Education and the Growth of Religious Associations among Yoruba Muslims: The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society...

Education and the Growth of Religious Associations among Yoruba Muslims: The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of NigeriaAuthor(s): Stefan ReichmuthSource: Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 26, Fasc. 4 (Nov., 1996), pp. 365-405Published by: BrillStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1581838Accessed: 17-05-2017 06:20 UTC

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EDUCATION AND THE GROWTH OF RELIGIOUS

ASSOCIATIONS AMONG YORUBA MUSLIMS-THE

ANSAR-UD-DEEN SOCIETY OF NIGERIA'

BY

STEFAN REICHMUTH

(Bochum)

1. Introduction: Religion and elite foration in Yoruba society

Yoruba society with its remarkable communal diversity and its religious pluralism still continues to serve as an important focus of research into the internal and external factors of social and cultural change in Africa. Apart from the rich complex of Yoruba traditional religious institutions, Christianity and Islam, both present with large and dynamic communities all over Yorubaland, have found particular interest. The widespread religious 'tolerance' and the apparent non-politicization of religious differences among the Yoruba has led D. Laitin (1986) to his model of a hegemonial state influencing the cultural development within

society. According to him it was the colonial state which, through coer- cion and elite cooptation, established the 'ancestral city' as the dominant symbolic framework which continues to dominate even present-day political activities in Yorubaland. Without denying the major importance of the framework of the city states, Peel (1988) in his analysis of early Yoruba nationalism draws attention to the Christian background of the very concept of the Yoruba as a unified cultural and political entity. He brings out the thoroughly Christian (sometimes even anti-Islamic) reading of the Yoruba past which was created by nationalists like Samuel

Johnson and which came to have decisive influence on the educational and political ideals of later political movements. He also argues that the religious division between Muslims and Christians which corre- sponded to other cultural and geographical differences did find expression on several levels in Yoruba politics. Two related problems of Yoruba historiography, the transformation (but also persistence) of the precolonial political communities and the emergence of a new 'educated elite,' seem to be reflected in these diverging views on the role

Journal of Religion in Afiica, XXVI, 4 ? EJ. Brill, Leiden, 1996


Stefan Reichmuth

of religion among the Yoruba. From Peel's own monograph on the eastern Yoruba town Ilesa (1983) educational change comes out as a major link between communal and elite development in 20th century Yorubaland.

It is indeed the field of education where the different religious affiliations have had their most obvious impact. From a small group of educated Christians in the colonial service, in commerce and in the professions emerged the administrative and political leadership in Lagos and Yorubaland before and after independence. As the Christian missions for a long time controlled most of the educational institutions, the Christian moulding of this elite remained strong, even among those of its members who later came to identify themselves with indigenous religious traditions or with secularism. The common moral notion of ilajzu/olaju 'enlightenment, civilization' which has been described by Peel

as a key term for social development was strongly linked to this educational background.2

Although Islam, too, was frequently seen in Yoruba communities as an element of olaju,3 the prestige of the Muslims was of a different kind

as they represented a way of life which promised both personal dig- nity and economic welfare and which at the same time remained closer to communal life than missionary Christianity. Yoruba Muslims for a long time did not share the educational and professional interests of the Christians, given the continuous growth of Islam in Yorubaland and the important role played by Muslim traders and titled chiefs in many Yoruba towns. The large Muslim community of Lagos, however, was gradually drawn into the struggles and tensions between the Government, the educated Christian elite, and the local Chiefs. Earlier than other Muslim groups the Muslims in Lagos started to take part in the competition for commercial and public employment. The new situation made them aware of their disadvantaged educational position vis-a-vis the Christians who controlled most of the schools. This aware-

ness, combined with a growing reformist tendency among younger educated Muslims, finally led to the establishment of associations which were to provide Western education for Muslim children. From the twen-

ties and thirties they spread among Yoruba Muslim communities in many parts of the country, giving them a quite distinct character even among other Muslim groups in Nigeria.

Several models can be traced for these educational associations of

the Yoruba Muslims which gradually developed into fully-fledged religious communities. A basic element was the Yoruba tradition of age- grade and professional associations (egbe),4 which had been present also

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The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of YJzgeria

in Yoruba Islam before the colonial era. The participation of itinerant Arab scholars in the earliest foundation of schools and organisations suggests an influence of the Near Eastern pattern of the Jam'yya which had been initiated at first by Christian Arabs but had also been adopted later by Muslim reformists.5 Direct influences of the Christian missions

in Nigeria can also be traced for several aspects of organisation and ritual. Of major importance, however, was the Indian Ahmadiyya, the first international Islamic body to be invited to Lagos and to provide an organisational framework for a reformed religious and educational community. This very intricate blend of indigenous and foreign elements led to the emergence of a structural pattern which can be regarded as exceptional in Islam: a religious association, based on a written constitution and on elective offices, with religious functionaries being appointed by the elected executive. The Yoruba Muslim case, remarkable for its democratic solution to the problem of religious organisation, stands in clear contrast to the generalized distinction between an Islamic 'contractualism' and a Christian 'corporativism' in religious institutional development which was put forward by M. Hodgson.6 It stands out as an important type of Muslim response to the colonial and post- colonial state, especially in a multi-religious environment. If anything else, it shows, in Peel's words, the 'concern, not just to react to, but to engage with external forces,'7 which has been so typical for Yoruba society since the colonial period.

One of the oldest, and certainly the largest of the educational associations of the Yoruba Muslims is the Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria (Jam'iyyat An.dr ad-Din Naijiriya),8 founded in Lagos in the year 1923. Its development from a small group of educated young men in Lagos to a large national body with branches in most parts of the country, has deeply affected the position of Yoruba Muslims in Nigeria before and after independence. It may serve to explain how the Yoruba Mus- lims tried to solve their educational dilemma of combining 'Western' and Islamic forms of learning, how they gained access to elite posi- tions, and how they have handled their Yoruba and Islamic allegiances over different periods of time.

2. Background to a 'Committee of Gentlemen': the Lagos Muslim community,

the Ahmadiyya and the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen

As a major port and trading centre which started as an entrepot of the slave-trade and which finally became the colonial capital, Lagos, it has been rightly said, was not a typical nineteenth century Yoruba

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town.9 Both its focus on trade and its cosmopolitan outlook were much stronger than elsewhere. The Muslim community in Lagos also took a different development from those in the Yoruba hinterland, as it was earlier than any other Muslim group in Nigeria exposed to the influence of international trade in the south and to the impact of direct British rule. After modest beginnings among Muslim migrants from the north (mainly Hausa, Kanuri, and Nupe) who came as slaves or warriors in the late 18th century, the community was permitted to hold its first public Friday prayer in 1841.10 The Muslims had found the patronage of Kosoko, one of the powerful princes of the town who became king in 1845. Despite his changing fortunes in his struggle against the Brit- ish and his local rivals, Islam under him and his successors won more and more adherents so that by 1891, about 44% of the Lagos population of the town and harbor of Lagos were Muslims." Religious scholars and preachers from Ilorin and further north paid frequent visits to them, some staying permanently as Imams, Tafsir scholars, or Quranic teachers.

The growth and reputation of the Muslim community was also rein- forced by the return of liberated slaves from Sierra Leone and Brazil who began to settle in Lagos from about 1840.'2 Both groups, the Saro (from Sierra Leone) and the Aguda or Amaro (from Brazil) were mostly descendants from Yoruba-speaking people. They included Christian converts as well as Muslims and came to play an important role as merchants, traders, and artisans in the town. Christian repatriates were instrumental in introducing Christianity and Western education into Lagos and Yorubaland. They held important administrative and cleri- cal offices and pioneered the legal, medical and educational profession in the colony. The Muslim Saro and Aguda established their own mosques in the town. Being less isolated from the town population than the emerging Christian educated elite, they stimulated the commercial and educational development within the Muslim community. Like other Saro merchants they were able to break through the strong commercial control of the local chiefs and traders and to establish direct trade

relations with the Yoruba and Nupe hinterland up to the Niger. The most prominent Muslim Saro merchant, Muhammad ('William') Shitta (d. 1895),13 was given the title of a Seriki Musulumi ('Head of the Mus- lims'). He assumed the political leadership of the Lagos Muslims, replac- ing the Chief Imams as adviser of the Oba. Shitta had the Central Mosque rebuilt at his expense in 1873 and later established his own mosque which was formally opened on the 5th July 1894 in presence of the British Governor. A leading British Muslim, the Liverpool lawyer

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The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria

William Henry Abdullah Quilliam, conducted this ceremony. He acted as special representative of Sultan 'Abd al-Hamid II, and conferred upon Shitta the title of a Bey of the Ottoman Empire.14 He also encour- aged the Muslims to provide modem education for their children. The occasion marked both the British and the international Islamic recognition of the Lagos Muslim community, in a period of tension and struggles between the Government and the states of the hinterland. Still

in the same year, Shitta Bey and other Muslim leaders formally demanded

the establishment of an Islamic court in Lagos. Although the Governor refused this request, he was ready to recognize Shitta Bey as a Judge for the Muslims.15 Their position was further enhanced with the establishment of the Government Muslim Schools in Lagos (1896), E.pe (1898) and Badagry (1899).16 These schools which offered instruction in Western

as well as in Islamic subjects were administered by the Muslim communities themselves and found wide acceptance.

The continuing growth of the Muslim community which by 1908 was estimated to include about 60% of the Lagos population'7 led to a close relationship between the Muslim leaders and the local hierarchy. Most important chiefs came to be Muslims themselves, even if they often stopped practising their religion when they obtained their traditional offices.'8 The council of the city wards, the Ilu Committee which performed important functions of self-government and social wel-

fare and which included representatives of the local mosque communities also became largely dominated by Muslims. It was through this committee which stood between the local hierarchy and the popular wards and associations that Islam began to play a crucial role in Lagos politics.19 Muslim leaders and ward heads also became members of the Central Native Council which was set up in 1900.20

The large and influential Muslim community took full part in the political struggles in colonial Lagos. Like the Christian elite and the local hierarchy it became divided over the government's introduction of a Water Rate in 1908 and its land policy which were both largely opposed in the town.21 Whereas a minority group around the Chief Imam, called the Lemomu ('Imam') party, remained loyal to the government, the large majority of the Muslims, called the Jama'at ('Community'),

joined the Oba and the early nationalist politician Herbert Macaulay in their resistance against the administration and its policies. This alliance between the majorities of the local Chiefs, of the Muslims and of the educated elite became a powerful factor in Lagos politics for the whole colonial period. Within the Muslim community itself, the political dis- sent led to a debate about the role of the Imamate and to the demand

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of a written constitution. A fierce struggle arose between the two par- ties over the control of the Central Mosque. Finally it went to the Jama'at group which appointed its own Chief Imam. The split lasted from 1923 to 1947.22

The educational development also seems to have contributed to the tensions among the Muslims in Lagos. Contacts with Arab merchants and scholars and travels to Arab countries led to the establishment of

new forms of Islamic learning. Shitta Bey's son Isa, the Tafsir scholar of the Central Mosque, went for study to the al-Azhar University in Cairo from where he returned in 1915.23 An Arab in Lagos, Muhammad Mustafa ash-Shami, founded an Arabic school for the local Muslims in

1904. He was also the author of an elementary book, MiWth. al-lugha al-'arabfyya, which became widely used and which played an important role in the reform of Arabic and Islamic education in Yorubaland.24

The most prominent among the Arabs was the Sharif 'Abd al-Karim al-Muradi from Tripoli in the Lebanon (d. 1926 in Kano),25 who trav- elled widely between Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Gambia, and came to Lagos around 1890. He taught many young local scholars, contributed to the introduction of Arabic printed books in Lagos and supported the establishment of a modern Arabic school in Abeokuta in 1917. He

also took part in the foundation of several Islamic societies. The most prominent of these, the first Ansaru d-Din, were established apparently as a kind of Governing Council of the Central Mosque with several auxiliary societies.26 The old Ansaru d-Dfn were closely related to the Ilu Committee (its chairman Abibu Oki, a wealthy trader, was also their president) and supported the Jama'at.

Due to the success of the three Government Muslim Schools, Western

education also found growing interest among the Muslims. A society of young men called E.gbe Kila, established after the opening of the Shitta Bey Mosque and probably named after that prominent British Muslim visitor, Abdullah Quilliam, had become most popular in Lagos and even in other towns. It propagated a modernisation of Muslim life and festivities and became attached to the first Ansaru d-Din.27 In the

year 1917 a Muslim Committee of Education was set up which was supposed to establish a Muslim School and which started negotiations for a land-grant with the Government. The Committee, however, did not survive the crisis which split the Muslim community in the twen- ties. In the meantime a growing number of young educated Muslims, trained in the Government Muslim Schools or in Christian institutions,

was entering the public sector or taking employment with the large commercial firms. When the government withdrew its support from the

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Government Muslim Schools in 1926, there were already some private institutions which had been established by former teachers or students of these schools.28

It was the Indian Ahmadiyya which thoroughly changed the position of modern school education among the Muslims in Lagos, by making it a central element in the life of a reformed religious community.29

It seems significant that the movement was introduced by two local groups of young educated Muslims, the Muslim Literary Society and the Juvenile Muslim Society which in 1916 came into contact with Ahmadiyya literature and decided to form their own branch of the Ahmadiyya Movement-in-Islam in the same year. The early Nigerian Ahmadis met with strong resentment among the local community as they condemned the traditional forms of showing respect to parents, elders, and chiefs, and also the common dancing of men and women which usually went with festivities. On the other hand they promoted modernising innovations like women's attendance at mosques and buri- als and the translation of the Friday sermon into the local language and even justified the use of coffins in funeral services which was common among the Christian elite.30 Plans were also made for a school where Islamic and secular subjects could be taught. All these issues were for a long time to remain crucial elements of religious reform among Yoruba Muslims.

The first Indian Missionary of the Ahmadiyya (of Qadiyan), 'Abdu r-Rahim Nayyar, came to Nigeria in 1921 at the request of the newly established local branch. His modernised form of open-air preaching had a strong impact on the Muslims in Lagos.31 His Islamic sermons were held in English, seconded by a Yoruba translator.32 Apart from gaining adherents and sympathizers among young Muslims with a newly acquired western education who were apparently looking for a new expression of their Muslim identity, Nayyar was also able to win over a Muslim sect in Lagos, the Quranic People (Alalukurani) who collectively joined the Ahmadiyya in 1921. With the financial support of a rapidly growing community, a first Ahmadiyya primary school was opened within a year in 1922.33

Ahmadiyya activities and successes in Nigeria were almost from the beginning beset with internal disputes and fissions. Problems arose from the special doctrines of the Ahmadiyya as well as from the hier- archical structure and the tight financial control which was established by the Indian missionaries. Some members of the Quranic People broke away as early as 1922. A majority of them defected ten years later, taking over their mosque again which had come under Ahmadiyya

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control. One of the most active early Ahmadis, L.B. Agusto, broke with Qadiyani doctrines during his study in London. When he returned to Nigeria in 1924 and settled down as a lawyer in Lagos, he left the Ahmadiyya together with some followers and founded his own movement, the Islamic Society of Nigeria (Jama'at-ul Islamiyya).34 The most serious split, however, occurred in 1939-40 when a majority group, led by the lawyer Jibril Martin, refused to renew their loyalty to Qadiyan because they felt alienated by the high-handedness of the Indian missioner who was then administering the community.35 Beside the group which remained loyal to the Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya of Qadiyan, an independent Ahmadiyya Movement-in-Islam was established which by court action took over most of the property and of the schools belonging to the Ahmadiyya. The 'Independents' also came to refuse central doctrines of the Ahmadiyya like the prophethood of Ghulam Ahmad

and also its exclusiveness in prayer which allowed to pray only behind an Ahmadi Imam.

The Ahmadiyya as well as its break-away groups developed into highly organised bodies which played an important role in establishing and running schools for Muslims. All of them tried to raise the religious and educational status of the Muslim women and received substantial

subsidies from their highly active female members. They also propagated

the attendance of the women at their Friday and 'Id prayers. The de- livering of the Khutba in Yoruba or English was firmly established by them, even against legal prosecution by the Lagos Muslim Commu- nity.36 The development and distribution of an Islamic religious literature in English and in Yoruba, including the translation of the Quran, also started with Ahmadiyya initiatives. As Muslim members of the edu-

cated elite, the leaders of the Jama'at-ul Islamiyya and of the independent Ahmadiyya Movement-in-Islam came to play a prominent role in public and political life of Lagos and the Western Region, especially in the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), the forerunner of the later Action Group.37

The emergence of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen was related both to the crisis within the Lagos Muslim Community and to the religious and educational activities of the Ahmadiyya in Lagos. The early members of the new body seem to have belonged to the same group of young educated Muslims as the early Ahmadis. In contrast to the Ahmadis, however, they remained in close connection with the Lagos Muslim community and its scholars. Local centres of religious learning like IlQrin and Ibadan, but also an early orientation toward the Arab countries, seem to have moulded their own concept of Islamic standards more than the Ahmadiyya.

372



The meetings which led to the formation of the new society took place in November and December 1923, at a time when the split in the Muslim community was becoming final. In fact the first meeting preceeded the swearing in of the Jama'at Chief Imam Ligali by only two days.38 The young educated men who inaugurated the society, according to Odularu39 mostly from the LemQmu fraction, were discussing ways to overcome the widening rift within the community. Modernized open-air preaching was in fact the first concern of these young men. Some of them had been organizing public sermons at Balogun Square for some years, and one of the aims they discussed was to secure the funding for these activities for the future. The interest shifted from preaching to the establishment of a society which was 'to propagate Islam and run Muslim schools with bias for teaching Arabic.'40 This would seem to suggest that the Arab orientation was still strong among this early group. The decisive move toward education on Western lines was brought into the discussion by Boonyamin K. Gbajabiamila, a former member of the Juvenile Muslim Society mentioned above, who had joined the Ahmadiyya for a while and later left it like Agusto and others.4' He was able to convince the group that an education on western lines was most important for the advancement of the Muslims: '... by this means alone... can Islam be better studied and under- stood....'42 Others were won for the project, and finally the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen Society was inaugurated with 42 foundation members on the 21st of December, 1923.43

The relation to the older Ansaru d-Din is not clear. In his first report

written 1924, Boonyamin K. Gbajabiamila who had become the first Secretary of the society firmly denied any connection with the other body.44 Apparently the society which from the beginning stressed its non-sectarian and non-political character still had difficulties in prov- ing its independence from the Jama'at to which the older body was so closely connected. Some continuity at least can be seen in the case of the treasurer of the Lagos Central Mosque, Abdul Rahman Ajayi: both a member of the Ilu Committee and an elder of the old Ansaru

d-Din, right from the inception of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen he became one of their elder members.4 The fact that the name was chosen after

consultation with some local religious scholars47 points in the same direc-

tion. The present Chief Imam, Ali Arazim Alaaya, in a recent interview confirmed the close relationship between the two societies, describing the new one as the youth wing of the other.48 Relations to other fractions, however, did also exist. One of the religious scholars of the society, Abu Bakrin Otun, a student of al-Muradi,49 became Imam of the mosque of Ali Balogun, the most prominent supporter of the old Chief

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Imam. An early member, R.S. Baruwa-Etti, AUD President 1950-67, apparently belonged to the Quranic sect as he became the Imam of their mosque in Okepopo in 1950.50 These glimpses on local relation- ships would indicate that the claim of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen to non-partisan character did have credibility. The links to the different camps among the local Muslims would explain much of the later success of the society, especially if seen in contrast to the sectarianism which the Ahmadiyya was never really able to overcome.

The first 42 members, that 'Committee of Gentlemen's5 which was supposed to preach, practise and defend Islam and to build Muslim schools, were for the most part products of the Government Muslim School in Lagos.52 Their list53 shows a large proportion of names like Carew, Williams, Savage, Cole, King, Davies, Thompson and Dawodu, indicating a strong Saro connection.54 Aguda names are entirely lack- ing in this early stage, a clear contrast to the Ahmadiyya with its president, J. Martin, and even more to L.B. Agusto's Jama'atu l-Islamiyya with its base in the Brazilian Quarter. The scholar and preacher element was represented by Y.K. Gbajabiamila (later Imam and Assistant Missioner), Hussein Carew, Nurainy Aboo-Bakrin and Yesufu Tairu who were in charge of the Open-Air preaching at Balogun Square. Alhaji A.S. Alawiye in whose house (11 Balogun Street) the meetings were held seems to have been related to a famous preacher from Ilorin, Muhammad as-Sanusi Alawiye56 who in the 19th century had built a mosque for himself at Balogun Square in the centre of Old Lagos. Another foundation member, the father of the prominent AUD scholar and educationist Hafiz Abu,57 was also the son of a famous preacher. Further connections to local religious families can be conjectured for some other early members of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen, like M.A. Okunnu, a Member of the Mission Board and later Vice-President, who apparently belonged to a scholar family descending from the Obas of Lagos, and B. Ade Mumuni ('Mummuney'), Secretary for Education 1927-31, probably related to a famous Tafsir scholar at the Idumagbo Mosque.58 One of the educational secretaries, L.B. Olokodana, was a member of the family of the Imams of Ebute Meta and later became Imam himself.59

The different kinds of educational and professional career typical for the early members of the society are perhaps most aptly represented in the person of its later Chief Imam and Missioner, Mustafa Kasunmu Ekemode (1899-1972).60 His father was a Tafsir scholar of the Lagos Central Mosque who had studied in IlQrin and who allowed his son to join the Government Muslim School. After four years of primary

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school (1911-14) which he combined with Islamic studies at home Mustafa Ekemode proceeded to secondary education in Lagos (1914- 17), initially against strong resistance of his father who feared the Christian influence in the secondary schools. In 1918 he was sent to Ibadan to study under Chief Imam Haruna Gege, one of the most famous Yoruba Islamic scholars of the time. Ekemode's professional career which he entered before 1920 as clerk and cashier in a Nigerian firm finally led to employment with large expatriate companies like United Africa Company and Patterson, Zochonis & Co. At the same time he became an active member of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen, serving from 1926 onward in all Executive Committees, finally as Vice-President (1939-41),61 before he became the first Chief Missioner of the society in 1942 (for this see below). As in Mustafa Ekemode's case, a strong family background of Islamic learning, western education up to secondary level, and a beginning clerkly career seem to have been the common features among most early members of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen.

3. Schools, prayers, and constitutions: the shaping of a religious association

The structure of the new society62 developed in close relation to its educational projects and its reformist religious activities. The first Executive of 1923 established the offices of a President, Vice-President, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, and Treasurer. Together with a number of un-official members, they constituted a central governing body, the Executive Committee which came to be elected on a biennial base by the members. A constitution was approved in 1926, and on 16 August 1927, the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen were officially registered as a non- sectarian and non-political Muslim organisation, one of whose primary aims was 'the creation of a well organised and efficient body dedicated for the service of Islam.' Membership was declared open to all Muslims, men and women, who, after being sponsored by two members, were prepared to sign the Society's Declaration of Pledge by which they undertook to lead 'a sincere and steadfast Muslim life' and to 'support the cause, aims and objects of the Society under all circumstances.' The finance of the rapidly growing organisation was mainly based on a monthly subscription paid by the members and on contributions and collections at lecture meetings and religious celebrations.

The declared objectives of the society covered the fields of a) 'Educa- tion,' b) 'Reformation,' and c) 'Propagation and Defence of Islam.'63 Education which up to now takes the first place among the aims de- fined in the constitution included the foundation and maintenance of

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educational institutions, but also the general encouragement of literacy and intellectual pursuits among the members. The objectives of 'Refor- mation' combined the reformist impetus to 'eradicate all forms of evil and corruption that have crept into Islam' with an even stronger emphasis on the 'religious, moral and social advancement of the Muslim community' and the fostering of 'feelings of brotherhood' among all of its members. These are formulations that evoke the spirit of the Improvement

Unions and Friendship Societies which at that time were springing up in most urban communities of Yorubaland and which also became very much involved in school projects and educational activities.64 The translation and distribution of the Quran and of other Islamic literature to Muslims as well as non-Muslims which was intended as part of the society's 'Propagation and Defence of Islam' clearly shows the model of the Christian missionary societies, but also of the Ahmadiyya. The purpose of improving the public image of Islam among the educated elite, an elite to which more and more Yoruba Muslims wanted to belong, is clearly recognizable already in the early stage of the society.

Religious activities and institutional consolidation

The religious activities of the society where coordinated by a Mission Board which was set up as early as 1926. M.K. Ekemode (1927-35) and later M.A. Okunnu (1936-39, 1943) were its most prominent secretaries. They organised open-air preaching and the celebration of important religious occasions such as Laylat al-Qadr and Maulid an-Nabiy which became highly important elements of public Islamic propaganda as well as crucial fund-raising activities. Within the society a programme

of religious adult evening classes was developed. One of the main tasks of the Mission Board, however, was the conducting of religious ceremonies. The reformist attitude of the society found its expression in a set of modernized rituals for child-naming, marriage, and funeral. The written order of religious ceremonies which was published and re-issued several times65 added prayers for special Islamic occasions like 'Ashura' or Nisf Sha'ban, but also for typical middle-class events like the opening of a new house or the retirement of a member of the society from Civil Service.66 For marriage, western elements like the exchange of rings and the cutting of a wedding cake were admitted, and marriage certificates issued to the couple.67 A special formula, 'The Society's Gloria,' was introduced by Ekemode and became an essential part of all ceremonies held by the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen.68 The name of this entirely Arabic prayer, but also the printed order of ceremonies itself which demanded an 'Officiating Minister' who was to conduct them,

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betray the Christian model for these religious reforms. Another example was the Harvest Celebration which became the society's most important social event, an occasion for feasting and for major donations. As in the organisation of ritual, Christian models can be found in the Biennial Conference during which all members of the executive were elected for the next two years, comparable to the Anglican Synod, and in the division of the growing society in Lagos into four 'Parishes,' later called 'Divisions,' which since 1926 used to send their own representatives into the Executive Committee.9 It would be tempting but also

misleading to see a religious syncretism in this application of Christian models. As in the case of education it was the institutional framework

rather than its religious content which was adopted and adjusted to suit a reformist Muslim association. Somehow the borrowings seem to correspond to the Western suits, ties and bowties which were the favoured dress of these early educated Yoruba Muslims, and a symbol of the elite status to which they aspired for themselves and for their community.70 The organisational model which they adopted was supposed to bring about a modernization of religious life. It combined a procedural formalism with the fostering of solidarity and with joint efforts to carry out common projects. This model was at the same period becoming highly successful in many other fields of social and cultural life in southern Nigeria.

The need to expand and coordinate the religious activities became apparent in the forties when the first schools had been established and a number of branches of the society had come to existence outside Lagos, in Yorubaland and even in other parts of Nigeria. With his appointment as Chief Missioner in 1942, Mustafa Ekemode became the first salaried officer of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen. He was to be responsible for the religious programmes, for the conducting of ceremonies and for the organisation and supervision of Islamic teaching within the society. His duties7' also covered the touring of the new provincial branches and the coordination of the activities of the Women's Unions which were also gaining in importance during these years. As a religious officer his activities were subject to the approval of the Executive and the Mission Board. This made his position quite different from that of the usual Muslim preacher or Imam. Like the early Yoruba Ahmadis, the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen were highly critical of the ways in which religious offices were handled and collections and donations used for personal benefit in the mosques of Yorubaland. They wanted to modernize not only the ceremonies, but also the religious offices themselves.72 This led to their withdrawal from the Lagos Central

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Mosque. After the appointment of Mustafa Ekemode in 1942 the society started to conduct its own Friday services in their first school in AlakQro, with the Khutba translated into Yoruba.73 In contrast to the case of the Ahmadiyya, however, this was done without any formal separation from the other Muslim communities. Open conflict with the Central Mosque later arose in 1952 over the date of the 'Id (Yidi).74 The Young Ansar-Ud-Deen objected to inconsistencies in the actual fixing of the dates in Lagos and refused to take part in the common Yidi prayers. The break lasted until 1954 when the Central Mosque started to work together with the society in establishing the Yidi dates. With this agreement the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen had finally asserted their independent religious authority within the Lagos Muslim Commu- nity itself. Despite the use of Imam titles since the forties,75 however, the society was slow to build its own mosques. This was probably due to the educational commitments which absorbed most of its financial

capacities. The establishment of separate mosques seems to have started outside Lagos in the late fifties: Ibadan, where Friday prayer in the first mosque of the society began in 1959,76 might have been one of the earliest cases.

From 1956 onward Mustafa Ekemode is mentioned as 'Chief Imam

& Missioner' in the lists of the members of the Executive Committee.77

The title of a Chief Imam was yet another sign of the religious self- assertion of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen. Apart from Ekemode's respon- sibilities for the society he became a famous figure among other Muslims,

especially by his Quranic recitations for which he created a distinctive style, called Ekemodiyya, which was admired and widely copied among younger Muslim Yoruba scholars and teachers, men as well as women.78 He was also one of the pioneers of Muslim religious broadcasting in Nigeria. In 1955 he took up the post of a Religious Broadcasting As- sistant with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Ikoyi.79 His religious programmes were held in Yoruba and English. He selected for them a number of other Muslim scholars and educationists from the

Young Ansar-Ud-Deen as well as from other Muslim organisations. This step into the modern media, very much in line with the original aims and activities of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen, was very significant for the public image of Islam in Nigeria as a whole. One of Ekemode's radio lectures, on 'Taqdir or Premeasurement in Islam,'80 gives an inter- pretation of Man who is endowed by God with Free Will and with a sense of responsibility, which both make him a master of the Universe as he is given control over the forces of nature and called to the service of humanity and of his creator. This seems to tell much about the

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optimistic message which the Young-Ansar-Ud-Deen wanted to spread among their fellow Muslims, especially the younger educated elements among them.8'

The role of Muslim Women in Lagos

The educated youth was only one of the target groups of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen. As in the case of the Ahmadiyya, a main source of support came from Muslim women in Lagos. Their regular and large attendance at the religious programmes and their monetary contributions to the General Fund of the society were already mentioned in its first report in 1924,82 and a local Women's Wing was formed as early as 1926.83 When after some activities held by female members the general question of the position of women was raised both within the society and among other Muslims, the Mission Board 'declared its support for the policy of a programme for the emancipation of women.'84 In 1931 the Board ruled against the seclusion of women, describing it as a custom of non-Islamic origin which 'had through sheer ignorance been incorporated with [sic] the noble doctrines of that Prophet (i.e. Muhammad).'85 From the thirties onward Muslim women were active members of the society. A prominent Chairwoman of one of the Divisions

is mentioned already for 1933-34.86 Ekemode's wife, Hulaymat M. Ekemode (later Mrs. Shodeinde, d. 1971)87 played an important role as teacher at the first school of the society in Lagos (1932-69). She also organised Adult Education classes in Yoruba and English for Muslim women, a programme which was later extended to other Muslim organisations in Lagos, and she established a Girls' Guide Branch of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen. In 1943 she launched the national Women's Wing of the society.88 With the growing political mobilisation Mrs. Ekemode joined the Women's Party which was founded in 1944.89 Apart from this early Muslim feminist who even decided to seek divorce from her husband when he married a second wife,90 female students of the Alakoro school also seem to have been an active element within the

society.91 Its schools were kept open for both boys and girls, and a special teacher training scheme was organised for Muslim girls at the Government's girls' college in Lagos. As in the case of the men, however, the commitment to western education was combined with Islamic

teaching for women. Here, the wife of another member of the Mission Board, Aminat 0. Gbajabiamila (1908-83),92 played a leading role as religious teacher (Onikewu Adini) who organised Tafsir and Arabic lessons

for the women of the society. A most important circle of middle-aged and wealthy women supporters

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quite early formed the first Assalat Union93 of the Young Ansar-Ud- Deen. Its members seem to have belonged to the Muslim market women in Lagos, a group which was a highly important factor in the local politics of the time.94 Most famous among these supporters became Humuliari (Ummu al-Khayri) Alake Giwa-Thompson, described as a 'mother of the society' in the Souvenir Brochure of 1973, who even built and donated a mosque in 1940 and had an Imam and his deputy appointed for it. One of the wives of the prominent Muslim Trader Seidu Williams, Sabalimotu Williams,95 also belonged to this circle. The name of another member, Nusiratu Pelewura, might indicate a relationship to the family of Madam Alimotu Pelewura, the leader of the Lagos Market Women who was a close political ally of Herbert Macaulay.96 Other important names of the political scene in Lagos, Oki97 and Obanikoro,98 also figure among the members of the Assalat Union. A second female auxiliary of the society, the Ladies Association, was established in 1942.99

As in the case of the men, the female support for the Young Ansar- Ud-Deen apparently cut across different sections of the Muslim community in Lagos, and perhaps the society was more successful than anybody else in raising the religious status of the Muslim women and in bringing them together for common educational goals. The most significant success for the Muslim women in Lagos was their admission to worship in the Lagos mosques, an issue sparked off by the early Ahmadis which for a long time had been highly controversial. Aminat 0. Gbajabiamila, one of the foundation members of the Assalat Union and the most learned female religious teacher within the society, is described in an AUD Brochure'?? as a 'woman pioneer' of this struggle which finally led to success in 1947. In this year the Muslim scholars of Lagos, including Mustafa Ekemode, Abu Bakrin Otun and Surakatu Ayodeji of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen, issued afatwd which allowed for the attendance of women at places reserved for them in the mosques for the five daily prayers.'0' This can be seen as a religious recognition of the important role played by Muslim women in the public life of the town. The influence of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen on this improvement of the status of Muslim women was not restricted to Lagos itself. When the society opened their Friday prayer at Ijebu-Ode for women in 1954, the other Muslim Women Associations demanded the same right to be granted to them at the Central Mosque, which was finally agreed to by the Chief Imam.'02

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Educational expansion and constitutional reform

For all their religious reformism and their social activities, the main commitment of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen was to education and to the establishment of schools. Their first project was a primary school in AlakQrQ, Lagos, on a site which had been granted to the Lagos Muslim Community in 1917. The digging of the first spade for the school building, in presence of the Acting Governor of the Colony, took place on 15 September, 1929. All the Imams of the different sects and fractions among the Lagos Muslims took part in the ceremony, an achievement which found wide recognition in Lagos. The AlakQrQ primary school opened for admission in 1931 and was officially opened two years later by the Governor of Nigeria who publicly acknowledged the educational efforts of the society. From 1933/34 the school started to function under an Education Board which came to coordinate the

educational projects and activities of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen. The school was headed until 1935 by a Syrian, R.A. Naja, before a Nigerian principal took over. Arabic and religious instruction was given by a Si- erra Leonian scholar, Umar Savage who had been in contact with the Sharif al-Muradi.'03 Apart from this early element of Arab influence, the

school entirely followed modern western curricula and teaching methods. An Infant and Nursery School was attached to it whose programme shows a strong element of contemporary Montessori principles.'04

The AlakorQ School for a long time absorbed most of the educational and financial capacities of the society. It also became its headquarters. After a second primary school was finally opened in Okepopo in 1942, the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen set up a Ten-Years Educational Programme which apart from more primary schools envisaged the devel-

opment of a Muslim Teacher Training College and a Secondary Grammar School for Muslim boys and girls. The Teacher Training College started in Ota (near Lagos) in the year 1946 with 29 students sponsored by various Muslim organisations, from the Colony and the Western Provinces, and was formally opened in 1948.105 The first Sec- ondary Grammar School, for boys and girls, was established in Isolo, Lagos, in 1953. The need for the Teacher Training College had been felt for a long time among the Muslim population in these areas. The lack of qualified Muslim teachers, however, still was to remain a major problem for the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen, and the employment of Chris- tian teaching staff became very common from the beginning. Strong emphasis on 'western' subjects and a large proportion of Christian teachers made the Ansar-Ud-Deen Schools quite similar to their Christian

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counterparts and led to a quite open religious athmosphere at these institutions.

After modest beginnings the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen came to have about 80 primary schools under its proprietorship in 1955, which were to a large extent financed by the society itself.'06 Expansion outside Lagos had started in the forties. By this time many Muslim communities had come to realize the importance of 'western' education for their children, and due to their educational experience the Young Ansar-

Ud-Deen were seen as a suitable partner for the establishment of Muslim

schools. How a growing local interest in schools and the establishment of new branches of the society were linked at this time can be seen very clearly in the case of the Ekiti area in the eastern part of Yoru- baland.'07 In Ado-Ekiti the society was called in to take over the Muslim Community school which had been founded in 1945. Another school was taken over in Igbemo in 1947, after a branch had been established one year before. Finally all the Imams of the seventeen important communities in Ekiti came together in 1949 and decided to join the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen, in order to create a common platform for the settling of disputes and to coordinate their educational efforts. Thus the society was collectively launched by all Ekiti Muslim communities on November 4th, 1949. Later even a Teacher Training College was founded by the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen in Ado-Ekiti. A strong communal Muslim interest had also backed the introduction of the society in Ijbu-Ode in 1936: here, too, this was supported by leading scholars and Imams, and the first primary school was established in 1946.'?8

Muslim organisations like the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen, the Ahmadiyya Movement and others had from the beginning cooperated with the colonial administration as Voluntary Agencies in the educational field. This cooperation was largely extended when the new Government of the Western Region introduced its programme of Universal Primary Education (UPE)'09 in 1955. The programme was intended to create facilities for a free, universal primary education which later was to become compulsory. It also included a massive teacher-training programme

and the expansion and diversification of secondary schools. Of the newly

established schools, 40% were designed for Voluntary Agencies which were to receive official grants-in-aid. As the Government was aware of the Muslims' dissatisfaction with the privileged position of the Christian missions in the educational system, it was decided that Muslim educational agencies in addition to their portion of the Voluntary Agency share might claim another 10% of the new schools."1 The Young Ansar-Ud-Deen were the agency which profited most from this special

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The Ansar-Ud-Deen Societ of Nigeria 383

concession to the Muslims as an educationally deprived group. With the introduction of the UPE scheme, the number of their primary schools rose to 215. In the following years and in the early sixties, they participated in the establishment of the new type of Secondary Mod- ern Schools and were also able to found several other Secondary Grammar Schools. Around 1967 almost half of the educational insti-

tutions run by Muslim Voluntary Agencies (254 out of 509) were controlled by the Ansar-Ud-Deen."' This development also increased their influence among the Yoruba Muslims who apparently took particular advantage of the new facilities and even seem to have been responsible for a steep rise in female enrolments in the Western Region."2 Of Abernethy's small sample of Muslim children in primary schools in 1964,1 3 43% were attending schools run by Muslim agencies, which again gives a hint of the influence which these had won at that period of educational expansion. According to Odularu's estimate of 1967114 the Ansar at that time controlled about 30% of all Yoruba Muslims,

of which 8% belonged to Lagos, 21,5% to Western Nigeria, and 0,5% to other areas. The number of divisions in Lagos and Western Nigeria had reached by then more than 200."5

By its spread all over Nigeria and its large educational responsibili- ties, the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen at the end of the fifties had by far out- grown the status of a Yoruba Improvement Union which had character- ised their beginnings. A review of the society's constitution which came into effect on January 1st, 1960,16 dropped the attribute 'Young' from the society's name which since then has been 'The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria.' The added reference to Nigeria reflects the new claim of a national character. The whole structure of the society was adjusted to its expansion which had taken place in the past decades. Provincial, Regional and Divisional Councils were to be formed to provide an intermediary level between the local Branches and the National Executive. This was put into effect even in the Northern Region where a Northern District Council was formed in 1962."7 The Biennial Conference became a national conference of all branches to

come together for the discussion of current issues and for the election of the National Executive. The Educational and Mission Boards were

also restructured and a General Purpose Committee formed which was to deal with outstanding matters and to report its decisions to the National Executive for ratification. Apart from these administrative as-

pects of the reform, there was some streamlining of the Islamic image of the society: the word 'parish' was eliminated from the constitution, and the date of the Harvest Festival was put at the end of the year,


Stefan Reichmuth

to make it different from the Christian Thanksgiving Day in November.

The character of a religious community was further stressed by adding the building and maintenance of mosques to the aims and objectives of the society. All these changes in the constitution were clearly designed

to enable the Ansar-Ud-Deen to function as a reputable Islamic organisation on the national level, in the wake of Nigeria's independence which was achieved on October 1st of the same year, 1960. On July 6th, 1961, the society was officially registered under its new name as a corporate body in Lagos."8

The AUD and communal development in Lagos and Yorubaland

Educational experience and religious reformism made the Ansar-Ud- Deen a most influential model for Muslim communal associations in

Yorubaland. Sometimes a local social association of Muslims would join the society to form a new local branch and to get assistance in building a school. This was the case in Ofa (now Kwara State), a town where Islam took root only during the colonial period, to become the religion of the vast majority of the inhabitants. Here it was a popular Muslim 'Dancing Club' (Egbe Onijo) which was linked to the Ansar-Ud- Deen through a railway worker who had lived in Lagos and become a member of the society. Educational aims played an important role in their final joining of the AUD in 1945.'9 In Ibadan the AUD were introduced in 1933 by the Baale Abbasi Alesinloye who had visited the organisation in Lagos and promised to organise a branch in his town. The first members who in their majority were non-natives of Ibadan at first faced stiff opposition from the local mosques, which was not overcome until the establishment of the first AUD primary schools in 1951.120 The most prominent leader of the AUD women in Ibadan, Humani Alaga (b. 1907),121 was the head of the women textile traders of the town. In 1958 she brought women traders of different markets together to form another association, the Isabatudeen Society which set up a Secondary Grammar School for girls in 1963 and sponsored Mus- lim girls in university education. The women of this association also established a credit cooperative which was designed to improve the economic situation of younger and poorer women traders. The connection between the AUD and the Muslim market women which proved so successful in Lagos seems to have worked once more in this case. At the same time Humani Alaga was one of the most active supporters of the Action Group among the women traders in Ibadan.

Another society which closely followed the model of the Ansar-Ud- Deen, without, however, joining them, was the Young Nawair-Ud-Deen

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The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Jigeria

Society which was founded in 1939 by a similar group of young Muslims

in Abeokuta who were dissatisfied with the development of the Muslim community in this large and booming town. The Young Nawair-Ud- Deen, too, founded many schools. Their expansion paralleled that of the AUD, and they became the second largest among the Yoruba Mus- lim societies in Nigeria. They also changed their constitution and dropped the epithet 'Young' from their name in 1966.122 A similar case was the Ansarul-Islam Society of Ilorin which was founded in 1943 by a famous Ilorin preacher, Alhaji Kamal-ud-Deen who had paid regular visits to Lagos and had founded an Arabic school there.'23 Some Muslim communities in Yorubaland would make affiliations with different societies

for different educational aims, like OWQ (Ondo State) where the Ansar- Ud-Deen would be responsible for the 'Western' and the Ansarul-Islam for the Arabic School and where every member of one society would equally become a member of the other, in order to avoid unnecessary rivalries.124 When a conflict arose within the AUD Branch in Ado-Ekiti

(Ondo State) in 1956, the majority group for a time joined the Nawair- Ud-Deen. The conflict lasted until 1978 when they went back to the AUD. After this the Nawair-Ud-Deen Branch ceased to exist in Ado-

Ekiti.'25 For all their diversity, these developments certainly show that the AUD type of Muslim educational organisations had become an important communal factor in Yorubaland.

In Lagos politics, too, the impact of the educated Muslims who were connected with the Ansar-Ud-Deen and the Ahmadiyya societies came to be felt since the fifties. The socio-political process which finally led to a full control of the Lagos Muslims over the local apparatus of the ruling party, the Action Group, has been described in detail by P. Baker.126 At a time of massive immigration when the percentage of the Lagos indigenes had dropped to 37% and Christianity had become the majority religion in the town'27 the solidarity of Lagos Muslims intensified. By the late 1950s Muslim interests had come to be identified

with indigenous interests. It was the Oba of Lagos, Adeniji Adele, himself an Ahmadi, who created a political alliance between the local Area Councils and the Action Group which came to dominate the Lagos Town Council from 1953 onwards. By this alliance the Action Group was able to win strong support among the Muslims in Lagos. Coming up within the party ranks through the local nomination system, the Lagos Muslims began to penetrate the inner party machinery. The AG had strong support among the members of the Ahmadiyya, the Jama'at- ul-Islamiyya and also the Ansar-Ud-Deen. In fact one of the AUD leaders, the trader A.F. Masha, was a foundation member of Oba Adele's

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Area Council. He won a seat as a councillor for the Action Group in 1959 and later acted as Chairman of the Lagos Town Council (1962- 65).128 Another young AUD member, the journalist LateefJakande, son of an old warrior family in Lagos,'29 became one of the closest associates of the AG leader, Chief Awolowo. Mrs. H.M. Shodeinde, the former wife of Mustafa Ekemode now married to the Missioner of the

Ahmadiyya Movement-In-Islam, belonged to the founders of the National Council of Women, an association which was also closely connected with the Action Group.'30 In a similar way AUD members were prominent among the indigenous societies which proliferated from the 1950s to protect the interests of the native-born Lagosians.'3' J.R. Ajayi,132 Treasurer and later Vice-President of the society, was also Vice-President

of the Society of the Sons of Lagos (E.gbe OQm Eko) which in 1965 together with other similar groups called for the autonomy of Lagos.'33 The political and communal rise of the indigenous Lagosians was largely based on a new educated Muslim middle class which owed its exist-

ence to a large extent to the social and educational efforts made by the Ansar-Ud-Deen and the other Muslim organisations.

4. The Ansar-Ud-Deen and Muslim identity since he seventies

The situation of Nigeria after the Civil War, marked by a thorough centralization in most fields of government and by an unprecedented economic growth resulting from the oil revenues, offered new challenges

and opportunities to the Ansar-Ud-Deen. Two different but related developments stand out which have been of lasting influence on the outlook of the still expanding organisation. The first was the centrali- sation of the public education system and the take-over of most primary and secondary schools by the Government which strongly reduced the involvement of the religious organisations in this sector. As other religious educational agencies the Ansar-Ud-Deen lost much of their control over their schools. On the other hand, the unprecedented educational expansion which took place during the seventies and early eighties created a growing demand for teachers of the religious subjects which had been recognized as part of the general curricula on primary as well as on secondary level. This made Islamic Studies and Arabic much more relevant to the public system than it had been before, and the Ansar-Ud-Deen like other Islamic organisation became increasingly involved in this field.

The second aspect of the new situation was the consolidation of the local religious communities and, related to that, a strong increase in

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The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Ngeria

the national and international religious connnections of the Yoruba Muslims. These had their fair share in the rising number of pilgrims to Mecca and of students in Arab countries which characterized this

period in Nigeria.'34 The economic prosperity also allowed for a strong commitment to the erection of new and large mosques which could be observed in local Muslim communities all over Yorubaland. Yoruba

Muslims also played an important role in the emergence of national Islamic organisations in Nigeria.'35 When the Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) was created as an umbrella organisation of the Nigerian Muslims in 1973, A.F. Masha, National President of the Ansar-Ud-Deen, became one of its Vice-Presidents. At the same time the growing international pressure on the Ahmadiyya, culminating in the ban on Ahmadi pilgrims issued by the Saudi Government, led to a crisis among Yoruba Muslims in southern Nigeria.'36 The Ahmadiyya Movement-in-Islam changed its name into Anwar-Ul-Islam in 1974. Many Ahmadis left their organisation in order to secure their access to the pilgrimage and to maintain their links with the international Is- lamic community.

Communal development and growing national and international religious contacts seem to have led even among 'westernized' Yoruba Muslims to a closer identification with Islam and with their religious communities and to significant changes in their educational orientation. Despite a strong commitment to their historical towns and communities, expressed in local politics and in the widespread acceptance of traditional chieftaincy titles (still common among the Yoruba elite in general), many educated Yoruba Muslims have been striving since the seventies to establish distinctly Islamic patterns of personal and communal life. Their various educational experiences also gave the Yoruba Muslims a peculiar role in the religio-political controversies in Nigeria. Some of their wealthy leaders and an increasing number of younger Muslim university graduates took an active part in the struggle for greater recognition of Islam in the public institutions of the country. Others among these graduates became strongly involved in the organisational and educational initiatives of the Nigerian Muslims at national level. The recent development of the Ansar-Ud-Deen will serve as a particularly clear example of the changing religious and cultural orientation among the Yoruba Muslims over the past two decades.

From 'Western' to 'Arabic': changing educational concerns

The seventies saw a huge educational expansion on all levels in Nige- ria which was based on the oil revenues and which made education,

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according to an official statement, 'no more a private enterprise but a huge Government venture.""37 The Federal and State Governments became the agents of this development which culminated in the introduction of the national Universal Primary Education (UPE) Scheme in 1976 and in the opening of six new universities within the same year.'38 Primary and also most of the secondary schools which had been run by private agencies were now supposed to be taken over by the State Governments, although the degree to which this was put into practice varied in different States of the Federation. The private proprietors quite often remained involved in the maintenance and management of their former schools; sometimes they retained a say in the appointment of the principal. In the secondary sector their influence remained even greater, especially in the States of the former Northern Region where the governments continued to cooperate with the Christian and Muslim educational agencies. Thus the Ansar-Ud-Deen Society which lost control over most of its schools in its core areas in Lagos and the former Western Region quite paradoxically continued their educational initiatives in some parts of the former North, especially in Kwara State where two new AUD secondary schools were founded in Ofa (1972) and Ipee (1980).'39 In these schools, too, the payment of the staff was later taken over by the government, with the AUD retaining a good deal of control over the management. It could not be doubted, however, that their commitments to the 'Western' educational sector were strongly,

if gradually, reduced by the educational policy of the Government. The demand for Islamic and Arabic teachers in the public educa-

tion system, greatly enhanced by UPE and the educational expansion, could not be met with a sufficient number of trained personel. This created new opportunities for the graduates of the private Arabic school sector who came to be absorbed in large numbers as teachers in Gov- ernment schools.'40 For the AUD the new development led to a renewed interest in Arabic and Islamic religious instruction. This interest had been crucial in their very beginnings, and still in the early fifties the AUD had supported Shaikh Adam al-Iunri and his first Arabic school, the Markaz at-ta'lzm al-'arabi in Abeokuta.l41 In the educational expansion which took place in the Western Region during the fifties, however, Arabic and religious subjects had come to be relegated more and more to the background, as the establishment and management of 'western' schools loomed so large in the educational activities of the Ansar- Ud-Deen.'42 The private Arabic school sector had in the meantime started to gain public recognition in Ilorin and in other parts of Yoruba- land from the sixties onwards, due to increased contacts with the Arab

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The Ansar-Ud-Deen Societ of Nigeria 389

countries and with international Islamic organisations. Alhaji Kamal- ud-Deen, the founder of the Ansar-ul-Islam Society of Ilorin, and Shaykh

Adam al-Iluri were strongly involved in establishing these contacts. The Ansar-Ud-Deen, too, had already begun to respond to the new

development. Mustafa Ekemode himself was sponsored by the society for further studies in Cairo in 1964.143 In 1965 there were already several Egyptians and one Sudanese teaching at AUD secondary schools.'4 The changing educational standards for religious offices within the society come out clearly in the person of Ali Arazim Alaaya (b. 1930) who succeeded Mustafa Ekemode as the second Chief Imam and Missioner

of the AUD in 1972.145 The son of a reputed scholar family based in IlQrin, he was first trained by his uncle, a prominent Alufa living in Ibadan. After working as an Arabic teacher at some schools belonging to other Muslim organisations he finally took a teaching appointment with the Ansar-Ud-Deen in Lagos. From 1963 to 1969 he studied in Cairo from where he came back with a B.A. degree of the al-Azhar University. In his person, the old Ilorin and Ibadan backgrounds of Islamic scholarship, found also in Mustafa Ekemode, have been com- plemented with international Islamic credentials. This trend was not restricted to the AUD: the Anwar-Ul-Islam Movement of Nigeria, the former Ahmadiyya Movement-in-Islam which finally severed its last Ahmadiyya connections and changed its name in 1974, also appointed an Itinerary Missioner who held a B.A. from al-Azhar University and finally became Chief Imam of the Movement in 1980.'46

A renewed interest of the AUD in Arabic schooling can already be gleaned from the Jubilee Brochure of 1973, with the society declaring its intention 'to open purely Arabic schools as a complement to the Primary or Secondary Schools."47 By that time the first of these Arabic

Schools was already in function in Owo/Ondo State, and a second one was being set up in Lagos.148 In the eighties Koranic and Arabic education came to be much stressed within the society and its publications. Many branches established their own Arabic Schools which in most cases offered a modernised form of Koranic teaching for the children of the members but sometimes also ran a broader program of Arabic and Islamic studies. A uniform syllabus was developed for the AUD Arabic Schools which was monitored by the Missioners during their inspection tours.'49 By 1986 Arabic Classes were maintained by the society all over the Federation.'50 For the training of qualified religious and Arabic teachers in post-primary schools and colleges the Ansar-Ud-Deen initiated their own College of Arabic and Islamic Stud- ies in Isolo/Lagos which started teaching in 1981 and was formally


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inaugurated in 1982.'51 Of the 10 permanent staff members in 1987, three including the principal hold academic degrees from Medina, one from Cairo. Two were Egyptian Tutors on Aid from Al-Azhar University. The school was supposed to train qualified teachers for Government schools and Islamic institutions who could also serve as Imams and

Missioners. It is now affiliated to the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Ibadan. This has put the Isolo College in a position which is equivalent to the Arabic Teachers Colleges run by some of the States of the former Northern Region. It remains one out of very few private Islamic colleges of this level in Nigeria.

Together with this renewed commitment to the Arabic school sector and to Islamic teacher training a general change in pedagogical orientation can be found in the AUD publications which also seems to be typical of educated Yoruba Muslims in general. Faced with a secular school system under increasing control of the Government, a new awareness of the important role of the children and the youth for the religious community becomes clearly recognizable in the eighties. The new aim is to create an 'Islamic setting'l52 for the younger generation at home as well as in the schools. The establishment of religious nursery schools has become an important activity among women's groups of the society.'53 Arabic language and Islamic subjects, but also proper Islamic dress have become important elements in the new educational attitude to the youth. As a leading AUD member put it in 1983.'54

... it is only through the right education that we can re-establish our Islamic identity in the World today... In a developing nation as ours, the ever widening scope of government activity is already delimiting the area of educational activity of voluntary organisations like ours.... Why should we not insist on the teaching and learning of the Arabic language and Islamic Religious Knowledge in all our schools? Why should we keep quiet on our students' mode of dresses? ... it is only through allowing and helping our younger generation to grow up spiritu- ally, morally, intellectually, socially and physically in an Islamic setting that we can hope to see the revival of Muslim civilizations ...

The insistence on proper religious and Arabic teaching at the schools which nominally still belong to the society is also described as a means of maintaining the former links with these schools and to preserve their

religious character.'55 That 'Western education is not enough for our children"56 seems to have become a widespread conviction among Yo- ruba Muslims inside as well as outside the Ansar-Ud-Deen Society. It is against this background that Koranic education and even the old graduation ceremony of the Koranic schools, the Walima which had come to be more and more neglected, have been revived in a modernized form by the AUD and their Arabic Schools. Held for children

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after their completion of the recitation of the Koran, Wolimat Day is now described as 'an important religious day in which parents thank God formally for blessing them with worthy children."57 The issues of Al-Ansar, the society's quarterly publication, are full of reports and pho-

tographs of these events which are sent in by the different AUD Branches in the country.

Koranic recitation and Koranic studies have even been rediscovered

by many adult members of the educated elite among the Yoruba Mus- lims. An example of this, recommended in the AUD journal158 as a new step in the development of Adult Education in Nigeria, were the Adult Koranic/Islamic classes initiated by the youth wing of the AUD in Kaduna in 1982. They were attended by students described as 'very important people such as Business Magnates, Lecturer[s], Professionals, students of Institutions of higher learning and top executives in their Adulthood,' who took part sometimes even together with their wives. A great Wolimat was celebrated for them in 1984.

To regard Arabic as a symbol and expression of Islam and as a uni- fying force for the Muslims is common among contemporary Islamic movements all over the Islamic world. The Ansar-Ud-Deen also appear to share these views'59 which in Nigeria can be traced back to the colonial period'60 and even to the reformist roots of the movement itself. Within the context of the recent political and educational development in this country the Arabic language, apart from creating a link to the Islamic world, serves to secure a certain degree of cultural homogene- ity among the Muslims and to provide a modernized form of a distinct Islamic socialization for their children.

'Ultra Modern Mosques' and new political leaders: the Ansar-Ud-Deen in

contemporay life

The new religious and educational orientation of the Yoruba Mus- lims which has been described indicates some profound changes in their communal and political position. In the seventies P. Ryan'61 had no- ticed strong 'secularizing tendencies' among the younger generation of AUD members who had been trained at the 'Western' schools of the

society and who had come to share the cultural identification with the Yoruba heritage which was spreading among Yoruba students and intellectuals in this period. Islam was seen by them as part of the framework

of indigenous Nigerian traditions. This tendency was also reflected in the general cultural policy of the military government which tried in the seventies to promote the African cultural heritage as a basis for national identity. But the increased contacts with Arabic and Islamic

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countries, also characteristic of this period, tended to strengthen the identification with Islam on the national as well as on the international

level. A less conspicuous but also quite significant development was the religious homogenization of Muslim as well as Christian families and friendship networks within Yoruba communities which is suggested by Laitin's survey in Ile-Ife, made at the end of the seventies.'62 His findings

are in remarkable contrast to the general picture of religious pluralism within Yoruba families which is given by earlier studies.'63 They might thus be seen as part of a more recent development whereby religious differences have gained in communal relevance.'64

A great number of large and representative mosques sprung up in many parts of Yorubaland during the seventies and eighties. Financed mainly through local collections and through donations made by wealthy Muslims, they further indicate the growing identification with the local

religious communities. Among the Ansar-Ud-Deen the planning and carrying out of large mosque projects, often called 'Ultra Modern Mosques,' absorbed much of the energies of the society after the schools had been taken over by the Government. The flashy name itself seems to tell much about the aspirations of the AUD and their membership in this period. Among the first of these new projects was a 4-storey Central Mosque of the Ibadan Branch of the Society, hailed as 'a great monument and a pride to the members and Ibadan,'165 which was built in the early seventies. A similar project was begun in Osogbo'66 in 1973, on a large piece of land which was donated to the society by the Oba of the town. Friday prayer started in 1974 after the ground floor of the building had been completed. The mosque was not finished until 1985 when a large opening ceremony took place. Around the Central Mosque an extensive complex of buildings is planned which is supposed to include a Reception Hall and Mission House with Secre- tariat, two primary schools and, a new development within the AUD, also a hospital. This is comparable to Kaduna where the Central Mos- que was opened in 1981 and a Youth Centre attached to it in 1983.167 As can be seen from these examples such mosques are not only designed to be representative buildings. They also function as multi-purpose centres for the AUD communities. The Islamic Centre at Ibadan, 68 with

projected Children Forum, Conference Hall, Mission House, Secretariat, and also a Shopping Complex, provides another example of this new type of AUD community institutions. The largest project was a new Central Mosque and National Headquarters in Alakoro, Lagos, which was planned since 1975, contracted in 1983, built for 3 Million Naira and finally opened on 27th April 1986.169

392



The projects of the AUD are mainly financed through donations to the society which come in through its annual Harvest Celebrations.'70 A Children's Harvest and a day for primary and secondary school children each precede the Grand Bazaar of the AUD which is normally held on a weekend in the middle of December. This is an occasion

for the sales of offertories which are blessed by the Chief Missioner and then left for bidding among the members and the invited guests. The Sunday session which is much elaborated by processions of the different associations and divisional groups reaches its climax with the competition between the four Divisions in Lagos for large Trophies which are presented to those Divisions that collected the largest amount of donations during the year. All donations are kept secret until this moment which is looked forward to with much excitement by all attend-

ing members. Public generosity is the life-blood of Yoruba associations, and the Ansar-Ud-Deen make full use of this by turning both the need for donations and the religious obligation to give alms into a competition in group solidarity.7T AUD members sometimes express their pride in the fact that the Society is able to generate its funds inter- nally, and they like to invite outsiders including Chiefs and Traditional Rulers to this occasion to see how they achieve it.'72 The results of the divisional competition which were released at this event in Lagos alone in 1984 amounted to more than 450,000 Naira.'73

The development of the Ansar-Ud-Deen over the last fifteen years was marked by efforts to strengthen the national character of the society, a development that had started with a second revision of the Constitution enacted during the Biennial Conference in Kano in 1977.174 The National Headquarters was finally separated from the Lagos Branch in 1982, but it still proved difficult to secure the funding for it, and there were notorious problems for the Executive in receiving the required

reports and accounts from the 183 Branches of the society.175 The fact that most members of the National Executive still came from Lagos, probably played a role in this, and the process of reaching an ade- quate representation of the different Branches at the centre still seems to be going on.

Other significant developments included the further strengthening of the institutional position of the women and of the youth within the AUD. In the year 1984 the National Executive Committee directed the setting up of Women Advisory Councils for all Branches of the society. These Councils, established as Executive Committees of the Women Sections with advisory function within the Branch Executive, were designed to encourage the female members to more active work

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Stefan Reichmuth

in the various boards and committees of the AUD.176 A first Youth

Wing of the society, the Ansar-Ud-Deen Youth Association of Nigeria (ADYAN),'77 founded 1962 in Ebute Meta, soon spread to Zaria and later also to other Branches in the north. ADYAN was also formed on

the national level. It has become important for the educational activities of the AUD which, as described above, are more and more directed

towards Islamic Youth education. Like its counterpart, the Muslim Students' Society (MSS), ADYAN established contacts with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), in Riyadh, showing an interest in international relations which is typical for many contemporary Islamic

youth organisations in Nigeria. Due to their organisational experience, AUD members played an

important role in the formation of the national Islamic organisations since the sixties. One example would be Hussain A. Kareem, one of the early activists of the Muslim Students' Society (MSS) at the University

of Ibadan who was National President of this organisation in 1963-65. It was mainly at his initiative that the MSS, which had been founded in Lagos in 1954, spread to the educational institutions in the north.178 Among the prominent AUD women is Alhaja Lateefat Okunnu who became the first Vice-President (Naibatul Amirah) and later the second President (Amirah) of the Federation of Muslim Women's Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN) after its foundation in 1985. Her speech at the occasion of the launching of FOMWAN in Lagos 1986 stressed the common interests of the Muslim women in Nigeria, describing 'ignorance' as their main problem and calling for an advancement of Islamic as well as general education among the Muslims.'79 Up to now the associations of the Yoruba Muslim women provide much of the membership and the resources of this first nation-wide organisation of Mus- lim women.'80

The commitment of the Ansar-Ud-Deen to the national organisations of the Muslims in Nigeria also led to their involvement in religio- political issues on the national level. AUD support for Muslim interests in current political issues is now expressed regularly in the Communiques of their Biennial Conferences.'8' Perhaps the most significant case was the question of the Sharia Courts and of the position of Islamic Law within the Nigerian legal system which has been controversial among Muslims and Christians in Nigeria since the Constitutional Debate in 1976/77.182 The Ansar-Ud-Deen at first did not show particular interest in the political dimension of the Sharia issue. Within their own organization the Islamic injunctions have been established on the indi- vidual level, as personal obligations to which every member formally

394


The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of JNgeria 395

subscribes in his Membership Declaration.'83 Critical statements about the legal practicability and the politicization of Islamic Law can be found every now and then in AUD publications.'84 It was only after Chief Abiola initiated his campaign for the introduction of Sharia Courts

in southern Nigeria in 1984 and also called on all Muslim organisations in the south to back this demand'85 that the AUD came to express their formal support for the Sharia issue. At the 12th Biennial Conference

held in Kaduna in 1986 the society in its official Communique 'unan- imously called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to extend the application of Sharia Law to other parts of Nigeria where there are Muslim Communities."86 Apart from the influence of Chief Abiola, himself a member of the AUD (see below), many members of the society apparently have come to accept the view of the Divine Law as a moral force and as a source of social justice and reform, an attitude which is propagated nowadays by Islamic movements inside and outside Nigeria.'87 By moving toward this position in the Sharia issue the AUD have once more tried to strengthen their religious reputation among the Muslims all over the country.

As in the fifties and sixties, several members of the AUD have played

prominent roles in the political life of Nigeria after 1970, on the communal and increasingly also on the national level. Lateefat Okunnu's husband, L. Femi Okunnu, son of one of the early Missioners and Vice-Presidents of the society (M.A. Okunnu, see above), himself a legal practitioner, was Federal Commissioner for Works in the Government of General Yakubu Gowon until 1975188 and acted as Vice Legal Adviser of the NPN during the Second Republic. Lateefat Okunnu herself became a Federal Permanent Secretary under General Babangida. She was later appointed as Chairperson of the Caretaker Committee which organized the election of the presidential candidate of the National Re- publican Convention (NRC) on 29 March 1993.'89 Y.O. Basorun, Edu- cation Secretary of the AUD, became Sole Administrator of the Lagos Island Local Government in 1984.190 Lateef K. Jakande (see above), politician, journalist and publisher, one of the closest associates of Chief Awolowo in the AG and later also in the UPN, was elected Gov-

ernor of Lagos State, an office which he held until 1983 and which has earned him a high reputation until now. He remained one of the very few former politicians who were acquitted of any charge of corruption in the trials which followed the fall of the Second Republic. Himself an aspirant for the Presidency of Nigeria, he became one of the powerful supporters of the new Social Democratic Party and of its elected presidential candidate, M.K.O. Abiola. After the new military


Stefan Reichmuth

takeover he was among the prominent civilians who were coopted into the Government of General Sanni Abacha on 27 November 1993, accepting an appointment as Federal Minister of Works and Housing.'91

Most prominent among the AUD members in political life, however, is M.K.O. Abiola (b. 1937) himself. Belonging to the AUD of Abeokuta, he built his political career on his economic position as Chairman of ITI Nigeria Ltd. and Executive Vice-President of ITT for Africa and the Middle East, and on his proprietorship of one of the large Nigerian newspapers, the National Concord. Maintaining close commercial contacts

with the North, he entered the NPN but left this party during the Second Republic. His large-scale patronage of Islamic associations and of Islamic educational activities earned him the title of a Baba Adini of Yorubaland, which was given to him by the League of Imams and Alufas in Yorubaland in 1984. Apart from the Islamic scholars he was also able to mobilize the support of the Yoruba Muslims and, as it were, also of prominent Muslim circles in the north, by his public campaign for the introduction of Sharia Courts in southern Nigeria which was already

mentioned above. This campaign which he started with the backing of his newspaper and his press in 1984 gave a new generation of young educated Yoruba Muslim lecturers and intellectuals wide opportunities to enter public life under the conditions of a Military Government. Later on AbiQla made large efforts to win the general support of the Yoruba. The traditional warrior titles of Basorun (Ibadan) and Aare Ona Kakanfo (OyQ) were both conferred on him in 1987 and 1988 with large and colourful ceremonies.'92 As these ceremonies were carefully disen- tangled from any 'pagan' ritual elements, AbiQla could even rely on the public support of the League of Imams and Alufas in adopting the titles.'93 The fusion of Yoruba traditional politics with a skilful and bal- anced approach to the Yoruba educated elite through his media brought AbiQla large support among the Yoruba, especially after the death of Chief Awolowo in 1987. His patronage and donations were extended to a wide range of educational institutions, including all State Universities of the country to whom he donated 1 million Naira each in 1990.194 Abiola's final political success in being nominated as the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party and also his presumed victory in the elections had much to do with the multiple sources of support which he could draw upon. Although he was denied his victory by the military government and finally by a new military coup in 1993 which brought about another deep political crisis for the country, Abiola clearly remains the first presidential candidate from the south to have won a majority of electoral votes in most of the northern states of Nigeria.

396



Both Jakande and Abiola, different as they are in their political back-

ground and their public reputation, can be seen as representatives of the leading generation of Yoruba Muslims who by their education, their political or commercial career and their influence in the media have built up a wide range of multiple connections which enable them to bridge some of the gaps which exist among the different regional and religious groups in the country. The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society with its edu-

cational and social efforts over seventy years can be seen as an important base for this new type of political leaders in Nigeria.

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1979 Alhaji Muhammad Kamalud-Deen and his Educational Reforms. B.A. thesis, University of Ibadan.

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NOTES

1. Revised version of a paper which was presented at the International Seminar on Christians and Muslims in Contemporary Africa, Uppsala 25-28 August 1994.

2. See for this notion and the different implications which it came to have Peel 1978. 3. Peel 1978: 143; Laitin 1986: 37.

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Stefan Reichmuth

4. See for this Fadipe 1970: 243-260. 5. See Encyclopaedia of Islam, New. Ed. II, 428f (DJAM'IYYA). 6. Hodgson 1974, Vol. II, Chapter VII, especially pp. 342-62; for an application

of this distinction to Muslim and Christian communities in Ile-Ife see Laitin 1986: 31-

34, 55-75. 7. Peel 1990: 483.

8. For obtaining materials and information about the AUD I am much indebted to Alh. Al Arazim Alaaya, present Chief Imam and Missioner of the AUD, Surulere/Lagos, Dec. 1984, and Alh. Asani Adedeji Lawal, AUD Ilorin Branch Secretary, Ilorin, Oct. 1989. I am also grateful to both the former and the current National President of the society, Alh. A.F. Masha and Alh. R.S. Ola Oki, for their hospitality at the occasion of the AUD Harvest Festival, Surulere/Lagos, 14th-16th December 1984.

9. Mann 1985: 16.

10. Fisher 1963: 91ff; Gbadamosi 1978: 31f.; for a Muslim Nupe warrior who came to Lagos apparently at the time of Qba Adele Ajosun (1775-80) see Folami 1982: 132.

11. Gbadamosi 1978: 51.

12. See e.g. Gbadamosi 1978: 26-31; Mann 1985: 17-24. 13. See about him Euba 1971-2, 1972-4; Gbadamosi 1978: 58, 66, 167. 14. Euba 1972-4: 12f.; Gbadamosi 1978: 66, 167f. 15. Euba 1971-72: 27f.

16. For these schools see Gbadamosi 1967: 106-12; 1978: 168-74. 17. Gbadamosi 1978: 98.

18. Cole 1975: 100. 19. Cole 1975: 136f.

20. Cole 1975: 80. 21. See Cole 1975: 73-104.

22. For the split and the fractions within the Lagos Muslim Community see Fisher 1963: 94-7; Cole 1975, passim; Danmole 1987.

23. Arikeuyo 1985: 3; al-Iluri 1987: 178. 24. al-Iluri 1987: 175.

25. al-Iliri 1987: 175, 179, 195. About al-Muradi see also Reichmuth 1990: 202; 1991: 250f., 301, 305.

26. For the old Ansdru d-Din about whom there is only scanty and contradictory information see Odularu 1967: 2, 7; Akanbi 1968: 20; Cole 1975: 138; a list of its members, dated from 1923, is preserved in UIL, Herbert Macaulay Collection, Box 13 File 4 No. 3. Foundation year given by Akanbi 1968 as 1908, by al-Iluri 1987: 175 as 1900.

27. UIL Herbert Macaulay Collection, Box 13 File 4 No. 3; Gbadamosi 1978: 104f. 28. Gbadamosi 1967: 112.

29. For the development of the Ahmadiyya in Nigeria until 1960 see Fisher 1963: 91-116 et passim: Anwar-Ul Islam Movement 1980.

30. Anwar-Ul-Islam 1980: 2.

31. Ansar-Ud-Deen Society 1973b: 12f. 32. Fisher 1963: 102.

33. Fisher 1963: 103, 172. 34. Fisher 1963: 104f.; Anwar-Ul-Islam 1980: 3f.; Fafunwa 1984: 3f. 35. See for this split Fisher 1963: 108-16; Anwar-Ul-Islam 1980: 4ff. 36. Fafunwa 1984: 3.

37. Among the founders of the NYM were H.O. Subair, president of the Jama'at- ul-Islamiyya and First General Manager of the National Bank of Nigeria, and the lawyer Jibril Martin, president of the Ahmadiyya Movement-in-Islam; see Fafunwa 1984: 4; Baker 1974: 146, 330 n. 6, 337 n. 70; Scharer 1986: 205, 212, A 20.

38. See the first date, 9th November 1923, in Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973b: 27; the second, 11th November 1923, in UIL Macaulay Collection Box 13 File 4, No. 3.

39. Odularu 1967: 6.

400


The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria 401

40. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973b: 28.

41. Fisher 1963: 173f.; Anwar-Ul-Islam 1980: If.; in fact Fafunwa 1984: 4 mentions him among the early members of Agusto's Jama'at-ul Islamiyya.

42. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973a: 1, 4. 43. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973a: 1, 4; 1973b: 28. 44. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973a: 7.

45. T.G.O. Gbadamosi, Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973: 16. 46. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973b: 6f. His son, AlhajiJ.R. Ajayi later became Vice-President

of the society; see below. 47. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973b: 28.

48. The Bloom II, 6, Safar 1410/Sept. 1989, 6f. 49. About him al-Ilfri 1987: 175, 179; mentioned as AUD scholar in al-Iluri 1985:

140 n. 30.

50. Al-Ansar 10, 3, July-Sept. 1969: 10. 51. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973b: 8, 13. 52. According to L.B. Agusto: 90% of them; see Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973b: 38. 53. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973a: 2; b: 15. 54. See Gbadamosi 1978: 28 for some of the Saro Muslims, and the index in Mann

1985: 185-94, where mostly Christian families with these names are mentioned. 55. Ansar-Ud-Deen 1973a: 5.

56. Sdhib al-baydn, al-Iluri 1987: 124f., 187. 57. Interview with Alh. Hafiz Abu, prominent educationist of the AUD, Lagos 15

Dec. 84. The name of his father, not asked for during the interview, was given by Shaikh Adam al-Iliri (Lagos 19 Oct. 86) as 'Tijani'; perhaps identical with T.A. Tijani, one of the first Vice-Presidents of the society. For Hafiz Abu's grandfather Abii Bakr (d. 1909) a famous scholar and preacher, see al-Ilfri 1987: 123, 178.

58. Cf. AUD 1973b: 17f. with al-Iluri 1987: 187: 'Abd al-Mu'min, father of 'Abd al-Bari (> Bary?), Tafsir scholar at the Idumagbo mosque. Another AUD member of a Mumuni family, perhaps going back to the same scholar: Alhaja Abadat E. Smith (nee Mumuni, 1915-87) wife of one of the AUD Presidents (Al-Ansar 19, Feb.-Apr. 1987: 50).

59. 'Chief Imam L.B. Olokodana,' mentioned as representative of Division Two for 1932-33, 1935, as Secretary for Education for 1940-41, and as manager of the AlakQor School in 1955 (AUD 1973b: 18f. with foto, 39); perhaps a son of Bukhari Olokodana, Imam in Ebute Meta since 1932 (al-Ilfri 1987: 180).

60. Arikeuyo 1985: 3-13, al-Ilfri 1987: 178. 61. AUD 1973b: 16ff.

62. The following is based on AUD 1973a: 1-7, 15f.; AUD 1973b: 16ff., 28. 63. AUD 1973a: 16, b: 28. 64. See for these unions and their development in the 1920s and 1930s Eades 1980:

62; Peel 1983: 175-196. 65. AUD 1956, mentioned in the bibliography of Odularu 1967; 3rd edition 1969;

a later, not dated edition, was given to me by Chief Imam Alaaya, Surulere, Lagos, 12 December 1984.

66. Third edition: AUD 1969, see for these modernized ceremonies Ryan 1978: 235- 281.

67. Odularu 1967: 40.

68. Arikeuyo 1985: 81; text in AUD 1969: 2. 69. For Christian influence on the AUD see Odularu 1967: 12, 44. 70. See the photographs of individuals and groups of the early members, for the

most part wearing European dress, in AUD 1973a, b, passim. The Arab fez, however, often worn in addition to a European suit by Muslims in Lagos who had embraced the Ahmadiyya (Peel 1983: 306 n. 57), is not common in the pictures of the Young Ansar-Ud-Deen.


Stefan Reichmuth

71. See the Schedule of Work for the Chief Missioner, Arikeuyo 1985: 27-31. 72. Odularu 1967: 37ff.

73. Arikeuyo 1985: 50; on prayers in their school see also Fisher 1963: 174. 74. Arikeuyo 1985: 52f. 75. Odularu 1967: 36.

76. AUD 1973: 46; Arikeuyo 1985: 55f. 77. AUD 1973b: 21ff.

78. Arikeuyo 1985: 48f.; 74f. 79. For his broadcasting activities see Arikeuyo 1985: 57ff. 80. Text of the conclusion in Arikeuyo 1985: 91ff. 81. For some prominent Muslims who claimed to have been influenced by Ekemode's

religious programmes see Arikeuyo 1985: 58f. 82. AUD 1973a: 5. 83. Sulaiman 1988: 46

84. Report of the Mission Board quoted by Gbadamosi, AUD 1973a: 17. 85. Loc. cit.

86. Madame OriQla, presumably related to A.S. OriQla, one of the two first Vice- Presidents, 1923-25; AUD 1973b: 16, 41.

87. See about her AUD 1983: 12f., 19, with pictures; Arikeuyo 1985: 9. 88. Sulaiman 1988: 46.

89. Mba 1982: 223, n. 1. 90. Arikeuyo 1985: 9f. 91. See e.g. the obituary of Alhaja Abadat E. Smith (1915-87), student of Muslim

Training School at Animashaun Mosque, later of the AlakQrQ School (until 1932), active for the society since 1929, member since 1934, Al-Ansar 19, 1987: 50.

92. For Alhaja Aminat, wife of the Assistant Missioner, Imam Y.K. Gbajabiamila, see AUD 1983: 14, and the obituary in Al-Ansar 5, Sept. 83: 50.

93. Gbadamosi 1973: 17; According to Arikeuyo 1985: 64, it was founded in the forties. For names and titles of early members of this union see AUD 1973b: 41; AUD 1983: 31.

94. See especially Baker 1974; Cole 1975; Mba 1982. 95. Grandmother of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, A. Fatayi Williams, see

Fatayi Williams 1983: 3; for her connection with the society, as a member of the Assalat Women Wing, with the title Alariya Adini, see AUD 1973b: 40; AUD 1983: 31.

96. See for her Baker 1974: 90, 134, 234; Mba 1982: 197; 201-207, 210, 228-31, 293ff.

97. For Abibu Oki, the Chairman of the Ilu Committee, see above. 98. For Chief ObanikQrQ, the most influential chief who supported the government

and the LemQmu party and opposed the Jama'at, see especially Cole 1975, passim. 99. AUD 1973b: 41.

100. AUD 1983: 14.

101. al-Iluri 1987: 139f.; see for the practice in the late fifties Fisher 1963: 134f. 102. Abdul 1978: 82.

103. al-Iluri 1987: 195.

104. Soboyejo 1936. 105. AUD 1973b: 32.

106. AUD 1973b: 32.

107. See for the following Oluwatoki 1984: 22-28; for Ondo State in general see Shitu-AgbetQla 1983.

108. Abdul 1978: 56.

109. For the UPE programmes of the Western Region see Fafunwa 1974: 166-170; Abernethy 1969: 144-160.

110. Abernethy 1969: 152f. 111. Odularu 1967: 65: Primary Schools: 222/446; Secondary Modern Schools:

402


The Ansar-Ud-Deen Societ of Jzgeria 403

22/41; Secondary Grammar Schools: 8/19; Grade II Teacher Training Colleges: 2/3. 112. This rise was steeper than in the Eastern Region; see the data presented and

analyzed by Abernethy 1969: 238. 113. See Abernethy 1969: 216, 237, 317 n. 1; 325f. n. 8. 114. Odularu 1967: 17.

115. Op. cit. 15. 116. For the following see Odularu 1967: 10ff. 117. AUD 1973b: 44f.; Branches in the North had been established as early as 1927

(Jos, Nasarawa 1981: 99ff.) and 1928 (Kano, Al-Ansar 9, 1984: 36). 118. AUD 1977: 3; Sulaiman 1988: 21. 119. FalQwq 1975: 103f.; according to Sulaiman 1988: 24f. formal affiliation did not

take place until 1958, the year of the establishment of the first AUD primary school in Ofa.

120. AUD 1973b: 46; see also El-Masry 1967: 255f. where 1937 is given as the year of the introduction of the society in Ibadan.

121. On her and her society see e.g. Mba 1982: 265 n. 1; Zdunnek 1987: 83. 122. See for the Nawair-Ud-Deen Badmos 1972.

123. For the Ansarul-Islam Society see Ajetunmobi 1979; Nalla 1979; Reichmuth 1991: 339-346, 374-389.

124. Shitu-AgbetQla 1983: 468ff. 125. Oluwatoki 1984: 33f.

126. P. Baker 1974: 110ff; 142-162; 244-68; summarized on pp. 271-76. 127. See for 1950 Baker 1974: 104, 110. 128. See about the political career of A.F. Masha who in 1972 became National

President of the AUD Baker 1974: 127, 142, 147, 176, 194, 297, 299, 303, 337 nn. 59, 66.

129. See Folami 1982: 129ff.

130. AUD 1983: 12; for the short-lived Nigerian Council of Women, founded in 1954, see Mba 1982: 186f.

131. Baker 1974: 111, 258f. 132. About him AUD 1973b: 6f.

133. See for this organisation Baker 1974: 352 n. 37. 134. See the figures of Nigerian pilgrims in Loimeier 1988: 213. Al-Ansar 11, 1970:

6, reports 1.250 pilgrims from Lagos State alone in 1969. 135. See Loimeier/Reichmuth 1993: 47f., 60-68. 136. For this so-called 'Ahmadiyya Crisis' of 1973/4 see Loimeier/Reichmuth 1993,

60ff

137. Federal Republic of Nigeria (1981): 5. 138. For the UPE scheme see esp. Taiwo, 172-76; Bray; for the universities

Thakur/Aminu 42-6.

139. For these two schools see AUD 1973b: 45; al-Ansar 22, 1987: 10ff.; 26, 1988: 1 ff.; 27, 1989: 28-31. Another AUD secondary school was established by the AUD in Ikere-Ekiti, Ondo State, in 1980; see the report in Al-Ansar 5, 1983: 35ff.

140. See esp. Reichmuth 1991: 439ff, 1993: 192f. 141. Reichmuth 1991: 363.

142. See for this problem Odularu 1967: 57; for an AUD school in Ile-Ife in the seventies see Laitin 1986: 126.

143. Arikeuyo 1985: 7, 9. 144. Odularu 1967: 57f.; see also AUD 1973b: 33. 145. The following is based on an interview with Alhaji A.A. Alaaya in Surulere/Lagos,

12th December 1984, and another interview published in the magazin The Bloom, Sept. 1989: 6ff.

146. See Anwar-Ul Islam Movement of Nigeria 1980:1 lf. 147. AUD 1973b: 34.


Stefan Reichmuth

148. AUD 1973b: 34, see already Odularu 1967: 52. 149. See the announcement of the 1984 inspection of the branches of the Northern

States Council, Al-Ansar 8, July 1984: 9. 150. Al-Ansar 15, Apr. 1986: 28. 151. For the AUD College Isolo see the detailed reports in Al-Ansar 15, Apr. 1986:

29ff.; 19, Feb.-Apr. 1987: 16-21. 152. Al-Ansar 5, 1983: 10. 153. A Children Forum with nursery school, planned by an AUD women group in

Ibadan: Al-Ansar 6, Dec. 1983: 18. 154. Al-Ansar 5, Sept. 1983:10. 155. See for example Al-Ansar 22, Oct.-Dec., 1987: 44. 156. Al-Ansar 27, July-Sept. 1989: 11. 157. Al-Ansar 22, Oct.-Dec. 1987: 23. 158. Al-Ansar 8, June 1984: 35. 159. See the article in Al-Ansar 27, July-Sept. 1989: 4-7. 160. See especially for Ilorin Reichmuth 1991, Chapter IV, 289-368. 161. Ryan 1978: 206ff. 162. Laitin 1986: 138-45.

163. See for a predominantly Muslim quarter in Ibadan B. Lloyd 1967: 72; for Ijfbu- Ode, a town with a Muslim majority, M.O.A. Abdul 1978: VI, 103 (first published in 1967).

164. Laitin 1986: 126ff. 165. AUD 1973b: 47.

166. On the AUD Central Mosque in Osogbo see Al-Ansar 15, Apr. 1986: 17, 22-26. 167. Al-Ansar 5, Sept. 1983: 34. 168. Al-Ansar 6, Dec. 83: 18. 169. Al-Ansar 5, Sept. 83: 24ff.; 16, May-July 86: 32ff.; 22, Oct.-Dec. 87: 44. 170. The following is based on a visit to the 1984 Harvest Celebration, Surulere,

15/16th December, 1984; see also the reports in Al-Ansar 7, March 1984: 26ff. (for 1983); 22, Oct.-Dec. 1987: 43ff. (for 1986).

171. For some arguments about the religious justification of the Harvest in Islam in view of its Christian origins see Al-Ansar 6, Dec. 83: 33f.; 7, March 1984: 29f.;

172. Al-Ansar 22, Oct.-Dec. 86: 43. 173. At that time still officially equivalent to about DM 1.820.000! 174. See the 'struggle for a truly National Constitution' between 1969-77, mentioned

in Al-Ansar Dec. 84: 18f.

175. Al-Ansar 2, Dec. 82: 7, 16; 8, Jan. 84: 6. 176. Al-Ansar 8, June 84: 7; 9, Sept. 84: 23. 177. See for ADYAN Al-Ansar 2, Dec. 82: 6f.; 26, Oct.-Dec. 88: 40-43. 178. Oloso 1981: 63f.

179. See the text of L. Okunnu's address in Al-Ansar 15, Apr. 1986: 32f.; 16, May- July 86: 35f.

180. Interview with Bilkisu Yusuf, former editor of the newspaper New Nigerian, Bayreuth 18, May 1990. For FOMWAN see A. Kleiner-Bossaller 1993: 120-24.

181. See e.g. for 1986 Al-Ansar 16, May-July 86: 13; for 1988 National Concord 12.4. 1988.

182. See Laitin 1986: 1-11; Abun-Nasr 1988; 1993: 217-225. 183. See AUD 1977: 25f., especially matters I, and III. 184. See especially Al-Ansar 5, Sept. 83: 27; 19, Feb.-Apr. 1987: 22; The Nigerian

Islamic Review 6, 1, June 1985: 23f., interview with Alh. S. Ola Ayinde, Chairman of the Lagos State Council of the AUD.

185. Al-Ansar 8, June 84: 7. 186. Al-Ansar 16, May-July 86: 13.

404


The Ansar-Ud-Deen Societ of NJgeia 405

187. See e.g. the articles, speeches and poems published in Al-Ansar 6, Dec. 83: 27- 31; 15, Apr. 86: 33; 20 & 21, May-Sept. 87: 8-15, 27.

188. See e.g. WEST AFRICA 27.1.75: 113; on a controversy which arose over his contacts with the German company Siemens in 1974 see B. Dudley 1982: 117.

189. WEST AFRICA 5.-11.4.93: 546f.

190. Al-Ansar 8, June 84: 39. 191. WEST AFRICA 6.-12. Dec. 93: 220, 4f. 192. NATIONAL CONCORD 9.2.87; 25.1.88; SUNDAY CONCORD 31.1.88; THE

RFPORTER 26.1.88.

193. See the statements of the Alaafin of OyQ, SUNDAY CONCORD 31.1.88, and of Shaikh Adam al-Iliri, Chairman of the League of Imams and Alufas, NATIONAL CON- CORD 17.2.88: 'Nothing Unislamic in Aaare title-Imams.'

194. WEST AFRICA 12.-18.4.93: 590.


Education and the Growth of Religious Associations among Yoruba Muslims: The Ansar-Ud-Deen Society...

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