Between Adamu Adamu, Dr Bashir And Scholarship

By

Ibrahim M. Attahir

attahirmi@yahoo.com

 

 

Let me state from the onset, for the avoidance of doubt that I am only out to contribute to the discourse and put it in its proper perspective for the benefit of the public. It is not my intention and not even my business to defend or support any of the parties involved in the debate on which I am about to comment.

 

I find the debate between Adamu Adamu, Dr Bashir Aliyu Umar and to some extent Haruna Abdullahi el-Binawi very interesting. The debate started with the cover story of Weekly Trust of Saturday, September 15, 2007 in which the paper had an interview with Dr Ahmad Abubakar Gumi where he was quoted as saying that Islamically, General Muhammadu Buhari the ANPP presidential candidate at the last April general elections must withdraw his petition. Then in the Weekly Trust of September 22, 2007 Adamu Adamu wote a rejoinder captioned “Gumi and his fatwa”. In reaction to Adamu Adamu’s rejoinder, one Dr Bashir Aliyu Umar wrote his own article entitled – “It takes a scholar to know a scholar: Replying Adamu Adamu” in Weekly Trust of September 29, 2007. Adamu Adamu fired back with his: “Reply to Scholar Bashir” in Weekly Trust of October 6, 2007. Again, one Haruna Abdullahi el- Binawi mainly parroting Adamu Adamu wrote his - “Still on it takes a scholar to know one.” in Daily Trust of  Monday October 8, 2007.

 

If the said contributors particularly Adamu Adamu had confined the debate to its context of the propriety or otherwise of continuing of General Buhari with his petition against President Umaru Musa Yar Adua from the Islamic perspective I need not write anything. Alternatively, I would have supported Adamu Adamu. If not for the fact that I later heard Dr Gumi trying to justify or reemphasize his so-called fatwa, I could have taken it as an “accidental discharge” and forgotten about it. I doubt if I ever met Dr Gumi in my life. I know him only through his Ramadan tafsir that the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria Kaduna airs. I do not have anything against him. However, I consider that his statement on Buhari’s petition as a serious blunder. The least one can say about it is that it is out of context. Nevertheless, Adamu Adamu has derailed the debate from a public discourse on the said fatwa to the issue of who is a scholar and who is not. In fact, he even brought it down to the level of personalities. That is my area of interest.

 

Like Dr Gumi, I have not met Adamu Adamu in my life. I only know him through his writings since 1980s.It is beyond doubt that Adamu Adamu is gifted with sense of humour, which adds taste to his columns. His “Definitions - in - Humour” is still memorable. His writings also have Islamic taste. Apart from his sense of humour, I also used to consider him as an objective and therefore respected columnist. My thinking on his supposed objectivity makes me to admire his columns along with those of other columnists like Muhammad Haruna, Dr Aliyu Usman Tilde and Sam Nda Isaiah. I usually buy a newspaper because of Adamu Adamu’s column or that of the other three columnists. However, for some time now one does not know if that admirable sense of objectivity of his seems to be undergoing some form of “deregulation”.

 

I remember his column in Daily Trust of Friday February 24, 2006 under the caption: “Mayhem in the name of God”. He was talking on the senseless killing of Christians in Maiduguri on the blasphemous Danish cartoon and the more senseless reprisal killings at Onitsha. However, he went out of his way to castigate Muslim leadership, MSS activists, ulama, traditional rulers, state governors and those he called Arabic speaking idiots. He even said:

         “As Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar said 20 years ago, one               would feel ashamed to be bracketed as belonging to the same            religion with murderers…”

From then onwards, my attitude towards his articles has changed. I do not see why the ulama, the traditional rulers, the MSS activists, etc would bear the responsibility of what people in the street did? Who are the Arabic speaking idiots? Are they all the respected Borno Scholars that gathered at Ramat Square? Haba Adamu Adamu! Such a condemnation is too blanket and inconsiderate. I think Adamu Adamu just wanted to use that opportunity to strike at some personalities in disguise.

 

Coming back to the debate in question, I similarly do not know Dr Bashir and, left alone, I will say I have never met him. However, a brother told me recently that some times back both my humble self and the said Dr Bashir attended a function and sat close to one another. My understanding of his rejoinder to Adamu Adamu is that he only tried to set some facts straight on the science of hadith. Dr Bashir never focused his rejoinder on the so-called fatwa of Dr Gumi or its political antecedents and implications. It is out of place to insinuate that Dr Bashir wrote the rejoinder in defense of Dr Gumi.

 

On the other hand if Adamu Adamu had also confined the debate to the alleged lack of authenticity of the hadith quoted by Dr Gumi I would not have bothered. There are hadiths on which rightly or wrongly, opinions differ on their authenticity. It is a mere academic exercise and I know there are competent people to engage him in that respect. It is also not my business to ask Adamu Adamu whether he has a known or renowned hadith teacher to qualify for the debate just as he said about Shaikh Nasiruddeen al- Albaniy that the Shaikh did not learn hadith under any known hadith teacher/scholar.

 

Even if it is an outright condemnation of hadith, I would not have been surprised. There are the so-called “progressive Muslim intellectuals” that enjoy criticizing Islamic teachings. I would have just considered him as having his sabbatical in their camp. Late Taha Hussein of Egypt was even criticizing the language of the Qur’an itself! Somebody once told me that if one criticizes one’s religious teachings, one might attract a Nobel Prize! I do not know if it is true. Ours is a free world and we are told that we have freedom of speech. Nothing will be surprising.

 

My problem with Adamu Adamu’s articles warranting my reaction is the way he derailed from the issue in dispute of whether it is proper, Islamically, for Buhari to continue with his petition against President Umaru Musa Yar Adua. Adamu Adamu brought the issue down to discussing personalities. He, as usual, used that excuse to attack Ibn Taimiyyah, Nasiruddeen al – Albaniy, compilers of hadith, some individuals and groups that do not have anything to do with the issue of Buhari’s petition. I am afraid that with this attitude, Adamu Adamu may end up as liability to General Buhari. The earlier the General realizes that the better for him.

 

Nobody is saying that Adamu Adamu should not criticize anybody or anything he feels like criticizing in the guise of freedom of speech. However, he should single out an issue or issues, a person or group of persons or institutions he wants to criticize and criticize them on their own. That will give those that want to reply him a clear direction and the public a better opportunity for judgment. Why should he always hide behind one thing to attack another? As a great columnist, he should be courageous enough to stand by whatever he believes in and say it openly. Why should he hide what he wants to sell? It is either he fails to sell it or some unsuspecting buyers will buy what they do not know and when they discover the item they bought to be faulty anybody can guess the result.

 

Adamu Adamu’s over generalization makes him to adopt a faulty yardstick in measuring individuals and issues. He contended that because the scholars that compiled hadith worked under tyrants, their compilations are questionable. This logic is like saying any book or academic work by Nigerian academicians on human rights and rule of law during the military era is not credible because the authors served under tyrants. Even Adamu Adamu will not pass that test because he served under one of the most brutal military rulers! On the other hand, how many scholars did he subject to that test? He only made an allegation against al-Zuhri. In my opinion, Dr Bashir has debunked that allegation. More over, Dr Bashir has given the names of six other compilers of hadith in various regions that Adamu Adamu has not told us whether they also served tyrants. Can the “sins” of that one scholar disqualify the six others? Many more scholars did not fight the Umayyads but were firm in telling them the truth. El-Binawi needs to read books of seerah to see the encounters of Tawus Ibn Kaisan with top Umayyad officials like Muhammad Ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafiy, brother of the notorious Hajjaj, Sulaiman Ibn Abdulmalik and Hisham Ibn Abdulmalik. Salim Ibn Abdullahi also had his encounters with Sulaiman Ibn Abdulmalik, Walid Ibn Abdulmalik and Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafiy. Imam Abu Hanifa lived in the last days of Umayyads and early days of Abbasids. He never compromised his academic works to favour either. It can be dangerous to learn Islam from pages of the newspapers and magazines.

 

Further more, Adamu Adamu did not tell us who are the genuine compilers of hadith whose works are authentic. However, his supporter, el-Binawi was bold (or not as careful as Adamu) to give alternative scholars of hadith whose works should be used. What el-Binawi did not tell us is whether those whom he certified were living on the moon where there were no tyrants and did their works there or they lived in a different era better than that of the tyrants. If however, the preferred scholars lived in the same time and place with the tyrants but insulated their academic works from the influence of the tyrants, then others like the six mentioned by Dr Bashir could equally insulate their works. The logic of Adamu Adamu and his el-Binawi collapses to the ground.

 

Adamu Adamu’s charge against shaikh al-Albaniy is that the man is not a scholar of hadith because he had no known teacher in that field. That is not enough reason. Having a known teacher and not having a teacher at all are two different things. Some students happen to be more prominent than their teachers are. Could it be true that al-Albaniy did not have hadith teacher at all? Was al-Albaniy just an ordinary watch repairer going to the library to peruse books of hadith? Yet, he came up with works that other scholars appreciated. Any way, I do not know whether Shaikh Yusuf al-Qardawiy is another watch repairer like al-Albaniy and that is why the former recognized the latter! I believe even sitting in the library to study is not for every Tom, Dick and Harry, talk less of writing books. Mark you, this al-Albaniy is not a person that lived and died in Azare, Bauchi, Zaria, Kaduna, Abuja or any other Nigerian town or city where Adamu Adamu knows better and could have first hand information about him. Adamu Adamu also used the same book perusing (or rather columns perusing) to say that al-Albaniy had no hadith teacher. I challenge Adamu Adamu to tell us his own hadith teacher from whom he learnt that al-Albaniy had no hadith teacher.

 

Another funny thing is that Adamu Adamu said Dr Bashir could not boast of hadith scholars except university dons and professors, not products of madrasah that are well grounded in hadith. Adamu Adamu should know that there are many university dons who are equally products of madrasah. A good example here is Professor Tijani El-Miskin. We all know that he comes from family of scholarship, he under went and is still under going the madrasah system and is a renown university professor par excellence. Adamu Adamu should tell us any country in the world where university professors do not count in any field of knowledge. Again, Adamu Adamu appears to be strongly averse to the study of hadith methodology. Hence, he dismisses the 20 years spent by Dr Bashir studying in that rigorous field of Islamic learning. All scholars of hadith studied hadith methodology. It is an important part of that field of learning. One wonders how a person like Adamu Adamu fails to appreciate it. Well, may be it takes a scholarship to know the value of knowledge.  Adamu Adamu should crosscheck this fact with his madrasah scholars.

 

It is with this kind weak logic that Adamu Adamu and his cohorts think that they can rock the foundation of hadith. In his attempt to disparage the sahabah and by extension the hadiths narrated from them, el-Binawi said that history recorded that out of the 1,000 men that set out for the battle of Uhud with the Prophet (SAW), 300 men deserted him and went back to Madina. He, however, said that apart from their leader, Abdullahi Ibn Ubayy Ibn Salul nothing is heard about the remaining 299 men. His aim is to insinuate that they form part of the community of sahabah who narrated the hadiths, which in turn makes the hadiths questionable. No. They are rather part of the community of hypocrites. Those 700 men that did not desert the Prophet (SAW) were the community of sahabah. They were in the great majority. They cannot be discredited for what the few hypocrites did. I believe el-Binawi should know that wherever the Holy Qur’an praises the sahabah, the reference is to the 700 men and their likes not to his 299 men. If el-Binawi is aware of any hadith that any of the 299 men narrated, the burden is on him to tell us. Who does el-Binawi want to blame for the fact that the names of those 299 men were not mentioned? Even the Holy Qur’an does not mention the specific names of the 299 hypocrites. It only describes their attitudes (Q, 3:166-168; 9:81 and 9:84 among others). The Holy Qur’an hardly mentions the names of wrongdoers because it(the Holy Qur’an) is for general application at all times and places not for specific people and events.

 

Both Adamu Adamu and el-Binawi want us to believe that the present chaos in Iraq is nothing compared to what was happening during the time of Saddam Hussein. Adamu Adamu said the only difference is that the CNN did not cover Saddam’s massacres. However, Dr Bashir was not the first person to refer to the present lawlessness in Iraq that is universally acknowledged. He was only explaining the perspective in which some scholars understand the hadith on obedience to corrupt rulers. Dr Bashir was not in any way defending Saddam Hussein or any unjust ruler for that matter. I believe Adamu Adamu should know that Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General also said that Iraq was better off under Saddam! CNN or no CNN Kofi Annan is in a better position to know the situation in Iraq both during Saddam and post Saddam eras. Well, may be Kofi Annan is also a Salafist/Wahhabite! Adamu Adamu in the comfort of his house in Nigeria can afford to say that Iraq is now better off than in the Saddam era. However, the Iraqis who did the foolish and unpatriotic act of supporting Americans to invade their country under the guise of fighting a dictator now know better. Adamu Adamu should ask the regional and world human rights bodies to get the figures of Iraqi refugees presently and during the Saddam era for better comparison. Except for those hiding in the so-called green zone, no Iraqi will say what Adamu Adamu said. Even in the green zone, television cameras caught Ban Ki Moon, the present UN Secretary General panicking when an explosion rocked the green zone!

 

Finally, I want to remind Adamu Adamu that his God-given art of writing is equally a public trust, which he should not betray or embezzle just as he once said that the governors have betrayed public trust and embezzled public funds! In using his talent of writing to attack any person or anything anyhow, he may end up fighting another man’s war knowingly or unknowingly. May Allah (SWT) guide us all to the right path.

 

Ibrahim M. Attahir

Gombe.

attahirmi@yahoo.com