Rule; the application of shari’a continued, in a modified form, under colonialism.
Dan Fodio and his circle not only criticized the practice of Islam among Hausa kings in the Northwest, but also charged that the Muslim rulers of the empire of Kanem-Bornu, located in present-day Northeastern Nigeria, were insufficiently Muslim. This made the two empires rivals. The two regions have each retained distinct ethnic and political characters to the present day, and the heirs of Sokoto, rather than the heirs of Bornu, have been the dominant voices in setting patterns of Muslim authority in colonial and postcolonial Northern Nigeria. The Northeast’s marginalization, not only in political and economic senses but in the Islamic domain as well, may partly explain why Boko Haram arose there and not elsewhere. The relationship between Boko Haram and the Northeast’s traditional Muslim authorities is ambivalent – sometimes the sect has spared the lives of traditional leaders, but it has also assassinated royals whom it saw as enemies – but it is noteworthy that the movement has been slower to take hold in the Northwest, the former core provinces of the Sokoto Caliphate.
A second key date is 1960, when Nigeria became independent. British administrators had “amalgamated” Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914, but they ruled the country’s two halves separately afterwards. Nigeria entered independence with a federal system that gave autonomy to the country’s three (later four) regions. As part of the political compromises that the North and South made with each other and with the British on the road to independence, Northern politicians devised the “Settlement of 1960.” Under this agreement, the criminal side of shari’a was abrogated, while in exchange a special Shari’a Court of Appeal was established for the Northern Region. The Settlement of 1960 limited legal application of shari’a to family matters, such as divorce and inheritance, during the next four decades. The Settlement was tested during constitution-making episodes in the 1970s and 1980s, but Muslim activists did not succeed in restoring criminal penalties, or establishing a federal shari’a courts, at these junctures.
The third important date is 1999, when the Zamfara State government reintroduced “full” shari’a. Zamfara’s decision took advantage of Nigeria’s federal framework. Nigeria’s regions were dissolved in 1967, and the country was broken into states. The current political system partly resembles that of the United States. This meant, under some interpretations, that Zamfara could implement shari’a within its own borders. Eleven other Northern states followed suit, though some governors proved more eager to bring back criminal penalties than others. Especially in the early stages, shari’a re-implementation received major grassroots support in Northern Nigeria. Muslims hoped the reform would end corruption, improve public morality, reduce crime, and restore accountability to government.
The re-implementation of shari’a, however, caused conflict. Muslims and Christians clashed in several Northern states. Shari’a became a campaign issue in 2003. At least one governor (Rabiu Kwankwaso, of Kano State) lost re-election in part due to perceptions that he had not pursued shari’a with enough zeal. The federal government brought legal challenges to shari’a implementation, including charges against individual personnel in Kano State’s Hisbah Board, a body dedicated to enforcing shari’a. The federal government, wary of state-level initiatives that would subvert its authority, was deeply suspicious of the shari’a project. Yet, unwilling to provoke serious unrest in the North, the federal government refrained from forcing the issue of shari’a’s constitutionality; state-federal conflicts, such as the appeals of the accused adulteresses and the imprisonment of Kano Hisbah personnel, resulted in compromises, and not necessarily in legal clarity.
The Shari’a Question Has Never Been Settled
These dates mark important events and symbolize important decisions, but equally important is what hap