بسم الله
الرحمن الرحيم
TELLY DA’WAH EMBASSY
Telly Da’wah Embassy,
Zone ‘E’, GRA, Iba Estate, Ojo, Lagos State. P. O. Box 10211, LASU Post Office,
HO 102 101, Ojo, Lagos State. Tel.
234-818-211-9714. Email: tellydawah@yahoo.com
DA’WAH TRACTS VOL. 1,
NO. 34
THE
HIJAB
QUESTION
THE HIJAB QUESTION
Today was born from
the wombs of yesterday. Therefore anybody who sincerely wants to understand the
issues surrounding the hijab saga needs to go down history lane where he will
find answers to fundamental questions like: when did the Muslims start
agitating for the use of hijab? What is the historical background of religions
in Nigeria? When did Islam arrive in Yorubaland? When did Christianity show up?
Our people say that when a child rejects evening pounded yam, the elders will
tell him how his mother was married.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
Islam was introduced to Nigeria by Muhammad Ibn Mani in
Borno in 1085 during the reign of King Hume Jilmi. Islamic scholars from Mali
brought Islam to Yorubaland in the 17th century and there is
evidence that there were more than fifty Islamic schools in Lagos by 1775.
The Malians were scholars and
traders and they brought the religion by peaceful means. This was long before
the Uthman Dan Fodio jihad of 1904. Those who claim that Islam came to
Yorubaland by force are therefore liars. The religion came with all its
paraphanalia, including Shari‘ah and hijab.
On the contrary, Christianity arrived in 1842 and it was
first preached by Rev. Henry Townsend under the Agacia tree on 23rd
September, 1842. This shows that Islam was already 800 years old in Nigeria and
200 years old in Yorubaland before the advent of Christianity.
Muslim women used the hijab in Iwo
under Oba Momodu (Muhammad) Lamuye who died in 1906, in Ede under Oba Abibu
(Habeeb) Olagunju who died in 1900 and in Ikirun under Oba Aliyu Oyewole who
died in 1912. Hijab in Yorubaland is therefore as old as the religion in the
sub-region and it was used by female Muslim students in all the Islamic schools
of the period.
The colonialists’
crooked sense of justice was such that instead of striking a balance between
what they met on ground and what they brought with them, they sought to totally
destroy Islamic institutions and to eliminate all its landmarks. They disallowed the use of hijab in their own schools and introduced a
uniform which they deemed suitable for Christianity. The present uniform being
used in public schools in Yorubaland is therefore a Christian uniform.
It was designed by the Christian colonial masters. This continued until Nigeria
obtained independence in 1960.
This was how the
British bequeathed to us a legacy which was heavily tainted with Christian
coloration in all aspects of life: education, health, law and social
perception. Any researcher worth his salt will confirm to you that education
was used by the colonialists to convert Yoruba Muslim children en masse. In most cases, foul means were
used to achieve this objective.
One would have
expected successive governments in post-independence Nigeria to revisit this
injustice but they never did. Neither did they listen to petitions submitted by
Muslims in Yorubaland on the issue. No year passed without Muslim communities
and Islamic organizations writing and submitting fresh petitions on the demand
for the use of hijab by female Muslim students in public schools.
Worse still, even
Muslim governors refused to listen to their brethren as they were products of
colonial brainwashing and acted under Western influence. To
conscious Yoruba Muslims, therefore, our so called independence in 1960 was
cosmetic, our republican status in 1963 was window-dressing and our democracy
today is a monumental fraud.
This is because the system has
failed to properly integrate Yoruba Muslims. Governments in the whole of
Southern Nigeria pursue an exclusive policy. Muslims are not carried along.
Agitations of Muslims are parried with a wave of the hand. No one pays attention.
The Muslims continue to suffer. Each time Yoruba Muslims demand their rights
they are told to go to Sokoto or Kano where they ‘properly’ belong.
Apart from the female Muslim
students who have been demanding hijab for ages, female Yoruba Muslims who wear
hijab are stigmatized in public places. For example, they are derided in
hospitals and called ugly names like ‘egungun’, ‘igunnu’ (masquerades) and
denied treatment if they fail to remove their hijab.
Millions of female Yoruba Muslims were disenfranchised
during past voters’ registration exercises for the 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and
2015 elections on account of their use of hijab. They were told the machine could not ‘capture’ their faces
if they wore hijab. Whoever wanted to vote very badly among them had to derobe.
It was dehumanization of the highest order. The interesting aspect is that
hijab-wearing women were all allowed to register in all parts of Northern
Nigeria. So where is the South West tolerance some people are talking about?
Understandably the human rights groups and
feminist societies operating in the country are looking the other way because
Muslims are the victims and, in their own understanding of the concept of human
rights, Muslims should not enjoy human rights and civil liberties.
Millions of other hijab-wearing
Yoruba Muslims are still being denied possession of the national identity card
today . They came forward to be photographed but the officials told them they
must remove their hijab. Some returned home in despair. Others succumbed out of
frustration and helplessness. They are now asking, “Are you sure this country
is for all of us? Do we have any right here at all? Are we really part of this
geographical entity called Nigeria”?
The experience of Muslim women in
hijab is the same when they attempt to get international passports. They are
asked to remove the hijab. The hypocrisy in the system becomes glaring and
shocking when one finds that hijab-wearing women face no problem at all when
they go for the national identity card or the international passport in Kano,
Sokoto, or any other city in the North. So why so much hate in the South West?
Why is the system applying double standard?
The so- called religious tolerance in the South West which
some often talk about is therefore a mirage and a gross misconception. It
doesn’t exist. Those who claim there is religious tolerance in Yorubaland are
not speaking for Yoruba Muslims. There is a semblance of religious tolerance
because the Muslims in the region are quietly taking all the insults, absorbing
all the religious profiling and swallowing all the oppression.
This is why many
Muslims in the South West see the sub-region as it stands today as a
neocolonialist project serving the purpose of the colonial master and the
imperialists alone. No sane person can deny that the British colonialists were
Christians. There is nothing wrong with being Christians, however. What went
wrong was the parochial method employed by the colonialists as they virtually
eliminated all vestiges of Islam which they met on ground. This they did by
using sheer force, divide et impera and so many other subterfuges to
debilitate Muslim communities and empower Christian groups at all cost.
As a result of this,
Muslims in Yorubaland of today feel alienated, ostracized and marginalized.
Worst still, we are stigmatized as fundamentalists, fanatics, terrorists, etc
each time we seek integration into the Nigerian project by demanding civil rights.
THE LEGAL ANGLE:
The laws of Nigeria contain enough
clauses to guarantee religious freedom thereby promoting peaceful coexistence.
It is the agents of neo-imperialism who refuse to allow Muslims in Yorubaland
to enjoy their Allah-given fundamental human rights.
Exempli gratia, Section 38 (i) & (ii) of the 1999 Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria says, “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or
belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or
in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship,
teaching, practice and observance.”
Contrary to the
persecution complex manifested by Christian officials against female Muslims in
hijab, section 42 of the same constitution also says inter alia, “A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic
group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by reason
only that he is such a person be subjected either expressly by, or in the
practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or
administrative action of the government, to disabilities or restrictions to
which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin,
sex, religion or political opinions are not made subject …”
It was these two
sections of the Nigerian Constitution (38 and 42) that the High Court of Lagos
State relied on in Suit No ID/424M/2004 – Fatimoh
Abidemi Rasak & 3Ors Vs Commissioner for Health, Lagos State & 2Ors
to reject and declare unconstitutional a circular issued by the Lagos State
School of Health Technology banning students of that school from wearing hijab.
Judicial records also
attest to the lawfulness, legitimacy and constitutionality of hijab for every
female Muslim citizen of Nigeria in Suit No CA/IL/49/2006 – The Provost Kwara State College of
Education, Ilorin & 2Ors Vs Bashirat Salau & 2Ors in which the
Court of Appeal, relying on sections 38 and 42 of the Constitution to assert
that the right to use hijab by Muslim students is a constitutional one that
cannot be taken away by the school authorities under any guise.
Furthermore, the African Union Charter on Human
and Peoples’ Rights proclaims in Article 4, Clause 1 & 2 that “Human beings
are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and
the integrity of his person.” Nigeria is a signatory to this charter.
The provisions of Article 18 of the United Nations Charter,
Articles 9 and 14 of the European Treaty of Human Rights and Articles 18 and 19
of the Treaty of Civil and Political Rights also criminalise religious
profiling. Amnesty International
has declared hijab as a human right. It affirmed that prohibiting hijab “would
violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who
choose to wear a full face veil as an expression of their religious, cultural,
political or personal identity or beliefs”
(http://www.amnestymena.org/en/magazine/issue16/Hijab.aspx?articleID=1021).
Hijab is therefore a
constitutional right and the agitation for the right of female Muslim students
to use it in all public schools in Yorubaland is a civil rights struggle which
should be embraced by all lovers of freedom, be it free speech, free association,
free movement, civil liberty, etc.
HIJAB AS DIVIDEND OF DEMOCRACY
The founding fathers of the Nigerian
nation dreamed of a land where citizens would stand ‘in brotherhood’. Both the
Muslim and Christian leaders stood together to fight colonialism. Alhaji Ahmadu
Bello and Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa stood firmly beside Chief Obafemi
Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. Several decades later, Chief Moshood Kashimowo
Abiola paid the supreme sacrifice to compel the military to quit power.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
joined forces with other members of civil society in the struggle to wrench
power from military dictatorship from 1993 to 1999. MURIC was one of the few
human rights organizations allied to the Campaign for Democracy (CD) under the
able leadership of the late Dr. Beko Ransome Kuti.
If democracy is all about freedom
and civil liberty for all citizens and groups without discrimination, then
Muslims in Yorubaland should be allowed to enjoy their own portion of the
dividends of democracy. Afterall they were part of the struggle and hijab is
part of these dividends. Failure to give them the freedom robs democracy of its
true meaning and turns the political leaders to sheer charlatans. Hijab is the
symbol of Muslim freedom. It is our dividend of democracy.
There can be no meaningful civil liberty in Yorubaland if
the persecution of Muslims continues in the sub-region. Democracy is a fraud
where conscienceless power subjugates powerless conscience and any authority
that deprives Muslims of their Allah-given fundamental human right is
brandishing conscienceless power. This is our postulate in Islamic liberation
theology and we say to our oppressors, “Let
the Muslims go!”
Yet not all Christian leaders are
bent on enslaving Muslims. Credit must be given to ex-Governor Kayode Fayemi, a
Christian governor who issued a circular permitting the use of hijab by female
Muslim students in all public schools in Ekiti State. Though he is a Muslim,
Governor Isiaka Ajimobi of Oyo State did not wait for the Muslim community to
go to court on the hijab matter. He also issued a circular permitting hijab in
schools. Unlike Babatunde Fashola, his Muslim counterpart in Lagos State, who
ignored all entreaties until the Muslims took the matter to court.
It may surprise hardline Christian
leaders in a state like Osun that even Britain allows female
Muslim police officers to use hijab
(http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/08/british-police-introduce-official-hijab-will-anything-diversity/).
Hijab is also used by Muslim police women in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
(http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/07/hijab-uniform-edmonton-police_n_4404742.html).
WHY THEY OPPOSE HIJAB
It is an open secret that evangelism
was the major target of the British in its quest to establish schools in
Nigeria. This target was vigorously and ruthlessly pursued during the colonial
days. Muslim children were forcefully converted. Coercion and intimidation were
generously employed by the colonialists. Education was used by the imperialist slave-masters
as a weapon of compulsory conversion. Parents who refused to allow teachers to
change their children’s names were told to go back home with their children.
The same agenda is still being
pursued today by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the South West. The objection to the use of hijab is based mainly on the impediment
which hijab constitutes to subtle repression of female Muslim students for the
purpose of converting them to Christianity.
It is all a game of numbers and, by
extension, an economic agenda. The more the number of converts to Christianity
among young Muslims the higher the number of working class church goers in
future. This ultimately translates to more tithe payers and a richer and more
comfortable church clergy and its leadership particularly these days when the
gospel of prosperity is on the rise.
THE OSUN HIJAB BROUHAHA
Goaded by Osun chapter
of CAN, Christian students of Baptist High School, Adeeke and those of
Salvation Army Middle School, Alekuwodo, Iwo, State of Osun, attended school in
church garments in June 2016. CAN had earlier vowed to order Christian students
in public schools to wear church garments to school if Governor Rauf Aregbesola
goes ahead to implement the judgement of the state’s High Court giving legal
backing to the wearing of hijab to school. Justice Oyedeji Falola of the Osun
State High Court, Oshogbo, gave the ruling on 3rd June, 2016.
Unlike this unruly
behavior, the Muslims of Lagos State submitted themselves to the rule of law
when on 17th October 2014, Justice Modupe Onyeabor of a Lagos High
Court dismissed a suit filed against the ban placed on hijab by the Fashola
administration. Instead of unleashing pandemonium, they approached a higher
court, filed an appeal and waited patiently for the outcome. The Lagos Court of
Appeal is yet to decide the case even after two years, yet Lagos Muslims have
remained calm and law abiding.
Earlier in 2004, two
students of the Lagos State School of Health Technology had taken the school’s
authorities to court when the latter issued a circular banning hijab. The case,
suit No ID/424M/2004, ended in favour of the Muslim students and the circular
was declared as an infraction on the Allah-given fundamental rights of the
Muslim students. Justice Modupe Onyeabor’s anti-hijab pronouncement ten years
later within the same area of jurisdiction was therefore deemed strange indeed.
THE WAY FORWARD:
It is clear that Nigeria is
sandwiched between two dangerously contending forces: between the fanatical
Christians and the extremist Muslims. The problem is that the extremist Muslims
are an infinitesimal minority and they exist only among the young followers
whereas the fanatical Christians are many and they occupy the decision-making
seats. They are the ones who insist on enslaving the Muslims.
But it is also becoming glaring that
it is the persecution of Muslims by the fanatical Christians which often pushes
extremist Muslims to seek alternative means of getting redress. Like the smoke
and fire parable and the Aristotelian theory of ‘Causality’, oppression and
provocation breed violence and terrorism.
We suggest a stakeholders forum
which will bring Christian and Muslim leaders from Ekiti, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun
and Lagos to a roundtable where they can deliberate on this burning and
volatile issue. The forum should discourage court litigations. Cases pending in
the courts should be withdrawn and, in the spirit of neighbourliness, the
leaders should seek mutual understanding among themselves.
There is no reason why female
Christian students in the entire Yorubaland cannot be allowed to benefit from
that landmark pronouncement. The forum may fall back on the scriptural
teachings of the two religions. CAN leaders in the South West may be persuaded
to encourage female Christian students to emulate Mary the mother of Jesus
(peace be upon him) by wearing Christian veils. In fact this is what the Bible
teaches in I Corinthians 11:4-13.
This should not be too strange
because Catholic nuns use the veil. It will also promote decency as the
colonial-Christian school uniform is seen by many as seductive. Acceptance of
the Christian veil as a compromise will bring the Christian students to a
parity level with their Muslim counterparts who rely on Qur’an 24:30-31 as
their scriptural basis for their demand for hijab.
The problem with many practitioners
of religion in this country lies in the wide lacuna between teaching and
practice. The two scriptures teach love, tolerance and forgiveness. But the
practitioners do otherwise. The two scriptures teach women to use either the
hijab or the veil, depending on the name you give it. Let both groups adopt its
own version as commanded in its scripture so that Yorubas can peacefully
coexist.
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This tract was prepared by Telly
Dawah Embassy. For further enquiries, please call 234-818-211-9714.
Telly Da’wah Embassy was founded in 1995 by Professor Ishaq Akintola for
spreading the peaceful message of Islam. Please reprint or make copies of this
tract and distribute free of charge to earn rewards from Almighty Allah. Allah
bless you as you support His cause.
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