Download Sufi Poetry in the Marketplace of Popular Culture in Northern Nigeria

Sufi Poetry in the Marketplace
of Popular Culture in
Northern Nigeria
Abubakar Aliyu Liman
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
It was Terry Eagleton, that unrepentant Oxbridge
Marxist scholar, who uncharitably used the
notion of “the gaudy supermarket” in his acerbic
attack on what he sees as the “obscurantism” and
“metaphorical muddle” of Gayatri Chakaravorty
Spivak’s and Homi Bhabha’s complex and
convoluted writing in the highly contested
terrain of postcolonial discourse.1 Eagleton’s
allusion to gaudy scholarship is in reference to the
superfluous use of language by the two scholars in
the name of theoretical abstraction. In Eagleton’s
estimation, Gayatri Spivak in particular and, by
extension, Homi Bhabha2 have deliberately chosen
Album cover of Hausa Sufi song artist Fadar Bege.
112
to deploy inaccessible register in their analysis
of a discursive field which is more inclined to
historical analysis than the speculative approach
of critical theory. But what has this got to do with
Sufi poetry, a type of poetry which is characterised
more by its spiritual moorings, mystical issues,
metaphysics and transcendentalism? Sufi poetry is
always simplicated by its tantalisation with gaudy
aesthetics through the use of flowery metaphors.
When Sufi poetry and popular culture come
together in a not so holy alliance there is no escape
from the charge of verbal gaudiness. Again, poetry
can be gaudy by virtue of its flamboyant diction,
metaphors, imagery and rhythmic patterns. Poetic
devices are apparently the mainstay of the verbal
embellishments of all forms of panegyric poetry,
including Sufi poetry.
The origin of Sufi poetry in Hausaland, northern
Nigeria, can be traced to a period as far back as
the fifteenth century, with the coming of Islamic
scholars such as al-Maghili from the Maghreb to
the Western and Central Sudan. Scholars who
were learned in advanced Islamic sciences had
thronged important cities of Hausaland where
they established centres of learning in such places
as Gobir, Katsina, Kano and Zazzau.
In Katsina, for instance, many schools of Islamic
sciences were established in Hambali, Darma,
Tsohuwar Kasuwa, Zangon Daura, ‘Yandoto and
‘Yankuzo.3 In the ancient Islamic schools, the verse
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Sufi Poetry
form was used as the most important medium of
teaching, learning, as well as oral and written
communication. The tradition of Sufi poetry
entails poetic rendition of gnostic and mystical
experiences of the awliya (saints). Karamat (virtues
or ‘miracles’) of other awliya who have attained
higher spiritual stations are also captured by Sufi
verses. Madh poetry (poetry composed in praise
of the prophet of Islam) is yet another example
of the preoccupation of Sufi poets. Rasheed A.
Rajihas submitted that madh poetry is essentially
composed in honour of the Prophet Muhammad
as, according to a Qur’anic verse, it was “the
Almighty Allah Himself and His angels that had
first praised him before enjoying the act upon the
Muslims.”4 Hence the praise of the Prophet of Islam
in beautiful verses by generations of composers
across the ages. Hassan bin Thabit was recognised
as the “official court poet to the Prophet.”5
In the Hausa world, “the most celebrated
Madh... [is the one by] Abu Zayd Abdur-Rahman
al-Fazazi, the author of the Ishiriniyat” who
lived in Morocco between the twelfth and the
thirteenth century.6 The Ishiriniyat is performed
by individuals and groups all over Hausa society,
and it is institutionalised to the extent that it is
recited by groups on Friday nights in the premises
of mosques, Madrasas and compounds. As far
back as the seventeenth century, Muhammad
al-Kashinawi b. al-Sabbagh Dan Marina, thought
to be a student of the famous Timbuktu scholar
Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti, taught Abu Abdallah b.
Muhammad Dan Masani. The two distinguished
Katsina scholars have been known as the leading
Nigerian scholars in the period before the jihad of
Shaykh Usman Dan Fodio. A number of works in
both Arabic and Hausa ajami script were produced
in the different fields of Islamic learning. Dan
Marina and Dan Masani have variously composed
odes and qasidahs in celebration of the holy Islamic
personalities. Dan Marina, for instance, has to his
credit a Sharh ala Ishiriniyat li-Abi Zayd al-Fazazi
(Commentary on al-Fazazi’s Ishriniyat), Mazjarat alFityan (Admonitory poem to young people) and an
ode in praise of Amir al-Mu’minin Ali b. Abi Talib.7
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As for Dan Masani, he is reputed to have written
the most famous commentary used in Hausaland
on al-Fazazi’s Ishiriniyat, known as al-Nawafih alAnbariya fi hall alfaz al-Ishiriniyat in 1640.8
The tradition of Hausa Islamic verse, a poetry
which transcended the spiritual and mystical
genres preferred by classical Sufi poetry, is
predominant and all-encompassing in Hausa
society. Hausa Islamic verse, otherwise known
as qasida in Arabic or wake in Hausa, includes
subjects such as Wa’azi (admonitory verse),
Madh (panegyric), Tawhid (theology), and many
others.9 In all these aspects of Islamic learning,
volumes of works have been produced in verse
form, unfailingly following the rules of Arabic
metre, rhyme scheme and rhythm.10 Even before
the nineteenth century Sokoto jihad, which used
poetry as its main medium of proselytisation
in mosques, towns and village squares, poetry
served as the main means of oral and written
communication and knowledge dissemination.
The evidence of pride of place enjoyed by the verse
form in Hausa Islamic scholarship finds its most
evident manifestation in the volumes of works
produced by the leader of the jihad, Shaykh Usman
Dan Fodio, by his brother Abdullahi Dan Fodio,
by his son Muhammad Bello and by his daughter
Nana Asma’u. Sufi poetry has since carved a niche
for itself through the traditions of versification.
The whole idea of written poetry in Hausaland
is attributable to the madh poetry traditions
which were popular in Hausa society where
Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya Sufi Orders became wellentrenched long before the emergence of western
cultural modernity. Islamic cultural practices and
performances among both the Hausa and the nonHausa speaking Muslims have, to a large extent,
drawn from these dominant Sufi traditions in the
area.
The main focus of this paper is to provide
an overview of the entanglement of the old
traditions of Sufi poetry in contemporary Hausa
popular culture which is producing unintended
consequences. First, we need to understand
the trajectories trailed by Sufi poetry from its
The Annual Review of Islam in Africa • Issue No. 12/1 • 2013-2014
Focus: Manuscripts & Literature
sacred precinct of spiritual epiphany to the
secular domain of popular entertainment.
The interface of the sacred and the secular is
realised through programmes such as mawlud
festivities (celebrations of the birth of Prophet
Muhammad) and celebrations where lyrical
performances constitute a major attraction to
the general public. During mawlud celebrations
even Muslim individuals who do not share the
spiritual orientation of the Sufi orders always
look forward to the colourful ceremonies and
performances in honour of the best of creation in
the eyes of Muslims. Mawlud is indeed one such
occasion in which rhythmic and melodious praises
of the sterling qualities of the Prophet of Islam,
members of his noble family, his companions and
awliya (saints) are expressed. Poetry performance
is used to entertain participants. Thus, several
poetic recitations are performed at regular
intervals by individuals or groups, including
young boys and girls. In the past, there were some
differences between Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya in
terms of their approach to mawlud ceremonies
and performances. While the Tijaniyya movement
preferred oral performances of panegyric poetry
in praise of the Prophet and awliya without any
form of musical accompaniment, the Qadiriyya
brotherhood favoured some degree of musical
accompaniment in which a tambourine type of
instrument known in Hausa as bandiri is used.
Elsewhere the bandiri songs are described “as a
special kind of Islamic performing art.”11
The migration of bandiri Islamic performances
from the provenance of the mosque to the
secular public sphere is attributable to the
activities of ‘Usshaqun Nabiyyi, a group of “young
Muslim fans of the Prophet” who have turned
bandiri musical performances into a commercial
venture. Wedding and naming ceremonies are
now celebrated with bandiri performances for a
monetary compensation. Professional performers
are lavished with gifts and money during and
after their performances. The songs performed
on special occasions are then “recorded on audio
cassettes and sold to interested audiences far
114
and near throughout Hausa speaking states and
beyond.”12
This is the point of convergence between Sufi
poetry and popular culture. Popular culture forms
and texts in developed societies are products of
mass culture which are distributed and marketed
for mass consumption.13Similarly, contemporary
popular culture is not only mediated by electronic
media technology but would appear to be
completely commercialised, if one judges the way
in which its forms and texts submit themselves
to the logic of “market forces of supply and
demand.”14 The intensification of the relationship
between Sufi poetry and the processes of
contemporary Hausa popular culture has produced
spectacularly surprising results. For instance, the
earlier migration of Usshaqun Nabiyyi to the popular
culture zone has led to the total immersion of the
bandiri poets and musicians into Hausa popular
culture. This is apparent from the way in which
these singers and poets have abandoned bandiri
musical instruments for the more secular form of
instrumentation produced in computerised sound
studios equipped with pianos, synthesizers and
mixers. In the studio environment, written poetry
is not just orally performed but is also musically
accompanied. The musical rendition of songs is
filtered through electronic recording devices until
the desired effect is achieved.
The bandiri poets started experimenting
with the secular form, style and melody of the
Hausa popular songs composed in the studio.
Several popular songs have been emptied of
their secular content which was then replaced
with sacred and religious content in the same
studio in which both the sacred and secular
songs are produced. The melody and rhythm
of a number of reigning popular soyayya (love)
tunes have been disemboweled, emptied of their
secular content, and then replaced with religious
praises of Prophet Muhammad and the awliya. At
a Zawiya Islamic school in Jaji, a town located at
the intersection of Zaria and Kaduna and headed
by Shaykh Adam Khalil Jaji and Shaykh Abdulrauf
Ibrahim Jaji, students have parodied songs which
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Sufi Poetry
were originally secular love songs and have then
turned their rhythms into praise qasidas which are
musically accompanied in the studio. Secular lyrics
are now given religious content; amorous romantic
love is thus transformed into love and praise for
the Prophet of Islam, his progeny, companions and
awliya. In his study, Jibrin Lawal has referred to this
new cultural experiment as giving global form to
local content via hi-tech musical instrumentation
in the composition and performance of either the
sacred or secular songs.15
As a result of the recent introduction of
technologically-based
studio
compositions,
members of both the Qadiriyya and Tijjaniyya
brotherhoods have energetically appropriated
digital media for the composition and performance
of Islamic poetry. This has happened even though
in the past, the Tijaniyya brotherhood and other
Islamic groups were critical of the introduction
of Bandiri musical instrumentation used by the
Qadiriyya group. This change of heart over musical
accompaniment to Sufi lyrics, experienced by the
Tijaniyya members, is not without justification.
According to a prominent scholar of Zaria city,
Khalifa Tijjani Abdulkadir, the consensus reached
among Tijaniyya scholars is that as long as musical
songs and other innovations noticed in modes of
voluntary litanies (Arabic dhikr; in Hausa zikiri)
are not clearly contrary to Sharia, then they are
permissible.16 Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi, a
leading spiritual figure of the Tijaniyya order
in Nigeria, has corroborated the same position
elsewhere, when he has mentioned that “the fault
in music lies in what it says, if it says evil about
someone or calls towards sin, then it is bad, if it
does not, it is permissible.”17
Following these developments, even some zikiri
sessions are now musically accompanied using the
new style of digitised instrumentation. A typical
example of musical accompaniment of haylala
zikiri -Allah la-ilaha illa Llah (the spiritual chanting
- there is no god but Allah) is composed by Auwal
Ishaq, as a refrain to the recording of a recitation
of the Diwan of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. This
composition is produced by the Medina Recording
115
Centre located in the premises of Shaikh Dahiru
Usman Bauchi mosque at Tudun Wada, Kaduna.18
Another example is found in the popular praise
songs of Bashir Dan Musa and Rabi S. Haruna,
two prominent qasida performers of the Tijaniyya
whose CDs are very popular across northern
Nigeria. In their qasidas, soundtracks of popular
Hausa video films such as Jarumai, Dawo Dawo and
Sangaya have been parodied in various ways, with
the Sufi version of the song creatively parodying
the metre of the film songs. The hit song Labbaika
Rasulillah, composed by Bashir Dan Musa and
performed by Ramlatu Hafiz Kofar Mazugalis in
tone, melody and rhythmic patterns a recasting of
a soundtrack from a Hausa movie titled Sangaya:
Hausa Text:
Refrain:
Labbaika Rasulillah x 2
Verse:
Sarkina gwanin kyauta
Allah kai nake roko
Don girman Rasulillah
Munka zo da dan koko
Amsa min bukatata
In samu in kai sako
Duk maison Rasulillah
Yayi ta kiran Rasulillah
English Translation:
Refrain:
To you we come, Prophet of God x 2
Verse:
My King, the most benevolent One
Allah, it is You I beseech
Because of the greatness of the
Prophet of God
We have (begging) come with a bowl in our
hands
Grant me my wish
For me to be able to deliver the message
Whoever loves the Prophet of God
Should continue to recite the name of the
Prophet of God.
The Annual Review of Islam in Africa • Issue No. 12/1 • 2013-2014
Focus: Manuscripts & Literature
Similarly, there is a form of parallel, counterpenetration from the opposite secular direction.
Thus, in the same way that the Sufi poets are
flirting with popular culture forms and media,
popular artists are appropriating Sufi poetry. In
one breath, popular northern Nigerian artists
such as Aminu Ladan Abubakar (aka Alan Waka),
Musbahu Muhammad Ahmad, Nazifi Asnanic,
Ali Jita, Mahmud Nagudu, Binta Labaran (aka
Fati Niger) have entertained the public domain
with secular soyayya (love) songs; in yet another
instance they can be cited performing wakokin
yabon Manzon Allah (singing songs in praise of
the Prophet of Islam), his family, his companions
and the famous awliya. It should be noted that
an important cross-section of contemporary
Hausa popular singers, including Mudasir Kassim,
Aminu Ladan Abubakar, Musbahu Muhammad
Ahmad, Sadi Sidi Sharifai and Mahmud Nagudu
are believed to have come from either Qadiriyya
or Tijaniyya religious backgrounds in Kano. That
also explains the manner in which they have easily
switched to religious songs.
reciting the song while she was pounding grain
in the courtyard of his house. He then decided
to compose a religious version of that song,
emptying it of the vulgar insinuations contained
in the original secular song.19 Also, Liman Ali Na
Isa’s song Na Kara Lawali Bari Inyo Sani is a religious
rendition of Narambada’s rhythmic tour de force,
Baban Dodo Ba a Taima da Batun Banza, a court song
which he originally composed for Sarkin Gobir
(king of Gobir) of Isa, Ahmadu Abubakar.
On the whole, the interplay of Islam and
popular culture in northern Nigeria is likely in the
future to produce even more interesting cultural
experiments beyond those we have seen to date. It
is expected that the possibilities offered by digital
media technology will facilitate the opening up
of the creative energies of what, until now, have
been fossilised religious and cultural practices
that have lost their appeal to young people.20 This
is, of course, the sense in which the Tijaniyya
movement has currently accepted the integration
of music into some of its spiritual activities.
Conclusion
1 Terry Eagleton, “In the Gaudy Supermarket,” London
Review of Books, 21, 10 (13 May, 1999), pp. 1-14. Eagleton’s
article was his immediate critical response to the widely
acclaimed book by Harvard professor Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History
of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1999). The article has generated its own set of
reactions in support and criticism of Eagleton’s position.
2 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge,
2004).
3 Abdulkareem Umar Dan-Asabe, “Islam and History
of Learning in Katsina from the Jihad to the Colonial
Conquest: The Case of Tsohuwar Kasuwa School, Katsina
City,” in Isma’la A. Tsiga and Abdalla U. Adamu (eds.), Islam
and the History of Learning in Katsina (Ibadan: Spectrum,
2007).
4 Ibid, p. 152.
5 Ibid, p. 153.
6 Ibid, p. 152.
7 Ibid, p. 155.
8 Ibid, p. 156.
9 Mervyn Hiskett, A History of Hausa Islamic Verse (London:
School of Oriental and African Studies, 1975), pp. 21-24.
10 Roger Allen, The Arabic Literary Tradition: The Development of
its Genres and Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), p. 106.
Historically speaking, the contribution of Sufi
poetry towards the intellectual and cultural
development of the Hausa people is enormous.
Most classical Hausa poets, both the ajami (Hausa
in Arabic script) and Roman script composers,
have mostly come from Sufi backgrounds. Famous
mid twentieth-century Hausa poets including
Mu’azu Hadejia, Akilu Aliyu, Ahmad Mahmud
Sa’adu Zungur, Mudi Spikin and Lawal Isa
Bungudu have all come from Sufi backgrounds,
and have all copied or adopted secular styles in
their compositions. As a matter of fact, even
the earlier Hausa poets such as Aliyu Namangi
and Liman Ali Na Isa have in their masterpieces
parodied the melody of the secular popular songs
of their times. In Namangi’s Infiraji collection,
Wakar Caji which is the most acclaimed piece, is
a religious parody of a traditional song with the
same title which was popular at the time. It is
reported that Namangi once heard his daughter
116
Notes
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Sufi Poetry
11 Abdulmumin Shu’aib, “Hausa ‘Bandiri’ Songs: The
Evolution, Development and Context of an Islamic
Performing Art,” Harshe: A Journal of the Department of
African Languages and Cultures (Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria), 2 (2004), p. 70.
12 Ibid, p. 78.
13 Allen Swingewood, The Myth of Mass Culture (London:
Macmillan Press, 1977).
14 Abubakar Aliyu Liman, “A Critical Discourse on Popular
Soyayya Novellas in Northern Nigeria” in Harshe: A
Journal of African Languages, Special Edition, ABU at 50,
Department of African Languages and Cultures, 6 (2012),
p. 119.
15 Jibrin Lawal, “Global Influences on Local Texts: An
Analysis of Contemporary Hausa Lyrics,” PhD Thesis
(Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University, 2012).
16 This position was expressed by Khalifa Tijjani Abdulkadir
in an interview with Dr. Muhammadu Mustapha Gwadabe
of the Department of History, Ahmadu Bello University,
117
17
18
19
20
Zaria. According to Abdulkadir, “There are two positions
regarding the use of the modern instruments of drumming.
The first is that drumming is not part of Tijaniyya practices
but is permissible to a Tijani if it does not contradict
Sharia. The second view rejects it totally. The consensus
is that since it is an important medium of reaching out to
people it is accepted, although it cannot be considered as
part of the Tijaniyya doctrines and practices.”
The statement appeared as part of an interview conducted
by the Weekly Trust Newspaper, September 7, 2001, p. 14.
The composer of the song Auwal Ishaq has given his
address, including the location of his studio, in the
introduction of the musical song.
Aliyu Namangi starts Wakar Caji, which is published in
both Ajami and Roman scripts with some verses narrating
the conversation with his daughter and his resolve to
produce his own version of the song.
John Storey, Inventing Popular Culture: from Folklore to
Globalization (Carlton: Blackwell Publication, 2006).
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