Al-Kanemi Before Danfodio's Court:
Sultan Bello’s Response to Kyari Tijjani
By
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
[LAGOS]
Professor Kyari Tijjani’s article, “George Bush before
Al-Kanemi’s Court” (Daily Trust, Friday, April 11, 2003)
should have borne the title “Dan Fodio before Al-Kanemi’s Court”, which
more closely reflects its contents and true purpose. The learned professor,
under the guise of stating the obvious injustice of the war by the US against
Iraq, succeeded, tepid disclaimers notwithstanding, in rehashing an old and
discredited thesis coming from Borno, questioning the legitimacy in Islamic law
of the jihad of Dan Fodio in Hausaland and insinuating that the Dan Fodios were
driven more by personal greed for power or tribal Fulani instincts than by the
Islamic credentials which they purported to display. The rulers of Borno had
historically received tributes from Hausa states, which, historians tell us,
were collected and forwarded by the Hausa King of Daura. As their Hausa allies
fell one by one to the advancing hordes of Fulani jihadists, Borno came to their
aid and was thus drawn into the conflict. As the kingdom itself came under
increasing threat, and in particular with the sacking of the imperial capital,
Gazargamu, by the Fulani under Gwoni Mukhtar, the ruler, Mai Ahmed, fled and
sought the help of the scholar Sheikh Muhammad Al-Amin Al-Kanemi whose
supporters amongst the Shuwa and Kanembu helped liberate the capital. Al-Kanemi
also served as the ideological spokesperson for Borno, and tried to show that
the war in Hausaland was nothing short of an unjustified act of aggression by
Fulani mercenaries lacking basis in Islamic Law. In effect, Kyari Tijjani
compares the Sokoto jihad, in its lack of basis and legitimacy, to the US
invasion of Iraq, and does this through a one-sided presentation of a vigorous
and intellectually rich debate. Although readers would have benefited
tremendously from a fair and complete presentation of the issues, we are sadly
presented with a partisan “reflection” which was fatally flawed in three
fundamental respects.
First, Kyari made no attempt to present to his readers the
defence put up by the Dan Fodios not just of their jihad in Hausaland but to
their charge of irreligion against Borno. Instead, he left the unwary reader
with an impression that the Fulani scholars’ response was to make an
“admission” that the jihad against Borno “cannot be justified as the
allegation of ‘irreligion’ or apostasy has not been proven.” Anyone
familiar with the letters exchanged between Borno and Sokoto knows that this is
far from the truth. I will in this piece present Sultan Bello’s proofs of the
nature of Borno’s apostasy and his articulate demolition of Al-Kanemi’s
arguments and refutation of his slander.
Second, and this follows from the first fatal flaw,
professor Kyari made no attempt to evaluate the merits and demerits of the
argument on either side of the debate. Instead an exotic picture is created of
the desirability of an Islamic ideal, founded on an “accommodating and
tolerant spirit”, in which any attempt to eradicate by force mere “sins”
like “offering alms in libation at certain specific locations” etc. was
contrary to Islamic injunctions. This is particularly because these practices
are prevalent even in “the cradle of Islam, in Mecca and Medina “ (actually
Al-Kanemi’s specific examples were Dimyat, then Egypt and Syria ). I will
present here Sultan Bello’s refutation of that argument.
The final flaw in Tijjani’s thesis was that he did not
tell his readers if the views held by Al-Kanemi on the illegitimacy of rebellion
against unjust rulers remained his view even after the debate with Sokoto.
Professor Ahmad Kani tells us in his book, Al- Jihad al-Islami fi
Gharb Afriqiya (p 93) that Al-Kanemi organized a military coup that brought
to an end about ten centuries of the Kanem empire. Also in 1824 he reached an
understanding with Sokoto that assured cooperation and alliance between the two
caliphates and guaranteed the security and territorial integrity of each from
the other (even though other readings, such as M. Last’s The Sokoto Caliphate,
would suggest that Borno was in breach of this agreement if it existed through
sporadic attacks on the caliphate’s eastern front, like the attacks on eastern
Kano which required the effort of several emirs to repel.)
Shall we presume that Shehu
Laminu of Borno was himself driven by personal greed for power into an unjust
rebellion against a Muslim leader and an alliance with “mercenaries”? Or is
it rather possible that he lost the argument and, convinced of his duty to do in
Borno what the Fulani scholars did in Hausaland he finally rose to the challenge
and abandoned his previous position? We must find a rational explanation for the
sudden change from the drumbeats of war to a prothalamion heralding new love.
The rest of this paper is split into three sections
covering, in that order, the case from Borno, the defence from Sokoto and
concluding reflections.
For the sake of completeness, and at the risk of repeating
some of what has been covered by professor Kyari in his paper, let me present
the essential building blocks for Shehu Laminu’s criticism of the Dan Fodio
Jihad in Hausaland and Borno. (All translations from Arabic to English are
mine).
The
charge of unbelief
First,
Al-Kanemi condemns the killing of his people and the enslavement of their
free-born in the name of a jihad. In his letter to Sokoto he writes: “ If you
say ‘we do that because of your unbelief’ we say we free from unbelief and
it is far from our lands. If saying the daily prayers and paying the zakat and
knowing Allah and fasting in Ramadhan and preserving the mosque are
unbelief, then what is Islam? And these buildings (in Hausaland) in which you
say your Friday prayers are they churches or monasteries or houses of fire? If
they are not among the signs of Islam why did you pray in them when you
conquered the lands? Is this not but an evident contradiction?”
Innovations
and unclean acts
As mentioned by Kyari, Al-Kanemi also addressed the
question of “contraventions” of the law by rulers and masses alike such as
“riding to ‘holy sites’ for the purpose of alms and libation, revealing
the heads of women, bribery, consuming the wealth of orphans, injustice in the
courts etc” and considered these “reprehensible innovations that must be
discouraged and condemned but those who do these things are not unbelievers.”
He argued that these things happen in other Muslim lands. Says he: “Look at Dimyat,
a great city among the cities of Islam lying between Egypt and Sham….yet
in its land is a tree where the people do what our own ‘Ajam people do
and not one of the ulama has risen to fight them nor declared them to be
unbelievers.” And again: “See Egypt which is like Borno and greater, and Sham
(Syria/Greater Palestine) and all the lands of Islam, in them there has been
bribery and oppression and eating the wealth of orphans etc from the days of the
Umayyads to our day. No time or place is free from its share of innovation and
sin. Now if all of them are unbelievers with all their books, why do you quote
from their works evidence for your position when they are unbelievers!”
Jihad
not legitimate
Shehu Laminu condemns the aggression of the Fulanis as
illegitimate. “Had you just commanded what is right and forbidden what is
wrong and kept away from people if they did not obey you that would have been
better than this act of yours.” He adds, for good measure: “ O how much a
source of wonder are you that after you had advancement in knowledge and
religion you then loved power and desired it! Your hearts led you and you
imagined things and took as proof for your actions literal texts that are no
proof! This most especially given what we have heard of the biography of Sheikh
Uthman bin Fudi and read in his books what contradicts your deeds. If this deed
originated from him then la haula wa la quwwata illa billah.”
This sums up, as briefly and fairly as I can, Shehu
Laminu’s position and it is this argument that Kyari relies on in his implicit
comparison of the Sokoto jihad (or at least the war on Borno) with the attack on
Baghdad by Bush and Blair.
The religious life of the Hausa and the nature of unbelief
among their rulers and masses is set out clearly in several works of Shehu
Uthman and his son and brother. In general, there were three groups among the
Hausas and the analysis can be found in Shehu Dan Fodio’s Nurul Albab,
Sultan Bello’s Infaq al-Maisur and Shehu Abdullahi’s Tazyeen al-Waraqat.
The first group is made up of the Muslims who professed
the faith and practiced it according to its tenets and did not hold any views
that detracted from Islam’s strict monotheism or practice anything of the
practices of unbelievers. These are believers.
The second group includes those who do not profess Islam
either because they have not been called to it or because they have rejected it.
They do not pray or fast, they worship trees or rocks or hills or jinns and
spirits and even abuse Allah. These are found among some Fulanis and Tuaregs and
are called among the Hausa “Maguzawa”. To the jihadists these are unbelievers
“at root” (kuffar bil asala).
The third group, called unbelievers by
syncretism(Kuffar bil Takhlit) are those who profess Islam and their acts
and/or beliefs are of both Islam and unbelief. They may pray or fast, but they
give glory to some trees or rocks or spirits, they claim to have knowledge of
the unseen through contact with jinns or reading the stars or making
lines in the sand etc. Unbelievers by syncretism say and do things that obviate tauhid
(Unity of Allah) and are unbelievers. Most of the rulers of Hausaland and their
soldiers and doctors and scholars were, according to the triumvirate of this
category of unbelief. It would seem the first point of dispute between Sokoto
and Borno is on whether fighting this group is legitimate. Sokoto obviously
believed so, most especially when to their syncretism is added their making
lawful that which Allah has made unlawful and
vice versa. In his book, Al- Farq bayna wilayat ahl al-Islam wa
wilayat ahl al-Kufr, Shehu Dan Fodio lists among the crimes of the
unbelieving rulers that they “prevent the servants of Allah from practicing
some of what He has made a law unto them, like the covering for women and it is
obligatory on them or the turban for men and it is for them sunnah. And
they call this prevention Doka”. Evidently, the unbelief of the rulers
here lies not in their allowing women to walk around uncovered (which, as argued
by Al-Kanemi, is a sin and innovation) but in making laws that prevent women
from covering themselves as prescribed by Allah (which is kufr or
unbelief because it seeks to repeal divine revelation). There is a fine but
clear distinction between the two in law. To commit adultery, for example, is a
sin. To believe that adultery is lawful or to legalise it is unbelief. Jihad is
not waged on adulterers, but it may be waged on a Muslim society that
promulgates laws legalizing adultery.
It is trite Muslim
theology that a syncretist is an
unbeliever. The pagan Arabs of Jahiliyyah were unbelievers precisely
because they combined the belief in and worship of Allah with other deities and
polytheism (shirk) is not just an innovation but unbelief. The Christians
believe in one God. Their unbelief, in Muslim theology, arises from attribution
of divinity to Jesus Christ or to Mary, and the concept of a Holy or Divine
Trinity as contained in the Athanasian Creed.
We read in the Qur’an, “indeed those who say ‘Allah is Jesus the
son of Mary’ have disbelieved” and also “indeed those who say ‘Allah is
the third (member) of a trinity’ have disbelieved.”
The unbelief of syncretists is known in Islamic theology
by necessity. If they offer libations to trees and rocks and spirits as an act
of worship and devotion then they have set partners to Allah in His Uluhiyyah.
If they do this believing that the trees etc can ward off evil or bring good or
protect them or cure them or benefit them in any way they have set partners to
Allah in His Rububiyyah. As for their “doka”, it is also known that
he who believes what Allah has made lawful (halal) is unlawful (haram)
or vice versa is an unbeliever. When a verse was revealed indicating that the
people of the book worship their religious leaders a convert among the
companions said : “We did not worship them O Messenger of Allah.” The
prophet asked him: “Did you not obey them when they made halal for you
that which Allah made haram, and haram for you that which Allah
had made halal?” “Yes,” he replied. “Therein lies your worship of
them”, says the prophet. This is contained in most exegeses of the relevant
verse.
Al- Kanemi had protested that the kingdom of Borno was free from unbelief and Professor Kyari Tijjani in his paper argued, as we have said, that even the leaders of the Sokoto Jihad admitted this. Let me quote directly from Sultan Bello’s letter to Al-Kanemi what he said on the unbelief of Borno and the reason for the jihad against its rulers:
“Know
you therefore that the reason we wage war on you is because you are in open
alliance with Hausa unbelievers and helping them against us without any taqiyyah(ie
without being forced to conceal
your enmity with them out of fear for yourselves). He who is a helper to
unbelievers against believers is like them based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah
and the Ijma’ (consensus of scholars.) Also we fight you because you harm
those living close to you from the jama’ah and even forced them into Hijrah
and you initiated hostilities with them in solidarity with the Hausa kings.
There is no question but that being pleased with unbelief (ridha bil kufr)
is unbelief and you now therefore know that knowledge of Allah and daily prayers
and zakat and fasting and preserving mosques will not prohibit fighting you
nor be of benefit to you in this world or the hereafter because of the
establishment of your apostasy from Islam if indeed you were previously good
Muslims!”
Again I would say this is known in Islam by necessity. The Sultan’s point was that Borno was helping the Hausa kings out of its own volition, not out of fear of what they could do to it because it was a strong state. Allah says in the Qur’an: “Let not the believers take the unbelievers for their allies in preference to the believers since he who does this cuts himself off from Allah in everything-unless it be to protect yourselves against them in this way…” We also read: “O you who believe! Do not take Jews and Christians as your allies (against Muslims). They are helpers each to the other. And he who helps them from among you is among them…” And also: “O you who believe! Do not take for your allies those who are My enemies and your enemies showing them affection even though they have denied the truth that has come to you, and have driven the Messenger and yourselves from your homes because you believe in Allah your Lord…And any of you who does this has strayed from the right path.” etc.
Clearly the jihad against Borno had a basis in the unbelief of the leaders through their willing support for unbelief and the aggression against the caliphate. Kyari Tijjani writes in his article that “the Borno Fulani, ‘emulating’ Dan Fodio” had “taken arms against the Mai of Borno” and suggests that the action was commenced when they “learnt that their kinsmen in Hausaland…(had) mounted a jihad against their own rulers”. Several accounts by historians contradict these claims and actually support Sulatn Bello’s version of events.
We are told by R.M. East, for instance that following the eruption of hostilities in Hausaland the ruler of Daura fled to the east and the Sarki of Kano, Alwali, sought the help of Mai Ahmed of Borno who in turn sent in troops under the Galadima Dunama. It was only after the defeat of the combined forces of Kano and Borno in the battle of Dan Yahaya that that the Muslim Fulani in Borno, under the leadership of Ardo Abduwa revolted against the Mai, in the dry season of 1804-5. All of the ‘revolts’ by Fulani leaders like Abduwa’s sons Yusuf, Umaru and Sambo Digimsa, Ibrahim Zaki of Shira and Ardo Lerlima were subsequent to the Borno alliance with Kano in war. It was a result of these revolts that the emirates of Auyo, Hadejia, Misau, Jama’are, and Katagum came into existence.
As
for Sultan Bello’s assertion that the Borno rulers persecuted Fulani members
of the jama’a in their neighbourhood and forced them into migration, we know
from S.E. Koelle that the risings of the Felata in southern dependencies started
when the Mai’s appointee as chief of Daya, Salgami, persecuted them to the
extent of “ordering all the people of the towns to kill the Phula.” They had
to migrate to Gujba and defend themselves against successive expeditions from
Borno led by Kaigama Made, Kaigama Ali Marema and Kaigama Dunama, as we are told
by Sa’ad Abubakar in his The Lamibe of Fombina. It was after the defeat
of all these expeditions that Gwoni Mukhtar led his troops into metropolitan
Borno and eventually captured Gazargamo in 1808, and it was at this point that
Al- Kanemi came on the scene.
Far
from being innocent targets of an unjust war, we therefore see that the Sayfawa
were active persecutors of the jama’ah and collaborators with the
forces of unbelief ranged against the caliphate. Comparing the actions of the
Fulani in self-defense with the crime of Bush and Blair is a slander of no mean
proportions. Wa la haula wa la quwwata illa billah.
I have mentioned above that Sultan Bello rejected the argument that because some ulama have tolerated grievous sins without fighting the perpetrators therefore all ulama should do the same. In any event he did not agree with Al-Kanemi that no scholar had declared syncretic acts similar to those perpetrated by the Hausas to be unbelief or the perpetrators themselves unbelievers. To quote the Sultan again in his letter to Borno:
“ As for your statement, ‘look at Dimyat’ to the end
of that statement, we do not concede to you that the ulama did not turn
to fight them nor declare them to be unbelievers. Look at Abdulrahman Ibn Yusuf
al-Shareef who turned to the tree that was in Sijilmasa and cut it down
and said ‘it is like Insiwat’ and you (ie Al-Kanemi) know that Insiwat
is among the idols of jahiliyyah!” In other words, Sheikh Abdulrahman
had declared those practices to be idol-worship, which is kufr. So the
claim of lack of precedence was baseless.
The Fulani leaders always recognized that the role of ulama
in society is to command to the good and prohibit evil. They also were conscious
of the appropriate limits of interaction between the ulama and corrupt
power. This is set out clearly in, for instance, Shehu Uthman’s Masa’il
Muhimmah. The significance of hijra is also set out in the Shehu’s Bayan
Wujub al-Hijrah. In this they agree with Al-Kanemi. Where they differ is
that the Fulani leaders correctly perceived war as one stage, or one possible
form of ‘Amr bil Ma’ruf and Nahy ‘anil-Munkar(commanding good and
forbidding evil). Again, all readings of the fiqh of jihad including the
works of scholars like Ibn Taimiya support the Sokoto view of this, its origin
being the authentic hadith: “He among you who sees evil should change it with
his hands and if he cannot then with his mouth and if he cannot then with his
heart and this is the weakest level of faith.” Clearly where preaching fails
then if possible the situation should be corrected, by force if necessary. And
this is jihad.
Perhaps the best expression I have seen of this in Sokoto
works is the exhortation of Uthman DanFodio in his Watheeqah Ila Jami’ Ahl
al-Sudan:
“Know you, O brothers! That commanding good is
obligatory by consensus (Ijma’an). That forbidding evil is obligatory
by consensus. That hijrah from the land of unbelievers is obligatory by
consensus….That jihad is obligatory by consensus….etc”
Clearly they felt bound to wage war if their preaching
against acts of kufr failed and they faced persecution for practicing
their religion. The Shehu’s jihad was patterned after that of the Holy Prophet
and he went through all the necessary stages before taking up arms as a last
resort.
Fimally,
Sultan Bello rebuked Al-Kanemi for his personal and vitriolic attack which was
not based on issues, and denied that they were motivated by greed or the hunger
for power in their acts. Sultan Bello believed Al-Kanemi had already formed an
opinion, or perhaps he was relying on things written by their enemies. In any
event, the Sultan wrote: “ How can you bear witness for us as having knowledge
and attribute to us ignorance and perversion? For whenever we desire power our
knowledge and religion are removed from us and we return to nothing but the
desires and imaginations of the mind!” He also wrote: “Everything you said
about us is extreme falsehood and fabrications, which you took as a means of
libeling and slandering Muslims and your heart made this seem good to you
and you imagined that this can serve as a strong evidence for your
erroneous opinion (madhhabikal fasid) and it cannot ever be so! In
reality prejudice had already entered your heart and others like you had written
about us and you listened to them (and took) words that are inappropriate either
because of their failure to explain the whole truth or your own wrong
understanding and Allah knows best.” In these words the Sultan was inviting
Shehu Laminu to desist from attacking personalities and imputing motives and
focus on the evidence backing the argument from the Qur’an and Sunnah, as a
discussion of issues was more fitting to his stature in knowledge.
Concluding reflections
The debate between Sokoto and Borno was a long and rich
one in the tradition of the Sokoto caliphate. It is important for understanding
an argument to define the scope and nature of disagreement. Both sides were in
complete agreement on many points. They agreed that the rulers of Hausaland land
and Borno were unjust, that acts being committed in those lands were unIslamic
and abhorrent, that the ulama had a duty to condemn those acts and that
if the perpetrators did not desist the community should separate itself from
them. The area of disagreement was
on whether these acts took the societies outside the pale of Islam and justified
a jihad. The Fulani scholars,for the record, were open-minded and tolerant. That
Islam is a religion of ease and that scholars should be tolerant of the failings
of the people and find them relief wherever possible are central themes running
through the works of the triumvirate. Perhaps the most explicit and detailed
work showing this is, in my view, Shehu Uthman’s Najmul Ikhwan. No one
who has read this book will believe that Sokoto needed lessons in tolerance and
pluralism from Borno. However, the view from Sokoto is that tolerance has limits
and bounds and these limits are set, in the area of doctrine, by strict
monotheism (tauhid) and in the area of law by the Qur’an, the Sunnah
and the rulings of recognized schools of law. ‘Tolerance and accommodation’
do not extend to polytheism, in an Islamic (as opposed to a secular or
multi-religious) state.
It is also possible that Al-Kanemi, initially, was not
presented with a correct picture of how the battle started between the Fulani
and Borno. It is important to remember that Al-Kanemi was an itinerant scholar
who perhaps came to Borno after the jihad had started. An indicator of this lies
in the words with which he himself opened his criticism of the Dan Fodio jihad:
“ When fate drew me to these lands I met a fire already stoked between you and
its peoples. I asked for the cause and (one side) said ‘rebellion (baghy)’
while (the other) said ‘Sunnah.’’ It is therefore conceivable that
his initial defence of Borno was based on the information given him by his hosts
and it was only after exchanging correspondence with Sultan Bello that he
understood the full picture. His knowledge of the conditions in Hausaland was
also bound to be superficial, when compared to that of the Dan Fodios.
Beyond this, however, the fact remains that Al-Kanemi was
critical not just of the war in Borno but in Hausaland even though he did not
dispute the facts on ground. In this he was relying on evidence he believed he
had of the absence of precedence among scholars of fighting perpetrators of
these ‘sins’. That evidence turned out to be faulty as shown by Sultan
Bello. It is also possible, as noted by professor Ahmad Kani (Op. Cit. p.93),
that Al-Kanemi was conditioned by the intellectual traditions of Libya where he
was born and Egypt where he spent long years. The 19th century is
generally considered a century of intellectual stagnation and a resistance to
Ijtihad and belief in the ‘closing’ of its doors. In northern Nigeria he met
a vibrant group of ulama who were led by the Mujtahid Uthman Dan
Fodio and his immediate response to that would be, to borrow a term from the
Iraqi war, ‘shock and awe.’
In the final analysis Shehu Laminu himself is reported to have overthrown his patrons, made peace(albeit a shaky one) with Sokoto and forged an alliance with Sultan Bello. Although the Fulani had not succeeded in conquering Borno, they were instrumental to this in-house revolution, which led to the reforms of the system and the establishment of an Islamic state run on the same basis as Sokoto. To rely on Shehu Laminu’s early views in a contemporary article is to distort his final message and deny his later views, thus placing a stamp of illegitimacy on his own later political life, which effectively copied the moves of the Dan Fodios. As the saying goes, “always remember when you point a finger at someone that three of your fingers are pointed back at you.”