Nigeria court to rule on stoning
By the BBC's Dan Isaacs
Sokoto, northern Nigeria
A Nigerian appeal court is due to give its judgement on Monday(today) in the
case of a Muslim woman convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by
stoning.

Safiya Husaini is the first woman to be convicted of this crime under a
strict Islamic legal system introduced in Nigeria's majority-Muslim northern
states two years ago.

Others have committed worse crimes, but because they are men, and because
they have influence in high places, they are not punished

While she awaits the outcome of her appeal, Safiya has been free to live at
home with her family in the village of Tungar Tudu, about 90 kilometres (55
miles) from the state capital, Sokoto.

She looks far older than her 35 years.

With her head covered in a Muslim veil, she comforts a small child in her
arms. A life of hardship and poverty have taken their toll.

As we sit together on a mat in the courtyard of her family home, her
daughter Adama is crying.

The existence of this little child was enough to convince the judge of her
guilt.

Safiya looks far older than her 35 years

Under Islamic law as practiced in Nigeria, pregnancy outside marriage - even
for a divorcee - is sufficient evidence to convict a woman.

In the court case, during which Safiya had no legal representation, the man
accused of fathering the child was acquitted.

Although she believes Muslims should live by sharia law, Safiya feels that
she has been treated very unfairly.

"It's because I am poor," she tells me. "Because I am a woman, this is
happening to me. Other people have committed worse crimes, but because they
are men, and because they have influence in high places, they are not
punished."

A 'sleeping' embryo

Safiya's lawyers have advised her that her original claim that she was
coerced into the relationship would not convince the court, because she did
not say this at her first trial.

So during the appeal hearing, it was claimed that Safiya's former husband -
from whom she was divorced two years ago - was the father of the child.

She was not claiming that they had slept together after the dissolution of
the marriage, but that the pregnancy had lain "dormant" in her womb - a
valid defence within sharia law.


Judge Mohammed Bello Sanyinlawal passed sentence last October

In fact, it is possible to claim this defence of the "sleeping" embryo up to
seven years after a divorce.

There has been widespread international pressure on the Nigerian Government
to pardon Safiya.

But the federal authorities have been powerless to intervene directly,
because of Nigeria's devolved system of government that give the country's
majority-Muslim northern states the powers to introduce their own legal
codes.

The case has not only tested Nigeria's constitution and the independence of
individual states to conduct their own affairs - it has also clearly caused
divisions with Nigeria's federal government.

Difficult position

President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is himself a devout Christian, has been
placed in a very awkward position.

Although he is clearly uncomfortable with the strict Islamic punishments, to
challenge the validity of sharia law would be seen as "anti-Muslim".

And in a country with a recent history of communal and religious violence,
such a position could have a dangerously destabilising effect.

If she loses her appeal, Safiya's lawyers can take the case further, right
up to the Supreme Court in the federal capital, Abuja.

Only then would the legality of sharia criminal punishments be truly tested
within the Nigerian constitution.

ON THIS STORY
The BBC's Daniel Isaacs
"Safiya is widely expected to win her appeal"

Okigie warns against killing Safiya.
This Day (Lagos)

March 23, 2002
Posted to the web March 23, 2002

Andrew Ahiante
Lagos

Catholic Archbishop of Lagos Dr. Anthony Olubunmi Okogie has warned of the
grave consequences of stoning Safiya Hussaini Tundu to death, just as he
debunked contentions in Moslem quarters that the Koran approves stoning to
death for adultery.

Apparently supporting Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the
Feder-ation, Mr. Kanu Agabi's statement to the Northern Gover-nors operating
Sharia Laws to be cautious in the application of the Law, Okogie noted in a
statement that what the governors were doing were already outside the
stipulation of the Islamic legal code, and warned of the great consequences,
should the governors continued the implementation of the Sharia Law in their
respective States with utmost disregard to the nations constitution.

Issuing the warning and contention in a strongly worded press statement
signed by the Director of Social Commu-nications, Lagos Archdiocese,
Reverend Father. Gabriel Osu, the Archbishop equally condemned shedding of
human blood because, according to him, blood in the Holy Book means life
stressing that God alone is the Author of life.

He asserted that the well known Mahmud Mohammed Taha made a clear
distinction between Sharia and Islam, stressing that "Sharia is not part of
Islamic religion, but deals solely with customs and traditions of a
particular people living at the time and, in the land of a particular nation
and that it is not transferable".

"Safiya must not be stoned to death; laws are made for man, not man for law
What will anyone gain from shedding human blood", the clergyman cautioned.

SHARIACRACY IN NIGERIA: THE INTELLECTUAL ROOTS OF ISLAMIST DISCOURSES

BY

SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI

With the swearing in of elected executives of Nigeria's fourth (or is it
third?) republic in May 1999 the political system witnessed an explosion of
hitherto repressed tendencies. One of the most dramatic was the decision of
the Zamfara State government to implement the full provisions of Islamic law
or Shariah in the penal code. The decision had a bandwagon (or to use
Kissinger's terminology, domino) effect on other predominantly Muslim states
in the North with governors following suit with varying degrees of
enthusiasm. Professor Ali Mazrui coined the term "Shariacracy" to describe
the phenomenon of implementing shariah in a presidential democracy.

Political discourse on Shariacracy has taken a variety of forms. At one
level there has been the debate between Muslims and non-Muslims, broadly
speaking, on the legitimacy of the project within the context of a "secular"
or of a "multi-religious" polity (depending on perspective). At a different
level there have been attempts at analyzing the root causes, nature,
stimulants and consequences of the development. Some see it as the
maturation of strategies hatched by Muslims, which were aimed at retrieving
their heritage from the abyss of western materialism. Others portray it as
the spontaneous reaction of a populace to the decision by a pious Muslim
politician to uplift the word of God. Still others view it as an
opportunistic political ploy by a corrupt and discredited northern Muslim
elite to exploit religion for political ends in light of the emergence of a
southern Christian president. Finally, some regard it as one of several
possible modes of expressing discontent with poverty, illiteracy and general
financial and economic difficulties. The truth is most probably some
combination of all the above factors.

What is missing, (or largely missing), from discourse is the recognition
that Islamic revival in Nigeria is not taking place in an intellectual
vacuum. It is inspired by currents of intellectual discourse in the Muslim
world which represent, to quote Edward Said, "a struggle in Islamic
societies over the definition of Islam." This struggle or contest has given
rise to various paradigms each representing a description of what is
considered the Islamic imperative in a modern state. This paper reviews the
various currents in Islamic political theory and thus provides the missing
link in discourse. The objective is to provide a better understanding of the
diversity of views held by Muslim intellectuals and correct the impression
that Political Islam is a monolithic phenomenon. Such a background is
considered crucial to a proper understanding of the debate within Islamist
circles on the shariacracy project. In what follows I have relied
extensively on a public lecture I presented at the Muslim Forum of Bayero
University, Kano on Sunday 1st November 1998 entitled "Hakimiyya, Jahiliyya,
Jihad: Revolutionary Islam and Nigerian Democracy".
Political Islam: Religion or Politics?

The entire project of Islamic revival in politics is based on one premise:
Islam is both religion and state (al-Islam Din wa Daulah). Although Islam
has never had an institutionalized clergy in the catholic sense, the fact
that it has something to say on every aspect of human life makes it
inextricably linked to politics. Muslim jurists have therefore made comments
and given rulings on matters political and this raises interesting
questions.

Where does religion end and politics begin? How does one separate the
political dimension of Muslim thought from the religious imperatives of
Islam? As we read the works of jurists and intellectuals like Mawardi, Ibn
Taimiya, Khomeini, Qutb, Maududi, Afghani, Abduh, Turabi etc, how do we
separate the Word of Allah and His Prophet (S. A. W.) from the
interpretation and interpolation of human beings? I begin from the premise
that in its various intellectual forms and practical expressions, once taken
out of its purely religious sphere of Ibadat and Muamalat, Islam means (or
can mean) different things to different people. When we deal with literature
on Islam in its political sphere we are dealing with a political theory
propounded by individuals each of whom seeks the interpretation of politics
in the light of the content of revelation, as he sees it.

In what follows I will present a summary of at least four different
positions on what constitutes an Islamic system and then round up with
random thoughts on the Nigerian situation. I have restricted myself to
scholars of this century, writing in and for our own time.

Political Islam as Autocracy of the Ulama: Khomeini, Mutahhari

The Islamic Government in Iran which came to power after it won the upper
hand in a bitter struggle between various subsystems which constituted the
popular rejection of the deposed Shah is conducted on the basis of a unique
theoretical formulation, largely attributable to Ruhollah Khomeini, the
concept of the "Wilayat al-faqih". (Guardianship of the Juris Consult).
Khomeini’s principal thesis lay in his arguing for the legitimacy of an
Islamic Government led by a faqih (Juris-consult) who is to be "partly
appointed by God and partly selected by the Ulama". This theory effectively
provided legitimacy to a government such as was formed in Iran after the
fall of the Shah. Within Shiite intellectual circles Khomeini’s theory was
considered an innovation since Shiite political theory hitherto was grounded
on the belief that every government is effectively illegal until the
re-emergence of the 12th Imam from occultation (or ghaiba). Khomeini
conferred on the faqih the rights and obligations due the infallible Imam in
the latter’s absence thus planting the seeds of a dictatorship in which a
single scholar exercises, in the name of religion, absolute power which
could not be questioned. This was later strengthened by the writings of
Khomeini’s protégé, Ayatollah Murtadha Mutahhari. Mutahhari as an ideologue
was concerned both with a need for a revolutionary theory to justify
rebellion against the Shah’s unIslamic regime and in-built checks to
neutralize the growing influence of socialist thinkers, whose revolution
against the Shah would be not just to have Shariah but, perhaps more
importantly, to establish the rule of the oppressed. This would be a threat
not just to the capitalist classes who were allies of the Ulama but to the
Ulama themselves who formed a stratum in the higher echelons of society.

Mutahhari strongly emphasized the "class-neutral" nature of Islamic doctrine
in the sense that piety and the fear of God cut across all social and
political classes. Since the Islamic system does not differentiate among
humans except on the basis of taqwa (fear of God) radical and class-based
theories were "unIslamic". Mutahhari adds "flesh", as it were, to Khomeini’s
basic principles by arguing that only those who are thoroughly familiar with
the Qur’an, Sunnah, Islamic Jurisprudence and epistemology can occupy
positions of leadership in the Islamic State. The net effect of Mutahhari’s
embellishments is to upgrade Khomeini’s theory of the Islamic State into one
of a full-scale dictatorship of the Ulama.

The theories of Khomeini and Mutahhari thus form an integral whole,
providing legitimacy to a revolution that cuts across classes united by
faith in Islam and who are (presumably) willing to subject themselves to the
rule of Islamic Scholars. After the Iranian revolution, the Ulama did in
fact move to consolidate their position, crushing allies like the Mujahidin,
forcing elements like Banu Sadr out of the power and into exile, and
marginalising others like Prime Minister Bazargan. In January, 1998 Khomeini
proclaimed what he called the absolute power (Al-Wilayah al-Mutlaqah) of the
Faqih. The Freedom Movement of Iran (FMI) at that time declared that from a
sociopolitical viewpoint, this was nothing but "religious and state
despotism and dictatorship, resulting in the disappearance of freedom,
independence and identity". The FMI declared Khomeini’s edict an
unprecedented religious innovation that is rooted in neither the Qur’an,
Sunnah nor political imperatives.

I will presently discuss the importance of this model to an understanding of
events in contemporary northern Nigerian politics. First, however, I would
like to make the following observations. Khomeini’s theory, radical as it
may seem, is not without precedent in political thought and, in particular
the political thought of the religious establishment. In 1864, Pope Pius IX
proclaimed The Syllabus of Errors and an accompanying encyclical entitled
Quanta Cura. In these documents the Pope denounced the liberty of speech,
the freedom of press comment, the equal status of all religions, democratic
government, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. He also denounced
" all those who assert that the church may not use force." It is also to be
recalled that this same pope assembled bishops at a Vatican Council in 1870
and after some very unchristian-like pressure secured the vote confirming
"Papal infallibility". His infallibility. Khomeini’s principle of absolute
power to the jurist is not different from Pope Pius IX’s principle of Papal
Infallibility. Both theories also mirror that of the Philosopher-Ruler
espoused by the Platonic Socrates. The philosopher-king is selected by
fellow-philosophers. The Pope is selected by his fellow-cardinals. The
Juris-Consult is selected by his fellow-jurists. Each of these is a case of
"scholars" attributing to themselves the right to determine the lives of the
populace in the name of "God" or "good governance". In this sense it mirrors
the attitude of traditional scholarship not just in the Shiite, but also
(with some semantic alterations), in the Sunni world. The Greeks recognized
Socrates as an ideologue for despotism and promptly sentenced him to death.
The Protestant Movement, starting with Martin Luther, marked the beginning
of the end for papal infallibility. Is there anything in Khomeini's
Political Theory that can shed light on some salient features of Nigerian
shariacracy?

One thing that is clear from the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih and from the
reality on ground in Iran after the revolution is that religious revival,
defined strictly as a return to the implementation of shariah, tends to
concentrate power in the hands of the religious establishment. For this
reason the ulama tend to jump on the shariah bandwagon and whip up
sentiments around the implementation of Islamic law. Often, though not in
all cases, they tend not to question relations of exploitation and
oppression. Indeed they encourage tolerance of corrupt regimes so long as
they implement "shariah" and stress that the spiritual benefit of being
ruled by shariah is such that the Muslims should not be led astray by
"materialistic" considerations. The combination of these factors has led to
two fault-lines in the intra-Islamic discourse on shariacracy.

First we find in a number of northern states a bitter political struggle
between elected governors and the religious establishment. The latter tends
to be the force behind demands for implementation of shariah and claims that
certain governors are not good Muslims and are adopting what is called
"political" shariah. The governors make compromises to save their political
careers and spare no effort to moderate the opposition of the ulama by
discrediting them, blackmailing them or compromising them where possible.
Meanwhile it is clear to discerning observers that even if the ulama's
recent conversion to fundamentalist discourse were to be taken as a genuine
religious miracle, the implementation of shariah makes them indispensable as
custodians of knowledge of what the shariah is. The religious establishment,
as a class, therefore stands most to benefit politically from shariacracy,
since the project propels them into the role of policy makers after decades
of marginalisation by western-educated 'yan boko. This is the source of
conflict in one sphere.

The second fault-line has to do with a struggle between the traditional
ulama and their political allies on the one hand, and progressive/liberal
elements of the Muslim intelligentsia on the other. While the first group
holds a view similar to Mutahhari's on the class-neutrality of Islamic
discourse, the latter sees any claim of Islamisation which does not address
fundamental issues of socio-political and economic justice including basic
human freedoms as hypocritical. This contest at heart takes the form of a
contest over the definition of Islam and the limits of the rights due to
religious scholars in the public sphere. I will discuss the particular
ideological frameworks that inform the perspectives of the left-wing
intellectuals and the liberals later. For now suffice it to say that this
fault-line is not unique to Nigeria. It exists even within the framework of
"Islamic" states on both sides of the sectarian divide. In Iran, for
instance we will see that sections the ulama loyal to the traditional
establishment were in a bitter contest with radical scholars like Ali
Shariati. We will also see that Mehdi Bazargan paid a heavy political price
for his defence of individual freedoms against encroachment by autocratic
scholars. In 1985 the Council of Guardians prevented Bazargan, Ayatollah
Khomeini's first Prime Minister, from the presidential elections on the
ground that he "did not possess the required Islamic qualifications". On the
sunni side Saudi Arabia offers us a good example. A number of Islamists have
been critical of the Saudi royal family and its conception of what is an
"Islamic" system. The Saudi system has empowered religious scholars and made
its hallmark the uncompromising application Muslim Law. Yet Islamists
criticise the capitalistic mode of production, rampant official corruption,
pro-western foreign policy and flagrant restrictions on liberty associated
with the Saudi regime. Those among critics who are "western educated" are
easily dismissed as "enemies of Islam" or "agents of the West", hunted
underground or sent into exile. Others like Islamist intellectuals Salman
al-'Audah or Dr Safar al-Hawali are either placed in detention and rendered
incommunicado ( in the case of the former) or thrown out of their jobs (in
the case of the latter). In 1979, a group of "misguided" Saudi militants led
by Juhaiman b. Muhammad b. Saif al-Utaibi seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca
demanding rebellion against the royal family which was not running an
Islamic system. Among their charges were that the state had deprived
citizens of their right to self-expression, that the government was a source
of bribery, corruption and waste of public funds and that traditional
scholars who were puppets of the regime claiming to speak for religion were
"hypocrites."

The summary is that any understanding of Islam that reduces it to the
implementation of a penal code and ignores or downplays the role of
inequities in the distribution of control over the means of production,
persuasion and coercion is bound to generate these fault-lines. We will
return to this point in our conclusion. Let us briefly review the other
models, which have already been introduced in this section.

Political Islam as Obliteration of Jahiliyya: Maududi, Mujtaba Nawab Safawi
Sayyid Qutb.

The term Jahiliyya ( Arabic for Ignorance ) is applied in Muslim literature
to the period of time prior to the revelation of Islam. It is therefore a
referent for pre-Islamic Arabia. In twentieth century Islamic political
discourse it has come to mean all systems which are not purely "Islamic"-
such as capitalist, communist and fascist systems or secular and materialist
belief systems. Partly as a result of disaffection with the disastrous
attempts by Muslim nations like Turkey under Ataturk and Pahlavi Iran to
catch up with modernity, but also as a result of frustration with the status
of the Muslim world as a subject of imperialist powers, Muslim thought
turned against anything western. The defeat of Arabs at the hands of Israel
in the six-day war further compounded the sense of impotence. Ideologues
concluded that Israel defeated Arabs because it was a Jewish (ie religious)
state while the Arab nations of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were based on a
Jahili concept of Arab Nationalism. The concept of a return to a purely
Islamic state and the obliteration of Jahiliyya thus gained ground.

This idea was probably first articulated by Abu 'l-A'la Maududi and his
Jamaat Islamiyya in India. A similar view was held in Iran by Mujtaba Nawab
Safawi and his Feda'iyan-e Islam, until his execution in 1956. But by far
the most articulate exponent of the view was Sayyid Qutb, martyr of the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The broad principles of the theory can be somewhat simplistically stated as
follows. Allah sent His prophet Muhammad with a revelation contained in the
Qur'an and Sunnah. This revelation marked a complete break from the past and
provided the basis for building an Islamic society on the ashes of the
Jahili society it came to obliterate. The task of the Muslim Ummah is to
repeat that exercise, destroy all unIslamic systems and build an Islamic
State from scratch. There is nothing like partial Islam. The principles were
outlined in Sayyid Qutb's popular book, Ma'alim fi 'l-Tariq ( Milestones)
and his exegesis of the Qur'an entitled Fi Zilal al-Qur'an (In the shade of
the Qur'an). They were further clarified and elaborated upon after his death
by members of the Brotherhood who shared his views like his brother Muhammad
Qutb and Zainab al-Ghazzali. His views gave rise to extreme religious groups
like al-Jihad which assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and others
that go by the generic name Takfir wa 'l-Hijra. The hallmark of these groups
is to declare the society they live in an infidel society( takfir) and then
to emigrate from it (Hijra). Some of Qutb's followers probably interpreted
him in a manner he would not approve of.

There is a rich corpus of critique on Qutb's thought. Some, like Emmanuel
Sivan, have attributed his views to the extreme conditions he found himself
in, sentenced to death by the Free Socialists who betrayed the Muslim
Brothers, living in an Egypt humiliated by defeat at the hands of Israel.
His views in earlier works like Social Justice in Islam were considered more
representative than the prison works. Among Muslim Brothers, the General
Guide Hasan al-Hudhaibi criticised the concept of Jahiliyya in his work
Du'at La Qudhat. Dr Tigani AbdulQadir Hamid also did a brilliant critique in
his book, Usul al-Fikr as-Siyasi fi 'l-Qur'an al-Makki. I will not dwell on
the debate here.
The main point is that Sayyid Qutb and his theory of Jahiliyya had a
profound impact on a generation of Nigerian Muslim youth, particularly those
who were undergraduates in northern universities at the time of the Iranian
revolution. The theory defined the character of what came to be known as The
Muslim Brothers led by Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, a group whose declared goal is
the establishment of an Islamic State in Nigeria which can only be on the
ashes of Jahiliyya, however attained. Believers in this doctrine do not
believe you can tinker with a system, or fine-tune it, or reach some
compromise with the existing order. To them, you uproot the whole system and
replace it with an Islamic one.

With this background the reader can appreciate why Zakzaky and his group
were very critical of shariacracy, arguing that you can not have an Islamic
Law in an unIslamic system. The very prospect of marrying Islam and
democracy is to this group inconceivable. Islam is Islam and Democracy is
Democracy.

Political Islam as Liberal Democracy: Mehdi Bazarzan, Yusuf Qardhawi.

The third perspective I would like to bring in is that which views Political
Islam as a struggle for the enthronement of Democracy. A few of the Scholars
sometimes associated with this tendency may actually protest it, including
Dr Yusuf al- Qardhawi, prolific writer, Egyptian scholar and active member
of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Qardawi is particular about not giving the
Islamic label to any system not grounded in Qur’an and Sunnah. Yet I find
that beyond semantics, the substance of his arguments sometimes justifies my
inclusion of his name in this section. In his book, Aulawiyyat al-harakah
al-Islamiyya fi 'l-marhalah al-qadimah (Priorities of the Islamic movement
in the next stage), Dr. Qardawi stresses that it is compulsory for the
movement to firmly stand at all times against dictatorship and political
oppression, to say to dictators "no! and no! even if these dictators pretend
to support it."

Qardhawi quotes the Qur'an and Hadith to support his position that "the
tools and guarantees that democracy has attained are the closest thing to
the political fundamentals which Islam came with for checking the excesses
of rulers such as Consultation( shura), Advice (Nasiha) enjoining good,
forbidding evil….the power of a Legislature…a free press, free pulpit, force
of opposition and voice of the majority." After this thorough analysis,
however, Qardhawi throws in a disclaimer: "I would like to stress that Islam
is not democracy, and democracy is not Islam and I would not like to
associate Islam with any other system. It is unique in its objectives,
methods and tools, and I do not mean to copy western civilisation… without
giving it our values and mores…"

Mehdi Bazargan, whom we have already introduced, holds the same views in a
thoroughly articulated form. He sees Islam as a non-discriminatory religion
in which the most rewarding act in the eyes of God is "to serve the people
whom God created." His system is one of non-exclusion in which even the
"Other" is not castigated but included in God's family thus making tolerance
the hallmark of Islam. Bazargan begins from the premise that God has willed
individuals to be free in their judgements and decisions, and also stated
that there should be no compulsion in religion. Forced compliance with
edicts therefore becomes meaningless and state coercion as a means to
"Islamisation" loses validity and justification. Only a society that has
consciously and freely chosen shariah as its guide is truly Islamic.

Bazargan therefore stresses the virtues of freedom and tolerance, and an
approach to shariah that relies more on persuasion, enlightenment and social
engineering than forced compliance. It seems to me this view is closely
mirrored in Nigeria by liberal Muslim intellectuals like Dr Usman Bugaje
(the Vice-President's Political Adviser) and Dr Aliyu Tilde, the popular
columnist of The Weekly Trust.

Political Islam as a Class Struggle: Ali Shariati

We turn now to the final perspective, which is most closely associated with
the Iranian intellectual, Dr. Ali Shariati, a Sorbonne-trained philosopher
who developed an integral revolutionary theory incorporating Marxist
Political Economy into the Islamic Schema. Shariati was very active in
academic circles at a time when Marxism was the popular ideology among
intellectuals and students. During his stay in Paris he had been influenced
by such themes as anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-despotism,
humanism, social democracy and social justice. He believed that
intellectuals, and not the backward masses, were the catalyst of social
change and sought to present these essentially western-inspired radical
theories in the language of Islam.

Recognising the contribution of great western thinkers as Pascal, Marx and
Sartre in the process of liberation of man, Shariati then argues that the
sum of the merits of these scholars and more were contained in one man, Imam
Ali Ibn Abi Talib. Shii intellectuals did not have to look beyond the life
of Ali for their ideological constructs.

Shariati considers the Islam of Ali (Al-Islam al-'Alawi or, to use his
precise terminology, al-Tashayyu' al-'Alawi) to be the quintessential
expression of a polarized view of society based on the struggling classes,
the correct outcome of which struggle should lead to the transformation of
present class and power structures and the imposition of the economic,
political and social power of the oppressed and dispossessed (Mustadh'afin)
over the proprietors and oppressors (Mustakbirin). He believed strongly in
revolutionary praxis, in the benevolent dictatorship of a just revolutionary
leader and in some form of Islamic reformation or "protestantism" which
would once and for all prevent the emergence of a religious and clerical
despotism. Shariati divided Marx's thought into three stages; the young
Marx, the mature Marx and the old Marx. The mature Marx was for him more
consistent theoretically, more forceful morally and more palatable
religiously. Although Shariati became very popular with intellectuals and
youth his theory was bound to bring him into conflict with vested interests.

He was a threat to the clerical class, which had entrenched itself in the
upper echelons of the constellation of Iranian social classes. The Ayatollah
Mutahhari criticised the class-based nature of Shariati’s system as
unIslamic and discriminatory since Islam only discriminated among people
based on piety. Also, since Shariati was not a Mujtahid, there was the
insistence that only "real" Islamic Scholars could interpret the Qur’an and
Sunnah and govern the Islamic State. The anti-clerical bent of his ideology
was, expectedly, anathema to the Ulama. Khomeini backed Mutahhari on this
point and on at least one occasion referred to Shariati as a divisive
phenomenon, the introduction of whose ideas was a pre-planned "Satanic plot"
aimed at breaking up the unity of Muslims and sapping their energy. All over
the Muslim world, this is the exact attitude of traditional scholars to
progressive intellectuals. Some of Shariati’s favourite terms such as
"Mustadh’afin" and "Mustakbirin" found their way into establishment
vocabulary as even Khomeini was wont to use them. However, the official line
on Shariati seemed to remain what was reflected in a book published in 1983
by the instructors of the Qom Seminary, popularising Mutahhari’s defence of
Islam against the "conspiracy" against the faith hatched by the "poisonous
deviationist", Ali Shariati.

Although Shariati's thought in general is deeply embedded in Shiite
doctrine, his political theory is based on a more general theory of
Political Economy, and can thus acquire the same degree of universal
applicability as other Marxist-learning political theories. Indeed I will go
as far as to say that the Revolutionary Islam preached by Shariati is
exactly the same ideology guiding Mallam Aminu Kano and his NEPU/PRP. Aminu
Kano, himself a committed Muslim, saw the correct direction of Islam lying
in the liberation of the oppressed and dispossessed {Talakawa) from the
proprietors and oppressors. A group of left-wing Muslim intellectuals based
in ABU, Zaria and led by Dr Yusufu Bala Usman published a pamphlet drawing
the attention of governors implementing Shariah to the need to focus on the
welfare of the masses rather than divert attention through fundamentalist
rhetoric. They were promptly dismissed as "secularists". In my several
interventions on this subject I find that my position is very close to this
group's.

I am of the view that Shariati’s system, stripped of its doctrinaire
elements, is one possible source of inspiration for the Muslims in Nigeria.
It represents a progressive ideology aimed at not just imposing morals and
laws but actualising Islam’s objective of establishing justice and equity in
the relation of man with man, and of liberating mankind from the service of
men to the service of the "Creator of men". Over a long period of time I
have become suspicious of the northern political establishment. The northern
Muslim population has often been used as cannon fodder by the establishment
in its political battles with other class-fractions of the Nigerian elite.
At the end of it all the people remain poor, uneducated, malnourished and
oppressed. They give their blind loyalty to leaders who are not themselves
accountable and whose conduct of Public Affairs would never pass the true
tests of Islam. For this reason I approach my analysis of shariacracy from a
Shariati perspective. I try to examine it from the point of view of the
welfare of the people and their liberation from these pathetic
circumstances. This has placed me in seeming conflict with traditional
scholarship and the political class. What they portray as piety I consider
hypocrisy. What they see as achievement I see as diversion. Until
shariacracy focuses on the true problem of the north, the condition of its
people, it will not in my book be serving its purpose.

Conclusion

The Oxford philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, introduced a classification of
thinkers into "hedgehogs" and "foxes" which gained even more serious
acceptance than he envisaged. Berlin's concept is useful in our examination
of the nature of the intellectual debate within the Muslim community.
Broadly speaking, a "fox" tends to focus on an issue, analyze it and
understand it in great detail, with little effort at placing it in a wider
context. A "hedgehog", on the other hand, is interested in the connection
between things, in the big picture, in the single idea that gives rise to a
discernible pattern.

Applying this concept to Muslim scholarship, we would say that in general,
traditional scholars tend to be foxes, while the liberal and progressive
elements tend to be hedgehogs. The former are interested in minute matters
of law (fiqh). The latter are interested in general principles. The
experience of already existing "Islamic" states serves as sufficient example
of what an excessive focus on the penal code can lead to. First, there is
state and clerical despotism, and the infringement on individual liberties
based on fatwas from clerics; then there is the hypocrisy of protecting "the
Leader" from scrutiny and criticism, and the instruction to listen and obey
corrupt leaders; then the suppression of women, their restriction from
legitimate political, social and economic pursuits in the name of religion;
also, there is the whipping up of bigoted sentiments which increase the
potential for religious conflict. etc

The hedgehogs look at this society and ask themselves if this is a society
they would like to live in. They look for the principles of peace,
tolerance, freedom, equality, justice promised by Islam to all irrespective
of race, class, creed and gender and fight against trends that undermine
these principles. The purpose of this paper was to shed light on this issue
which had hitherto been largely ignored, and thus contribute to a better
understanding of Islamist discourses.

October 2001
{Being a contribution to Akin Osuntokun's forthcoming book: ABACHA and
BEYOND}

All views expressed herein are strictly personal.

With the very best of good wishes,
Musa Amadu Pembo
Glasgow,
Scotland
UK.
[log in to unmask]
Da’wah is to convey the message with wisdom and with good words. We should
give the noble and positive message of Islam. We should try to emphasize
more commonalities and explain the difference without getting into
theological arguments and without claiming the superiority of one position
over the other. There is a great interest among the people to know about
Islam and we should do our best to give the right message.
May Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,guide us all to His Sirat Al-Mustaqim (Righteous
Path).May He protect us from the evils of this life and the hereafter.May
Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,grant us entrance to paradise .
We ask Allaah the Most High, the All-Powerful, to teach us that which will
benefit us, and to benefit us by that which we learn. May Allaah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala grant blessings and peace to our Prophet Muhammad and his family
and
companions..Amen.

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~