For the past four years there has been an increasing high intensity campaign against outspoken scholars on the raging insurgency in Northern Nigeria.
Scholars who dare to speak out against the indiscriminate killings of people and the destruction of property have been marked and gunned down. Scholars who preach against the campaign of the self-acclaimed mujahids and try to set the records and the tone of what’s happening and the best practices of Jihad have been eliminated for daring to speak out against extremist ideologies.
One of the first casualties of the insurgency was the versed and moderate scholar Sheikh Jafar Adam who was gunned down during dawn prayers in Kano. Since then scores of scholars have died in the line of duty, in preaching the middle course in these times of extremist induced tragedies.
No single person has been brought to justice in the contextual terms of violence against Imams or Islamic scholars in Nigeria. Most times their deaths go largely unreported or under reported. Therein is the answer to the conundrum of the analysts who either out of mischief, ignorance or a misguided fatal attraction are always quick to criticise the Ulamah of not speaking out against the mindless violence of the insurgency.
What happens to those who are vocal in the condemnation of the ideology and the tactics of maiming is execution, such as the killing in Zaria of an epitome of Hadith scholarship, educationist and preacher, Sheikh Mohammed Auwal Albani, killed in the tragic incident was also his wife and son, Abdallah.
To understand the gravity of this unfortunate event in talking about perspectives, especially to members of the mainstream media and non-muslims is to assume for a brief moment the gunning down of a Nigerian televangelist alongside his wife and son. It is unthinkable the effect this would have on his followers and the empathy of Nigerians.
According to newspaper reports, the Sheikh was on his way home together with his wife and son, after a preaching session at his Salafiya Islamic Centre in Zaria, when they were ambushed near Gaskiya area, about half a kilometre to his home, leaving four others injured including two of Albany’s sons currently receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital in Zaria. The assailants, it was reported, came in a Golf Car and equally rode on a motorcycle to perpetuate the attack at around 9pm on Saturday.
The mark of a beloved Muslim are the forty pious people that attend his funeral, at the burial of Albani and his family members thousands of people besieged the burial ground to escort them to their last abode on earth. The burial according to Zaria residents saw an un-precedented crowd, indeed a befitting farewell for a man who had committed himself to a life of imparting spiritual knowledge to thousands of people.
An uneasy calm currently hangs like a solemn veil over Zaria city, a city not unfamiliar to religious induced violence and in the past has had its fair number of skirmishes, however, security agents are on red alert in Zaria to quell any untoward activity that will lead to the breakdown of law and order.
But for how long will the vigil by security agents last? If your guess is one week, I’ll say you are an optimist. The latter shows the unpoliced state security-wise the average Nigerian citizen dwells in. By day one is accosted by hoodlums while by night petty burglars, armed robbers, and assassins begin their carnival of violence sharing a confetti of sorrows to their many victims.
Any society that adds to the tonnes of ills that thrives there to perpetuate the wanton destruction of human lives is doomed, any society that adds to its retrogression the killing of scholars, teachers, the burning down of class rooms has set itself on a retrogressive path of no return, for at the base of enlightenment and civility lies functional scholarship and knowledge.
Any society that seeks to kill the sense of reason amongst it’s populace first starts by eliminating the custodians of knowledge.
If we must survive this season, then we must protect the citizens of this country and stop the indifference towards our scholars who seek to preserve the sanctity of human lives. As we pray for the repose of his souls, his wife’s and child, the work and dreams of Sheikh Anbali must not die with him.
Alkasim Abdulkadir is a multi-media journalist, he has worked as a Producer for BBC Media Action and as a news contributor for CNN, Aljazeera, France 24 and Guardian UK. He is Contributing Editor at The Trent.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
