Pilgrims must walk through three rooms, a
foyer and a 200-metre-long corridor before
accessing the dimly-lit chamber where Usman
dan Fodio and two of his sons are buried in
Sokoto, northern Nigeria.
Old women sit against the plastered white
mud walls begging for money. Inside the tomb,
more than a dozen visitors sit with their palms
cupped and lifted upwards in prayer, seeking
dan Fodio’s blessing.
Textile trader Sammani Yusuf is one of them.
He drove more than 500 kilometres (300 miles)
from the city of Kano to visit the graves and
ask for his bed-ridden mother to get better and
his business to pick up.
“Allah is everywhere but tombs of saints have
sacred status and one’s prayers are more
readily answered by Allah through their
intercession,” Yusuf told AFP.
“I’m very optimistic that Allah will grant my
needs by the sacredness of the saint lying in
this tomb,” he added.
Asma’u Lawwali believes her prayers for a
child were granted on a previous visit to the
tomb of dan Fodio, also called “Shehu.”
“I’m here with more requests to God through
Shehu’s intercession and I’m confident they
will be granted in the same way my request
for a child was answered,” she said.
Tour guide Isa Abubakar said Yusuf and
Lawwali were not alone in their conviction.
“Any person you see here has come for dan
Fodio’s intercession,” Abubakar said. “By his
sanctity, when you pray to Allah (at the tomb)
your request is granted.”
– Revered figure –
Usman dan Fodio is one of the most famous
names in Nigerian history — a fact borne out
by the steady stream of visitors who still flock
to his final resting place in the heart of the
ancient city.
Nigeria’s Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo cited
dan Fodio in a recent speech, saying his
condemnation of corruption and extremism
were still relevant today.
Two centuries ago, the reformist scholar, who
is considered a saint by many in Nigeria and
West Africa, declared jihad or holy war against
tyrannical local rulers in the Muslim-majority
region in 1804.
The result was the creation of an Islamic state
— the Sokoto Caliphate — which covered most
of modern-day northern Nigeria and parts of
neighbouring Niger and Cameroon.
Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the radical
Islamist group Boko Haram, whose insurgency
has devastated northeast Nigeria in the last
seven years, has name-checked dan Fodio in
several of his messages.
Shekau himself declared a caliphate in 2014
after his fighters captured swathes of territory
in the region.
But the comparisons end there.
And despite reverence for dan Fodio himself,
pilgrimages to his tomb have come under
attack from religious conservatives, in a sign
of the complex mix of Islamic ideologies and
affiliations in the region.
Nigeria’s north is mainly Muslim and
predominantly Sunni but there have been
increasing tensions in recent months with
minority Shiites.
– Ideological tensions –
The conservative Wahhabist ideology, which is
dominant in Saudi Arabia, made inroads in
northern Nigeria in the early 1980s. Until then,
it had been dominated by the mystical Sufi
tradition.
Prayers to dead saints and visits to their
tombs were condemned as polytheism and
idolatry.
In Sokoto itself, the Saudi-funded World
Islamic League set up an office to propagate
its views, putting itself at odds with those who
revere dan Fodio in the Sufi tradition.
“Some people try to refute intercession but
such claim is false because intercession has
theological basis in Islam,” said the tomb
guide Abubakar.
His colleague, Muazu Abdurrahman, added:
“They frown at intercession with the Prophet
(Mohammed) at his tomb in Medina and it is
no surprise if they say the same or worse
about Shehu’s.”
In 2012, Al-Qaeda-linked Islamists destroyed
the tombs of Muslim saints in Timbuktu, in
northern Mali, condemning them as idols in
line with their ultra-conservative Salafist
beliefs.
Abdurrahman, however, ruled out similar
destruction in Sokoto given dan Fodio’s status
as “an Islamic scholar of repute and a saint…
a reformer who fought to establish pure Islam
and justice.”
“This is why he is revered even by those who
are vehemently opposed to visiting his tomb,”
he said.
“Yes, we also have elements who share Al-
Qaeda beliefs like Boko Haram, which also
disapproves of visits to tombs for blessings.
“But it is unthinkable they will try to replicate
what their peers did in Timbuktu.”
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