus we are still in search of our Omar bin Abdulazeez (Omar ll). And I don’t see him coming as long as confusionist scholars like Ja’Afar are around.

Therefore my advise is that the Muslim North need to do a soul searching job to see what is going wrong. Less than two decades ago, Sheihk Isa Waziri and his colleagues receive converts on daily basis. What do we gain now? Enemies. So if Lamido rose beyond the level of unjustifiable ethno-religious sentiments next time, try to understand him first before serving us your menu of verbal diarrhea and mambo jambo.

On the final, I would like to express my joy over the furore and sadness occasioned by the seeming disparaging remarks on ibn Tayymiyya and his “archaic” views. And my joy stemmed from the fact that it would now serve as a lesson to people like Ja ‘Afar, who made the respected leaders Sufi orders their subject of ridicule notwithstanding their enormous contribution to towards propagation of Islam and humanity. Beyond that Ja’ Afar has been in the vanguard of sensitizing his listeners on the significance of showing no love to our great prophet. He has always stressed that what is expected by a Muslim to the prophet is not affection but obedience. What a contradiction. How can one obey somebody that he hates? And secondly is it harmful to shower love on the prophet?

Thus we are now relishing the fact that it hurts to show disdain to dan Tayymiyya and his “out-dated “ perception. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander.