Sheikh Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara, who is on trial for alleged blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), claims that his attorney, Dalhatu Shehu Usman, received N2 million as bribe to influence the Upper Shari’a court judge presiding over the case.
During the resumption of the meeting, the defense counsel, Dalhatu Shehu Usman, who was represented by Mr. Muhammad Lawan, pleaded with the court to permit the defendant to adopt his final written remarks on his own behalf.
In adopting his last written arguments, dated and submitted on September 20, the defendant asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the Kano State Government against him and direct the state to issue an apology to him.
“I urge the court to adopt the written addresses as my argument in this case and evidence, my audio preachings.”
Kabara continued to claim that the attorney chosen by the court to represent him had amassed N2 million to bribe the judge, stating the attorney had come to the prison and informed him that the judge had instructed him to do so in order to release and exonerate the defendant.
“My lawyer told me he gave the judge N1.3 million, another person N200,000 and he himself took N500,000.”
In his final written arguments, Mamman Lawan-Yusufari SAN, the prosecution’s attorney, pleaded with the court to find the defendant guilty in accordance with the law and accept their arguments as evidence against him in a document dated and filed on September 22.
The defense presented one witness and offered 24 books and a memory card as proof, while the prosecution rested its case on the testimony of four witnesses.
Malam Ibrahim Sarki-Yola, the preeminent judge, refuted the claim that he accepted a bribe.
He stated that both parties would later be informed of the judgment date.
After the court session, Shehu Usman spoke to reporters and refuted the claim that he had accepted the sum of N2 million as a bribe.
Shehu added, “I am not surprised, my client had also made some allegations against his other three sets of lawyers before.”
I think Abduljabbar hires out for the Western world. AlhamdulilLahi! Our learned scholars bird-dogged his heinous acts and pulled him down. In his illusions, he aspired to transform Islam and thought he could play sports with the scholars of Kano. He did this to buy himself a public advantage and attention. In his book, Minhajus Sunnah, the erudite scholar Ibn Taimiyyatal Harrani quoted Nana A’isha thus: the Prophet says that he who seeks public attention by sinning against Allah, Allah will draw the attention of people to him and make them love him. But in the end, Allah will turn people against him … (My paraphrase).
Truth be told, Abduljabbar is not well-read. As of late, he was asked by a government lawyer about his studentship. He affirmed that since his father’s death in 1996, which is 26 years now, he has stopped learning before a teacher. He has only been revising for all that long. For your information, when his father died, Abduljabbar was in his mid-twenties. I can bet my last dollar that, at that very moment, he could not have completed the study of the six books of hadith. I also doubt if he has ever read a single many-volumes book from start to finish. A person who knows Abduljabbar very well and shares blood with the family of Sheikh Nasiru Kabiru once told me that the former had not completed the jurisprudence book titled Almukaddimatul Iziyya when he fled the majlis his father taught people.
How Abduljabbar translates and misinterprets prophetic traditions that do not sit well with his faulty faculty shocks many people. This leads him to ascribe to the Prophet what even the likes of Abu Lahab, Abu Jahl, Walid bn Mugira had never done to the Prophet. His mistranslating of prophetic traditions illustrates how he lacks the nitty-gritty of translation. The fact that he has never taken his time to be adequately mentored destroys him. I have never seen as big a laughingstock as Abduljabbar. He thinks he is glorifying the Prophet despite all these horrible things. How can one magnify the Prophet by describing him with names even Satan will feel angry when one addresses him with?
I suspect this man is selling the secrets of his religion. I was wondering if a sensible person would ever do this. I can remember a tradition he once cited that reduced the Prophet’s charm. The first time I glanced at it, I got physically numb. As I checked the reliability of the reporters in Alhafizuz Zahabi’s book Mizanul I’itidal fi Naqdir Rijal, the hadith turned out to be counterfeit thanks to the weakness of the reporters. Sure enough, such traditions he falsified are mind-boggling and should not be attributed to the person of the best of Allah’s creatures. Therefore, I advocate his refusal of such traditions.
What is funny with Abduljabbar here is his ignorance of the fact that there are books whose singular themes are the history of reporters of hadith. There are also those books that did not necessitate only authentic or sound traditions. Thus, one can find all sorts of traditions ranging from the authentic, sound, and weak to even false ones. While giving the history of a reporter, the scholars mentioned some of the traditions they reported through him, directly or indirectly. If the reporter were weak, they would exemplify (a) weak (a)hadith he had reported. Such books comprise Tariku Baghdad by AlKadibul Baghdadi; Tariku Dimashqa by Ibn Asakir, to mention a few.
What motivated the above scholars and their likes to write down these ahadith was their thirst to show their absolute lack of authenticity. They brought forth the ahadith under the history of a particular reporter, as said earlier. For instance, any reporter of hadith, whether strong or weak, provided he had ever been to either Baghdad or Dimashqa, they wrote about him.
Additionally, there are hadith texts whose authors preoccupied themselves with reporting ahadith a la classifying their teachers in alphabetical order. Such authors did not care to report even false ahadith they heard from their teachers. For instance, AlMuujamul Kabir, Ausad and Sagir by AdDabarani. Therefore, one can say it is a sin to report or mention a false hadith. Thus, it is noteworthy that such hadith scholars reported counterfeit traditions to show the world their falseness for people to avoid them.
There are books singled out to mention only false traditions, such as Abdullahi Bn Adiy’s book Alkamil fi Du’afa’ir Rijal, etc. Strangely, Abduljabbar cited ahadith from this book, not knowing that it was purposely written to give accounts of weak hadith reporters. This faux pas has illustratively emphasised the ignorance of Albduljabbari. Therefore, this and other shockers are enough to discredit his scholarship.
The Scholars’ Verdict on Blasphemy
Doubtless, the abominable utterances Abduljabbar has made against the Prophet demonstrate him as blasphemous. Like it or not, he is a blasphemer who has tried to tarnish the image of the Prophet, his companions and their righteous followers. His badmouthing of the religion of Islam cannot be reduced to writing. The extent to which his muddy utterances have reached in reducing people to tears is enough to tell you about the gravity of the situation. A young girl listened to one of such unprintable assertions of this fake scholar and immediately broke into tears.
Indeed, any Muslim that blasphemes against Allah or His Prophet deserves death. After citing many other scholars, Iyad bn Iyad bn Musa and Ibn Taimiyyah ruled that any Muslim that blasphemes against the Prophet will be condemned to death even if he repents. His repentance neither spares him nor assures him Allah’s forgiveness. Contrarily, if a nonbeliever blasphemes against Allah or His Prophet, he can be spared if he converts to Islam. Otherwise, he will go to the gallows.
Last, the right action should be taken against any blasphemer regardless of their rank in society. This is to make people revere the Prophet all the more and watch their tongue. May Allah guide us, amin.
It took me a while to make up my to write on the embattled Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara owing to the gruesome nature of what he has done. The misfortune still disturbs me. This controversial pseudointellectual prides himself on acquiring and accumulating an unmatched Islamic scholarship. He also boasts remarkable erudition and impressive oratory. But those who know him inside and out cannot be easily misled into believing this. In short, he fakes in-depth Islamic knowledge. Funnily enough, thanks to his persistent demand for a debate, the little braggart was granted his request. Abduljabbar has been blowing his own trumpet for as long as one can recall. He also despises the scholarship of the Kano ulema. He did not quit his prideful ways even when under house arrest.
In his wildest dreams, his scholarship surpasses that of everyone in the whole of Africa. He once boasted about knowing the Arabic language like the back of his hand and that nobody knows the language as he does in the African continent. He also claims super excelling in learnedness, hotshot scholar Nasiruddeenil Albani in the science of hadith – a field in which he had made a name for himself.
Abduljabbar also thinks he outclasses the Sheikhs Usaimin and his tutor, Bn Baz, in jurisprudence. Overall, he bests all the scholars that ever lived. As a wishful thinker, he wishes to renounce the traditions of the last Prophet. He means to cleanse prophetic traditions of impurities. But I don’t know the clearing up he is giving them. Because for a long, scholars have already worked on them. They have classified the authentic and the sound traditions and discriminated between the acceptable and the unacceptable traditions.
Abduljabbar is a charlatan aspiring to falsify ahadith. He considers any hadith his feeble mind fails to understand as a whopping lie against the Prophet. Shockingly, he judges Islamic rulings in line with his understanding – whichever he fails to comprehend, he, without much ado, invalidates. As a wish fulfiller, he describes Al-Bukhari as a concocter of traditions and a liar. He equates himself with Al-Bukhari and sometimes asserts that he is not even the match of this otherworldly scholar whose book has been prized as the second most authentic compendium after the Holy Qur’an (See Assuyudi’s Alfiyyatul Hadith and, AnNawawi’s Tadribur Rawi). This ill-intentioned fraud fakes profound knowledge. He is also a scatterbrain. Because he quickly forgets what he says, what transpires in court sessions, illustrates this. When given a chance to rack his brain, he can never remember what he had said in the past. I can remember listening to him contradicting himself and denying utterances he once made.
Abduljabbar’s denouncing some traditions in Sahih Al-Bukhari as false is hair-raising. He bragged about burning the midnight oil, reading and writing. This had become commonplace until the erudite hadith scientist Dr Sani Rijiyar Lemu revealed to the teeming public the sources from which he obtained his information. The hadith guru unveiled that Abduljabbar often copied the exact words of the scholars he plagiarised.
I could not help wondering how Abduljabbar keeps exaggerating his spending all night researching. The crooked pseudo-scholar did nothing but “copy and paste” in academic jargon. The deceitful Abduljabbar professionalises in plagiarism. Often, he ignorantly or knowingly plagiarises the works of occidentalism-inclined scholars and other orientalists. His concocted ideas and those of the Shiites are through and through worlds apart. A Shiite came out to deny ties with him not long ago. This had occurred a short while before that hot debate featured.
I was delighted at the news of the Mukabala. But my happiness prematurely died when the crude debater failed to prove himself and carry his points. The Mukabala demonstrated his utter incompetence all the more. On that day, he enormously flopped. He kept repeating himself and flip-flopping. He is used to switching to irrelevant topics whenever he runs out of ideas or feels slightly caught out. His Mukabala with the well-read and retentive Sheikh, Alkasim Umar Jibril Hotoro, exemplifies this. Fortunately, the one organised by the Kano State Government caused his empty boasts to run down. Surprisingly, he sweated all over in an air-conditioned room. “Mara gaskiya ko a A.C gumi yake” (loosely translates as the liar will sweat even in an air-conditioned room). This proverb is a remake of the familiar one, which reads, “Mara gaskiya ko a ruwa gumi yake” (the liar sweats even in water).
To defend his failure to speak for his views, Abduljabbar shamelessly said that the timeframe he was given to reply to questions was not enough. He said he could not clarify questions he took years discussing. He has forgotten, like the forgetful he has always been, that he often said he could answer any question when he awakens from a deep sleep. More so, as stated earlier, Abduljabbar bragged that even Albani, Bin Baaz and Ibn Taymiyyah could never catch him. Why the boast!
Look at the budding scholars that defeated him on that day. As a result, some of his fanatics parted company with him by calling it quits with his teachings. Finally, a person came out to declare his verdict in an audio clip. He bitterly regretted his keeping this Tartuffian scholar company. He announced that he had been with the fake scholar since his teaching one of his error-ridden books titled Asa Musa held at Gadon Kaya. When I read this book around 2015, as a budding student of hadith, I found unpardonable mistakes unexpected for a young student of hadith, let alone a guru. Even a toddler student of hadith could not make such enormously uncountable errors. Abduljabbar is not conversant with hadith jargon.
Throughout this week there is a heavy tension in the Muslim world, as one lady called Nupur Sharma, who is the spokeswoman of the Indian Hindu party, BJP, spewed insults on the prophet of Islam. Many commentators around the world accused Modi’s government of complicity in such crimes as there is so much increase in attacks and humiliation of Muslims and Islam in India right from the beginning of his reign. This time around, the Muslims worldwide, are outraged and condemned the barbaric act of Sharma and called upon the Indian government to act against such transgression.
Indian women protesting against the ignorant Nupur Sharma’s madness
According to Aljazeera, leaders “of India’s Hindu nationalist ruling party have instructed officials to be “extremely cautious” when talking about religion on public platforms after derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad drew protests from Muslim nations.
Two leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said verbal instructions were given to more than 30 senior officials and some federal ministers who are authorised to take part in debates hosted by Indian news channels often broadcast live to millions of viewers, the Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday.
“We don’t want party officials to speak in a way that hurts the religious sentiments of any community … They must ensure the party’s doctrine gets shared in a sophisticated manner,” said a senior BJP leader and federal minister in New Delhi, according to the report.
With about 110 million members, mainly Hindus, the BJP is the world’s largest political party, while Muslims comprise about 13 percent of India’s 1.35 billion population.
Last week, the BJP suspended its spokeswoman Nupur Sharma and expelled Delhi media cell head Naveen Kumar Jindal after Muslim nations demanded apologies from the Indian government and summoned diplomats to protest against anti-Islamic remarks made during a TV debate.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran were among the nations that made their complaints public.
The influential 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said in a statement that the insults came in the context of an increasingly intense atmosphere of hatred towards Islam in India and systematic harassment of Muslims.
On Wednesday, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian arrived in New Delhi for bilateral talks with India – the first visit by a senior minister of an OIC member nation after remarks on the prophet triggered outrage in the Arab world and other Muslim-majority countries.
Iran had summoned the Indian envoy in Tehran to lodge its protest against the anti-Islam remarks made by Sharma and Jindal.
BJP youth leader arrested
Meanwhile, police in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh arrested a BJP youth leader for posting anti-Muslim comments on social media, officials said on Wednesday.
Harshit Srivastava was arrested in Kanpur city following communal tensions last week during a protest by Muslims to denounce the anti-Islam comments.
“We arrested the local politician for making inflammatory remarks against Muslims,” said Prashant Kumar, a senior police official, adding that at least 50 people were taken into custody following the tensions in Kanpur.
Srivastava’s lawyer was not available for a comment.
Sporadic unrest was reported in other parts of the country over the anti-Islam comments by the BJP’s Sharma.
Members of Muslim groups in India said it was the first time influential foreign leaders had spoken out against what they called the humiliation experienced by the minority community.
“Our voices have finally been heard, only world leaders can nudge Modi’s government and his party to change their attitude towards Muslims,” said Ali Asghar Mohammed, who runs a voluntary rights group for Muslims in Mumbai city.
India’s Muslims have felt more pressure on everything from freedom of worship to wearing the hijab (head scarves) under Modi’s BJP. There were Hindu-Muslim clashes during religious processions recently, following deadly riots in 2019 and 2020.
Although the party has denied any rise in communal tensions during Modi’s reign, the BJP rule has emboldened hardline Hindu groups in recent years to take up causes they say defend their faith, stoking a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment.
The US State Department, in an annual report on international religious freedom released last week, said that attacks on members of minority communities, including killings, assaults and intimidation, took place in India throughout 2021. India’s foreign ministry said on Monday the offensive tweets and comments did not in any way reflect the government’s views.
“We are not barred from speaking on sensitive religious issues, but we must never insult the basic tenets of any religion,” said senior BJP spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal.
Modi in recent years has improved economic ties with energy-rich Muslim nations, the main source for India’s fuel imports, but relations have come under stress from the anti-Islamic comments by the two BJP members, foreign policy experts said.@
The Muslim Lawyers’ Association of Nigeria (MULAN) has lambasted the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for treating the Muslim members of the association with ignominy and reckless abandon.
MULAN also blamed NBA for treating members with regional and religious bias, adding that the association is working against the interest of her Muslim members and Islam in Nigeria as a whole.
A statement jointly signed Thursday by Prof. Abdulqadir Ibrahim Abikan, the MULAN President and Adam Olori-Aje Esq, the Secretary-General, disclosed.
The statement decried that over the years, Muslim lawyers have had to bear the pains of participating in NBA programmes without due regard for their collective sensibility.
MULAN also condemned, in an intensely vitriolic tenor, the blasphemy of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) by Deborah Yakubu, as her act offends not only her Creator but also the sensibility of the Muslims world over.
The statement reads in part: “In December 2021, the Olumide Akpata-led Administration of the NBA announced the establishment of NBA Stabilisation Fund and Access to finance for Lawyers. The laudable and much celebrated multibillion-naira project was financed from our collective patrimony.
“However, it was structured on interest orientation that puts-off Muslim members that would not want to have anything to do with interest financing. The fact that the NBA did not think about the exclusion of those members, who are in thousands, alone, shows her high level of insensitivity.
“Without minding the insensitivity, the leadership of MULAN called the attention of the NBA to the implications of the exclusion vide a letter received at the NBA House on 23rd December 2021, addressed to the President and offered to assist her in the architecture of an inclusive alternative. Despite the fact that the letter was received, the President arrogantly ignored it till date.
“The purpose of the exclusion cannot be excused from premeditated impoverishment of a target group. NBA is a multi-billion-naira association in terms of her annual income from Practicing Fees, donations and local and multi-national partners’ funding. The quantum of Muslim Lawyers’ contributions to the fund is not mean.
“The funds are expended vide execution of projects and organization of programmes and events through her various statutory and ad-hoc committees. Along with the services rendered by members of the committees, they, in turn, become more exposed and developed in personal skills and human capacity. It is however curious that appointment into these committees has always been awkwardly lopsided that at no time would Muslim members of the NBA form more than ten to twenty per cent (10-20%) of any of her committees.
“For instance, a survey conducted by MULAN in November 2021 revealed the following percentage of Muslims in various committees set up by the current NBA administration: Judiciary Committee – 13%, Welfare Committee – 13%, Remuneration Committee – 7%, Legal Education Committee – 13%, Human Right Committee – 20%, Disciplinary Committee – 7%, Technical Committee on Conference Planning (2022) – 6% etc. the total number and percentage in the whole committees published by the NBA are graphically represented hereunder,” the statement added.
The leadership of MULAN also decried that NBA reverts to her default Sealed Lips Mode on the killing of Harira and her Children in Anambra State.
“It is not surprising that after insulting the sensibility of the Muslims on Deborah killing, NBA reverted to her default sealed lips mode when the news broke out of the barbaric killing of the pregnant Harira and her four children in Anambra State. Was it because it was Muslim lives that were involved or because it happened in Anambra, not Sokoto State or because the dastardly act was allegedly carried out by IPOB, not the Muslim mob that NBA kept sealed lip? While we await what event of the NBA would be cancelled
“in memory of Harira and her Children or staged in celebration of their killing, as the case may be, we at MULAN condemn in strongest terms, extra-judicial killing of any soul be it Muslim’s or non-Muslim.”
Dear Reverend, I wish to thank God for sparing your life during last week’s riot in Sokoto City because of the intrinsic value and sanctity of human life as shown to us by our beloved religion of Islam. I have to do that Father, because, rumors went round that a mob had allegedly attacked Sokoto Diocese and killed the bishop. Glory be to the Almighty, the most exalted, that you have not sustained any injury and that it was only windows of the church that were smashed and neither you nor any member of your congregation was injured.
I hope Father would not be angry with me for deciding to throw a letter addressed to him through a public domain, rather than sending it privately to his Most Reverend. Sir, I am only following your footsteps. I know you are used to writing public letters to many of our leaders, including late ones, as you did recently to his Eminence, the one and only Premier of the Northern Nigeria, Alhaji Sir. Ahmadu Bello Sardaunan Sokoto, whose ancestral home and the city established by his grandfather, Sultan Bello, is now serving as your abode.
Sir, you seem to have carved a niche for yourself for being blunt and outspoken; we know you talk to power in the Northern Region in the most audacious way or to put it differently in the words of Professor Edward Said that you speak “truth” to power and the powerful. Sir, your magnum opus, Religion, Power and Politics in Northern Nigeria have not spared any of the respected Northern leaders be he a politician, traditional ruler or religious leader. Sir, forgive us the younger ones if we speak to you in a similar tone because a Hausa have a proverb “mai kwaikwayon shan mai, ya fi mai koyan shafawa” loosely translated, a trainee learns more than what his trainer taught. The Hausa people might not be aware of the Biblical verse which says: a “disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant is above his lord.
Let me not digress from the topic of the letter. I am writing concerning the blasphemy case and the riot that followed it. It is unfortunate that this had happened while you are holding the “Most important Christian chair in the Sokoto Region. Sir, the aura you built around you is that you are a “Peace Crusader”, which is stated as one of the goals of Kukah Centre. One expects you to come out boldly to uphold justice, speak the truth and promote the peaceful resolution of the crisis. Alas, your voice was one-sided. You are well aware of the highly accommodating and peaceful nature of the Sokoto people. It is enough pointer to their tolerance that you could freely come and settle in the city built by the Shehu and establish an institution which aims at unwinding and uprooting all that the Shehu had built two hundred years ago. Even as this crisis was surging, Muslim political and traditional/religious leaders would have definitely assured you of your rights and the rights of all Christians to settle in Sokoto or any Muslim city without hindrance. Shouldn’t such tolerance be reciprocated by the Bishop and his followers? What the people of Sokoto demand, as you work to reduce the strength of Islam by spreading the mission of Christianity is to AT LEAST respect the sensibilities of the people; respect their religious sanctity and personalities, do not subject them to ridicule, teach your followers good manners and the spirit of togetherness. This, disgustingly enough, you have failed to do. You have poisoned the minds of the young Christians around you and charged them with hatred against the majority Muslim population amongst whom they live. By God, how can you then claim being a peace maker? I know that in the case of Deborah, you may not be the person who directly misguided her behaviour. Some zealous Pastors might have been responsible. You are, however, the highest Christian cleric. I may therefore, not be wrong for holding you accountable for the irresponsible utterances of Deborah. Your one-sided statement lends credence to this assumption. Your position cannot be compared with that of the Sultan, who in the spirit of peacebuilding condemned those who took the law into their hands and called for restraint, knowing fully that he himself was deeply hurt by the assault on the personality of the beloved Prophet. The Sultan called his people to order, you called mainly for punishing the killers, pretending that there is no problem, therefore, your silence on the abuse cann be interpreted as tacit approval to rain more abuses on Islam and Muslims and further instigate demonstration in Churches and CAN Secretariat.
For the avoidance of doubt, I stand vehemently against taking laws into ones hand by any group of people. While condemning the killing of any soul not approved by a court of law, I am strongly convinced that she (Deborah) had crossed the red line and it is her filthy action that instigated the unfortunate youth reaction. It was Newton’s law that says every action generates equal and opposite reaction.
Sir, the Sultan has done excellently well by not taking side with the killers; do the same Bishop, don’t just side with Deborah for the Muslims were insulted and enraged by her unprecedented foul words, therefore, remind your fellow Christians that Muslims hold their prophet in the most dearest way, let them teach their children never to insult our Prophet (peace upon him) again; after all we are not gaining anything by insults and curses, we gain by relating in the best of manners. In fact, no Muslim can be considered a true believer if he does not believe and respect Jesus. Your boldness is always against Muslim, this is the right time to probe yourself by showing it to Christians.
Before I bid you farewell Father, let me use this opportunity to call for peace between you and three eminent children of Sokoto. Since you are now in their home region and you are still alive, this is the best time to cease fire with the trio who formed the tripartite stones that hold the Caliphate. Sir, I am talking of Shehu Usman bn Fodio, his great-grandchild Sir Ahmadu Bello Sardauna and Sheikh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi. Sir, all of them were dead when you wrote your book, which I believed to be an extract of your PhD thesis, but the book is full of a sort of vengeance and hatred towards them. Sardauna, as you insinuated was/is sustaining the wishes of Shehu which is extending the boundary of the Caliphate to the shore of Niger and beyond. This completely counter your dream and the dream of your master Dr. Walter Miller which is to have a ‘civilized North’ which according to him as you quoted in your book is looking “forward to the time not far from hence, when educated Christianized pagans will lead the way… and even encircle the more obstinate and conservative Muslim emirate” (Religion, Politics and Power in Northern Nigeria, p4). I think this is the main reason for your fight with Sardauna, because of his zeal to spread Islam, particularly his engagement in mass conversion in Central Nigeria.
Finally, I wish you well as you will be celebrating your seventy year birthday in a few days to come. May we find peace in Nigeria, North, Sokoto and Southern Kaduna as well. Let us hope this will be the last time Sokoto will have this unfortunate incident. Thank you.
To achieve the relative peace we crave, we must respect each other’s religion and be wary of using nasty words on our “sacred belongings.” However, I wholeheartedly condemn jungle justice, burning people, and people taking laws into their hands. That is un-Islamic. Islam is organized religion. We should follow due process when it comes to issues that require capital punishment.
For a fact, I know that any negative thing in words or drawing against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) will not be tolerated or pardoned by any truly practising Muslims across the globe. However, Muslims should be wary of taking laws into our hands. Some people say that the justice system in Nigeria does not do the right thing at the right time. They mainly delay judgment.
Some people gave the example of Mubarak Bala – an atheist from Kano – who was sentenced to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to blasphemous charges against him. They said that his punishment was the death penalty, but he was sentenced to 24 years in jail, which was unjust. I told them that that should not be an excuse for them to take laws into their hands because Islam does not encourage doing that, no matter how bad our systems are.
In the wake of Deborah’s killing by a mob, a lady named Naomi Goni was reported to the police and the Borno State Government over a blasphemous she made on Facebook. The Borno State Government aptly did the needful to avoid jungle justice on her, as in Sokoto. Jungle justice and people taking laws into their hands are un-Islamic. Everyone should respect each other’s religion for the sake of peace. We shouldn’t be influenced by press freedom or any similar freedoms to do anything that can lead to the loss of lives and properties across the country.
On May 16th, I read news published by the Punch newspaper that a Lagos engineer was killed and burnt on the road by motorcycle operators because of N100. This is condemnable and should not be accepted by any reasonable government. It is high time the Nigerian government came up with strict laws on burning people no matter what they did.
These guys gruesomely burnt the engineer because of N100. You can’t count how many people were killed and burnt because of minor things like stealing food, goat, little money, and shoes, among others, in the South. And they happily do it. No northerner will kill anyone because of any of the things mentioned above. Yet, the northerners are called murderers. Really! Are they?
Although I am not an Islamic scholar, I know that Allah has warned and forbidden believers from punishing people with fire. Only Him does that. Insulting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is unacceptable and unpardonable even in a Muslim minority state or country, let alone a place like Sokoto, which is primarily the root of Islam in the North. Desisting from insulting the prophet will not cost you anything. Why can’t we live in peace?
As Muslims, we should act with knowledge in whatever we do. Allah has asked us to know Him before we worship Him. We can’t worship Him if we don’t know Him. We should respect each other’s religion no matter what happens because none of us will take it lightly when any of us transgresses. I fear that this issue should not be metamorphosed into religious conflicts because people’s comments on the incident are scary and dangerous.
One’s faith in Islam will not be complete until he believes and loves Jesus – Isa (AS). That is why you won’t see Muslims insulting him. Honestly, some of the comments made by some moderate Muslims and Christians are unjustifiable because such things have been happening in the South/East in the open, and no Muslim has ever attributed them to Christianity because we know what Christianity is.
Why can’t they do the same justice as Muslims do for Christianity when things go wrong in the South? Until we start telling ourselves the truth and live by it, respect each other’s religion and censor our utterances, we will continue to get things wrong. Then, we can live together without crossing each other’s red lines.
It is hypocritical to condemn and label the Muslims as murderers because of what happened in Sokoto while you keep mute on the killings thriving in the South and other places. All lives are sacred, and no religion has asked its followers to kill people for no reason, and no religion has asked its followers to insult or mock someone’s faith. This has to be understood by all of us.
The only way to end this kind of incident is through the establishment of laws on blasphemy with strict punishment for whoever is found wanting. In addition, the state governors should enact laws that will protect each other’s religion in the country to avoid jungle justice, burning people, and preventing people from taking laws into their hands.
The law should clearly state that whoever insults or uses nasty words on prophets or religion publicly will be decisively dealt with. The person should blame themselves for whatever punishment is meted at them. I think this will put an end to blasphemy, which will save lives and properties in the country.
Nigerian Muslims following discussions on the execution of a young woman by unknown youth in Sokoto would note that several obscure social media “Islamic scholars” have emerged. Some of them arrogated to themselves the right of ijtihad, a thing some of the most outstanding Islamic scholars avoided unless absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, people kept sharing such stuff as it suits their position on the matter.
When you decide to be a Muslim, you have taken a big decision to be a student of knowledge throughout your life. We all know this because the first passage of the Qur’an revealed to our Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him) is essentially an instruction to sit up and learn. After that, the Prophet lived the remaining 23 years of his life interpreting the Qur’an revealed to him piecemeal using both verbal and practical approaches. By the time he left, the religion was complete, and a whole body of knowledge was on the ground, safely transferred from generation to generation of Muslim scholars.
The knowledge is vast as it covers all aspects of life. Take the five pillars of Islam, for example. Whole books have been written on aqidah, which constitutes the first pillar of Islam. There are books on Salah (prayers), the obligatory and supererogatory aspects of it, prayer timings, adhan, iqama, the core body of prayer, etc. Same with Zakah, Fasting and Hajj.
The daily transactions of a Muslim in the market are well detailed in terms of halal and haram. In addition, there are books on rights, including rights of other Muslims, non-Muslims, neighbours, colleagues, animals, the environment, etc.
How would the sick be handled while still alive and after their death? What happens to their heritage? How is it shared? These are clearly stated.
All aspects of Islamic knowledge are available in detail, and, in sum, Islam is not a teach-yourself religion. Instead, it has to be learnt from those who know it.
Take it easy. I am not saying every Muslim must be a professional Islamic scholar, just like not everyone must be a medical doctor or an Engineer. You are probably 40, 50 or even 60 and above and have been working hard in the area Allah has placed you in. Keep working hard to earn a lawful means of livelihood for yourself and your family. That is an aspect of Jihad you are making.
I believe you would agree with me that you would not accept any quack to offer medical services to yourself and your family in the event of sickness. Most likely, you would look for the best affordable specialist to treat you and your loved ones. You would check their qualifications. You would not pick a document from an unknown specialist on the internet and begin to apply their medication and think you would be okay. When you want to build a house, you will look for the right architect to design it for you and the right engineer to supervise the work.
You are doing all of the above when it comes to Islamic knowledge. When you are going on hajj for the first time, for example, you would typically meet the scholar in your area to ask questions. You would probably attend the courses organized by the local pilgrims’ board. You are doing that to avoid wasting your money and make sure that you perform a hajj Allah would accept.
When your father dies, you would call someone you believe has a good knowledge of inheritance to help you share what has been left by the deceased. You do that for zakah, etc.
As a Muslim born to a Muslim family, you learnt to recite the Qur’an and pray from your Islamiyya days. Many thanks to your parents who took you there. Yet, you keep learning from your local Sheikh to make sure you recite the Qur’an even better and perform a prayer that is devoid of mistakes.
My brother, if you only consult an Islamic scholar you trust on all of the above, which are what you do daily and/or from time to time as a Muslim, why do you think you need a social media “scholar” to tell you the Islamic position on blasphemy, a thing not essential in your daily routine of Ibadat? I guess you are not contemplating insulting the personality of the Holy Prophet (SAW), and you are most probably not aspiring to be a Shariah court judge to know the kind of punishment you would pass on a blasphemer.
But in case you have abandoned your Sheikh and/or dropped all your Islamic books, thinking you don’t need to learn more about Islam, I am afraid that you are already preparing yourself for eternal destruction. So please go back, get an Islamic teacher you trust and continue.
As for the Sokoto case, we have shown sufficient anger, and anyone contemplating a repeat of what the young woman did would have to think many times. Let us leave the Muslim leadership to handle the rest. We should have confidence in the Sultan and his team.
May Allah forgive our shortcomings. Amin.
Professor Abdussamad Jibia can be contacted via aujibia@gmail.com.
Bauchi State Commissioner for Education, Dr Aliyu U. Tilde, has replied to Peoples Gazette newspaper over his condemnation of Deborah Samuel, who made derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in a WhatsApp voice note.
Recall that Deborah was killed and set ablaze by an angry mob over the insult she rained on the Prophet, which caused outrage at the Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto, where she was a student. Protests erupted in parts of the northwestern state over the arrest of those suspected to be part of the mob action.
In a post on his Facebook page, the Bauchi commissioner condemned Deborah’s remarks, noting that “baki shi ke yanka wuya”, which can roughly mean “what you say lands you in trouble.”
However, a report by Peoples Gazette, a newspaper many people accused of being involved in gonzo journalism, claims that “Bauchi commissioner for education Aliyu Tilde endorses murder of Deborah Samuel, tells Christians to undergo psychiatric test.”
In a short rejoinder he posted on Facebook, Dr Tilde said, “No Regret
“Anyone that is not touched by that high degree of provocation is insensitive. Children must be taught to respect others. If Jesus (May peace be upon him) is insulted will say the same.
“You are free to fabricate lies and attach to my statement. That is your business. But don’t deceive yourself by thinking you’re a good Christian. You are a bad one.
“I have watched and read many Christians condemn what Deborah said.”
Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is the most respected, loved, and obeyed human being to the Muslim faithful. According to Islam, he was the last Messenger of Allah, who is the greatest among all other Prophets and Messengers.
Police in Sokoto have gunned down one protester and left many others injured as the angry youths demanded the release of two suspects connected with the killing of Deborah Samuel, who was accused of blasphemy.
The Daily Reality reported how Samuel, a Student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, faced the wrath of death by her fellow students following her blasphemous utterances against Prophet Muhammad (SAW) Friday, 13 May 2022.
The protesters took to the major streets of Sokoto state metropolis on Saturday morning, demanding the release of the two suspects arrested.
The Daily Reality gathered that the protest was initially peaceful and was started at the Zabirah Mall roundabout.
The incident that took place around 9 am on Saturday had many youths in attendance holding placards that read “Release our Muslim Brothers,” “Muslims Are Not Terrorists”, among others.
Our reporters learned that the protesters headed to the palace of Sultan Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III.
However, they were blocked by a team of joint security operatives who used tear gas canisters to disperse them.
As for now, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of the state has imposed a curfew to mitigate violence trying to emerge.
