Islamic Sharia Law in Present Day Nigeria - Term Paper Example

___________ ID: ________ Roll ___________ Islamic Sharia Law in Present Day Nigeria Conversion to Islam began as far back as the eleventh century A.D., in the northeast kingdom of Kanem-Borno. Through the activities of missionaries and Islamic traders from North Africa, Islam began to spread slowly in this area. Among the Hausa, Islam began to spread from the fourteenth century and brought a law to be followed by all the Muslims of Nigeria called ‘Sharia’ law which is still followed in cities like Kano, Katsina, and Zaria as they were the famous Islamic centers at that time. Over the centuries, Islam spread to other parts of northern and western Nigeria, but it did not become a mass religion until the nineteenth century. Among the Hausa, kings and chiefs accepted Islam. Some were very devout and contributed to spreading the religion. Whether devout or not, the rulers benefited from the opportunities associated with Islam: the wealth of the transSaharan trade, the spread of ideas from North Africa, and the ability to forge diplomatic relations with Muslim rulers elsewhere. Islam an established system of public revenue based on tax and a judiciary based on the Sharia law and the alkali courts, started presided over by learned Islamic jurists. The Islamic jurispudence or Sharia law was allowed to be followed, but people started to practice it by combining the sharia laws with their new existing beliefs and this was obviously in their own interest as they were used to mould their religion accordingly. Sharia Law and its impact on Christian Muslim Relations No doubt Sharia has always been a notion of conflict among Muslims and Christians in Nigeria. As Islam was being introduced into northern Nigeria in the 14th century, Muslims applied the Islamic law Sharia to their everyday lifestyle as they were bound to do so being Muslims and even those Muslims who were in favor of religious freedom, they also felt it hard to cope up with the ‘Sharia’ law. The conflict started with the advent of British rule, when the Muslims started feeling unsecured with a disrupted legal system because Nigerian Muslims particularly those of North were not in a position to tolerate any obstruction in between them and the ‘Sharia’ but at the same time they were bound to follow the legal system according to which the Sharia courts came under the supervision of Europeans probably the Christians. While recognizing Sharia law and courts, the British also restricted them in several respects. The 1906 Proclamation limited the application of Sharia to Muslims and provided that these courts could not give certain punishments, such as mutilation, torture, or others which were repugnant to “natural justice and humanity.” (Bello, 2000) These changes reflected at least two principles. One was a belief that certain previously existing Sharia criminal penalties were inhumane. The other was that criminal law is a public matter to be implemented by the state rather than by private or social action. Some further changes in the implementation of Sharia occurred in the Native Ordinance of 1956, officially known as the “Native Courts Law of Northern Nigeria, No. 6 of 1956.” (Bello, 2000) This provided for appeals from the Sharia courts to courts of appeal that reflected a more British understanding of justice, and the Ordinance provoked disagreement with the traditional emirs, who objected to this limit on Sharia law. In an attempt to pacify the emirs, the British then established Sharia Courts of Appeal, which were meant to protect Islamic law from excessive encroachhment through appeal to English courts. (Bello, 2000) Though well maintained, these courts were looked after by Europeans and in line with colonial policy, the British established a Muslim court of appeal in 1956, which was empowered to deal with matters of Muslim personal law only. This court was renamed the Sharia court of appeal just before independence in 1960. (Adamu, 2004) On one hand the Sharia courts were running under British authority while on the other, Islam was consistently being used to unite the Northern region against the rest of the country. Sharia law provided the tool to foster northern unity, retain established privileges, and mobilize the people against southern politicians or demands. Since 1978 the demand for the Sharia and the rejection of the concept of a secular state was used to create a difference from the rest of the country. The contention was that either Muslims would not live in a secular state or that the government should let Muslims be administered under Islamic laws instead of the inherited Judeo-Christian laws. To the Christians, this demand was a trick to use the Sharia to rally the Muslims, as a prelude to the conversion of Nigeria to an Islamic state (Falola, 1999, p. 228) and they were happy about it. In the 1980s and 1990s divisions along religious lines brought conflicts and at the same time riots broke out between Muslims and Christians over the debate as to whether the country should adopt the Sharia law or remain secular. Thus far, no constitution was endured, while the military stubbornly refused to engage in a genuine disengagement from politics. The country remained as one, not necessarily because the various ethnic groups desire it, but because of the use of force. In 1990 when a group of young military dissidents staged a violent coup, they decided to expel five northern states from the country, promising that their re-admission would be on the basis of negotiation; they condemned the northern political class for ‘internal colonization of the Nigerian state.’ Since 1992 the Yoruba have threatened to secede, and others continue to call for a national conference to discuss the future of the country regarding ‘Sharia’ law. Addressing Sharia as a form of “renewed assertiveness of the Muslim community” and its implications for the church, J Kenny points out that, “The Islamic revival had deeper and more permanent roots. It is a call for a “return” to Sharia, conceived as a universal, unchanging, divinely given law, a law which covers all dimensions of human social life and assures its practitioners of paradise in the next life and prosperity in the normal course of this life”. (J. Kenney) The Christians after realizing the increasing Muslims supremacy in the North of Nigeria started feeling that Muslims wanted to turn Nigeria into a completely Islamic state. As they were aware of the fact that Muslims are gaining priority over laws and jurisdictions in Nigeria, they realized a deep feeling of insecurity running within them and started to think what might become of them and their faith if Sharia eventually becomes the law for each and every Nigerian. If Sharia were to reach the federal level, it would become a national policy governing every citizen. This clearly was the understanding that led many Christian groups to oppose the Muslim demands resulting in several religious conflicts and riots. (Adamu) The relationship between Islamic and Christian organizations also entered a period of great tension. In October 1982 Muslim rioters set on fire eight prominent churches in Kano, marking the beginning of what would become a complicated national problem. A government tribunal attributed the violence to the growing influence of Christians in an Islamic city and the influence of radical literature from Iran, and recommended that caution must be exercised in locating churches among the Muslims. But this was an opportunity for the Christians to make wide-ranging complaints of discrimination in jobs, land allocation, and access to radio broadcasting, and the takeover of their schools. The incident marked the beginning of a long and bitter confrontation between Christians and Muslims that eventually led to fear of religious wars that would divide the country. A major and long-standing source of Christian anger was the belief that Muslims were trying to turn the new capital of Abuja into an Islamic city. Very quickly mosques and a religious Muslim festival “Id ul Fitr” praying ground appeared, a National Mosque was built close to the presidential mansion, and the designs for the city gate and some other places were Islamic. Using the Hausa language and wearing the Hausa garb and cap associated with the president became common as a way to attract notice, while some southern Christian politicians shamelessly converted to Islam for political advantage. Religious Riots and Protest Thousands of people lost their lives, buildings and properties were destroyed, and the country was pushed to the brink of a religious war between Muslims and Christians. The diversity of the country was both a source of problems and an opportunity for manipulation by the political leaders. The failure of SAP further fueled discontent and the search for alternative means to social and political survival. Millions of people were driven to religion, as both Islam and Christianity accelerated their conversion process, drawing from angry, poor, frustrated people. A new trend of fundamentalism emerged, as radical organizations preached against military rule and secularization. Among the Christians, fundamentalism took the form of evangelism that could be reactionary and conservative in form. Among the Muslims, the influence of the West, materialism, and secular governments was severely attacked. Discontent with the military led to the resurgence of the idea of the Mahdi, the coming Messiah who would save the country and reform Islam. The Shiites were also growing in number, led by Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, a courageous preacher who demanded the creation of an Islamic Republic of Nigeria. The Shiites also engaged in clashes in diverse places such as Katsina, Maiduguri, Kano, Bauchi, Zaria, and Kaduna. Generally against the government, the demands were for a theocratic state governed by just and God-fearing leaders. There were also mainstream religious organizations with leaders who had access to the media and to government. Among the Muslims, the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) defended the interests of Islam and made demands of a political nature, such as replacing Sunday with Friday as a holiday and removing the symbols of the Judeo-Christian tradition in schools and courts. Among the Christians, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) was the most prominent defender of Christians, calling for the government to distance itself from Islam. These organizations began to resemble political parties; not only did they make important demands, they also mobilized their members, sometimes for protest. Military rule succeeded in turning religion into a platform from which to organize politics. While the politicians were afraid of being excluded from power or being put in detention, religious leaders were relatively free of harassment. A period of prolonged tension followed as Christians interpreted the move to turn the country into an Islamic state. In later years, Christians and Muslims engaged in major clashes in a number of cities, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, and Zangon-Kataf, all with severe damages to places of worship and the deaths of many people. As the leading representatives of either Islam or Christianity struggle to acquire political power, the role of religion in politics has become more visible, leading to controversy over whether the country should be secular or not, or whether it should integrate the Shari’a into its judicial system. Sectarian rivalries promote a number of conflicts. Many take religion very seriously, as evidenced by government-subsidized annual pilgrimages to Mecca or the Holy Land, daily worship, revivalism, and aggressive conversion. The background to the jihad started from West of Nigeria from the Hausa states, where Islamic leaders’ resort to Islam to reform society. During the eighteenth century, Hausa society witnessed conflicts between one state and another, between Muslims and non-Muslims, between rich and poor. The states were heterogeneous and highly developed with established kingship, talented Islamic scholars and jurists. Succession disputes were endemic while ambition for political domination was common. Merchants and kings grew wealthy, and their ostentatious living displeased the poor and the devout Muslims. Methods of wealth accumulation involved corruption and unjust treatment of the poor. Taxes and levies could be excessive, demand for free labor ruinous, enslavement was common, and conscription for military service was indiscriminate. The practice of Islam was not always strict: many were Muslims only in name; traditional religion was synthesized with Islam in a way that displeased devout preachers; and only a small minority committed itself to spreading the religion. The Hausa Fulani Group In Nigeria the Fulani group is known in ‘Hausa’ language, so called the Hausa-Fulani, are the people belong to Northern Nigeria. Despite the contrasts in education, economy, chieftaincy, and colonial history, life in villages throughout Hausaland has one common feature that might be expected to transcend all boundaries. For religion is the overarching feature of social life in rural Hausaland; it overshadows even language, history, culture, and economic base as social cement. Yet even Islam so fundamental to the belief system, outlook, norms, behavior, and daily life of Hausa villagers has been evolving in different ways on the two sides of the border. The forms taken by Islam in Yardaji and in Yekuwa may be traceable to the different roles the religion plays in Nigeria and Niger today. (Miles, 1994, p. 248) In Yardaji an ‘evolved’ form of Islam is practiced, one that reflects wedding, marriage, and legal norms as articulated by autonomous religious leaders in Nigeria. In Yekuwa, religion, though legitimated by the state, is subordinated to it. Islam made its earliest appearances in Hausaland hitherto an animistic and polytheistic religious zone in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Wangawara, itinerant Muslim traders from the east, combined missionary zeal with commercial prowess as they traveled among and traded with the Hausa. Trade at that time was an urban-based phenomenon that profited in the first instance from royal families and their clients. Hausa traders came to assume the religious roles of their Wangawara predecessors: the spread of Islam throughout Hausaland was a direct function of the expansion of economic networks among Hausa traders. For hundreds of years Islam remained basically a religion of the urban elite. One element that restricted its expansion was its emphasis on literacy, ideally through mastery of the Arabic language but at least through ajami, the Hausa language written in Arabic script. From about the middle of the eighteenth century on, though, Islamic scholars and preachers made a concerted effort to include commoners and villagers the least likely of literates within the Muslim community. At the same time, Islamic purists became increasingly intolerant of the ‘mixed Islam’ (Hiskett 1984) practiced by the nominally Muslim Hausa kings. Although the Hausa palaces had been the earliest havens for Islam, compromise with preexisting religious beliefs and practices made for a rather unorthodox brand of the faith. Unpopular authoritarian governance by the Hausa chiefs contributed to popular dissatisfaction. These two sources of tension acted as catalysts for the early nineteenth-century revolution in Hausaland. The New Sharia Law Despite the claims of its proponents, much of the new Sharia law in Nigeria affects non-Muslims as well as Muslims. It undercuts their religious freedom, violates their other basic international human rights, and their rights under the Nigerian Constitution. It also undercuts the rights of individual Muslims who do not wish to be subject to the type of Sharia established by their state, and who wish to exercise other freedoms protected by the Constitution and international human rights standards. Hausa Fulani groups are the Muslim extremists of the North involved particularly in ‘Jihad’ and strictly follow the ‘Sharia’ rules and laws in every aspect, particularly those which goes in their own interest. On the other hand non- Muslims (Christians) and other minorities consider ‘Sharia’ as religious boundaries and oppose such ‘Sharia’ in which there are unhuman rules. South African Islam was also urban Islam because, though extensive in territory, 55% of South Africa’s population lived in urban areas in 1966, as did most Muslims. The numbers of urban South Africa’s Muslim community was always microscopically small: 504,000 adherents in 1996 out of a total population of 41 million. Islam in South Africa established itself in a setting of heavy Christian missionary activity. Three-quarters of South Africans identify themselves as Christians, members of either mainstream denominations or of rapidly spreading independent churches. (Quinn, 2003) Christian leaders, including officials of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the major umbrella association of Nigeria’s Christians, including both Catholics and Protestants, and with branches throughout the country, along with heads of the various denominations in the state, spent the weekend before February 21 educating their members on the dangers of not resisting the push for Sharia. After the meetings, CAN asked its members to close their shops on February 21, 2000, and then to march to the Kaduna State Assembly building to counter the impression that the majority of the people in Kaduna supported the extension of Sharia. (Sharia, 2000) Analyzing the northern Nigerian elite or what is referred to as the northern oligarchy hides intra-elite fragmentations along the lines of Muslims vs. Christians and, Soldiers vs. Civilians. Within these fragments is the more problematic issue of ethnic identities that tend to divide groups along regional groupings as well as within regions. For example, divisions in the northern region include Tivs vs. the Kanuris, and the Hausa vs. Fulani groups. Analyzing Nigerian issues from the class perspective by examining the impact of elite decisions on the masses is equally problematic. The masses are divided along ethnic, religious, education, gender, regional and occupational lines. And as evidenced by the Sharia Crises in February and May of 2000, it is the masses that suffer the consequences of ill-conceived inter and intra-elite desire for rearrangement of political power. It is not the case that class analysis is totally irrelevant. Rather, class analysis requires an articulation of occupational stratification and how the status a specific occupation confers on an individual is translated into an element of social standing that makes understanding of differences in occupation an important element of analysis. (Mills, 1963) Proponents of the new Sharia say that it does not violate the Nigerian Constitution, arguing that the latter provides that existing Sharia courts can be given additional jurisdiction by the states. However, while there can be such additional jurisdiction, most legal opinion in Nigeria holds that this jurisdiction must itself conform to the Constitution, and that much of the new Sharia is a prima facie violation of constitutional rights. The new Sharia as viewed by Hausa Fulanis: Can require non-Muslims to be judged by Sharia courts, as, for example, in matters of marriage, or in disputes with Muslims. Is imposed on Muslims even if they want protection of their rights under the Nigerian Constitution rather than subjection to the new Sharia. Instigates violence by radicals who have beaten and killed non-Muslims throughout the north in attempts to impose Sharia. Legitimizes the killing of those who have exercised their freedom of religion to change their religion, and who now live in fear. Violates the equality of women before the law since, in at least some of the Sharia courts, the testimony of a woman is given only half the weight of a man’s. Increases restrictions on the construction of churches and encourages the destruction of churches that have already been built. Similar restrictions have not been put on mosques. Forces non-Muslims and Muslims alike, especially women, to follow claimed Islamic patterns of conduct that are alien to their own beliefs, by, for example, forbidding a man and a woman to hold one another’s hands in public or board the same bus or taxi. Legalizes discrimination, such as in marriage, wherein a Muslim woman cannot be married to a Christian man, or in public gatherings, including schools and worship places, where sexes are separated. Uses tax revenues taken from people of all religions to support the activities of only one religion. Reinforces religious discrimination regarding access to media, employment and education, and violates the religious freedom of parents and students in schools. (Marshall, 2001) All these features of the new Sharia violate the Nigerian constitution, including nearly all its human rights provisions, and Nigeria’s international human rights treaty obligations. It has also led to mob violence, causing the deaths of thousands of people, and posing a real threat to the unity, peace, and future of Nigeria itself. The issue about how widely the Sharia can be applied continues to draw verbal fire from both Muslim and Christian communities. Christian leaders oppose any strengthening of Islamic law in Nigeria where bloody street battles are a prelude to efforts to make Sharia the law at the state level. (Quinn, 2003, p. 45) The mass migration of Muslim youths to cities is contributing to a wave of criminal activity in Nigeria. Street crime has increased to the point that many women are now afraid to wear their trademark gold jewelry outside the home. Muslim competition with Christian activists for converts, economic benefits, and political power will sharpen Muslims sense of identity and spark violent confrontations between the two communities within and across national boundaries. In Nigeria, communal disputes over membership in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the constitutional status of the Sharia continue, despite efforts by domestic mediators to draw the two communities closer together. In 1999, Christian and Muslim leaders cooperated in a national coalition, allowing Nigeria to elect a democratic government. Both communities had suffered under General Abacha’s rule, and less than a year before Nigeria appeared to be headed toward anarchy. Memories of the devastating effects of the Biafra war and fears of a return to ethnic-religious strife helped force the two communities to select two Christian candidates for head of state paired with northern Muslims for vice president. President Obasanjo was elected with the overwhelming support of northern Muslim constituencies as the first Yoruba Christian to take power from a northern Muslim chief executive. Despite all the efforts and measures taken to prevent conflicts between Muslims and Christian communities in Nigeria, the conflict is still on its way to success, resulting from ‘Sharia’ law. Work Cited Adamu Theresa, Available from < http://www.warc.ch/24gc/rw024/03.html > C. Wight Mills, 1963. “The Sociology of Stratification,” in Irving Louis Horowitz, editor, Power, Politics and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press. Falola Toyin, 1999. “The History of Nigeria”: Greenwood Press.: Westport, CT. Hiskett, M. 1973. “The Sword of Truth: the life and times of the Shehu Usuman Dan Fodio”. New York: Oxford University Press. J Kenny, 1999. “Sharia: Implications for the Church in West Africa”, n.d., p.1. Marshall Pail, 2001. “The Talibanization of Nigeria: Radical Islam, Extremist Sharia Law And Religious Freedom” Miles F. S. William, 1994. “Hausaland Divided: Colonialism and Independence in Nigeria and Niger”: Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY. Mohammed Bello, August 2000. “Sharia and the Constitution,” Working paper at a meeting of 32 eminent Nigerians of how to douse tension generated by the introduction of Sharia is some northern states. Quinn A. Charlotte & Quin Frederick, 2003. “Pride, Faith, and Fear: Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa”: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. “Sharia: The Raging Battle for Nigeria’s Soul,” Liberty, March 2000. Read More