pened between them. Neither dan Fodio’s conquest, nor the Settlement of 1960, nor restoration of shari’a in 1999 resolved debates over the scope and meaning of shari’a in Nigeria. At each of these dates, “shari’a” became an object of political contestation. The compromises, changes, and reforms of each period pleased some parties and angered others. Even after dan Fodio applied shari’a in the Sokoto Caliphate, there were some who said that later rulers lowered the standards of public piety. After the British reformed the practice of shari’a, dissent and dissatisfaction lingered. After the Settlement of 1960, resentment grew among Islamist intellectuals and activists regarding the abrogation of criminal shari’a. The restoration of shari’a in 1999 drew attacks from the “spiritual left” of secularist Muslim intellectuals and human rights campaigners in the Western mold, but also brought complaints from hardline Islamists who felt shari’a was meaningless without a broader Islamic state as its guiding framework. Other Muslims argued that the personnel chosen to oversee shari’a were corrupt and ineffectual. Some still hoped to see all of Nigeria adopt shari’a.
Throughout these debates, shari’a courts have settled and mediated disputes, performed divorces, adjudicated inheritances and, when they have had the authority, meted out penalties for criminal convictions. Yet courts themselves have also at times become sites of political struggle – for example, when party politics heated up in the North during the independence period, Muslim leftists in the Northern Elements Progress Union sometimes strategically claimed Christian identities in order to remove themselves from the jurisdiction of what they regarded as shari’a courts controlled and subverted by the more conservative, and more powerful, Northern People’s Congress. More recently, higher courts’ decisions to overturn stoning sentences against accused adulteresses was likely a response to political pressure. The exercise and administration of shari’a in Northern Nigeria has sometimes been conditioned by the political climate of the moment.
Each major moment has also been transmuted into historical memory in complex ways, even if we restrict our discussion just to Northern Nigeria. Some Northerners remember the jihad of Sheikh Uthman dan Fodio as the glorious triumph of “true” Islam over the “insincere” Islam of “semi-pagan” kings. In this telling, dan Fodio’s implementation of shari’a symbolizes the victory of “true” Islam. Others understand the jihad as a form of ethnic warfare, or they see the Sokoto Caliphate’s practice of “shari’a” as one that failed to live up to the ideal.
The Settlement of 1960, meanwhile, is remembered in some circles as a sage compromise Northern elites made to secure independence for their country and autonomy for their region. Yet some Muslims see it as a moment when elites “sold out” Islam, and the historical heritage of the North, for the sake of political expediency.
Finally, for some, the re-implementation of shari’a after 1999 connotes the restoration of the glory of the Caliphate, and the revival of true Islam; for others it has failed to live up to expectations, and has not addressed core governance issues in Nigeria such as corruption, transparency, and accountability. Boko Haram’s members seem to feel that whatever was restored thirteen years ago, it was not “true” shari’a and did not go far enough, either geographically or politically.
Violent Dissent, Intra-Muslim Struggles, and Political Crisis in Northern Nigeria
Political struggles in Northern Nigeria have often been religious struggles as well. New leaders have often sought political and religious authority simultaneously. Dan Fodio’s claims to leadership derived from his personal piety and his stature as an Islamic scholar, as did those of his rival and contemporary Muhammad al Amin al Kanemi, a leader of Kanem-Bornu. Even the British, who worked closely with the aristocracy of the Sokoto Caliphate during colonial rule, partly based their authority on their willingness to “partner”