As a student of Comparative Politics and Islamic Political Thought, two subfields of Political Science in which religion constitutes an important subject of intellectual inquiry and analytical engagement, I find Muhammad Reza Sulaiman’s claims rather selective and his overall argument more suggestive of a diatribe against Salafi-oriented groups than an objective and balanced critique. Let me make it clear from the outset, there is nothing inherently wrong with subjecting Salafi-oriented groups, their ideological orientations, historical antecedents, and political engagement to critical scrutiny. Undoubtedly, such scrutiny is necessary for advancing any meaningful intellectual debate. What becomes problematic, however, is when historical interpretation is subordinated to ideological predispositions, selective deployment of evidence, and generalizations that undermine the objectivity of a scholarly inquiry.
Little wonder, the impression one gets from reading Sulaiman’s article is concerted effort to portray the preaching activities of Masussuka in good light and that of Salafi movements in bad light. Consequently, in sharp contrast to Salafi movements, the defining feature of Masussuka’s preaching activities is depicted as non-violence while the Salafi-oriented groups emerged as embodiment of fundamentalism and violent extremism.
There is no denying the fact that disagreement with Salafi movements such as Izalah is perfectly legitimate, but such disagreement must be distinguished from objective criticism of a religious organization. Undoubtedly, the death of Masussuka can be mourned and his laudable achievements can be applauded without resorting to bashing of Salafi-oriented groups. There is, after all, nothing objectionable about describing the life of Masussuka and his achievements, however that does not need to serve as a recipe for producing unbelievably convoluted and turgid arguments to paint all Salafi movements with stigma of fundamentalism and violent extremism.
Unfortunately, the author deliberately refused to take that path of reasoned, but critical arguments and decided to engage in diatribe against the Salafi movements as a way of demonstrating intellectual and religious accomplishments of Masussuka. He accuses Salafi movements, specifically, the Izalah movement of weaponizing specific, highly contextual or historically isolated Hadith narratives to justify sectarian exclusion and militancy. He also refers to them as fundamentalist who believe that the Hadith literature exists as an unassailable, literalist blueprint for both private life and political governance.
When applied to democratic governance and statecraft, describing Izalah’s relationship with Hadith literature as a rigid literalist blueprint woefully fails to capture how the movement operates within the Nigerian constitutional republic. Unlike literalist or quietist salafism that often rejects democratic elections, constitutions, and secular political office as idolatrous, Izalah endorses active participation in democratic politics by actively encouraging its members to vote, run for political office, join political parties, and serve in secular government position.
More to point, there are many prominent political and cabinet figures in the country who maintain close ties or alignment with Izalah leadership. This engagement with the state relies on contextual political strategy rather than a literalist rejection of non-Islamic state and governance. Interestingly, even when it comes to implementing the Sharia Hadith literature served as a moral benchmark rather than a standalone self-executing manual.
The claim that associates Izalah with violent extremism is rather spurious and has no validity whatsoever. Izalah vigorously opposed Boko Haram by deploying Islamic legal arguments to defend the state authority, civic education, modern science, and peaceful co-existence. This goes a long way to demonstrate that its interpretation of Hadith opens adequate space for state co-operation and institutional alignment. Hence, instead of attempting to superimpose a literalist Hadith manual on the country’s political life, Izalah uses the Sunnah as a moral and reformist compass while operating within the pragmatic realities of modern state framework.
The author describes Masussuka as a reformist cleric and an outspoken advocate against violent extremism who paid the ultimate price for challenging the ideological hegemony of militant extremism. He also claims that Masussuka sought to strip modern extremists of their text-based justification while his methodology constitutes a direct threat to the theological machinery that sustains their authority. It is interesting to note that, Masussuka is Quranist, who directed salvo of attacks against the mainstream Sunni establishment rather than extremist groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP.
Almost every debate he engaged online it was with members of Salafi-oriented groups such as Izalah or adherents of Sufism. Even when he engaged in preaching activities within the confines of his residence, showering the leaders of Izalah with all manners of derogatory remarks often becomes the order of the day. More annoyingly, even the religious figures who majority of Muslims hold in high regard such as the six transmitters of authentic prophetic traditions were not spared by him. The targets of his campaign of calumny are not militant extremists by any stretch of imagination. Rather they are the leading lights of both Salafi and Sufi Islam.
To the chagrin of Masussuka and his fellow co-travelers, there is no even circumstantial evidence to suggest that Quranism has posed any effective challenge to the hegemony of Sunni Islam. If anything it has remained confined to small, isolated fringe groups with virtually no influence at all over the country’s broader religious ecosystem. Hence, unlike Salafi or Sufi movements, Quranist currents remain marginalized, socially isolated, and largely incapable of threatening the institutional dominance of mainstream Sunni establishment.
The inability of Quranism to provide a credible, viable alternative is not all that difficult to unfathom. First is that, Quranism is not necessarily a coherent political movement organized around the needs of and problems facing Muslims. Second is that, Quranists do not constitute a unified intellectual or political community. They differ over interpretation, religious authority, and the implications of Qur’an-only approaches. Interpretative fragmentation precludes the possibility of constituting even a semblance of a unified intellectual enterprise. Third is that, they lack the extensive religious institution, educational networks, and scholarly establishment available to Salafi Islam. Fourth is that, they suffer from limited popular penetration.
Little wonder, their arguments have not displaced the influence of established Islamic religious institutions. More fundamentally, Quranism fails to resolve its ritual and legal baseline problem. Hence, as long as it continues to produce as many conflicting rulings on basic obligations as there are individual reader, it will struggle to attract mass populations who seek clear, actionable religious direction. Unlike Quranism, Salafi Islam clearly demonstrates its ability to give plain, unambiguous answers to daily life.
What is clear from all this is that, Quranists do not have the capacity to develop a comprehensive alternative to militant extremism let alone to Salafi Islam. Challenging the religious texts and interpretative traditions used to legitimize a religious tradition is not the same as dismantling the social, political and institutional structures that sustain it. Militant extremism is more often than not sustained by political exclusion, state repression, socioeconomic marginalization, geopolitical conflict and institutional failures, than preaching activities of any Islamic group. Even if it is taken for granted that Quranists have effectively challenged the hegemony of militant extremism, they have not succeeded in dislodging its ideological and sociopolitical influence in any substantial or demonstrable sense.
The author applauded Masussuka for building deep ties with the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and even went to extent of comparing it with reviving the historic, spirit of the First Hijra and channeling the exact Meccan blueprint. For one thing, visiting Christian places of worship or building ties with the CAN is not a novel idea let alone be a significant milestone in the history of Christian-Muslim relations. If anything, it will be counter-productive for Masussuka to build deep ties with the CAN as many people are of the view that he is a Christian rather than a Muslim. Hence, they may take his close ties with CAN as a proof of what they have for so long suspected. For another, there is no evidence to suggest that building deep ties with CAN by Masussuka has in any meaningful way helped develop a shared commitment to peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims in the country.
Masussuka’s relations with CAN, after all, was motivated by public relations and ceremonial considerations rather than genuine desire for peaceful interreligious relations. This makes it of little or no transformative effects at all. The attempt to associate Masussuka with reviving the historic, spirit of the First Hijra and channeling the exact Meccan blueprint, given his Quranistic disposition, is rather spurious, if not preposterous.
Masussuka’s allegiance to Quranism suggests that reviving the historic, spirit of the First Hijra and enacting the Meccan blueprint by him is far off and completely out of the realm of possibility. For Masussuka the Qur’an is the absolute frame of reference that leaves no room for accepting anything that falls outside its own logic. The First Hijra to Abyssinia is not explicitly narrated in the Qur’an while its historical reconstruction depends substantially on sources outside the Qur’an. By virtue of this fact, Masussuka faces both epistemological and methodological dilemma when it comes to availing himself of the First Hijra as an important historical resource for contemporary interreligious peace-building. The epistemological question arises from rejecting Hadith and Sirah traditions as authoritative sources of Islamic knowledge: On what grounds does he accept the First Hijra as an authentic historical event? The First Hijra is frequently invoked as historical evidence of the possibility of peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims, but the historical details that make the episode of great importance are transmitted substantially through extra-Qur’anic traditions. The methodological question that suggests itself here is that: Can he consistently invoke the First Hijra as an authoritative historical precedent for contemporary Christian-Muslim relations while simultaneously dismissing the historical sources through which knowledge of that event has been persevered? What is clear from all this is that rejection of Hadith and Sirah traditions as the legitimate sources of historical knowledge complicates the appropriation of the First Hijra as an authoritative precedent for contemporary Christian-Muslim relations. Under such a schema, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible for him to use the First Hijra without compromising his credibility as a Quranist.
The idea of channeling the Meccan blueprint smacks more of an idea of Republican Brothers under the leadership of Mahmoud Mohamed Taha than that of Quranists. Taha sought to make Meccan verses as the sole foundation for modern law and governance. He founded a movement that evolved into progressive Islamic reform group, which seeks to reconstruct Islamic thought and law around freedom, equality, and universal human dignity. Specifically, he divided Islam into two: First Message and Second Message. He argued that the second message emphasizes the universal principles of Meccan revelations, promotes individual freedom, human dignity, and equality between men and women, supports democracy, religious tolerance, and peaceful co-existence, challenges rigid interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence as well as advocates for reforming Islamic law to accommodate contemporary social and political realities.
Even a cursory analysis can reveal that what Taha envisages is different from what Quranism entails. On the one hand, Taha introduces a progressive evolutionary hermeneutic, which views historical texts of Islam as time-bound and argues that humanity has evolved to finally live by the higher, universal ethical spirit of the early Meccan revelations and discard Medinan revelations. On the other hand, Quranists including Masussuka treat the entire Qur’an as the solid, timeless legal framework and advocate for discarding extra-Qur’anic traditions. What marks Taha off from Quranists is his insistence that the entire portion of the Qur’an which was revealed in Medina must be discarded in favour of Meccan revelations. As far as Quranists are concerned the question of discarding any part of the Qur’an does not arise. The justification for this claim lies in the simple fact that from a Quranist standpoint, rejecting or selectively filtering any part of the Qur’an nullifies a person’s claim to full submission to God’s guidance. Hence, it will be very difficult for Masussuka to deliberately endorse what is at odds with a vital Quranist standpoint.
The author described Masussuka as a champion of non-violence when it comes to defence of human dignity, interfaith harmony and scriptural truth. To his dismay, this description of Masussuka has been belied by propensity of Masussuka to resort to deriding revered personalities of other religious communities and contemptuous language against the beliefs they hold as sacred. Non-violence cannot coexist with derision that involves ridicule, contempt, mockery or deliberate humiliation of personalities and beliefs that religious others take as sacrosanct. Non-violence after all, is not confined to refraining from physical assault, it entails avoiding all forms of humiliation, dehumanization, demonization, intimidation, and symbolic aggression that undermine the dignity of others.
To be sure, deriding revered personalities of religious others does not necessarily constitute physical violence, but it is as real and consequential as physical violence. This is because it opens space for religious hostility, mutual suspicion and social polarization. Non-violent defence of scriptural truth is far from the denigration of personalities revered by people of other religious communities. The moment the defence of scriptural truth depends on ridiculing the sacred figures of another faith, it loses its intrinsic value and assumes the character of recipe for undermining the very moral and spiritual values it claims to defend. Perhaps, this explains why one finds insulting Bukhari and Muslims by Masussuka as flagrant violation of ethics of interreligious relations.
When important religious figures are openly insulted as Masussuka is fond of doing, their followers typically perceive that not as a rational critique of an idea, but as a deliberate attempt to deride their leaders in a way that constitutes an existential threat to the group itself. The resultant effect of all this is heightening defensive in-group solidarity and exacerbating out-group hostility thereby dividing the communities into rival camps. Under such circumstance, it will be very difficult to create adequate space for religious differences between citizens to obtain within a framework of peaceful co-existence. Peaceful co-existence cannot automatically manifest itself where people remain deeply steeped in mutual hatred and hostility. For peaceful co-existence to come into play in intergroup relations there must be a genuine change in behaviour and attitude in the direction of tolerance, respect and recognition of validity of religious pluralism.
- Garba Bala Muhammad writes from Jega
