Parts of West Africa were experiencing major upheavals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For about a thousand years, Islam had been slowly spreading in the region. But by and large it was still principally the religion of the chiefly estate. Many of West Africa's masses remained untouched by it.
Sheikh `Usmaan Dan Fodio (the Shehu) of Hausaland in today's Nigeria was one of the West African reformers who strove to bring Islam to the masses. His preaching and call to pristine Islam, however, ended up pitting him against the rulers of his land. A result of the military confrontations that ensued was the Shehu's victory and the establishment of the Sokoto caliphate, a Muslim state that covered the size of Western Europe. This West African state was dismantled by British colonialism in the twentieth century.
The Shehu's reform movement did not, however, simply result in the formation of a new state. It also led to the flowering of an Islamic intellectual, literary and humanitarian tradition that engages the minds of many contemporary researchers. This paper looks at the life of one of the pillars of the revolution, Nana Asmau, a daughter of Sheikh `Usmaan Dan Fodio, whose spiritual and intellectual legacy still endures today.
It is difficult to cover in a few paragraphs the life of a woman who has variously been described by her contemporaries and modern commentators as "the tireless lady who excels in every-thing she has to do;" "an outstanding Islamic and African educationist;" a "defender of the faith;” a “standard-bearer," and "the most prolific writer and influential woman to have emerged in the Western Africa during the nineteenth century." Those interested in knowing more about Nana Asmau would do well for a start to read The Caliph's Sister (1989) by Jean Boyd, of which the present article is just a summary.
Nana Asmau was born in 1793 in Degel, a small settlement in today's northern Nigeria. Her father came from a scholarly family. Both his mother and maternal grandmother were scholars and teachers. He encouraged learning in the household. At a very early age, Nana Asmau started attending classes along with her brothers and sisters.
Her father was an erudite and charismatic teacher of the elite and the masses. In the 1780s he preached in Zamfra, and in the 1790s he undertook a teaching journey through the kingdom of Kebbi. Throngs came to join his Jamaa (congregation). This development unsettled the Hausa kings. An attempt was made on his life. He, however, asked his Jamaa to be silent about it and, instead, simply pray for Allah’s protection. Shortly afterwards, in Ramadan, 1803, the Jamaa was attacked. This first attack, which was particularly bloody and brutal, triggered the Jihaad. At the tender age of ten, Nana Asmau saw the bloodstained survivors, including women. Henceforth, and until she died sixty-two years later, she was to be acquainted with war. She witnessed many battles in her life. She and other women of the Jamaa experienced the privation and the hardship of war experienced by the men. Her character was formed in battlefields.
Nana Asmau started writing probably at the age of twenty-seven and continued to write virtually until her death. She wrote six poems on war, none of which is stereotypically fainthearted. A few lines from her poem, “Battle of Gawakuke” prove the point:
“On that Tuesday, paganism was overthrown,
The corpses of their leaders were hacked to pieces,
The vultures and hyenas said to each other,
“Who does this meat belong to?”
And they were told, “It’s yours. There is no need to squabble today.”
Nana Asmau is also considered as one of the major caliphate historians. When her brother, Caliph Bello, died in 1837, there followed a period of intense literary activity. There was a need "to explain the practices of the Shehu." In all, nine works were produced by her and her husband, Gidado, with the objective of reminding the community of its past and its ideals, as well as guiding it during the troubled times ahead. She wrote five of these important works, while he wrote four. The two writers were perceived and saw themselves as the custodians of the history and the ideology of the Jamaa.
Though most of her works were in her native Fulfulde, she also wrote in Hausa and Arabic. Her book on Quranic remedies for certain emotional and physical ailments, Tabshir Al-Ikhwan, was in Arabic. A verse from the work, "When Light enters the heart, darkness departs from it and it is guided aright," is evidence of the spiritual depth of her teachings on the subject.
The writings of Nana Asmau had a major impact on the direction that the caliphate took. So great was her voice that her support of Ahmad .B. Atiku, as successor to the caliph Aliyu, was decisive in determining the choice made by the selectors. What of was perhaps, more exceptional was that her son, the Waziri (Prime Minister) did not enjoy her support for the high office.
One of the most enduring images of Nana Assume was that of the teacher. She channeled her energies toward the education of the women of the community by women. She organized a mass educational movement for women between the ages of fourteen and forty-four called the Yan Taru. Jean Boyd, the author of the Caliph's Sister, met in the seventies with women involved in educational work near Sokoto, who saw themselves as heirs to Nana Asmau's spiritual and educational legacy. One of the women said: “This is what Asmau taught our grandmothers and what we continue to teach.” She combined her educational program and community welfare work. Her students would usually come to her bringing gifts, which she would then distribute through her welfare network.
A mid-twentieth century propagandist against some women's habit of putting a wad of tobacco into their lower lips quoted an untraceable document allegedly authored by Nana Asmau. He needed Nana Asmau's authority to back his case.
Nana Asmau's leadership and intellectual profile is by no means an isolated phenomenon in the region. West Africa has an old tradition of women leadership. There is also evidence of distinguished scholarly women in the region, notably in Timbuktu. Also, Nana Asmau was not the only woman writer and leader in the Sokoto caliphate. Some of her sisters were also writers and exercised leadership.
Women such as she could not have excelled as they did if the environment in which they lived had been hostile to their activities. Nana Asmau's mother was a deeply spiritual woman, and as a young girl, Asmau was aware of the metaphysical experiences her parents were going through.
Her father had a keen interest in the education of women and their general welfare. He encouraged the education of all his children, boys and girls, and urged his community to pay attention to women's education. In one poem he was critical of the habits and views of certain men: "Some women are in trouble ... because their husbands think of nothing but sex...they are hard by nature and fault-finding by disposition ... they confine their wives too closely ... they neither educate them themselves nor allow them to benefit from being educated by others ..."
Nana Asmau called her husband, Gidado, "the peace-maker." His attitude towards her was supportive of her personal development and activism. She did not feel restrained from giving free rein to her intellectual and welfare activities. Nana's brother, the Caliph Muhammad Bello, believed in the advancement of women. He dedicated an entire book, Kitaab An-Nasiha (1836) to the subject of women who inspired rulers, taught the masses and commanded great respect. When Bello became caliph, he made use of Nana Asmau, then only twenty-seven, as one of the powerful instruments for fashioning society. And in this she succeeded, thus earning her place in history and in the hearts of her people as one of Sokoto's major caliphal leaders.
Nana Asmau died in 1865. Many people traveled to witness her funeral. Her brother, `Eesa, describing the scene, said: "I found the open space in front of the house crowded with people. Even men were crying." In his poem he wrote: We the children of `Usuman (the Shehu) followed her leadership... our dazzlingly bright lamp has been taken... Her charity was a thousand fold... One could almost say she healed all hearts."
Nana Asmau left a legacy of active community work, education and scholarship, which continues to inspire generations in her homeland till this day.
By Dr. Ahmad Bangura