LESSON 31
ISLAM UNDER COLONIAL RULEThe immediate effect of French and British occupation was to stop jihâd warfare and slave raiding. The main difference between the two colonial powers was in their policy towards established jihâd states. The French dismantled their structures and set up direct rule, using Sûfî brotherhoods as intermediaries for any matters touching on Islam. The British instituted indirect rule, notably in the emirates of northern Nigeria.
Both policies curbed overt military expansion of Islam, but in the long run colonial rule was advantageous to Islamic expansion and consolidation. In the first place, the jihâd states were ridden with internal dissension, and their military strength was ineffective against more sophisticated methods of resistance in the areas they raided. British rule recognized definite leaders and secured them against adventurous contenders, whether these be political opponents or "Mahdist" upstarts. They also affirmed the lordship of the emirs over subordinate district and village heads throughout their territory, giving them coercive power and tax revenue such as they never knew before. The British even included under the emirs' jurisdiction previously unsubjugated territory. Throughout the colonial period, the emirs' word was law; they had police and prisons to back up their authority. Sharî`a law covered all matters, even crime and capital offenses, except for penalties such as mutilation, stoning and crucifixion. Elsewhere in West Africa Sharî`a law was only used for personal matters, like marriage and inheritance.
In areas of indirect rule, the British followed a policy of separate development, excluding missionaries from preaching and setting up schools. This insulation preserved Islam in archaic purity and satisfied the emirs, but later generations of Muslims have decried it for keeping the area backward. The few government schools for the elite could not prevent the educational and social gap that developed between these areas and the rest of the country.
Apart from propping up the emirs, the British peace allowed Muslims in all their West African dependencies to move freely, setting up colonies and proselytizing as they wished. In parts of Yorubaland and elsewhere Islam became the rallying point for those who did not wish to assimilate to Western learning and social changes. Throughout the colonial period the Sûfic brotherhoods played a major role in sustaining and developing Islam, especially when the emirs and other Muslim authorities appeared oppressive or to have compromised their religion. Colonial rule throughout West Africa was a time of great growth in numbers of Muslims. In Nigeria the final bequest of the British to Islam was the political arrangement on independence that Muslims controlled the Northern Region, and the Northern Region controlled the Federation.
This situation left an enduring tension between the Northern Muslim establishment and the rest of the country, manifested in conflict sometimes with Christians and sometimes with other ethnic groups. Religious tension was virtually unknown among the Yoruba in the South and in other West African countries where members of the same family belonged to different religions and lived together peacefully.
The status of Sharî`a in Northern Nigeria was first challenged in 1947 when an appeal trial prevented the imposition of a death penalty for homicide as provided by Sharî`a but disallowed by the British Criminal Code. This decision was given legislative support by the 1956 Native Courts Law, which stated that "a native court [which included Sharî`a courts] shall not impose a punishment in excess of the maximum punishment permitted by the Criminal Code or such other enactment". The status of Sharî`a was affected by further court decisions, leading the British to review the entire situation.
The British were convinced that, as in most other parts of the Muslim world, Sharî`a courts should deal only with personal status and family law, while civil courts would deal with criminal law according to a single code applicable to all Nigerians. In 1956 a Native Courts Bill was passed which made a distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims and provided procedures for cases involving both categories. In 1957 the Northern Muslim Court of Appeal was established and in 1958 a Northern Nigerian Government panel of jurists made recommendations, "some of which involved changes of the most radical nature for which, as many assured us, public opinion in Northern Nigeria seemed by no means prepared". Yet the Regional Government passed into law all but one of the proposals.
After three years the experiment was to be reviewed, and the panel was reconvened in May 1962. Subsequently, the government published a White Paper which praised the success of the reform. The strongest opposition had been feared against the new Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code which replace the Mâlikî law which had been entrenched for generations in the emirates. Instead, except in "one emirate", the new codes found overwhelming popular approval and esteem. The provincial magistrate courts set up in 1958 proved successful and were now to be extended to each of the major towns. In 1962 the jurisdiction of the Northern Region Sharî`a Court of Appeal was confined to cases of personal status and family law, a decision the Muslims accepted for the time being.
For the end of the colonial period, J. Cuoq, Les Musulmans en Afrique, gives the following estimations of the Muslim population of West Africa:
Senegal 82.6% Gambia 86% Guinée-Bissau 40% Guinée 75% Sierra Leone 50% Liberia 26% Mali 68% Niger 85% Bourkina Faso 17% Ivory Coast 21.7% Ghana 12% Nigeria 44% QUESTIONS
- Describe the gains and losses to Islam from the system of indirect rule.
- Explain why Islam prospered under colonial rule; compare with the situation of Christianity.
- Describe the status of Sharî`a law in West Africa in the colonial period.
- Survey the quality of Muslim-Christian relations in the colonial period.
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