Values and Identity in the Muslim North
By
Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi
21ST JANUARY, 2001
[LAGOS, NIGERIA]
Dr.
Mahmud M. Tukur's book,
A
discussion of Tukur's ethical theory is essential for a number of reasons.
First, it tells us, in effect, what constituted the "manifesto" of the
Sokoto caliphate in the sense that he gathers, from disparate sources, the
philosophical elements in the writings of Uthman b. Fodio, Abdullah b. Fodio and
Muhammad Bello b. Uthman and presents a coherent framework for grasping their
ethical theory. Tukur classifies these values, which he calls “Caliphal”
values, into three. Leadership values
are: Justice; Honesty and Integrity; Ease and Kindness; Abstinence, Moderation
and Asceticism; and Service to the Community.
Process
values are: Consultation, Advice and Consent; Obedience; and Privacy. Finally, Community values are: Unity and Consensus; The Primacy of Public
Interest; and Welafare and social Justice. These were identified and properly
annotated by Tukur from writings of the triumvirate dated almost a full century
before the arrival of the colonialist. In so presenting them, Tukur makes two
fundamental points. He establishes the historical truth that the Sokoto
Caliphate did not come into contact with these values through colonialism. They
were part of its Islamic Heritage. He also offers as a panacea to our national
problems a return to those values as a Code of Conduct for Public Officers,
especially those in positions of leadership.
Second,
by placing these core "caliphate" values as the focal point for
communal identity, Dr. Tukur addresses a fundamental problem facing many Muslim
Northerners today: the question of a triple identity.
Are they northerners, Muslims or Hausa/Fulani (whatever that means?). In
effect, Dr. Tukur gives us a yardstick for definition of "self" in a
state of political flux. The definitive basis for communal belonging is
"cooperation with fellow members to achieve the higher values of society
or service in the interest of the community's raison d'etre" (p. 40 - 41). The significance of this is that
we consider an interest as worthy of defending, a cause as worthy of pursuing
and a person as worthy of associating with purely based on conformity or
otherwise to these higher values.
Although Tukur does not explicitly say this, it also logically follows that
since these caliphal values are "Islamic", the definitive basis for
identity of the northern Muslim is Islam,
as a corpus of teachings rather
than of actions of persons. Thus the fact that a "northerner" or a
"Muslim" or a "Fulani" is the subject of a political issue
is not sufficient to make that issue a "northern", "Islamic"
or "Fulani" one. The bottom line is how consistent is the issue at
stake with the teachings of Islam as incorporated in the value-systems
underlying the caliphate. In effect, every other identity is subsumed under our
Islamic identity and the Islamic values are the ones worthy of defending. These are not to be
sacrificed in the name of "nationalism" or "northern
politics" or even "Muslims". Indeed even those Muslim States that
seek to implement sharia are to be judged against the yardstick of these values.
For those of us who write articles and comment on politics, this hypothesis is a
refreshing balm, which we are able to appropriate as legitimation and validation
of our sometimes controversial position. It is very common for a writer to be
labelled a "traitor" to "the North" or "Muslims"
for taking a position at variance with the fantasies of a sentiment- driven
eclectic consciousness. Language is a moral medium; writing an instrument of
ethical illumination, political consciencisation and social mobilisation. The
task of the intellectual is not one of blending into the opaque consciousness of
the tumultous mob around him, his voice drowned in a cacophony of misdirected
protests. His task is to remind them of who they are and what they ought to be.
Our values are not to be taken from conduct of our adversaries but from the
great heritage of our people.
For
all these reasons Dr. Tukur's thesis and hypothesis need thorough ventilation in
the realm of public discourse. The
ideas in the book need distillation, analysis, simplification and dissemination
as part of the process of developing a renewed consciousness in our great
heritage, a sense of our true identity and a definitive direction for future
political strategy. There is also a
need to subject elements of theory to microscopic study with a view to
extension, amendment or rejection of premises, approaches and conclusions as the
need may arise.
There
is however an aspect of the learned doctor’s thought about which I have
reservations. Dr. Tukur
understands, correctly, that the value system underlying the early founders'
manifesto was essentially drawn from Islamic sources, specifically the Quran,
Sunnah and biographies of the rightly-guided Caliphs.
However, he goes beyond this and seems to believe that these values are
exclusive to Islam, as a religion. I
do not know if Dr. Tukur makes this claim explicitly anywhere.
However, the book is laced with a tendency to attribute the failing of
our value system to the influence of "Western Liberal thought", a
certain mistrust of "westernisation" and Judaeo-Christian
civilization. Even chief Awolowo is
blamed for thinking of freedom, knowledge and justice as values only in
"the tradition of Lockean and American Liberal Democracy…" without
relating these "to the tradition of the Yoruba people to achieve a
symbiosis that might result in a value system harmonious with the actual
conditions of the living Yoruba society". (P. 234).
This
argument is open to valid criticism at two separate intellectual levels, the
theoretical and the philosophical. On
the first count, which is simpler, one might say that the criticism levelled
against the Action Group can be levelled against the founders of the Caliphate. There
is no evidence that Shehu Dan Fodio and his son and brother made any effort to
achieve a symbiosis between the "Caliphal values" they imposed and the
"traditions" of the Hausa people.
Indeed the overwhelming evidence is that they fought for a divorce
between religion and traditions (which were considered innovations ) and the restoration of Islam's pristine purity.
That Dr. Tukur does not find this fact a detraction nullifies the
principle underlying the criticism he levels against the Action Group and other
nationalist Forces.
On
a much deeper level, Dr. Tukur's point here raises a fundamental philosophical
question which has engaged the minds of philosophers and which holds for me a
special fascination: Do we create
values or do we discover them? Phrased in the context of Tukur's Islamic discourse, did
Islam create these values or did it unveil
them? This question was in a slightly modified form a notorious one in Islamic
Philosophy. Usually stated as the question of tahsin
and taqbih aqliyyain the
theological question was whether the intellect, unguided by revelation is
capable of apprehending Good and Evil and indeed whether Good and Evil exist
independent of Divine Revelation. The Mu’tazilites, Shiites, some Kharijites
and, among Sunnis Maturidites tend to believe in the existence of Good and Evil
independent of Revelation. The contrary view is held by Ash’arites, the vast
majority in Sunni Islam. A thorough philosophical understanding of this point is
central to our critique of Tukur's thought and of his perception of the world of
political values as an Islamic/non-Islamic (read Christian) dichotomy.
Let
me try to put down my own philosophical thoughts on this matter of values in the Islamic schema. The
Qur'an in various verses describes the Believers as a special people who
"command good (ma'ruf)"
and "prohibit evil (munkar)"
and of course believe in Allah. The
prophet himself is said to be described in earlier books as one who commands
this "ma'ruf" and forbids
this "munkar". The word "ma'ruf", translated as "good",
is actually from the root a.r.f. which means to know. (Thus ma'rifa is knowledge; ma'ruf
is the known).
The word "munkar," translated as evil is from the root n.k.r meaning not
to know so munkar is actually the
unknown. A number of scholars from Mu’tazilite times have argued that the
use of these terms proves that what religion preaches is already
"known" to the intellect as "good" and what it prohibits is
"unknown" to the intellect. In his classic work, Madarijus
salikin, the Hanbalite scholar Ibn Qayyim reports the story of the desert
Arab who was asked why he accepted Islam. He replied:"Not once did Muhammad
command something and the Intellect said "would that he had not commanded
it!" Not once did he forbid something and the intellect said " Would
that he had allowed it!" To
me, this reply of the desert Arab is filled with deep implications from a
philosophical perspective. To this Arab, the Revelation of Islam was, indeed a revelation in the sense that it revealed to his intellect truths he
knew. The message had the impact of good art which, according to Plato is an anamnesis,
a "reminder" of things we knew without knowing that we knew them. So when the prophet (S.A.W.) says, "do this" the
intellect immediately recognizes that it is good. And when he says "stop this" the intellect, on
reflection "sees" the evil in it.
If
this is so, then "good" and "evil" exist independent of a
particular revelation. They exist,
to use a concept from Plato's theory of Forms, as Universals
or, in Kantian terms as Categorical
Imperatives independent of time, space and culture.
There is, as affirmed by Iris Murdoch a metaphysical phenomenon, The
Good, which we may apprehend and against which we can see the imperfection
of our world. Through this, we see
that Leibniz was wrong in defining our world as the "best of possible
worlds", a concept rightly parodied and caricatured by Dr. Pangloss in
Voltaire's Candide.
If
all this is correct, then the political values identified by Dr. Tukur are
Islamic in the sense that Islam revealed them in the literal sense of the word,
unveiled them and incorporated them into its teachings.
Islam did not "create" them or appropriate them to the
exclusion of other schema. These values could have been present in other schema
prior to, contemporaneous with or even subsequent to the Islamic revelation,
since this unveiling does not in anyway obviate the philosophical possibility of
other routes to apprehension of these metaphysical, universal phenomena - say
through empirical experience, rational contemplation, illumination or other
revelation (like the Biblical).
Accepting
the principle means that a system being “Christian”, or “Western”, or
“Chinese” or whatever does not, in itself, make it incompatible with the
political values (be they "leadership" or "process" values)
identified by Dr. Tukur. Indeed,
Tukur himself quotes Shehu Uthman's famous dictum:
"A kingdom can endure with unbelief but not with injustice".
This dictum suggests that an "unbelieving people" can be just,
and a "believing people" unjust.
The possibility of coexistence between unbelief and justice obviates the
principle of co-extensiveness between these values and Islam.
Indeed the evidence of the world we live in today is that the "core
caliphal values" Dr. Tukur wishes us to have, are more present in the
“Christian Civilisations " of
the “Western Liberal Democracies" than in Muslim countries. The reality
is that no justification exists, on the basis of Liberal Thought or the
objective political cultures of Western Countries for attributing to them the
brazen corruption, callous abuse of personal liberties and pig-headed idiocy of
some of Nigeria’s past rulers. What is correct is to say that our problems
started with the emergence of a crop of rulers who never had the benefit of an
ethical education, whether Western or Islamic, having been incubated, as it
were, in the dissolute environment of Military barracks.
"Western
thought", of which Dr. Tukur is so mistrustful, actually has a profound
discussion of several of these "Caliphal values" from Socrates and
Plato, to Epicurus and Seneca, to Kant and Murdoch.
So does Confucian and Taoist thought. Indeed, inspite of major doctrinal
differences between Islam and Christianity, both religions show a remarkable
confluence in the realm of Political Values. We therefore conclude that this
bifurcated conceptualization of value-space; this dichotomization into Islamic
Vs. Christian, is an intellectual construct of questionable philosophical
validity. It weakens Tukur’s own model not least because it strips his
“Caliphal” values of their universal character and applicability.
The
practical implication of this conclusion is that the solution to Nigeria’s
problem is not really as far as it seems. The realization that the Caliphal
values of Tukur are to be found in both Islam and Christianity means that good
Muslims and good Christians can
come together and run a system that is based on these values. For the Northern
Muslims as a whole, Tukur’s Ethics becomes a clarion call for holding on to
their heritage, but reaching out to others in the constant march towards a just
and free society where values reign supreme.