NIGERIA 1977-a
FORMATION OF DOMINICANS
IN A MUSLIM ENVIRONMENT: IBADAN

for Journées Romaines Dominicaines, 1977

A. Background of Dominican involvement in Islamic work in Nigeria

Dominicans of the Province of St. Albert the Great came to Lagos in 1951 and in 1953 took responsibility for the Apostolic Vicariate and later diocese of Sokoto, an area which is 90% Muslim. Besides building infra- structures, initiating contact with pagans and caring for Southern Catholics in the cities, Msgr. Lawton was concerned about what approach could be made to the Muslims. A visit by the then Apostolic Delegate Sergio Pignedoli in 1961 encouraged Msgr. Lawton to plan something concrete, since Archbishop Pignedoli found no one in Nigeria informed about the Islamic situation and he asked the Dominicans if they could provide men for this work. Msgr. Lawton thereupon turned to the Cairo Dominicans for help and advice. Fr. Anawati could not get an exit visa, but in 1963 Fr. Jomier made a survey visit, the first of many visits, and recommended that two men be trained who could work as a team. In January 1964 Msgr. Lawton spoke to the Dominican students in Dubuque about this and other needs. I was recently ordained and finishing my studies and ready for an assignment. The ground was prepared, because before I entered the novitiate in 1956 I was inquiring, as Newman did, whether the great Dominican ideal was alive and viable today. Hearing about the Dominican effort in Cairo to dialogue with Muslims was one of the things that convinced me that the Order and its ideal was indeed alive.

I went to Nigeria in November 1964, learned Hausa, gained some practical experience, and in 1966 went to study at IPEA (Institut Pontifical d'Etudes Arabes), visiting Cairo en route. After a year in Rome I spent a full year in Tunisia, living in a University hall, attending classes and sharing the life of the Tunisian students, while speaking nothing but Arabic. This experience of living with Muslims from the inside, going home with them on holidays, fasting Ramadan with them etc., was invaluable and unforgettable. If various reasons prevent such an inside participation in the life of Muslims from being a permanent style of life for Dominicans dedicated to work with them, I at least recommend it as an indispensable temporary experience. After Tunisia I did a doctorate at Edinburgh, the most interesting part of which was several months' research in Cairo. In 1970 I returned to Nigeria, where I already had the beginnings of a research library in African studies in Sokoto. In the meantime Fr. Jim Kelly had done a master's degree in African Studies with emphasis on Islamic Law at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. The civil war and its aftermath prevented any new Dominicans form coming to Nigeria since 1966 and our ranks were thin. For this reason Fr. Kelly, except for some teaching in Ibadan, was never able to devote himself to work with Muslims.

In Nigeria, along with continuing research, my first attempt was to visit and make myself at home with the Muslims. but before long I discovered that Nigeria was not Tunisia or Cairo, and I was attempting to cross a chasm that divided a traditionalist, politically threatened Islam from a Church compound which symbolized Christian power in a country where Christianity and Islam are about equally strong, as in Lebanon. I could visit Muslims in passing, but continuing associations, especially in a situation of endemic national unrest, were not possible. Even the universities, at least four of which have departments of Arabic and Islamic Studies, could not, in spite of their boasted British tradition of academic neutrality, risk hiring a foreign Catholic priest. Yet just as threatening as the term "missionary" is the term "orientalist" or "Africanist", since the Africans would like to write about themselves from their own perspective. Any continuing foreign presence is justified only if: 1) it is by invitation from a Nigerian controlled organization, and 2) if it is for the training of Nigerians. In this context my own contact with Muslims can only be oblique and indirect. Even this can be very fruitful and interesting, but my main concern must be the formation of Nigerian Christians, particularly the clergy, for dialogue with Muslims.

The Church itself is conscious that it must have an indigenous image to be acceptable in the country, even at the price of inefficiency. The National Catholic Secretariat consists of a few Nigerian priests spared for 3 year terms, during the first 2 of which they are learning the job and the 3rd year they are planning what to do next. In Ghana and East Africa and French West Africa the episcopal conferences are very efficient and seriously face the problem of Islam, but only because they can afford to include foreigners in their working committees. My effectiveness must consist in helping the Church from the background while keeping a low profile.

Forming Christians, particularly Dominicans, for dialogue with Muslims

The first Dominican clerical candidates began their novitiate in Ibadan in 1968. Until the Inter-African programme began last October the Dominican students did all their studies at the regional major seminary about 2 kilometres away. While Victor Nadeau OP was rector of the seminary (1965-9) he obtained an affiliation with the University of Ibadan so that two years of the seminary course would be devoted to gaining a University diploma in Religious Studies. Included in the diploma course in the first year is a 60 hour introductory course on Islam. In the second year at least 30 hours are devoted to the history of Islam in West Africa. Besides this, in the final year of the seminary there is a course of about 10 hours on appraisal of Islam and pastoral approach to Muslims. The regional seminary for the northern dioceses in Jos, where I also teach part time, has a similar programme. Fr. Fitzgerald OSA, the rector at Jos, pointed out that in spite of some disadvantages with the diploma programme it is the only way to assure adequate attention to subjects like Islam and African traditional religions, given the attitude of most Christians and Christian leaders in Nigeria who would prefer to go their own way and pay no attention to the Muslims.

Both in Jos and in Ibadan a few of the seminarians come from a heavily Muslim environment or even from Muslim families, but the majority have had no close association with Muslims and know them only from a distance, as in the market, and they tend to look down on them. The same is true of the Dominican students. The seminary courses have sensitized the older Dominicans to the problems of relations with Muslims, but the younger ones beginning theology in the Inter-African programme have not yet had a course on Islam. I must observe that the brethren of the Paris province taking part in the programme do not think Islam deserves much attention, or at least not as much attention as it is given in the seminary. Yet, in my opinion, just as important as courses on Islam is practical contact for the Dominican students with Muslims, but I am not sure yet how to provide this. They can get some idea of how Muslims think and feel by following the introductory diploma course on Islam as taught by a Muslim from the University. Formerly I taught that course, but I find it too much to do this both at Ibadan and Jos, and I think it is better that a Muslim should teach the introduction and I do the pastoral course which is more important and strategic. Likewise in various catechetical centres etc. where I am asked to give short courses on Islam I ask that an introduction to Islam be done before I come.

Forming specialists, and their role

Besides a general exposure to Islam, which every enlightened Christian in Nigeria should have, there is a need for some specialists to carry on the work of forming Christians and leading the dialogue movement. In the Ibadan seminary one deacon from Sierra Leone is interested and is learning Arabic on his own with a little help from me. I saw his bishop and tried to gain his support for further studies for the man. IN Jos I have not yet found anyone both willing and fully capable of specializing in Islamic studies. There is a diocesan priest in Jos and another in Ibadan who did theology in Rome and followed some courses at IPEA, but this gives them hardly as much qualification as the seminarians who do the University of Ibadan diploma course, which these priests never had. Among the Dominicans of the Vicariate of Nigeria there is no one both willing and capable of specialized Islamic studies, although one deacon, Igba Vishigh, has been studying some elementary Arabic. More hope comes from the Lyon Province, where a former student of mine at the Ibadan seminary, Ebike Peretu, who is finishing theology at Abidjan, hopes to specialize in Islam after solemn vows and ordination in two years' time. He has the full encouragement of Fr. Moreau, and in my estimation is capable of becoming a first-class expert and resource person for all of West Africa. I hope that he can get a Ph.D. in the subject in order to have recognition from both university and Church circles. Nigeria is terribly degree conscious and has at least 13 universities. As a Nigerian of the Lyon province, Ebike can also straddle the French-English gap and gain acceptance on both sides, escaping the reaction I so often meet from the French or french speaking Africans that anything not French is inferior and not serious, whether it be in the area of scholarship or of pastoral work. He will also be able to move freely, as I do, in English speaking Protestant circles. The Islam in Africa Project (a mainly Protestant organization) had a study centre for all Black Africa in Ibadan. They just closed their former building and moved the very valuable library to the Institute of Church and Society, adjacent to the Dominican community. They asked me if the Dominicans might take charge of the library. Our own research library in Sokoto will have to be moved soon when a diocesan bishop and diocesan priests take over the cathedral parish. I propose that it be situated in Ibadan as part of the research centre in collaboration with the IAP. This could be an eventual base for Ebike.

A specialist must be very knowledgeable about Islam, but also up to date on Christian theological questions that relate to dialogue. That is why we so earnestly need the collaboration of Scriptural scholars, systematic theologians, Church historians, philosophers of religion etc. Whether we are in Rome, Cairo, Paris or Ibadan we are doomed to a peripheral soliloquy if we do not make use of inter-disciplinary collaboration. A specialist must also be sensitive to the needs of the place and time in choosing his orientation. He could move into research, direct dialogue with Muslims of different social levels, work with catechetical teams in preparing textbooks to help Christians understand their own faith better in a Muslim environment and so on, but I think we have to start with the Church in the country where we are and the needs that it feels and try to answer these needs while at the same time sensitizing the Church to other real needs it does not yet feel. For instance in Nigeria there is a very real need for a catechesis that takes Islam into account, but hardly anyone feels this need. On the other hand all the Christians are very excited about the political situation of the country and the place given to Islam in the proposed Draft Constitution which provides for a Federal Shari`a court of appeal with a Federal Grand Mufti and Maliki law for Muslims in any and all matters. I wrote up a study of this question which was used in a meeting of representatives of the Catholic dioceses of the North and later in a meeting of the Christian Association of Nigeria, which includes all the Churches, for preparing a memorandum for the Federal government. This panic interest of the Churches in the political dimension of Islam I hope can be turned to a more positive interest in other aspects of Islam as well. I spoke about this question at an Islam in Africa Project consultation in Ghana in July. In that country where Christians are a majority and have political control the attitude towards Muslims is more patronizing and concerned with helping Muslims to achieve justice and opportunities for development. Lamin Sanneh and John Taylor were shocked that the Churches in Nigeria should be trying to obstruct Muslim efforts to set up a Shari`a rule for themselves, but I do not think they are aware enough of the different situation in Nigeria.

Another area a specialist should interest himself in is promoting communities of Christian witness and contact with Muslims, whether made up of religious along the lines of Charles de Foucauld, or lay communities such as the Mennonites have in Kenya. Islam is a community, and we cannot dialogue with Muslims as individuals, however romantic this may sometimes be, but as members of a vital community which is not just a collection of individuals. We must be known as men of prayer who love one another and the Muslims too, but the Muslims will not be convinced that we are really men of God unless we also have some baraka. This is as point I made at a meeting in Niamey two years ago and was not well accepted, but I repeat it again. Muslims expect power and success from God, and unless we as a group heal their sick by our prayers and work a few miracles, in their eyes we are only well meaning but deluded people who have gone astray. Charismatic works will speak much more loudly to Muslims than any intellectual dialogue. Paul VI said in Evangelii Nuntiandi that "neither respect and esteem for these (non-Christian) religions nor the complexity of the questions raised is an invitation to the Church to withhold from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ" (n. 53). He also emphasises "respect for their tempo and pace" and "their conscience and convictions, which are not to be treated in a harsh manner" (n. 79). In a respectful dialogue and witness we are not to precipitate a call to embrace Christianity, but let our works of love and our works of power be a proclamation which will raise the right questions and the right yearnings in the hearts of Muslims. Only then will an intellectual dialogue be fruitful. We have hardly exploited this approach at all thus far!

Conclusion

In conclusion I raise some questions representing dilemmas or polarities of approach:

1. Whether to live among Muslims fully identified with them and sharing their life with our Christian identity in the background or to live apart in a Christian community which is always distinguished from the Muslim community and cannot share its intimate feelings.
2. Whether as Dominicans we should emphasise or at least insist on a scholarly and academic approach to Islam or should we be practically involved with Muslims as people, letting theoretical questions come in only when absolutely unavoidable.
3. Whether to give priority to direct dialogue with Muslims or to forming Christians for living with Muslims, having little experience with Muslims ourselves.
4. Whether Islam should be taught to seminarians by a Muslim only or should a Christian expert teach the course to give a critical perspective.
5. Whether to create our theology of dialogue in our own area of work where the problems dictate the solution (Compare 3rd world theology of liberation etc.) or theologize in Europe where there are so many more resources.
6. Whether to confine our interest to the religious aspects of Islam or to follow its politics as well.
7. Whether to serve the local Church in facing its felt needs (usually defence) with regard to Islam or boldly to expose the real needs and confront the Church with these.
8. Whether to forget about the Muslims until we achieve love and community among Christians or to wipe our feet from disinterested and unjust Christians, as Paul did with the Jews, and turn to the Muslims instead.
9. Whether to show love in humble service, conscious that we are sinners, or act like powerful prophets of God and legendary saints.