Nana Asma'u

Nana Asma'u (complete: Nana Asma'u bint Shehu Usman dan Fodiyo , * 1793 , † 1864 ) was an African poet and teacher . Her father Usman dan Fodio founded the Sokoto Caliphate . She is still revered in northern Nigeria today. Nana Asma'u is seen by some as an example of the independence and education possible for Islamic women , and by others as a forerunner of modern feminism in Africa.

Life

Nana Asma'u was born about eleven years before the Fulani jihad and was named in honor of Asma bint Abi Bakr, a consort of the Prophet Mohammed . The daughter of the Sufism- inspired founder of the caliphate and half-sister of his successor survived most of the personalities of the founding generation, making her an important source of information for later leaders. After 1805, the caliph's family members became highly regarded, including women. Although Nana Asma'u remained the most famous, her sisters Miriam and Fatima, as well as the caliph's wives, Aisha and Hawwa, also played important literary and political roles in the new state. Like her father, she was trained in studying the Koran and placed great emphasis on general education. As a representative of the Qadiriyya school of Sufism, Dan Fodio and his entourage took care of the spread of knowledge, especially the Sunnah . They believed that learning without teaching is sterile and empty. Nana Asma'u devoted herself particularly to the education of Muslim women and became an extremely productive author.

The writer and consultant

Because she was well acquainted with the classics of the Arab world and antiquity , and was fluent in four languages ​​( Arabic , Fulfulde , Hausa, and Tamacheq ), Nana Asma'u enjoyed public reputation as the leading scholar of the most influential Muslim state in West Africa, resulting in an expansive one Correspondence conducted. She witnessed most of the battles of the Fulani jihad and processed her experiences in the prose story "Wakar Gewaye" ("The Journey") . Because the Sokoto Caliphate was not just a secular kingdom but began as a cultural and religious reform movement, the writings of its leaders had a special rank against which future generations could judge their society. She became her brother's advisor when he took over the caliphate (and could or did not want to prevent him from destroying the valuable Hausa chronicles), has verifiably written instructions to governors and debated with the scholars of foreign princes.

The poet

In her more than 60 preserved works, which she wrote over 40 years, Nana Asma'u left behind a rich treasure trove of poetry in Arabic, Fulfulde and Hausa, all written in Ajami (Arabic script). Many of these are historical accounts, but they also include elegies, funeral chants, and didactic poems that taught men and women the basic principles of the caliphate.

Women's education

Other of her surviving works relate to Islamic education: for most of her adult life she was responsible for religious education for women. Beginning around 1830, she assembled a group of women teachers (jajis) who traveled through the caliphate and taught women in their homes. Each of these Jajis used the writings of Nana Asma'u and other Sufi writers they memorized to teach a corps of studied women called yan-taru (the gathering, the sisterhood). Each teacher gave Nana Asma'u a malfa - the traditional headgear of the animist Bori priestesses in Gobir , which was tied with a red turban. The Jajis thus became symbols of the new state, the new social order and Islamic learning outside of the women's community. In part, the educational project began as a way to integrate captured animists from the newly conquered territories into the Muslim ruling class, but later it also included the poor and peasant women, who then migrated as teachers through the expanding caliphate.

The legacy in the present

Nana Asma'u's legacy lies not only in her literary work and in defining Sokoto's values. Today, in northern Nigeria, Islamic women's organizations, schools and assembly halls are often named after her. It regained prominence in the debate about the role of women in Islam when its legacy was brought to Europe by Islamic scholars and immigrants. The republication and translation of her works has also shed new light on the purely literary value of her prose and poetry.

2019 Nana Asma'u was included in the anthology New Daughters of Africa by Margaret Busby added that provides an overview of the Black female literature of the last two centuries.

literature

• Boyd, Jean, 1989: The Caliph's Sister. Nana Asma'u, 1793-1865: Teacher, Poet and Islamic Leader. London: Frank Cass

Web links

• Katja Werthmann: The role model Nana Asma'u, in: Journal for Development and Cooperation
• Nasin Alder: Nana Asma'u, in: Islamische Zeitung