7. . There thus arose a category of dissent that was overtly political – it was aggressive opposition using force rather than doctrinal dissidence that necessarily was often quietist. What is clear from this summary of the jihad is that an outright military attack on the dissidents did not work for the authorities as they expected. The dissidents had enough local support at the grass-roots to survive over several months not just attacks but also famine. Second, by attacking the dissidents, the authorities altered the overall character of the dissenters, who attracted to their cause otherwise jobless men who saw in the fighting the chance for loot – not just goods to enjoy but people to enslave. Both items were very marketable, once personal needs were satisfied. Thus the jihad movement was split – the ultra-serious scholars moved away (in the classic mode of ‘emigration’) while the more political, visionary leaders stayed in camp despite problems with their troops; the Shehu settled halfway between the two before finally moving, unwell, to the political camp. But why Sokoto, rather than Bodinga or Gwandu with his brother? We do not know, but Sokoto by then was much the larger, stronger centre, and easier to visit. Thus war transformed dissent – and created acute dissent among the dissenters themselves. One visiting scholar in the 1830s described Sokoto as now “a land in ruins” (Umar al-Futi, al-Rimah). It is as if dissidence had been put out to franchise, with some dissidents less idealistic, more violent than others. The problem is that the more violent are apt to be the more successful politically, and it is they who spark off both antagonism from overt enemies and despair among their original colleagues. It is striking how often idealistic movements and communities eventually split (and how often, at least in Euro-America, the actual focus of the split is wealth and women). 16 19th century dissidence within the Caliphate. Following the ‘second jihad’ of the 1820s, there was the campaign by Shaikh al-hajj ‘Umar al-Futi (who was passing by Sokoto back from Mecca) to have the Tijani tariqa accepted as the new mode of sufism (with himself as Shaikh) to replace the old Qadiriyya. Certain key figures in Gwandu such as Modibo Raji did join but they kept their membership secret. It was difficult for him, so he eventually emigrated to Yola, as did other newly Tijani scholars like the poet Muhammad Tanmo’ilele from Kano (Last 1967b, 43-6). The 1840s and 1850s was a time when religious dissidence started to be serious again: not only were Tijanis becoming more numerous and foregathering in Adamawa but there was a major millenarian exodus under Liman Yamusa from Dutse in eastern Kano in the 1850s that was forcibly dispersed – some of these movements had started further west beyond the Caliphate but passed through heading east and gathering adherents as they went. Political dissidence was what drove Bukhari in 1850s Hadejia to abandon his allegiance to the caliphate – the forces sent to bring him back into the fold were inadequate for the task.40 The Caliphate was not so centralised that it could muster a huge army: defence had been ‘franchised’ out to the different Emirs. As a consequence, the level of policing of dissidents varied: it seems that rural Kano and rural Katsina had always housed dissenting communities, whereas Sokoto had a very much smaller hinterland to police: in the mid-19th century it was little more than 25 miles north to south, and about 10-15 miles west to east. Its southwestern boundary was particularly fraught as the Muslim Kebbawa at Argungu were unwilling to recognise the suzerainty of either Sokoto or Gwandu, and though there was a truce (amana) for a period, fighting recurred again and again, not so much as ‘dissidence’ as the quest for independence. Similarly, north of Katsina, the pre-jihad Muslim regime held out as an independent Muslim state, yet always ready both to raid into their former territory and to welcome dissident office-holders from jihadi Katsina. The regimes that the Shehu’s jihad had ousted remained unassimilated: only Kano’s Emir had been killed before he could set up his exiled statelet, though some dissident Kanawa ineffectively emigrated northwards. 40 See Last 1967, p.88. The famines and upheavals may have led many in eastern Kano to join ca. 1855 a massively popular, millenarian emigration eastward to Mecca led by Ibrahim Sharif al-din (or “Mallam Dubaba”, the ‘Hairy’); they were massacred in Baghirmi. 41 Complaining of Kano’s excessive taxation, Shaikh Hamza left with some 15 scholars and set up an independent state among the Ningawa on Kano’s hilly eastern borders (Smith 1997, p.253; Patton 1987).
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 14:41:26 +0000
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