My final posting on this thread. Enjoy.
Cheerio!
Madiba.
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The "True Believers" and Anti-Intellectualism: The Opportunistic Roots
of Neo-fundamentalist Criticism
By Sanusi Lamido Sanusi
January 29, 2002
Those who have unilaterally appropriated the right to define Islam and
appointed themselves its spokespersons have of recent resorted to the
tiresome habit of labeling those who oppose their own views "enemies of
Islam" or "enemies of Shariah". Some do this in published articles.
Others climb pulpits and make pronouncements in mosques. Others write
hate mail and anonymous letters of threat. This of course is to be
expected since, as Edward Said has noted, the whole process of Islamic
revival often takes the form of a contest within Islam over its meaning
in the lived reality of adherents. For me, this search for meaning
antedated jamboree-like "launchings" of shariah in multiple locations in
northern Nigeria.
An understanding of certain points is critical to anyone interested in
intellectual discourse on Islam and Nigerian Society. Nigerian people,
including Muslims, live a material reality of poverty and
underdevelopment resulting from actions of commission and omission
attributable to those who over the years have been responsible for the
management of the stupendous resources made available by God for use in
the betterment of conditions in our country. The concept of Islam as an
alternative to this system means to some of us the creation of a society
that is radically transformed and the restoration of good governance and
responsible leadership along Islamic lines. This means a radical
challenge to existing structures and systems and a people-centred, as
opposed to an elite-centred political outlook. Islamisation is not about
retaining all the structures of alienation in the political economy
while introducing a stiff code. This is what Nazih Ayubi identified as
the Saudi or Wahhabi model, a model which limits Islam to disputations
on theology ( usually in the form of attacks on Ash'arism), worship
(usually in the form of attacks on sufism and all forms of Islamic
mysticism) and jurisprudence (usually in the form of attacks on
adherence to schools of Law). In reality, Islamisation becomes a
transformation of Nigerian society into the Saudi model as established
by the House of Saud- the wholesale adoption of the teachings of Wahhabi
Islam. The only difference is that while in Saudi Arabia, Islam is
welfare plus shariah, in Nigeria it is poverty and unemployment plus
shariah. In both cases, Muslims are expected to accept the antinomies
and contradictions of their social formation as God-given and natural.
It is precisely this conception of Islam as an ahistorical, amaterialist
world view that I oppose. The debate between me and the professional
mallams who have become ideologues for our corrupt politicians is
therefore not so much over the principle of shariah as over its
definition.
In late 1998, before the elections which brought the civilian government
into power, I published an article entitled "Islam, Christianity and
Nigerian Politics: A Tribute to Thomas Paine." In that article I set out
what I believe was the clearest statement of my conception of shariah in
the Nigerian political economy. In the course of a detailed critique of
the northern elite who were fanning the embers of religious discord in
the name of shariah I wrote:
"It is a fact for instance, that the second Caliph; Umar, stopped the
punishment of the thief by cutting-off the hand in a year of famine due
to the possibility of the thief having been compelled to steal due to
hunger. What this means is that in a time of economic austerity such as
ours, true proponents of the Shariah should address themselves to the
question of proper economic management and a return to economic
prosperity, as only then will the objective economic conditions be in
place that will justify implementation of the law. By downplaying
massive corruption and economic mismanagement, it has become possible
for Muslim elite to engage in diversionary propaganda and express a
hypocritical commitment to Shariah while impacting on objective
conditions in a manner that would make the implementation of Shariah,
even where adopted, improbable and unjustifiable. Full application of
Shariah succeeds, rather than precedes, the creation of its objective
conditions. It is the irony of our political situation that in the
Vanguard of those calling for full implementation of Shariah we find
some who have over the years condoned, rationalized, encouraged,
initiated, participated in or benefited from the very processes whose
logical culmination is the total negation of the said objective
conditions. "
When in 1999 governor Sani Yarima of Zamfara came out to announce his
plans for the Shariah project, I wrote several articles defending him
against attacks mainly from what we call the Lagos-Ibadan press. A
particularly strong article was titled "The Shariah Debate: A Muslim
Intervention" and published by both The Guardian and Weekly Trust. In
this article I took up Yarima's critics and defended his decision to
introduce shariah. However I also stated the basis of my support in the
following concluding words:
"It is time for the Guardian to listen to the Zamfara state government.
It is time to know that the Quar’an and sunnah enjoin the creation of a
just and honest society, and protect freedom of religion and conscience.
It is time to ask those who feel there are legal problems to go to a
court of competent jurisdiction. Alhaji Ahmed Sani has repeatedly said
his priority is good government, education, poverty alleviation and
moral rebirth. He has assured non –Muslims of the full protection of
their rights. He has never declared Zamfara an Islamic state. Many
people, including Muslims, have apprehensions about the shariah project.
With the best of intentions, practice is always flawed and imperfect.
There is a need for caution, for enlightenment and for sensitivity.
Those charged with the responsibility for interpretation and
implementation of the shariah themselves need time to be fully trained.
They need to be sensitive and to recognize economic and other conditions
which should serve as extenuating circumstances when applying the penal
code. The government must resist the temptation to exploit the potential
propaganda value of religion for political gains. But by far the
greatest problem facing the country is prejudice and ignorance, and the
inordinate desire to cry wolf where there is none. Of this, the Guardian
is guilty."
It is very clear to me that I have always defined my understanding of
shariah. It is also clear that it does not tally with what seems to be
going on today. I have quoted other articles of mine in my paper on
"Basic Needs and Redistributive Justice in Islam". All the papers are
availble on the web. Everytime I criticized the shariah project my
criticism has been based on perceived deviation from what I see as the
appropriate course of action. I have criticized the rush into
implementation of the amputation and other punishments without first
impacting on the objective conditions that give rise to crime. I have
criticised wasteful spending by shariah governments, including using
public funds which are supposed to be for hospitals, schools and
services to sponsor "mallams" and others in their thousands for
pilgrimage and lesser hajj. I have criticised judgements and laws which
in my view do not take account of subtle points of dispute in Islamic
jurisprudence.
Those mallams and pseudo-mallams who have become defenders of shariah
governors should tell us how much money has been received by shariah
states since the governors came into power and how much of that was
spent on concrete projects and the provision of services. 'Umar Ibn
Abdul 'Azeez remains today an exemplary Muslim leader not for the number
of hands he cut off or the number of women he stoned but for his
elimination of corruption on the part of leaders as well as his
redistribution of income and elimination of poverty. That the entire
Muslim Ummah, including shiites who are implacable enemies of the
Umayyad dynasty, reveres the record of 'Umar suggests to me that he has
set the standards for judging our political leaders.
The Italian philosopher and professor of semiotics, Umberto Eco, in one
of his brilliant essays defined the role of the intellectual, as opposed
to other classes of writer. The "intellectual function", according to
Eco lies in expressing boldly and clearly the truth as one can best
apprehend it. It lies often in criticising one's fellow-travellers
rather than taking sides in a dispute. In making comments on politics in
the Muslim north we all have options before us. One option, which some
have chosen, is to praise everything done by northern muslim
politicians. The hallmark of this group is to blame the Yorubas, or
Christians, or the Federal government for every harm befalling
northerners. In addition any criticism of northern governors is treated
as treachery or, if it has to do with Islam, near-apostasy. This is
standard to all students of political economy. Gramsci has noted in "The
Modern Prince" that a hegemony survives by allying itself to a section
of the intellectual class which seems independent but in fact is part
and parcel of the instruments of persuasion. Many mallams who seem
independent have no means of livelihood other than preaching in support
of the establishment. The shariah project is a means of livelihood.
Funds meant for social services go to finance trips for hajj and umrah,
charity for those who offer prayers, money for setting up hisbah corps,
conferences and conventions on shariah, newsletters for propaganda etc.
Islam has become big business. In this I refer not to our traditional
scholars in the old cities of Sokoto, Gusau, Kano, Zazzau, Yola etc. I
refer to the young mercenaries who returned from universities in the
Arab world and built their careers on condemning everything in northern
Islam. They first made money from the Gulf states by taking up the role
of proto-Wahhabi champions of "sunnah" against "accretions" and
"innovations" like Ash'arism and Sufism. With the arrival of shariah in
Nigerian politics these mercenaries have been falling over each other
and actually struggling for a share of the new source of patronage. The
pressure has increased since September 11 as the crack down on transfers
from abroad is likely to lead to a drying up of a hitherto lucrative
source. To criticise any aspect of the shariah project is to attack the
patrons of this group and undermine their means of livelihood.
A second group has chosen the difficult task of standing, if need be,
"against the current", to quote Isaiah Berlin. Its task lies in teaching
the northern people to ask the right questions from their rulers,
including the "mallams" who serve as their spokespersons. They want
northerners to ask if their governors are more honest than non-Muslim or
secular governors. To ask if their commitment to welfare is more
complete, if they are even handed in the administration of justice, if,
unlike other states, corruption and waste of public funds is at a
minimum and if there is greater transparency in the public service. They
teach women to ask why only a woman should be punished for adultery
committed with a man and the poor to ask why only the cow and donkey
thief should have his hand amputated. In the final analysis it is these
question that go to the heart of political economy and they are the ones
that induce violent, irrational reactions. For asking, and teaching
others to ask, these questions they are accused of "misleading Muslims"
and "dividing the ummah". But the ummah is already divided into classes
with diametrically opposed interests as is evident to all those not
blinded by hypocrisy.
In the final analysis, the issue is beyond Safiya or Jangebe. It is an
issue of what they represent-women and the poor. Do northern women and
northern poor need assistance and support or punishment? Have those who
are quick to punish them given them their due? An argument is not
defeated by a deluge of personal attacks but by the quality of reason.
The battle is joined, as I have said often, at the level not of faith,
but of ideology. Time alone will tell who the true "enemies of Islam"
are.
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