Abdullahi dan Fodio

Abdullahi dan Fodio or ʿAbdallāh ibn Muhammad Fūdī ( Arabic عبد الله بن محمد فودي, DMG ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad Fūdī ; * 1766 or 1767 in Gobir ; † July 8, 1829 in Gwandu) was the brother and vizier of Caliph Uthman dan Fodio . Abdullahi initially led a successful jihad with his brother against the house states in the north of what is now Nigeria . After he had sworn allegiance to his brother Uthman, the latter appointed him vizier and chief administrator of the western territories of the empire he had founded. Abdullahi, who retired to Gwandu in the last years of his life, is thus also the first emir of Gwandu , although he never claimed the title of emir himself. In the Arabic texts from Sokoto he is usually referred to as al-Ustādh .

With his numerous works on Sufik , Islamic political theory, Arabic grammar and morphology as well as with his Qasīds on the victories won in jihad, Abdullahi dan Fodio was also one of the most productive Arabic-speaking authors in the central Sudan zone in the 19th century. There are also traditions on legal issues where Abdullahi took a different view from his brother.

Life

Origin and early years

Abdullahi came from the Torodi clan of the Fulani and was a direct descendant of Mūsā Jukulla, who had led the Torodi from the area of ​​the Futa Toro in Senegal westward to the area of Birni-N'Konni in the 16th century . He belonged to a family in which Islamic learning had a long tradition. His father was called Foduye (hence Abdullahi's patronymic Fodio), a term used in Fulfulde to designate Islamic legal scholars or generally learned men.

Abdullahi was born in the village of Maganimi in Gobir in 1766/67. He received his first training from his father and brother Uthman, who was twelve years older than him and introduced him to a wide range of Islamic sciences, including Maliki fiqh . Abdullahi also studied with several of his uncles, including Muhammad Rādschī and ʿAbdallāh ibn Muhammad Sambo. In his work Īdāʿ an-nusūḫ , Abdullahi offers a full account of his training and names the sheikhs from whom he learned. This also includes several local scholars about whom little else is known. Somewhat better known was Jibrīl ibn ʿUmar , with whom Abdullahi Usūl al-fiqh studied.

Abdullahi later accompanied his brother on his preaching tours through the home states of Gobir and Zamfara . They stayed in Zamfara from 1786 to 1792. When in Daura a scholar from Bornu named Mustafā al-Gwānī accused her in a poem of tolerating a mixture of genders in her sermons because both men and women listened to them, Uthman asked his brother Abdullahi to take over the defense. In his reply, also in verse, Abdullahi emphasized the need to instruct the uneducated masses in the basics of the Islamic religion and argued that in order to achieve this goal, a mixture of the sexes should be accepted.

As the vizier of his brother Uthman

In 1804, Abdullahi was the first to take the oath of allegiance to his brother as Sarkin Musulmi ("Commander of the Muslims"). In the jihad against the Hausa that began at the same time , he acted as one of Uthman's military leaders and viziers , while Uthman himself showed little military ability. One of his greatest military successes was the capture of 20 cities and fortresses in the area of Kebbi . In addition, Abdullahi celebrated his brother's victories and mourned the fallen fighters in Qasīden , making him the most important poet of the Fulani jihad . He later put these poems together in his work Tazyīn al-waraqāt .

While Uthman allowed jihadist violations of Sharia law to pass in order to preserve community unity, Abdullahi was less willing to compromise. Because of this, there were always differences between him and his brother. In October 1807, Abdullahi was so despondent about the behavior of the jihad fighters that he decided to leave the jihad army that was marching against Alkalawa, the capital of Gobir, and retreat to Medina . However, he only got as far as Kano because the local Muslim community insisted that he stay with them to instruct them in Islamic laws. At her request, he drew up his work Ḍiyāʾ al-ḥukkām , in which he summarized the rules for jihad and governance in accordance with Sharia law .

A little later, Uthman divided his conquests between his son Muhammad Bello and Abdullahi. While the former was responsible for the eastern parts of the empire, Abdullahi was the administrator of the western imperial areas. Uthman, however, withdrew to Sifawa to pursue religious studies there. Abdullahi built the town of Bodinga near Sifawa as the new headquarters for his troops in order to be as close as possible to his brother. From Bodinga he led a number of successful campaigns until by 1810 he had brought most of Kebbi under his control and received expressions of loyalty from Nupe , Ilorin , Yauri, Gurma , Arewa and Zabarma . His territory also included such distant areas as Liptako and theoretically even Massina . After the end of the jihad in 1811, Abdullahi began an intensive phase of literary activity in which he wrote most of his works.

After the death of Uthman dan Fodio

When Uthman died in 1817 without having previously proclaimed a successor, Abdullahi hoped to be able to succeed him because, according to the Fulani custom, the succession to the throne did not go to the son but to the brother. So he rushed to Sokoto, 14 miles away, but found that Bello had already been called to Sarkin Musulmi and the city gates were locked. Offended, he withdrew to Gwandu. Upon his arrival, he found that the neighboring city of Kalembena was rebelling against him under the rebel ʿAbd as-Salām in order to take advantage of his weak position. In this situation Bello came to his aid. Together they put down the uprising in 1818. In this way there was a reconciliation between the two men. Abdullahi recognized the rule of Muhammad Bello and in return kept the western parts of the country.

In the period that followed, Abdullahi left the political business more to his son Muhamman and his nephew Bukhari, while he withdrew and led a scholarly life. He himself never accepted the title of emir, but preferred to be dubbed Mallam (from Arabic muʿallim "teacher").

The mosques of Abdullahi in Birnin Kebbi and Gwandu and his tomb in Gwandu are important monuments of the religious architecture of the Fulani .

Works

The following is a selection of Abdullahī's works in the order in which they were written (numbering and description of content from Hunwick 1995):

• Sirāǧ ǧāmiʿ al-Buḫārī (February 1798), poem on the composition, arrangement and technical aspects of Saheeh al-Buchari , based on the introduction of Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalani to his commentary on Fatḥ al-Bārī (No. 76).
• Ḍauʾ al-muṣallī (1798/99), poem about ritual prayer , which was printed several times (No. 11).
• Alfīyat al-uṣūl wa-bināʾ al-furūʿ ʿalai-hā (June 26, 1800), didactic poem on the Usūl al-fiqh and the derivation of practical legal applications from it (No. 5). The book was printed in Cairo in 1961 and in Sokoto in 1981.
• At-Taqrīb fī ʿilm al-auliyāʾ ahl aḏ-ḏauq (December 12, 1806), translation of a Fulfulde work of his brother on the friends of God (No. 84).
• Ḍiyāʾ l-ḥukkām fīmā la-hum wa-ʿalai-him min al-aḥkām (1807), systematic treatise on the Islamic doctrine of the state (No. 18). The work was printed several times in Cairo, Beirut and Nigeria and also translated into Hausa .
• Ǧaudat as-saʿāda (1809/1810), exhortation to fathers to bring up their sons, wives and slaves (No. 38).
• Ḍiyāʾ ūlī l-amr wa-l-muǧāhidīn fī sīrat an-Nabī wa-l-ḫulafāʾ ar-rāšidīn (February 8, 1810), Presentation of the life of the Prophet Mohammed and the rightly guided caliphs for the rulers and jihad fighters (No. 27). Muḥammad Ṭan Iġī [u. a.], Sokoto, 1991.
• Ḍiyāʾ al-muǧāhidīn ḥumāt ad-dīn ar-rāšidīn (August 10, 1811), epitome (excerpt) from the work Mašāriʿ al-ašwāq ilā maṣāriʿ al-ʿuššāq by Ibn an-Nahhās ad-Dimašqī (d. 14:14) 'il of Jihad (No. 21).
• Kaff al-iḫwān ʿan at-taʿarruḍ bi-l-inkār ʿalā ahl al-īmān (October 15, 1811), exhortation to students who had misinterpreted his teachings not to oppose him (No. 39).
• Ḍiyāʾ al-umma fī adillat al-aʾimma (1811/12) Treatise on the Usūl al-fiqh (No. 30). The work was printed in Cairo in 1991.
• Ḍiyāʾ as-sulṭān wa-ġairi-hī min al-iḫwān fī ahamm mā yuṭlabu ʿilmu-hū fī umūr az-zamān (January 19, 1812), prince's mirror based on two works each by al-Maghīlī and Uthmān Fodiye . 25).
• Īdāʿ an-nusūḫ man aḫaḏtū min aš-šuyūḫ (October 7, 1812), list of the sheikhs from whom Abdullahi received instruction, with information on the content of their instruction (No. 37). The work was edited by Mervyn Hiskett in 1957 and translated into English.
• Tazyīn al-waraqāt bi-ǧamʿ mā lī min al-abyāt (October 14, 1813), a report on the jihad of the Fulbe modeled on the Maghāzī works, which is enriched with Abdullahi's own poems (No. 87). A manuscript of the work is kept in the Leipzig University Library ( link to the digitized version ). The work was edited by Mervyn Hiskett and translated into English (Ibadan Univ. Press, Ibadan 1963). A. Brass provided a partial translation of the text into German in his article: "A new source for the history of the Sokoto Empire" in Der Islam 10 (1920) 1-73.
• Ḍiyāʾ as-sanad (1813), poem in which Abdullahi lists the chain of narrators through which he obtained his knowledge of the Koran, Hadith , Fiqh and Sufik. The chain leads via Jibrīl ibn ʿUmar to Murtadā az-Zabīdī (d. 1791) and then connects to his chain of narrators (No. 24).
• Ḍiyāʾ at-taʾwīl fī maʿānī at-tanzīl two-volume commentary on the Koran (No. 26). Abdullahi completed the first volume on September 2, 1815, the second volume on July 10, 1816. A print of the work was published in 1961 in Cairo.
• Sabīl as-Salāma fī l-imāma (May 17, 1817), Treatise on the Caliphate based on as-Suyūtī's History of the Caliphs (No. 72). The work that Abdullahi wrote immediately after the death of his brother Uthman probably served to legitimize his claim to the succession.
• Bayān al-arkān wa-š-šurūṭ li-ṭ-ṭarīqa aṣ-ṣūfīya wa-talqīn al-asmāʾ as-sabʿ ʿalā ṭarīqat as-sādāt al-Ḫalwatīya (after 1817) treatise on the Sufik in the Silsila for his Sufik. , Affiliate with the Chalwatīya order (No. 9).
• Kitāb an-Nasab (after 1817), work on the origin of the Fulani and their migration from the Futa Toro to Hausaland (No. 45).
• Ḍiyāʾ as-siyāsāt wa-l-fatāwī wa-n-nawāzil mimmā huwa min furūʿ ad-dīn min al-masā'il (March 29, 1820), political and legal work (No. 25a). Printed edition by Aḥmad Muḥammad Kānī. Az-Zahrāʾ li-l-iʿlām al-ʿArabī, Cairo, 1988, digitized . The work consists of two chapters and a final part. In the first, relatively short chapter, Abdullahi deals with the prerequisites for Shari'a- compliant politics ( siyāsa šarʿīya ). In the second, considerably longer chapter, he presents fatwas by Maliki scholars on various religious questions, such as ritual purity , the affairs of mosques and adhān , the imamate of prayer, etc. The final part deals with various questions of Sufik.
• Al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ (1821/22), Treatise on Arabic Grammar (No. 8).
• Dawāʾ al-waswās wa-l-ġafalāt fī ṣ-ṣalāt wa-qirāʾāt al-Qurʾān wa-daʿawāt (August 17, 1826), on concentration during prayer, recitation of the Koran and supplications (No. 12).
• Dirʾ al-kaiʾa fī haiǧāʾ ʿilm al-haiʾa (May 25, 1827), treatise on Quranic cosmology and meteorology based on as-Suyūtī's work al-Haiʾa as-sanīya (No. 13).
• Ḍiyāʾ al-qawāʿid wa-naṯr al-fawāʾid li-ahl al-maqāṣid (February 24, 1828), Treatise on the Different Stations on the Sufi Path of Self -Perfection (No. 23).
• Aḫlāq al-Muṣṭafā (1828/29), on the good character traits of Muhammad (Hunwick No. 3).

In addition, Abdullahi also wrote individual poems in Hausa .

Differences with Uthman dan Fodio

Although Abdullahi respected his older brother Uthman as his former teacher and ruler, he has always clearly expressed his differences with him on legal issues. ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn al-Mustafā, a grandson of Uthman dan Fodio, who also met Heinrich Barth , wrote a work on these legal questions ( masāʾil ). Altogether, there should have been six important questions, on which Abdullahi took a different position than his brother:

1. Unlike him, Abdullahi considered the use of the title of king (Arabic: malik ) by Muslim rulers to be inadmissible because, in his opinion, it was a non-Islamic title.
2. Unlike Uthman, who considered the use of musical instruments permissible, Abdullahi forbade their use and considered those who disregarded this ban to be sinners.
3. While Uthman considered it permissible to wear stolen gold and silver jewelry for a short time during raids in order to demonstrate his gratitude for the benefit he had received from God, Abdullahi considered this practice to be inadmissible. The difference on this question first appeared in 1808 after the capture of Alkalawa, the capital of Gobir, when jihad fighters briefly put on clothing adorned with gold and silver, captured by the Hausa kings.
4. While Uthman considered it permissible for state officials such as imams and qadis to dress in pomp and dress, as was customary for their equals in the conquered territories, and believed that by doing so they could gain the respect of the people, Abdullahi argued this for an inadmissible adaptation to the customs of the unbelievers.
5. While Uthman considered Muslim scholars who remained loyal to the Hausa rulers to be unbelievers because they cooperated with what he believed to be unbelieving rulers, Abdullahi said that these scholars could only be called sinners, not unbelievers.
6. The sixth difference concerned the status of goods stolen from the infidels during and after the conquest of Alkalawa.

literature

• Shehu Umar Abdullahi: On the search for a viable political culture: reflections on the political thought of Shaikh ʿAbdullāhi Dan-Fodio . New Nigerian Newspapers Commercial Printing Dept, Kaduna, 1984.
• Abubaker Aliu Gwandu: Abdullahi b. fodio as a Muslim jurist. Doctoral thesis, Durham University, 1977. Link to PDF
• Mervyn Hiskett: "Introduction" in his edition by ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad: Tazyīn al-waraqāt . Ibadan University Press, Hertford, 1963. pp. 5-23.
• John O. Hunwick: Arabic Literature of Africa. Vol. II: The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa . Brill, Leiden, 1995. pp. 86-113.
• WEN Kensdale: "Field Notes on the Arabic Literature of the Western Sudan (Abdullahi dan Fodio)" in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society April 1956. pp. 78-80.
• WEN Kensdale: Art. "Gwandu" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. II., Pp. 1144b-1146b.
• Murray Last: The Sokoto Caliphate . Longman, London, 1967. pp. 40-45.
• Sidi Mohamed Mahibou: Abdullahi Dan Fodio et la théorie du gouvernement islamique . L'Harmattan, Paris, 2010.
• Shehu Salihu Muhammad: "The role of an Islamic state according to Abdullahi b. Fodio (1776-1828)" in Proceedings of the conference on the "Impact of the Ulama in the Central al-Sudan" . The Center for Trans Saharan Studies, Maiduguri, 1991. pp. 145-162.
• Muhammad Sani Zahradeen: ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Fodio's contributions to the Fulani Jihad in nineteenth century Hausaland . PhD thesis, McGill University , 1976. Digitized

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Hiskett: "Introduction". 1963, p. 5.
2. ↑ Cf. Gwandu: Abdullahi b. fodio . 1977, p. 36f.
3. ↑ See Hiskett: "Introduction". 1963, p. 5f.
4. ↑ See Hunwick: The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa . 1995, p. 86.
5. ↑ Cf. Gwandu: Abdullahi b. fodio . 1977, p. 43.
6. ↑ See Last: The Sokoto Caliphate . 1967, p. 40.
7. ↑ Cf. Gwandu: Abdullahi b. fodio . 1977, p. 50.
8. ↑ See Hunwick: The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa . 1995, p. 86.
9. ↑ Cf. Gwandu: Abdullahi b. fodio . 1977, pp. 43, 209.
10. ↑ See Last: The Sokoto Caliphate . 1967, p. 42.
11. ↑ See Kensdale: Art. "Gwandu" in EI² p. 1145a.
12. ↑ See Hunwick: The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa . 1995, p. 87.
13. ↑ See Hiskett: "Introduction". 1963, p. 16.
14. ↑ See Kensdale: Art. "Gwandu" in EI² p. 1145a.
15. ↑ See Kensdale: Art. "Gwandu" in EI² p. 1146a.
16. ↑ See his article: "Material relating to the state of learning among the Fulani before their jihad" in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 19 (1957) 550-578.
17. ↑ Cf. Gwandu: Abdullahi b. fodio . 1977, pp. 211f.
18. ↑ See Hunwick: The Writings of Central Sudanic Africa . 1995, p. 110f.
19. ↑ Cf. Zahradeen: ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Fodio's contributions to the Fulani Jihad . 1976, pp. 186-188.
20. ↑ Cf. Zahradeen: ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Fodio's contributions to the Fulani Jihad . 1976, pp. 191-193.
21. ↑ Cf. Zahradeen: ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Fodio's contributions to the Fulani Jihad . 1976, pp. 193-194.
22. ↑ See the explanations by Aḥmad Muḥammad Kānī in his edition of Abdullahi's work Ḍiyāʾ as-siyāsāt . 1988, p. 34.
23. ↑ See Mahibou: Abdullahi Dan Fodio . 2010, pp. 219-223.
24. ↑ Cf. Zahradeen: ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Fodio's contributions to the Fulani Jihad . 1976, pp. 186-193f.
25. ↑ See Mahibou: Abdullahi Dan Fodio . 2010, pp. 223-225.