Cultural Tragedy in Nigeria as Ilorin Muslims Forcefully Reject Public Performance of Yoruba Religious Activities
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Cornelius Hamelberg
It’s understandable that the Emir could have refused to allow certain Yoruba cultural or religious festivals to be celebrated within the precincts of his palace, or the area that his religious title confers on him as his dominion which he may perhaps regard as wholly or partly under his jurisdiction to administer as he please and we are to suppose that would entail some prominent sign boards, some signs of warning declaring e.g “Trespassers will be prosecuted: No Egugun dancing allowed beyond this point”
So, please let’s be clear about this: When you say that “the public celebration of a festival of classical Yoruba spirituality was banned by the Emir of Ilorin”, do you mean that out of the blue he just said ” It’s banned” and it was ” banned” in Ilorin?
Does he have that authority over the God of the Yoruba religion and if so, who gave him that kind of authority? The Nigerian Government?
What happened last year? Did such celebrations take place, or is it not an annual/ seasonal event?
Shouldn’t the would-be celebrants give advance notice of their intentions? I don’t think that in India the Hindus go around drumming and dancing with statues of Lord Krishna and singing devotional songs to him outside the Mosque in Delhi, or that the Muslims or some other religionists would slaughter or sacrifice a cow right outside a Hindu Temple. That would be a provocation that would set in motion another cycle of retaliatory violence …
You can imagine similar tensions being fomented in the Middle East should Jews invade/ trespass( violate Muslims’ sense of holy space….
Let’s be reasonable and live peaceably, please…
With regard to that you have to say in the paragraph beginning with ”In a world in which the African faces such huge challenges” etc which was really not helpful, I would like to kindly remind you of the Prophet of Islam,Sallallahu alaihi wa salaam’s LAST KHUTBAH ( sermon) which was delivered on the Ninth Day of Dhul-Hijjah, 10 A.H. (632 CE) and in which he so emphatically addressed the issue of racism :
"There is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab, nor for a non-Arab over an Arab. Neither is the white superior over the black nor is the black superior over the white -- except by piety."
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,
You have pissed me off again and I too “can't describe the sadness I am feeling.”
You are " not aware of any Nigerian writer or artist who has achieved prominence beyond Nigeria through work inspired largely by Islam or Christianity..."
Really?
Have you ever heard of the intellectual giant of a scholar known as Usman Dan Fodio ?
If you give me your postal address I will send you some of his books ( works) that have been translated into English. I esteem his most succinct “Handbook On Islam Iman Ihsan: Shaykh Uthman Dan Fodio” -not a word wasted, not a wasted word. For me, and hopefully, for many others too, it is a sourcebook of Maliki Fiqh, second only to al-Muwatta and it has a place of pride among my library of Holy Books…
Discuss further.
Who told you that I want to discuss the matter any further? With whom? The Emir of Ilorin? The Nigerian Religion Police?
It's not my problem, it's yours, or as a Nigerian would put it, speaking Big Nigerian English, " You ( Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju) have a problem"
Just as Joe Biden has a problem, in fact, m more than just one big problem: snubbed by Saudi Arabia, reviled by Iran, ridiculed and disdained by Israel, China, Russia, North Korea, and things could go horribly wrong on all those fronts guaranteeing that he doesn’t get re-elected
Something for your imagination
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,
One of the foremost: Mohammad-Baqer Majlesi
Worthy of your holy library: Fear and Trembling
Please indulge me.
Talking about origins, there’s John’s idea that the Logos ( fairly Greek) “Became Flesh”
Since you take great delight in the metaphysical and the abstract, you are of course aware of the Islamic concept of Nur Mohammadi. In Shia Islam - as I understand it, Nur Mohammadi is an esoteric centrepiece.
As you know quite well, jihad didn’t originate with Shehu Usamn Dan Fodio.
JIHAD goes back to the original light of the Last Prophet, the beloved of Allah subhanahu wa ta’la, the seal of Prophecy, Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa salaam.
Re - The impact of Shehu Usman ɗan Fodio
List of 14 flag bearers of Usman dan Fodio
You want to know if I am “aware of any impact of Usman Dan Fodio beyond Nigeria?”
As a proud Nigerian, you shouldn’t be asking me, I should be asking you. Sadly, that’s how it is; some people are not proud of their own
Without being too personal about it, I should ask you, are you aware of the reality known as ideas without borders? Ideas that can travel faster than the speed of light? Of course, you are. You are the unemployed astronaut who is still “Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge", so just as some of the ideas of Immanuel Kant who never did any Jihad and never left Königsberg, the city of his birth somehow still managed to make an impression on Oluwatoyin over there in moonlit Lagos, so too there is no doubting The impact of Shehu Usman ɗan Fodio beyond Nigeria - just ask his publishers e.g Diwan Press and those who have translated his words into English and other languages.
I first heard about the great man from Jeff Holden ( an Englishman, lecturer in African History at the Institute of African Studies at Legon - mostly over bottles of alcoholic beverages at various venues in Accra, and from my Better Half who attended his seminars). From Ghana, fast forward to Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi who Shehu Dan Fodio also impacted tremendously
Cornelius Hamelberg
Cornelius Hamelberg
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,
From the very beginning, if only you had zeroed in on the essence, Isese, and what the Isese Festival is all about then from where would any reasonable opposition to such a celebration of Yoruba cultural tradition be coming from?
From the Vatican?
From Temple Square?
I’m sure that long before August 20th the Emir will have lifted the ban, with the understanding that the celebration will be confined to the non-Muslim sections of Ilorin…
So true, so true :
Sometimes, too, there’s the method in the madness and this applied most fittingly to Apartheid South Africa. At least I remember reading a book entitled “South Africa: The Method in the Madness' about Apartheid South Africa.
Since it was The Dutch Reformed Church that provided the theological and ideological basis of Apartheid, with regard to the main subject matter in this thread, a question arising is, what was the Apatheidist and e.g.the Dutch Reformed Church's attitude to traditional African religion? To add to the obscenity, during the Apartheid era were there any headlines such as “Botha’s Chief of Police bans Sangoma festival!” -or “ Botha’s Police Chief bans Chaka Zulu Celebrations' ?
Cornelius Ignoramus is only asking dumbass questions because he doesn't know the answers.
In Sierra Leone, the Church Missionary Society played an outstanding role in the education of the Creoles in particular, to the extent that in league with other missionaries zealots during the colonial era, no doubt to some extent, traditional African religions and the so-called “ Voodoo” / Voodoo as an African religion must have been demonised in tune with the Christian doctrine that “the Blood of Jesus” is the only way for any mortal’s salvation and that any other way is either incomplete ( such as Judaism) or false, such as any religion that is not Christian.
Through Christian missionary influence, in the Krio / Creole Language, all the masquerade / masked dancers such as Goboi, Egungun , Ojeh , Paddle, Ejebu, Remi’s Lord a Mercy, Rainbow, and other hunting societies are called debul (devils), there’s even the kaka-debul, Isn’t that real demonization of African traditions or is it all just good fun?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1145854
Of course, although according to the Nigerian Constitution Nigeria is still a so-called secular state, doesn’t mean that religious sensibilities can be violated with impunity.
Paradoxically it is not the Christian authorities that are so adamant about banning African traditional spirituality, .maybe, because many Nigerian Christians are hopelessly compromised, culturally because -so I’m told, they practise their Christianity side by side with traditional worship of the deity at their family shrine?
Short of declaring your own holy or unholy war, in discussing such matters or preaching your own gospel of “tolerance” to Muslims such as the Emir of Ilorin, you have to fully acquaint yourself with what Muslims believe and then engage the Mulims’ main positions: Muslims are strongly opposed to whatever is deemed to be idolatry or idol worship, and secondly, Islam posits the period before the arrival of Islam in this case in Nigeria, as the period of Jahiliyyah…
You say that there is no Interfaith communication in Nigeria to speak of; the fact is that when such dialogues take place elsewhere, it's the non-MUslims that wind up making all kinds of concessions to Islam… so where does that leave the non-Muslim?
For the time being, the current state of the Nigerian constitution
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Yoruba spirituality is the only ideology Nigeria has exported to the world, being the most influential form of African spirituality, as evident in Cuba and in North and South America.
Islam and Christianity are imports via the Middle East and secondly Europe with Christianity.
Islam in Northern Nigeria and its Ilorin outpost are not known to have developed creative approaches to Islam or Christianity that uplift humanity beyond those religions' sectarian limitations.
Outside Africa, Islam has inspired many who are not Muslims, as evident from the work of Rumi, Ibn Arabi and others who speak to the human condition within and beyond Islam.
Inside Africa, one may readily invoke great works inspired by Islam that reverberate beyond the religion, such as Senegalese' Chiekh Hamodou Kane's Ambiguous Adventure , Malian Amadou Hampate Ba's A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar, the magnificent work of French-Senegalese artist Maimouna Gueressi, of Egyptian artist Fathi Hssan and more.
Can Islam in Nigeria's Muslim North and its Ilorin outpost, the bastions of Islamic exclusivity and triumphalism in Nigeria, point out their contributions to humanity along these or other lines?
Can they point out general cultural activities that speak to humanity beyond sectarian limitations as well as creative innovations taking Islam to a higher plane?
If I, in Nigeria, need to ask this question should I take seriously such claims as this?-
Has any writer from those regions whose work is based on Islam achieved anything near what has been achieved by Wole Soyinka, the world's first Black Nobel Laureate in Literature, whose work is deeply grounded in Yoruba spirituality?
Has any Nigerian writer from those regions whose work is based on Islam achieved anything near the achievement of Chinua Achebe, whose greatest works are central explorations of the congruent Igbo spirituality?
What is the level of contributions of this regional brand of Islam to understanding principles of symbolic interpretation of the world, as in Victor Ekpuk's work inspired by Nsibidi symbolism of the Ekpe esoteric order of Cross River?
Even in Nigeria, what expressions is this regional Islam best associated with in the general mind, in terms of their most impactful activities?
Is it recurrent physical, verbal and general attacks against non-Muslims and efforts to dominate them or is it efforts to demonstrate how Islam may unite everyone, even non-believers, in terms of a shared humanistic vision?
Is it an association with danger, with blood shedding, with the elevation of religious belief over the value of human life, with providing ideological and institutional breeding grounds for religious terrorism, or is it the effort to dramatize Islamic principles of recognition of humanity as children of Allah, whose beneficence the Muslim should embody, inspiring people to seek fellowship within the beauty of such inspiring vision?
Which of these possibilities is the face of Islam as practised in the Muslim North and its Ilorin outpost to Nigerians outside those regions?
Is this face such as to inspire non-Muslims to fellowship with Muslims in those regions and even to convert to Islam?
In the light of such questions, am I to take seriously those who dismiss non-Abrahamic faiths when those making the dismissal have little elevating to offer humanity beyond their narrow sectarianism?
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Yoruba spirituality is the only ideology Nigeria has exported to the world, being the most influential form of African spirituality, as evident particularly in Cuba and in North and South America and its similarities with knowledge systems outside Nigeria, such as the Dahomean Fa.
Islam and Christianity are imports via the Middle East and secondly Europe with Christianity.
Outside Africa, Islam has inspired many who are not Muslims, as evident from the work of Rumi, Ibn Arabi and others who speak to the human condition within and beyond Islam.
Can Islam in Nigeria's Muslim North and its Ilorin outpost, the bastions of Islamic exclusivity and triumphalism in Nigeria, point out their contributions to humanity along these or other lines?
Can they point out general cultural activities that speak to humanity beyond sectarian limitations as well as creative innovations taking Islam to a higher plane?
If I, in Nigeria, need to ask this question should I take seriously such claims as this?-
Has any writer from Nigeria's Muslim North and its Ilorin outpost whose work is based on Islam achieved anything near what has been achieved by Wole Soyinka, the world's first Black Nobel Laureate in Literature, whose work is deeply grounded in Yoruba spirituality?
Has any Nigerian writer from those regions and whose work is based on Islam achieved anything near the achievement of Chinua Achebe, whose greatest works are central explorations of the congruent Igbo spirituality?
What is the level of contributions of this regional brand of Islam to understanding principles of symbolic interpretation of the world, as in artist Victor Ekpuk's work inspired by Nsibidi symbolism of the Ekpe esoteric order of Cross River?
Even in Nigeria, what expressions is this Islam of Nigeria's Muslim North and its Ilorin outpost best associated with in the general mind, in terms of their most impactful activities?
Is it recurrent physical, verbal and general attacks against non-Muslims and efforts to dominate them or is it initiatives demonstrating how Islam may unite everyone, even non-believers, in terms of a shared humanistic vision?
Is it an association with danger, with blood shedding, with the elevation of religious belief over the value of human life, with providing ideological and institutional breeding grounds for Islamic terrorism, or is it the effort to dramatize Islamic principles of recognition of humanity as children of Allah, whose beneficence the Muslim should embody, inspiring people to seek fellowship within the beauty of such inspiring vision?
Which of these possibilities is the face of Islam as practised in the Muslim North and its Ilorin outpost to Nigerians outside those regions?
Is this face such as to inspire non-Muslims to fellowship with Muslims in those regions and even to convert to Islam?