Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria

Elisha P. Renne

Description

Veils, Turbans, and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria tells the story of Islamic reform from the perspective of dress, textile production, trade, and pilgrimage over the past 200 years. As Islamic reformers have sought to address societal problems such as poverty, inequality, ignorance, unemployment, extravagance, and corruption, they have used textiles as a means to express their religious positions on these concerns. Home first to the early indigo trade and later to a thriving textile industry, northern Nigeria has been a center for Islamic practice as well as a place where everything from women's hijabs to turbans, buttons, zippers, short pants, and military uniforms offers a statement on Islam. Elisha P. Renne argues that awareness of material distinctions, religious ideology, and the political and economic contexts from which successive Islamic reform groups have emerged is important for understanding how people in northern Nigeria continue to seek a proper Islamic way of being in the world and how they imagine their futures—spiritually, economically, politically, and environmentally.

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Material Religion and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria

2. Islamic Dress, Textile Production, and Trade in the Time of the Sokoto Caliphate

3. Muslim Identity, Islamic Scholarship, and Cloth Connections in Ilorin

4. The Sardauna's Turbans

5. Veiling, Gender, and Fashion

6. Performing Pilgrimage: Worship and Travel, Textiles and Trade

7. Marks of Progress: Islamic Reform and Industrial Textile Production in Kaduna

8. Failures of Modernity and Islamic Reform: Dress and Deception in Northern Nigeria in the 21st Century

9. Epilogue. Moral Imagination, Material Things, and Islamic Reform

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Rituals
• Popular Culture
• Philosophie et théologie
• Musulmán
• Northern Nigeria
• Sokoto Caliphate
• Ilorin, Nigeria
• West Africa
• Muslim
• Anthropology
• Ilorin
• Religion
• Practice
• Muslim ben al-Hajjaj
• Islam
• Kaduna
• Nigeria

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 16 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9780253036582
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 12 Mo

Extrait

VEILS, TURBANS, AND ISLAMIC
REFORM IN NORTHERN NIGERIA
AFRICAN EXPRESSIVE CULTURES
Patrick McNaughton, editor
Associate editors
Catherine M. Cole
Barbara G. Hoffman
Eileen Julien
Kassim Kon
D. A. Masolo
Elisha Renne
Z. S. Strother
VEILS, TURBANS, AND
ISLAMIC REFORM IN
NORTHERN NIGERIA
Elisha P. Renne
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2018 by Elisha P. Renne
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Renne, Elisha P., author.
Title: Veils, turbans, and Islamic reform in northern Nigeria / Elisha P. Renne.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2018. | Series: African expressive cultures
Identifiers: LCCN 2018019394 (print) | LCCN 2018029262 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253036582 (e-book) | ISBN 9780253036544 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253036551 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Clothing and dress-Nigeria, Northern-Religious aspects-Islam-History. | Islamic clothing and dress-Nigeria, Northern-History. | Nigeria, Northern-Social life and customs. | Textile fabrics-Social aspects-Nigeria, Northern-History.
Classification: LCC GT1589.N6 (ebook) | LCC GT1589.N6 R46 2018 (print) | DDC 391.009669-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019394
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Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Material Religion and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria
2 Islamic Dress, Textile Production, and Trade in the Time of the Sokoto Caliphate
3 Muslim Identity, Islamic Scholarship, and Cloth Connections in Ilorin
4 The Sardauna s Turbans
5 Veiling, Gender, and Fashion
6 Performing Pilgrimage: Worship and Travel, Textiles and Trade
7 Marks of Progress: Islamic Reform and Industrial Textile Production in Kaduna
8 Failures of Modernity and Islamic Reform: Dress and Deception in Northern Nigeria in the Twenty-First Century
Epilogue: Moral Imagination, Material Things, and Islamic Reform
Glossary
References
Index
Acknowledgments
T HE IMPORTANCE OF textiles in social life is a diverse topic that leads in many directions. This study represents my following myriad paths over the past thirty years, with the kind assistance of many individuals along the way. I have had the privilege of speaking with cloth traders, thread dealers, textile factory workers, hand embroiderers, designers, Islamic scholars and teachers, alhajis and hajiyas (men and women who have performed the hajj), government officials associated with textile manufacturing, and textile mill owners as well as professors, archivists, and emirate officials. Their trust and consideration in taking time to speak with me reflect one of the great benefits of long-term fieldwork. For it was through connections in Ibadan, where I first worked as a graduate student and research affiliate at the University of Ibadan in 1987, that I was able to meet with Alfa Khalifa Bamidele and visit his school and subsequently attend the wedding of Nuratu Raimi s granddaughters in 2013. Postdoctoral research, which began in Itapa-Ekiti in 1991, led to my long-standing research relationship with Chief Kayode Owoeye, who facilitated interviews in Ikole-Ekiti with Jama atu Tabligh members and traveled with me to Ilorin in 2014 where Professor Lateef Oladimeji, an expert on the history of Jama atu Tabligh in Nigeria kindly spoke with me.
My work in northern Nigeria began in October 1994, when I took up residence in a family house in the old walled section of Zaria known as Zaria City, or Birnin Zazzau. I thank the Emir of Zazzau, His Royal Highness Dr. Shehu Idris, CFR, for granting me permission to stay and conduct research in Zaria City. I am indebted to many people in Zaria City, Kaduna, and Kano. While too numerous to mention all of them individually, here I thank Yusuf Abdullahi, Sani Ibrahim, Jimi Magajiya, Samaila Magaji, Mohammed Mohammed, Yahaya Muktar, Samaila Nabara, Rabi Wali, Abdulrahman Yahaya, and Umma Yahaya for their ongoing assistance. At Ahmadu Bello University, the kindness of six vice chancellors over the years has encouraged me in this project, and colleagues at Ahmadu Bello University and Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic-both in Zaria-have, from the beginning, been most generous with their time and advice. They include Sheikh DanLadi, Rabi u Isah, Salihu Maiwada, Mairo Mandara, Musa Muhammed, Mohammad Tahir, Dakyes Usman, and Mohammadu Waziri. Abdulkarim DanAsabe and Hannatu Hassan, faculty at the Federal College of Education, Kano, have also been extraordinarily helpful. At the University of Michigan, I have benefited from the comments and suggestions of faculty members and students, including Omolade Adunbi, Kelly Askew, Frieda Ekotto, Kelly Kirby (now at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia), Jaclyn Kline, Stuart Kirsch, Anne Pitcher, and Ray Silverman. Julius Scott, as always, has provided astute editorial advice and answers to my incessant questions. Additionally, the exceptional help of librarians at the University of Michigan, the Herskovits Library-Northwestern University, Ahmadu Bello University, and the Bodleian Libraries-Oxford University; museum curators at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester; and in Kaduna, archivists at Arewa House, the Nigerian National Archives, and the Kaduna State Ministry of Information, have greatly facilitated this study. I also thank colleagues and friends on whom I imposed for advice, a second reading, and solace: Laura Arntson, Chris Bankole, Sue Bergh, Sarah Brett-Smith, LaRay Denzer, Gordon Hartley, Murray Last, and Ann O Hear as well as the late Philip Shea. While hardly an exhaustive list of all those who deserve thanks, I acknowledge the special support of Ya u Tanimu and Hassana Yusuf, who have helped me during my stay in Zaria from the beginning. Together, they helped me organize research assistance, provided excellent counsel and information, and patiently waited with me when I needed visa extensions. My visits to Hassana s parents home in Kaduna were always a pleasant respite, and Hassana Yusuf continues to impress me with her willingness to pursue difficult leads as well as to accompany me on bus and taxi rides to and from Kano, Kaduna, and Yakasai. As always, I owe her great thanks.
This long-term research on textiles and Islamic reform in northern Nigeria would not have been possible without funding from various sources, which include the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, the African Studies Center, the Advanced Study Center of the International Institute, and the Humanities Institute-all at the University of Michigan as well as the Fulbright US Scholar Program, the Pasold Research Fund, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. I also thank the University of Michigan Office of the Vice President for Research for a subvention grant for photograph reproduction, which contributes immensely to readers appreciation of the significance of textiles in the moral imaginings of Islamic reformers in northern Nigeria.
Three individuals have shaped my study of African textiles. Joanne Eicher shared her extensive knowledge of Nigerian textiles with me and, through her own research, encouraged me to look for internal and international textile trade connections. The late Annette Weiner enabled me to expand my understanding of the importance of textiles in social life-which included spiritual continuities fostered by cloth, cloth s embodiment of wealth and prestige, and cloth s use as essential objects of exchange at birth, marriage, and death. Thomas Beidelman taught me to think about cloth and moral imagination. I am indebted to him for helping me to understand the significance of the two sides of cloth and about the use of dress as deception. To these three teachers, I am truly grateful.
I am likewise grateful to the two anonymous manuscript reviewers; my copy editor; and Rebecca Logan, as well as Paige Rasmussen, Nancy Lightfoot, and design staff members at Indiana University Press, whose kind but firm organization facilitated the publication process. Dee Mortensen, editorial director at Indiana University Press, continues to provide outstanding support for African studies.
Finally, I acknowledge my contemporaries who lived and worked in Africa or who studied the role of textiles in social life who have gone before me: Mary Bivins, Charlotte Jirousek, Aisha Muhammed, Jeanne Raisler, Yedida Stillman, and Lillian Trager.
Inda ganyen doka daya ya fadi, a sa ganyen orowa dare ba rufe wurin
(Where one doka leaf has fallen, it would require more than a hundred orowa leaves to fill its place)
VEILS, TURBANS, AND ISLAMIC
REFORM IN NORTHERN NIGERIA
1 Material Religion and Islamic Reform in Northern Nigeria
When Umar b. al-Khatt b sent out a governor, he would impose five conditions on him: not to ride mules, not to wear fine clothes, not to eat choice food, not to employ chamberlains and not to close the door against people s needs and welfare. . . . Att b b. Usayd once said, By