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PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA
The Persecution of Shia Muslims in Sokoto
About three years ago this month, the city of Sokoto suffered its first serious religious violence in decades involving members of the Shia community. Since then the city has not known the peace and harmony it had been historically famous for.
The whole thing started when members of the Shia community took to the streets as they do annually to commemorate the massacre of Hussain, his entire family and a small band of his supporters in the battle of Karbala about 750 years ago. Hussain was Caliph Ali’s son and Prophet Muhammad’s grand son.
The seed of that historic massacre had been sown thirty eight years earlier when Umar, the second of the first four caliphs, established an electoral college of seven to decide on his successor in the event of his death. When he eventually died in 644 AH (1258AD), the council short listed Othman bin Affan and Ali bin Talib, the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, for the Muslim community to choose their caliph from.
The community split down the middle, one camp arguing that the Caliphate should be retained in the prophet’s family and the other contending that it should be by consultation and consensus. The latter eventually won and Othman became the third Caliph. He ruled for 12 years but was in the end murdered.
Ali then succeeded him as the fourth and last of what the Muslim ummah has come to regard as the “rightly guided” caliphs, to differentiate them from the unelected monarchs that came after them and established dynasties.
The first of such successionists was ironically Muawiyah who had fought against the idea of caliphate by succession. He had been the governor of Syria for about 20 years before he succeeded Ali as the fifth caliph. He then proceeded to establish the Umayad dynasty.
Upon his death, his son Yazid took over. Subsequently the original successionists gathered around Ali’s son, Hussain, and rebelled. The matter was finally settled in the battle of Karbala in which Hussain, his family and his followers were massacred. This split the Muslim world at the time into two sects - the majority Sunni which rejected the idea of an organized clergy and a small but highly organized and structured Shia minority. That legacy of the Muawiyah has survived till today.
Since then the Shia sect which has a majority only in Iran and Iraq has annually commemorated the Karbala massacre world-wide. It was in the course of the February 2005 commemoration that violence broke out between the group in Sokoto and people its members believed were thugs hired by those in authority to nip their rise in the bud in a city that historically has been the bastion of Sunni Muslims in West Africa.
For some inexplicable reasons the group has always rejected its label as Shia. “Ours,” its members say in several of their literature, “is an Islamic movement – a movement towards establishment of Islam, so that Qur’an will govern our lives and the word of Allah will be supreme. This is the reason why over the years, the leadership of the movement under Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky (H) has been calling on all to bear one single name – Muslim and not to assume any sectarian identity.” Hence their self-identification as “Muslim Brothers”.
However, whatever they choose to call themselves, the undeniable fact is that they are Shia. First, their spiritual head and inspiration is the Iranian Grand Ayatollah. This much is obvious from their own publications including their weekly newspapers in Hausa (Al-Mizan) and English (The Pointer). It is also pretty obvious from their organized and hierarchical clergy, although this is not unique to them. Not least of all, although all Muslims mourn Karbala for its tragedy of Muslims massacring fellow Muslims for no better reason than mere succession, no other Muslim sect mourns the massacre in the elaborate and somewhat masochist way – during the commemoration many of them cut and generally inflict pain on themselves in re-enactment of the massacre - Shia Muslims do.
In time this difference over succession came to assume doctrinal dimensions. For example, whereas the Sunni majority believes a Muslim should be guided by the Qur’an and Hadith, i.e. the words and deeds of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the Shia believe a Muslim’s guide should be the Quran and the prophet’s family (ahlul bayt).
Most Sunni Muslims see this distinction between the prophet’s words and deeds, on the one hand, and himself and his family, on the other, as blasphemy and therefore regard Shia Muslims as fair game for attack and elimination. This is the most probable explanation for what happened in Sokoto three years ago.
However, there can be no justification whatsoever for such attacks. As long as they remain law abiding, the members of the Shia community, or Muslim Brothers, as they prefer to call themselves, are, like every Nigerian whatever his belief, sex or nationality, entitled to protection of their lives, limbs and property by the State.
Unfortunately rather than protect the group, the authorities in Sokoto seem to have embarked on a systematic persecution of their members since the February 2005 violence. This has heightened since July last year following the murder in Sokoto of Sheikh Umar Danmaishiyya, possibly the severest critic of Shi’ism in Nigeria.
Following Danmaishiyyah’s murder, the authorities in Sokoto detained Malam Qasim Umar Rimin Tawaye, the leading Shia cleric in Sokoto, along with 138 other members on suspicion of committing the murder or being complicit in it. Most of the detainees have since languished in detention without trial.
Worse still, the family house of Umar Sanda Gudu, the father of Malam Qasim, has been demolished along with property owned by members of the sect including their bookshop and clinic. Clearly this is prejudicial. Worse, it is collective punishment for a crime whose perpetrators have yet to be identified.
This is simply unacceptable in any country, much less in one like Nigeria that aspires to democracy. In any case persecution cannot be the solution to whatever problem the authorities believe the Shia poses for society no matter how disagreeable or irrational any one thinks of its doctrines and its ways as long as its members remain law abiding. Where they break the law, our Constitution and our laws are clear and unambiguous on how they should be dealt with.
The authorities in Sokoto appear to have ignored this in dealing with their alleged crimes. This is wrong and should be condemned by any right thinking person.
Apology In my column last week in which I paid tribute to the late Khalifa Baba-Ahmed I referred to the tree-some of Abba Zoru, Adamu Augie and Horatio Agedah as late. My attention has since been drawn to the fact that Abba Zoru is alive even if not so well. I wish to apologize to him, his family and friends for assuming that he has been dead. |