Ulama

By Uzair Adam

A PhD student from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU), Hidaya Lawal, has called for greater recognition of the role played by Islamic scholars (ulama) in shaping Kano’s traditional healthcare system, saying their influence remains central to public health and community well-being.

The call was made on Wednesday during the second day of a two-day conference organized by the Faculty of History and Development Studies, Bayero University, Kano (BUK).

The conference, themed “Ulama and Politics in Nigeria: Historical Perspectives,” brought together scholars, clerics, and political leaders from across the country.

Presenting her paper titled “The Influence of the Ulama on the Traditional Healthcare System in Kano Metropolis,” Lawal said her study seeks to rediscover the contributions of Islamic scholars to healthcare in Kano, particularly in the post-colonial period.

She explained that traditional medicine in Kano is often misunderstood, noting that it combines Islamic medicine with refined local Hausa practices aligned with the Qur’an and Hadith.

“When we talk about traditional healthcare, people usually think of pre-jihad practices. But in Kano, traditional medicine is an integration of Islamic and Hausa medical practices that have been tested and confirmed to be in line with Islamic teachings,” she said.

Lawal added that while early scholars such as Uthman Dan Fodio and others influenced the health system in the past, modern-day ulama have not received adequate academic attention.

She said the traditional medical system in Kano is holistic and covers mental, social, and moral well-being, not just physical health.

“Unlike Western medicine, which focuses mainly on curing diseases, our traditional medicine emphasizes total well-being—what we call lafiya,” she explained.

Lawal also noted that preventive health practices found in Islam align with modern medical guidelines.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, practices like handwashing and avoiding overcrowding were already part of Islamic public health principles,” she said.

According to her, collaboration between the ulama, the government, and research institutions has strengthened public trust in traditional medicine.

“Some herbal medicines have been tested by Bayero University Kano’s Department of Pharmacognosy and found to be up to 80 percent safe,” she said.

She added that the ulama also play a key role in addressing harmful superstitions and beliefs that affect mental health.

“Their sermons have helped reduce anxiety and discrimination, especially against women, by correcting false beliefs rooted in tradition,” she said.

Lawal said her research aims to promote greater understanding of the ulama’s influence on public health and encourage the integration of traditional and modern healthcare systems in Kano.

By Uzair Adam 

Bayero University, Kano (BUK), on Tuesday hosted a landmark conference organised by the Faculty of History and Development Studies, exploring the historical and contemporary roles of ulama in Nigerian politics. 

The event, themed “Ulama and Politics in Nigeria: Historical Perspectives,” attracted scholars, politicians, and religious leaders from across the country.

Professor Muhammad Wada, Dean of the Faculty of History and Development Studies at the university, explained that the central mission of the conference is to highlight the pivotal role of ulama—Islamic scholars—in societal development. 

He stated that, “Over the years, through our research, we realised that ulama have played and continue to play an important role in various spheres of life, including politics and economics. 

“This conference seeks to address widespread misconceptions about whether it is legitimate for ulama to be involved in politics,” Professor Wada added.

He further stated that the conference has received hundreds of abstracts from scholars of various fields, demonstrating the broad relevance of the topic. 

“Historically, ulama have contributed to societal development, and they remain capable of doing so today. 

“Their role goes beyond leading prayers or teaching religion; it extends to guiding the public in political and civic matters,” Professor Wada emphasised.

Professor Sani Umar, one of the keynote speakers, described the conference as “highly enriching and a model that should be held regularly to sensitise ulama and the public alike.” 

He stressed that the discussions are not only relevant to Muslims but also to followers of other faiths, promoting mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence. 

Umar further explained that the widespread perception that ulama should avoid politics is misguided, noting that true politics involves leadership, compassion, and care for the vulnerable—qualities inherent in the work of scholars.

Speaking on the occasion, Sheikh Ibrahim Khalil, Chairman of the Council of Ulama, urged the public to recognise that politics is for everyone and that ulama, given their knowledge and moral grounding, are particularly well-suited to political engagement. 

He called for more frequent conferences of this kind, at least twice or three times a year, and appealed to media professionals to disseminate these messages widely, including via social media.

The conference drew participation from ulama representing various Islamic sects, academics, and politicians, including Sule Lamido, the former Governor of Jigawa State. 

Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, represented by Professor Tijjani Muhammad, also attended, highlighting the significance of the event for both scholarship and governance.

The two-day conference will continue tomorrow with plenary sessions, providing a platform for rigorous discussion on the contributions of ulama to Nigerian society and politics.

By Senator Shehu Sani

We live in a society where men of conscience and honour are better understood and appreciated when they are long gone or lost. Dr Idris Abdul-Aziz Dutsen Tanshi was a restless soul who spoke the inconvenient truth and walked alone in his paths and trenches. He cast the light of knowledge on the grey and dark spaces of our political and spiritual clime.

Dr Idris was a courageous man who lived an accomplished life of service to the human spirit. His voice was discomforting to the powers and the establishment. He audaciously spared no one in his sermons for equity and justice.

He was a one-man battalion and an exceptional commander of the faithful. His words were as sharp as a blade, piercing like a spear. He challenged a society complacent with injustice, keeping the leaders alert and his fellow Imams on their toes.

He was a man whose spirit was strengthened by his incarceration. He remained unbowed in the face of persecution. He could thank those who came to identify with him during his moments of trial, but he warned them against pleading for his freedom. He raised the torch and became the compass for objection and resistance. He was a non-conformist in the pursuit of the truth enshrined in his faith.

He was a dogged and distinguished spiritual combatant who used the powers of religious knowledge to question and challenge authority. He fought chains of battles within and without the realm of his mission and never surrendered. In life,he was largely misunderstood, and in death, he is well appreciated.

Dr Idris bowed out with dignity and grace. The nation has lost an irrepressible soul and indomitable spirit.

May his soul rest in Aljanna Firdausi, amin.

By Ismail Hashim Abubakar

The coming of the current President, Bola Ahmad Tinubu, on May 29, 2023, was not the beginning of the ongoing hardship that Nigerians have been grappling with. His predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, elected with high hopes, introduced severe and draconian policies such as the closure of northern borders, which Nigerians consistently condoned due to their optimistic sentiments towards the exceedingly and unanimously celebrated integrity of the former army general. 

The masses and different sections of civil society, including religious leaders and respected elites, rejected slight censure of his policies. There were genuine reports of people being corporally attacked and penalised by mobs for openly criticising Buhari, who spent almost two-thirds of his eight-year regime being excused, exculpated and defended until people finally got convinced that the man was no better than other politicians.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu had a tough time becoming President owing to his many dark records and the stigma with which especially northerners viewed him. His eight-year rule as the governor of Lagos state (1999-2007) was a period that witnessed a series of massacres of northerners in Lagos and neighbouring towns within the same Southwestern geopolitical zone. These senseless mayhems were primarily engineered and perpetrated by the OPC militias, who were said to be connected to his alleged political brigandism. This significantly made Tinubu almost infamously unsellable to northern electorates when he showed his ambition to become Nigeria’s president in 2023. 

Perhaps Tinubu was fully aware of this or was at least made to know by his northern political allies and loyalists. That was probably why, as part of image-deodorizing strategies, Tinubu paid serial visits to Ulama, especially those who might have been earlier wary, sceptical and apprehensive of his patriotism, nationalism, vision for unity, morality and religious uprightness. 

How I wish one of the religious leaders present when Tinubu paid homage to respected Shaykhs in Kano soliciting for support and courting for votes had politely but point-blank told him that due to the experiences of northerners in the crises that erupted in Lagos and Southwest, our people would never accept him until he accepted to do some conciliatory moves which might assuage the age-old void and the stigma our people viewed him. One of them was to advise him to institute a committee that would investigate the OPC massacre of northerners in October 2000, present an estimation of the lives and properties lost and pay for their compensation. He should also charge the committee to offer recommendations to forestall future occurrences and forge unity and cohesion among diverse non-Yoruba ethno-religious groups and their host community living in the Southwest. I do not doubt that although this would sound politically awkward, it would have reminded Tinubu that these religious leaders were concerned with the plight of their people. He would eventually accept any other request for nation-building that northern leaders would have tabled before him as a condition and prerequisite for his election. 

Tinubu was able to successfully navigate these hurdles when the Ulama finally accepted him and joined his campaign train, partly due to the apparent reason for promoting a Muslim-Muslim presidency. In one short video clip uploaded on Facebook, one religious leader claimed that it was the Ulama who had insisted that Tinubu must relentlessly contest for presidential post in the 2023 elections, even after he was determined to withdraw from the race (the clip is available herehttps://www.facebook.com/reel/1198771691128341/?mibextid=pX794QQbNUXe42Mf.). All of this combined to prove that the Ulama were instrumental in catapulting Tinubu to the highest political office in the country and would expectedly have weighty words in his government. 

The removal of subsidy on the very day Tinubu was sworn in, followed by similar other thoughtless and capitalist policies, had quadrupled the hardship of the masses, drastically shelving the middle class in Nigerian society and forcing people to live in perpetual agony and unprecedented misery. People now eat leaves and grasses that would otherwise only be suitable for animals. Conversely, people in government were busy allotting themselves hefty allowances and big remunerations to ascertain their luxurious lives at the behest of citizens. The president procured a multibillion Naira jet and stupendously expensive yacht from the country’s treasury, besides other juicy and crazy packages, hastily designed and approved within a year of assuming office.

 All this while, several efforts have been made by various constituencies to admonish leaders, including the Ulama, who, in their pulpits and other public platforms, called on Tinubu’s government to soften its harsh policies and make life bearable for the poor. As this went on deaf ears, about a month or so ago, winds of mass protest started blowing all over the spaces and skies of the country, signifying that Nigerians have been pushed to the extreme of the wall where they could no longer withstand the increasing stroke of hunger. 

Although with barely-known leadership and organisers, the protesters’ demands are obvious and revolve around the reinstatement of fuel subsidy, ending insecurity in all its manifestations, fighting corruption, increasing minimum wage, etc. As soon as plans to hold the protest were laid bare, the northern Nigerian cyberspace became inundated with jurisprudential deliberations on the legality of protest in Islam, with the most popular faces among the Ulama, including those who allegedly endorsed and supported the candidature of Tinubu condemning the move, declaring protest as haram and forewarning the public of its costly consequences. Only a few known clerics have issued statements that support the protest, and their views seem to have been vetoed by their counterparts in the other camp. 

This worsened the situation as youths anxious to demonstrate their grievances through the protest interpreted the anti-protest fatwa as an attempt to thwart the masses from checking on and holding leaders accountable. Fingers of blame were brandished by youths against particularly scholars who openly campaigned for Tinubu and others who are known to have partisan loyalty to the ruling party, All Progressive Congress (APC) or have even served in any capacity under the APC-led state or federal government. The youths kept calling on the Ulama to form a united front, meet the president, and advise him to restore the fuel subsidy. 

In the psychology of most of the youths, since it was the Ulama who insisted that Tinubu must run, despite his alleged plan to recant the decision, but he finally bowed to the pressure of clerics, the latter have the power to force the president to make a U-turn on the removal of fuel subsidy. In the same vein, since the clerical establishment has been wielding enormous clout and their words “are” (or ought to be) highly respected in the Muslim north, the Ulama did not hesitate to voice their opinions on the planned protest, with little or no recourse to the psychology of the youths or an in-depth consideration of the precise reality of the majority of the youths. Some youths, in fact, never believe that most Ulama are passing through similar situations or do not have a full sense of their difficulty. And because the youth sometimes see some Ulama dining and rubbing shoulders with politicians, they concluded in the protest that they were helpless, with no one among elders to stand with or speak for them. Thus, they had no option but to come out en masse to protest. 

In addition, while the youths could recall a leading voice among the Ulama participating in prior protests without any condemnation similar to what was ringing in their ears, they considered the fatwa a clandestine cover given to President Tinubu. This was even conflated when the utterances of some Shaykhs sounded to be encouraging and emboldening the planned crackdown of the protest by Nigeria’s law enforcement agents, without in most cases, warning the security to protect human rights and be cautious of the sanctity of life. The protest has turned chaotic, with dozens of lives and properties worth millions of Naira lost. Still, the articulations of some Ulama reveal a disconnect with the plight of the masses. 

In my opinion, instead of the blanket condemnation of the protest, which was planned to be peaceful, albeit operationally difficult, the Ulama should have, in the first place, infiltrated the youths and hijacked the movement and, even if momentarily, emphasised to the government that they recognised peaceful protest as a constitutionally-sanctioned right and means of channelling grievances to authority. Had the youths seen religious leaders in this picture showering their blessings on the movement, they would have behaved more orderly, regained their confidence in the clerics and listened to any order that the Ulama might have issued to them, including possibly postponing the protest for some reasons. 

Scholars would have cashed in on the exuberance of the youths as a weapon to force the government to do the needful instead of appearing to have disowned the youths and cursed their movement. Since the reverse is true, the youths still feel that the federal government might have already felt encouraged and correspondingly justified not to listen to them but to also even embark on a mission to stop the protest with excessive force since the youths would be operating under an anathematised umbrella which lacked the blessings of men of God. To restore immediate sanity and stability in the strained relationship between the Ulama and the youths, the latter forming the large chunk of their following and being the backbone of any society, I below offer a few recommendations:

• The Ulama, particularly those whose anti-protest fatwas are circulating, should convene an emergency public lecture to, in vehement and uncompromising language, condemn the crackdown of protesters, warn security agencies to desist from the ongoing brutality against protesters and innocent citizens, remind them of the right of the protesters to demonstrate, call on the government to institute an investigative panel and pay compensation for families of the people killed by Nigerian security, including both among the protesters and the innocent people shot ruthlessly inside their homes.
• The Ulama should advise the government to recant its position and work towards simplifying life for Nigerians. It should immediately start by restoring fuel subsidy and reversing all financial policies that raise the price of the US dollar against the Naira. They should warn the government of possible degeneration that may escalate to anarchy if the government remains dogged and recalcitrant in responding to this request.
• The Ulama should avoid making public comments that may sound like they are absolving politicians of their commissions and omissions while discharging their duties. In line with this, the Ulama should be meticulous and extra-cautious in their dealings with politicians and political leaders. As the latter have gone far in dislodging the influence of traditional leaders, they may go to any length to destroy the career of a cleric who is not careful and gives in to their devilish desires and selfish political interests.
• The Ulama should further take the lead or accordingly guide the next measures, steps, and remedy processes that the youths are planning to resort to in place of the protest, which is fizzling out. These include the organisation of mass prayers, orientation on the need to resort to recall lawmakers and sensitising the public to strategise the public for future elections.
• Youths and protesters should avoid issuing generalised, unverifiable allegations against the Ulama and desist from making scathing comments about their persons. They should wholeheartedly accept their views or honourably reject them in favour of contrary opinions. All this should be done in good faith.
• The protesters should be careful not to allow mischievous elements within and outside the country to hijack the protest to promote perpetual conspiratorial ambitions in the land. In line with this, they should outright stop calling for a military coup and desist from waving the flag of any country.
• Muslim scholars and intellectuals need to create a forum to deliberate Nigeria’s political climate vis-à-vis Islamic leadership provisions and formulate a political vision and working formula that will take into account Islamic political values and the existing realities of Nigeria’s political setting.
• Last but not least, the federal government headed by Bola Tinubu should be cautious of its move to use force to quell dissent and remember that it is a democratically elected institution and not a military junta. Therefore, it must listen to its citizens and work towards ameliorating their conditions. It should focus on discharging its mandate and avoid meddling in the affairs of the state in a way that jeopardises its security. It should allow state governors to manage their affairs and intervene positively without the littlest detrimental political motives.

Ismail Hashim Abubakar wrote from Nouakchott, Mauritania and could be reached via ismailiiit18@gmail.com.    

By Sabiu Abdullahi 

The Ulama Forum in Nigeria has condemned the recent brutal massacre of innocent lives in Palestine by the Zionist state of Israel. 

The Forum, based in Kano, expressed outrage at the ongoing illegal occupation and usurpation of Palestinian lands, calling on global institutions including the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, and the World Islamic League to intervene and put a permanent halt to the barbaric attacks on defenceless civilians. 

The Ulama Forum highlighted the hypocrisy of powerful nations that condemned certain conflicts while endorsing Israeli atrocities.

It noted the urgent need for Arab and Middle Eastern countries to unite against Zionist brutality, cautioning against any form of appeasement with Israel, which it deemed to be sacrificing the Palestinian cause.

The Forum urged Muslim countries to impose economic sanctions on Israel and rally international support for the victims of Israeli attacks. 

Commending countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and Kuwait for their stern condemnations of Israel’s actions, the Ulama Forum called on Muslims and peace-loving people worldwide to unite in condemning the Zionist provocations and cruelty against the oppressed people of Palestine.

It emphasised the importance of working towards a just, peaceful, and progressive world order.