you may be right about the analogy between dan fodio and boko haram on the point of their statements concerning religion, but is that enough? the contexts were radically different, and the evocation of religious justification for the expansion of a kingdom then, 200 years ago?, is different from what contemporary islamist groups are all about.
that said, i wanted to respond to the claim about abrahamist religions.
i don't like the term much. the religions are really quite different in important ways. but more importantly, the reason for my writing, is that it is wrong to conflate all the forms of rule within the muslim world over the length of its history. just in spain we pass from a relatively tolerant and cosmopolitan rule before almoravid rule, before the 11th c, and worse after, esp as the reconquista got going.
we are seeing all this incorrectly when linking it to religion: it is militant regimes that use ideology or nationalism or racism or religious zealtry to justify their aggressive and intolerant ways. if it weren't jihad, it would be something else, anything else
consider bush: he really didn't care what make-believe reason was used to go to war: he was in love with american might, and was determined to use it.
as the ways people think is so heavily framed by their historical contexts it is too problematic, for me, to pretend that it is a specific religion, any religion, that accounts for that behavior. it is more likely the patterns that developed in the struggle over resources, the inculcation of aggression and domination, that account for militancy.
ken
On 9/8/12 1:29 PM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU wrote:
I referenced the Wikipedia essay because it gives ready access to relevant information and is also rich in specialised scholarly references.
The essay is a serious scholarly work, as befitting a study of such a pivotal figure in history.--
The fundamental point I am making about Dan Fodio does not require any specialised knowledge, though.
The point is this-
Dan Fodio imposed his perception of Islam on Northern Nigeria through a violent jihad and his successors took that jihad into the rest of what is now Nigeria until they were stopped in South West Nigeria.
Are those points in doubt?
Secondly, I have difficulty seeing the fundamental difference between Boko Haram and Maitasine except in terms of scope of ambition.
The core similarity is trying to force others to identify with one's brand of extremist Islam.
Dan Fodio is venerated because he succeeded in his jihad.
He succeeded through military victory, not through force of ideological persuasion.
He was therefore a colonialist, a Muslim imperialist using an interpretation of Islam as a means of political domination.
Dan Fodio is described as pursuing a purer form of Islam which he imposed on the already Islamised Hausa.
His successors went further to propagate the doctrine of the imposition of religio-political ideology by military force beyond what is now Northern Nigeria.
A number of Nigeria's Northern states already practice Sharia.
So, why is Boko Haram agitating for the entire nation to become an Islamic nation?
May such demands not be related to Dan Fodio's alleged demarcation between a country ruled by unbelievers and that ruled by believers, urging believers to desert such countries?
The Wikipedia essay makes the following claim:
"In his book Tanbih al-ikhwan 'ala ahwal al-Sudan ("Concerning the Government of Our Country and Neighboring Countries in the Sudan") Usman wrote: "The government of a country is the government of its king without question. If the king is a Muslim, his land is Muslim; if he is an Unbeliever, his land is a land of Unbelievers. In these circumstances it is obligatory for anyone to leave it for another country".
Does anyone deny the correct attribution or this translation of this quote from Dan Fodio ?
If it is disputed, it should not be difficult to get translations of the work and see for oneself.
The bottom line here is-
ideologies, and particularly religions, particularly the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have been renowned for zealotry and extremism, on account of a monolithic and exclusivist conception of truth that excludes all other claims as practised in the unrefined forms of the Abrahamic tradition, creating an enabling space for political adventurers, from Israelite nomads to the medieval Church to jihadists to pursue efforts at subjugating others in the name of religion.
Usman Dan Fdio used the tools of military violence available to him. Boko Haram uses terorism.
Unlike Boko Haram Dan Fodio is not described as attacking Christians.
Can we really distinguish his vision from that argued by and for Boko Haram?
A Northern Nigerian Muslim explaining the logic of Boko Haram described the group as attacking the 'corrupt secular authority' represented by the Nigerian government.
How is that to be distinguished from Dan Fodio's claim to pursuing the imposition of strict Islam, among other reasons because he wanted to eradicate social vices from the rulers of the Hausa states?
How is this logic different from efforts to link Boko Haram with social injustice, particularly injustice claimed to be directed against Northern Nigeria, an argument that is the central chorus of vocal voices from the North, an argument that neatly sidestepping the recurrence of extremist and imperialist Islam in history and its resurgence in Africa and Afghanistan, tries to place the enture burden for this terrorist menace on the Nigerian government, with the underlying subtext evoked by another wing of opinion from Northern Nigeria that Northern Nigeria must have the Presidency for its inadequacies to be adressed?
I increasingly think Northern and Southern Nigeria should be divided.
If such a division had existed, we might not have Boko Haram. If it emerged, it might have been dealt with in a more forthright manner.
The fight against the group is complicated by the fact that its members are concealed among a high density population of fellow Muslims and ethnic affiliates whose loyalty is divided by terror, ties of religion, ethnicity and alienation from the leadership of a non-Muslim and non-Nothern President, whom vocal Northern figures tacitly encourage to place all their inadequacies on, after decades of rulership at the national centre by their own brethren, rulers who seemed to have impoverished their own people more than they have done the rest of the country.
For scholarly correlations of violent Islam, from Dan Fodio, through Maitasine and Boko Haram, one could see
David Cook, "Boko Haram: A Prognosis "
and
Adesoji Abimbola "The Boko Haram Uprising and Islamic Revivalism in Nigeria", who argues on this background to the crisis:
'The [Nigerian Muslim ] conservatives insist on a unitary view of society that recognizes no difference between state and religion, and they advocate making Nigeria an Islamic state administered according to the principles of Sharia law. For them, all Muslims belong to the umma (community), and the idea of a secular state is atheistic or syncretistic. Apart from challenging the Muslim affirmation of religious principles – especially the Sharia – the imposition of secularity, according to them, amounts to a cultural affront to a significant portion of the population and reduces them to the status of second-class citizens. Although this view is claimed to be a Quranic injunction, it does not enjoy popular acceptance among liberal Muslims who maintain that such a view does not imply the need for the Islamization of Nigeria nor does it endorse non-acceptance of the constitu- tional provision of the secularity of the state (Imo 1995: 58-59; Ibrahim 1998: 39-66; Ilesanmi 2001: 529-554)"
Is this presentation, which certainly depicts Boko Haram,, not a restatement of the Dan Fodio script ?
thanks
toyin
On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 3:55 PM, <amomoh2002@yahoo.com> wrote:
Prof. Emeagwali,
I am fast realising that this forum is a space people also use to REVEAL their ignorance about many things, without knowing.
How can Wikipedia be a source of scientific information to make such wild claim about Uthman Dan Fodiyo when there is a very rich corpus of literature on the Jihad, on Islam in West Africa and Empires of West Africa?
Abu
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
-----Original Message-----
From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 00:16:49
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>; Mwananchi<Mwananchi@yahoogroups.com>; wolesoyinkasociety<wolesoyinkasociety@yahoogroups.com>; Jos ANA Discussion List<josana@yahoogroups.co.uk>; nigerianauthors<nigerianauthors@yahoogroups.com>; mbariliterarysociety<mbariliterarysociety@yahoogroups.com>; writerswithoutborders@yahoogroups.com<writerswithoutborders@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL
IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION
To conflate Boko Haram with Uthman dan Fodio is counter-productive
and misleading. To link the group with Maitatsine may be closer to reality .
Dr. Gloria Emeagwali
www.africahistory.net<http://www.africahistory.net/>
www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali<http://www.esnips.com/web/GloriaEmeagwali>
www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>
________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU [toyinvincentadepoju@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 4:22 PM
To: usaafricadialogue; Mwananchi; wolesoyinkasociety; Jos ANA Discussion List; nigerianauthors; mbariliterarysociety; writerswithoutborders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BOKO HARAM : THE EDUCATIONAL IMPERATIVE : INTEGRATING WESTERN AND ISLAMIC CIVILISATION AND EDUCATION
The Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has initiated a war and waged it for years against the Nigerian government, Christians and Muslims it considers its enemies in the Muslim dominated Northern Nigeria.
The group describes the goal of this war as that of compelling the government to make the country an Islamic state and to drive Christians out of Northern Nigeria.
The group has carried out spectacular large scale murders, possibly in the thousands, of Christians and government agents, and targeted or killed individual Muslims, in pursuit of its goal.
The group, whose popular name name Boko Haram, means Western education is forbidden, also bombs schools.
The current situation can be described as one of confusion within Northern Nigeria and the rest of Nigeria since there seems to be no harmony of perspectives on how to manage this crisis.
The ideological vision of Boko Haram, its similarity to the less virulent but also violent Maitasine uprising in the North some years ago, and the relationship between ideology and violence as a means of enforcing a perspective of Islam on a populace demonstrated by Uthman Dan Fodio<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usman_dan_Fodio>, the father of contemporary Islamic civilisation in Northern Nigeria, implies that the central issues at stake in this struggle against Western civilisation need to be addressed at the level of ideology and practice.
Failure to do this implies that such uprising could recur as they have in the past, in various forms, from Dan Fodio to the present.
Uthman Dan Fodio initiated a jihad - in this case, an effort at Islamisation through violence- as a means of imposing his preferred form of Islam on the Northern Nigerian Muslim Hausa population.
Boko Haram, like Maitasine in the past, is also engaged in a violent jihad to impose its form of Islam on the Northern Nigerian population, Muslim and non-Muslim.
The jihad initiated by Uthman Dan Fodio eventually tried to push into the rest of what is now Nigeria until it was stopped in the South-West.
Boko Haram has also initiated a similar jihad, but so far, has been unable to penetrate significantly beyond the North.
This recurrence of efforts to impose an ideological orientation through violence, as in the jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio and his successors and the later examples of Boko Haram and Maitsine suggest that such developments may be expected to continue as a continuity can be traced from from the time of Dan Fodio to the present.
What is the challenge here?
How best may Islam in Northern Nigeria be accommodated to the overwhelming presence of Western civilisation, the civilisation Boko Haram is fighting against?
The sheer paradox and possibly even frustration experienced by these Islamic terrorists in their fight against Western civilisation is that the central tools of that fight are derived from the secular culture of the West, the guns, bombs and communications technologies developed after the West had defeated the suffocating hold of the Christian church, a hold that was a deterrent to bold scientific and technological development.
While recognising this paradox, the delusions of fanatics like Boko Haram should not blind us to the real issues that such fanatical behaviour might led one to dismiss as backward and deluded.
People of religious faith might want something more not evident for them in the overwhelmimg dominance of Western civilisation.
It is stated that some Muslims in Northern Nigeria are uneasy with Western education although that does imply support of the violence of Boko Haram or Maitasine.
How should such uneasiness be addressed?
Can Islamic civilisation and education replace Western education successfully in today's world?
Is it possible to harmonise both?
If so, what are the essential qualities of both forms of civilisation and education that need to be harmonised for best results?
Addressing these issues implies that a central question is addressed without resorting to extreme solutions that support completely one position or another, for or against Western or Islamic education.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Compcros<http://danteadinkra.wix.com/compcros>
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
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