Conclusion

A focus is a form of bias. If we want to understand and explain reform and jihad, we will naturally tend to evoke – as I did at several junctures – figures such as Al Maghili while side-lining others, like the Cairene As Suyuti, whose gentler approach to religion as applied to political and social issues balanced the Berber firebrand’s influence in the Timbuktu tradition. Despite my emphasis on reformism and radicalism, propaganda and violence, most of the outcomes described in this book are relatively balanced and in fact weighted towards political quiescence. With the exception of Northern Nigeria and Niger, Salafi radicalism has remained a network rather than a mass ideology in all the countries studied. The difference is critical, since it appears to explain the Northern Nigerian exception. This is the only case where Salafi radicalism has obtained a positive political reform – Sharia implementation – and fuelled a political insurgency – ‘Boko Haram’. Mass Salafi radicalism in Niger is largely derivative and influenced by developments in Northern Nigeria, ¹ and while it has been a preponderant factor in the softening of political secularism in the country, it has also been domesticated by the civil state, something which has not occurred in Northern Nigeria. Even in Northern Nigeria, when Salafi radicals realised that the logical endpoint of their ideological commitment might be a war to destroy the civil state, they muddled about on their position on secularism. The leading Izala cleric of Kano, Jafar Adam – a man who promoted the new naming Ahlul Sunna due to the overtones of riotous radicalism attached to the word ‘Izala’ – issued a tape-recorded preaching to defend secular education and working for the civil state: Boko da aikin gwamnati ba haramun ba ne (‘Secular education and working for the government are not illicit’). This was a reaction to the fiery anti-secularist preaching of Muhammad Yusuf, and anywhere outside of Northern Nigeria, this went without saying, as ‘Boko’ was plainly halal (illicit).