Bismillaahir-Rahmaanir-Raheem
‘…they have hearts but cannot ponder with them, they have eyes but cannot see with them, they have ears but cannot hear with them. They are like animals, rather they are more astray. They are the unheedful.’ [7: 179]
Epilogue
Myopia is a physical ailment that affects the eyes. Its sufferer does not see except what is closer. If there is a gorge he can fall into afar, he goes ahead until he falls inside.
Speaking figuratively however, myopia is a mental aberration where its sufferer does not think deeply but very narrowly and shallowly about issues. He is fanatical, self-righteous, pompous, dictatorial, draconian, parochial, intolerant, bigoted, and unreasonable.
Any follower of the self and whims is always myopic; obeisance to self-desire is sickness.
As for the sincere follower of the Qur’aan and Sunnah, he is enlightened and cultured. He sails with the divine texts as they sail.
The Gist
Obafemi Awolowo University is one of the universities established after the independence of Nigeria. It is located in South West Nigeria where the Yorubas are largely found. In fact, Ile-Ife, the town hosting the University, according to Yoruba legends, which are largely flawed, is the origin of the Yoruba race. Yoruba, being one of the major tribes in Nigeria, is made up of different religions – Islam, Christianity and animism. There has been that age long debate that who is higher in population between the Muslims and Christians in Yoruba Land. Facts however point to the fact that the Muslims are in the majority. The major cities of Yoruba Land such as Ibadan, Oyo, Eko, Ede, Iwo, Oshogbo, Shaki, Iseyin, Ikire, Ode Omu, etc. are mainly populated by the Muslims. Islam predated Christianity in Yoruba land; only the uninformed will dispute that. The population of Muslims in Ibadan alone will swallow Ife and Ilesha combined where Christians are believed to be more.
The Muslims being referred to here is in the loose sense. We all know that the Yoruba Muslims are among the least confident about their religion this is largely due to prevalence of ignorance about the Deen from many of them.
However since the advent of Christianity in Yoruba Land, the Muslims have been in trouble in the hands of the Christians especially their narrow-minded Lagos-Ibadan press axis who take cue from the Western press agenda of painting everything about Islam and Muslims black. Till date, Muslims are derided and scorned at by the Christians. Very unfortunately, this blackmail has made many Muslims to forsake Islam for Christianity. The Christianization project of pre and post-Independence era is still being narrated by the survivors among the Muslims. How many Muslims were forced by the Ajayi Crowthers of this world, though clandestinely, to become Christians all in the name of modern education!
Those former Muslims, and those who later followed their footsteps in the 80s and 90s have become a scourge upon Islam and the Muslims.
However there were some Muslims who stood their grounds in Islam such that despite the onslaught underneath the modern education they scaled through with their Islam albeit wounded, these Muslims today themselves are a menace upon Islam and the Muslims in a way. They are mainly Muslims in names but Christian in thinking and ways of lives. Many of them seldom pray in the Muslim ways. If you see their kids you will not mistake them for Christian folks. Many of them had taken spouses from the modern Christian ladies who made sure they were religiously subjugated.
This last cadre are among the many Muslim professors and doctorate holders of today. Majority of them are worse against Islam.
This piece focuses on the shenanigans of the last set of people vis-à-vis the synergy with the other groups. One thing seems to be clear today, the three enclaves – the Xtians, apostatized Muslims and Muslim academia, now have same enemy. Their enemy is the Sunnah and those who call to it.
The Sunnah is the pristine Islam; just that.
‘They know what is manifest in the life of this world while they are unheedful about the Hereafter.’ [Q30:7]
The Setting
Obafemi Awolowo University is the setting, do not forget. What obtains there happens at virtually all the campuses in South West Nigeria with a degree of obnoxiousness from one campus to another. One of those evil places where the Muslim professors, save few, are wreaking havoc on Islam is University of Ibadan.
The Plot
The university was not established for the Muslims but it was established for Nigerians, and Muslims are among Nigerians.
All of 70s, 80s and early 90s saw a very cosmetic Islam on OAU campus. An Islam where little regards were given the ethos of the Deen. Stories were rife of Muslim brothers and sisters freely mixing and doing all sorts of ‘good things’ together. That was the era that produced the bulk of the present day Muslim professors and doctors who are at helms of Muslim affairs today on campus. So you should understand the mindset.
Late 90s and early 2000 was the turning point for Islam on OAU campus, Sunnah – the tradition of the Prophet of Islam – began to be emphasized. Muslim brothers and sisters began to be very serious and committed to Islam vis-à-vis the Sunnah. Muslim sisters began to put on big hijabs, brothers started to keep beards and disallowed their garment to trail the floor. Above all, the texts of Sunnah were being carefully studied with considerable implementation.
‘..they were youths who believed in their Lord and We increased them in guidance.’ [Q.18:13]
The Muslim professors and doctors were indecisive. They were caught unawares. They did not know what to do. Should the boys be curtailed or should they look on? The voices against the boys were soaring but there were some few voices among them that were indifferent and many times be supportive (just as it is today only that the latter dare not show an open and express support).
And when the Sunnah took a Salafee dimension. That was the climax. In the Salafee Dimension, the Sunnah is enthroned and openly preached with better implementation embraced by many students. The Salafee Dimension was a liberation of a sort – from the shackles of all manifestations of blind partisanship and unions, flawed thoughts and reasons. Many Muslim brothers and sisters underwent unprecedented transformations from lackadaisicalness to seriousness. A Muslim girl who entered the campus with mini skirt would very soon adopt the hijab and eventually the niqaab (face veil). The enemies branded that hypnotization, or on the least brainwashing. Why would a hitherto carefree person just transformed and became a religious person overnight? It puzzled them. And the wanna-be Muslim boys dropping music and social life for the Qur’aan and Sunnah. A year plus you would see him having committed the whole of the Qur’aan to memory. Something must be wrong somewhere, our professors thought.
And there was a threat against the professors, in their imagination. If the boys and the girls were not stopped at all costs, their own future was in a jeopardy. How? The boys would ‘capture’ their own sons and daughters sooner than later their sons would begin to speak the Sunnah in ‘quarters’ and their daughters would adopting the proper Islamic dress alongside the Niqaab which today is seen as a sign of backwardness.
That threat was the last straw.
Campaign of calumny and blackmailing then began. The press was brought in. Remember the first exposure by TELL Magazine in one of its editions in 2001 or 2002, ‘The Local Talibans’?! In the story, the brothers were maligned as would-be terrorists just as the Talibans of Afghanistan, not known to the detractors that the Da’wah on campus then was completely against the standpoints of the Talibans, and in extension, Al-Qaeda, just as it is today against all the false calls such as those of Boko Haram and the Muslim Brotherhood. The detractors know, especially our professors from the 1980 era, but they did not give a damn. The boys must be cut to sizes at any price.
‘They dispute it out of oppression and pride but their hearts know it reality.’ [Q.26:14].
Incidentally, the enemies at the time were multi-facet. The big brothers at the MSSN so-called higher hierarchies, Osun Area Unit and B-Zone, were becoming impatient too. The spate of the Da’wah on campus was not in tune with laws of the Federation of MSSN higher hierarchies. One of the earlier thorny issues was the Islamic Awareness Programme, yes, that same IAP that you are being criminally tagged with today. The MSSN upper hierarchy said their ‘National Assembly’ did not allow any lower unit to change a nomenclature that had been part and parcel of the MSSN. That was Jihaad Week! They said you can’t call Jihaad Week another name but Jihaad Week. The question then was: Said who? Allaah or His Messenger? And that was all.
They were told calling a programme Jihaad Week would definitely require a proof from the Book of Allaah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may the choicest benediction be upon him. The word ‘Jihaad’ is too technical to be loosely used. Agreed, it has many connotations which Da’wah is speculatively one of, but when you tag your programme ‘Jihaad Week’ you are either saying all of Jihaad is now what you do in that programme or you actually want to fight the real Jihaad. The former is more likely. The abuse of word that might arise from that informed the change in the nomenclature to a befitting and non-disputable one, Islamic Awareness Programme. But the big brothers lose their cool and became vindictive.
So it was not long after that when the alliance between our professors and the big brothers became cemented. After all, they now faced the same enemy.
Year 2001 was very interesting, according to reports. It was the beginning of the ‘battle.’ The professors (save some few) had pitched their tents against the boys. You would remember the article ‘Grasping the Burning Coal’ in An-Nur Magazine with the clear tagline, ‘…beaming the light of pristine Islam’, in its masthead.
Year 2002 (the year of this writer’s cross over from ABU Zaria) was turbulent. The leadership of the Muslim students were rejected by the professors. The selection process was not properly carried out, they alleged. So also was 2003, the leadership remained rejected. In fact that year was more turbulent. The lead story of An-Nur Magazine in that year was about that. The cover story was ‘It Has Been Turbulent.’ So came 2004 and 2005.
All the while the Da’wah moved on in the face of the attacks here and there. You would recall when it was alleged that the inner reading rooms in Awo and Faj Hall Masjids were copulation centres between unmarried brothers and sisters! Allaah’s curse upon the liars. And the eventual demolition of the inner rooms in the name of reconstructing the masjid. You would recall the ejection of the brothers from Awo Hall Masjid all this while with Daily Prayers being observed in the open field, under rain and shine, beside the Awo café.
Every year, new attempt new dimension all borne out of that disease we mentioned at the top of this write-up – myopia. In fairness to them, they thought well during the ‘Mojo Crisis’, that was the only time the professors rallied round the boys. It was a 100% gain for Islam. They would also praise the boys’ effort during the reception organized for a new professor of English Language who just had his inaugural speech. The boys were practically the ushers, servers and cleaners at the event. The Professor became one of most embittered foes afterwards when he was privileged to head a fleeting office.
Do not forget the big brothers at MSSN hierarchies. They were firing their own salvo too. The TMC guys too were raising their heads having taken Post Graduate Hall as a base. The Tijaaniyah people too were daring. Some of them would come with their ‘tesbiu’ and ‘nankali’ sheets into the Masjid to dare the consequence. The Ahmadi deviants were underground plotting. All of them against the Sunnah and its callers. The professors were in the forefront of the battle against the Sunnah.
2005, 2006 and 2007, the selection process was all inclusive. At least to douse some tension, if that was what they wanted. The big brothers would not mind to come over from all afar to attend the selection processes so also were the professors! Indeed the tension was down during the period. But that was an attempt and a ploy. One would wonder what was so special in Awo and Faj Hall Masjids that vested interest was in display.
It was always the best coming out save a regime that nearly destroyed the Salafee foundations. Well Allaah was the Best of planners. It was failure after failure for the detractors.
So it has been same thing since 2008 till date. We are in 2017, is that not? Effective seventeen years of fight between Sunnah and Bid’ah, righteousness and its opposite.
And that battle rages on. This time the detractors seem determined, but they are aging if nobody has told them.
Is either they win it now or they…
But what do they want? Return of music loving Muslim students, like those guys and girls they hurriedly showcased of recent? An end to full-Qur’aan Imaams at the Masjids; an Imaam that cannot recite Faatihah and Qul-Huwa-Llaahu properly is okay. TMC and MSSN of old can resume their feud. The Masaajid would need more ropes to tie enemies as it used to be in the past. While the university should brace up for student activists hiding under the cloak of Islam. The Shia-like protests are about to come back. Hurray! You know Muslin Leninists can be brutal, just wait and see.
Well, the matter is for Allaah to decide Here and There. They must be told that falsehood can never overpower the truth no matter how daring the former is. Let us assume they eventually succeed in their gang up against the Sunnah on OAU campus such that they stop the activities of the Sunnah there. Then is that all? Sunnah is dead in OAU and beyond, really?
‘They want to extinguish the Light of Allaah with their mouths. Allaah will indeed perfect His Light even if the unbelievers detest it.’ [Q.61:8]
By Allaah, unless they stop being myopic, they will spend the rest of their lives in pain and agony. Sunnah has come to stay. It will continue to sparkle in their faces. A time is coming, Allaah willing, when they will have no choice but to come to terms with the Sunnah, graciously or otherwise.
But it is better they take a cure for this their myopia. Once again, they should be told that they are aging. Hmm! The Honourable Scribes are writing. O Allaah we beg for Your Pardon.
Epilogue
This writer believes there can still be a proper reconciliation between the parties on the basis of Sunnah alone. Let the Sunnah be the arbiter; not the whims and desires.
As for UNIFEMGA and the other Muslim Graduate Forum, stop the lip service, be proactive and stand up for justice. All the shillyshally only portrays a feeling that the outside world has eaten some consciousness in you. You have to wake from that nap and act.
And that UNIFEMGA voice peddling those ugly lies should fear Allaah.
‘You shall die and they will die, all of you will stand before your Lord to state your disputes.’ [Q39:31]
Caveat
This writer was a student in that university between 2002 and 2008 so he is a living witness.
Written to seek the Pleasure of the Mighty Lord Alone.
