Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in Africa, with 50% of the country adhering to Islam.^[1] Islam came to Northern Nigeria as early as the ninth century, and was well established in the Kanem-Bornu Empire during the reign of Humme Jilmi. It had spread to the major cities of the northern part of the country by the sixteenth century, later moving into the countryside and towards the Middle Belt uplands.

Islam also came to the southwestern Yoruba-speaking areas during the time of Mansa Musa's Mali Empire. The Yorubas colloquially referred to Islam as "Esin-Mali", which means religion from Mali. The Muslims in Nigerian are predominantly Sunni Malikis, with a Shia minority (primarily in Sokoto State).

History of Islam in Nigeria

Arrival and spread of Islam

Islam first arrived in Nigeria in the ninth century. It was adopted as the religion of the majority of the leading figures in the Bornu Empire during the reign of Mai (king) Idris Alooma (1571-1603), although a large part of that country still adhered to traditional religions.^[2] He furthered the cause of Islam in the country by introducing Islamic courts, establishing mosques, and setting up a hostel in Mecca, the Islamic pilgrimage destination, for Kanuris.^[3]

Fulani War

Main article: Fulani War

In the early 1800s, Islamic scholar Usman dan Fodio launched a jihad, the Fulani War, against the Hausa Kingdoms of Northern Nigeria. He was victorious, and established the Fulani Empire with its capital at Sokoto.^[4]

Maitatsine

Main article: Mohammed Marwa Maitatsine

A fringe cult, led by Mohammed Marwa Maitatsine, started in Kano in the late 1970s and operated throughout the 1980s. Maitatsine (since deceased) was from Cameroon, and claimed to have had divine revelations superseding those of the Prophet Muhammad. The cult had its own mosques and preached a doctrine antagonistic to established Islamic and societal leadership. Its main appeal was to marginal and poverty-stricken urban in-migrants, whose rejection by the more established urban groups fostered this religious opposition. These disaffected adherents ultimately lashed out at the more traditional mosques and congregations, resulting in violent outbreaks in several cities of the north.

Islam in Nigerian society

Two features of Islam are essential to understanding its place in Nigerian society. They are the degree to which Islam permeates other institutions in the society, and its contribution to Nigerian pluralism. As an institution in emirate society, Islam includes daily and annual ritual obligations; the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca; sharia, or religious law; and an establishment view of politics, family life, communal order, and appropriate modes of personal conduct in most situations.

Thus, even in 1990, Islam pervaded daily life. Public meetings began and ended with Muslim prayer, and everyone knew at least the minimum Arabic prayers and the five pillars of the religion required for full participation. Public adjudication (by local leaders with the help of religious experts, or Alkali courts) provided widespread knowledge of the basic tenets of sharia law -- the Sunni school of law according to Malik ibn Anas was that primarily followed.

Air transport has made the hajj more widely available. Upper-income groups went several times and sent or took their wives as well.

Organization of Nigerian Islam

Nigerian Islam is not highly organized. Reflecting the aristocratic nature of the traditional ruling groups, there were families of clerics whose male heirs trained locally and abroad in theology and jurisprudence and filled major positions in the mosques and the judiciary. These ulama, or learned scholars, had for centuries been the religious and legal advisers of emirs, the titled nobility, and the wealthy trading families in the major cities. Ordinary people could consult the myriads of would-be and practicing clerics in various stages of training, who studied with local experts, functioned at rites of passage, or simply used their religious education to gain increased "blessedness" for their efforts.

Sufi brotherhoods, a form of religious order based on more personal or mystical relations to the supernatural, were widespread, especially in the major cities. There the two predominant ones, Qadiriyah and Tijaniyah, had separate mosques and, in a number of instances, a parochial school system receiving grants from the state. The brotherhoods played a major role in the spread of Islam in the northern area and the middle belt.

Sunni Islam is the largest sect in Nigeria. The Shia Muslims of Nigeria are primarily located in the Sokoto State, where they have been persecuted due to Sunni clerical sermons attacking them.^{[5] [6]}

Muslims among various ethnic groups in Nigeria

The following table lists the Muslim populations of the larger ethnic groups in Nigeria.^[7]

Hausa (19,880,626) Yoruba (8,338,832) Kanuri, Yerwa (4,039,901) Fulani, Sokoto (2,211,792) Fulani, Haabe (2,205,150) Fulani, Bororo (1,952,558) Fulani, Adamawa (973,222) Fulani, Bauchi (700,459) Kanuri, Manga (616,806) Fulani, Igboro (519,901) Egba (418,030) Bade (309,235) Songhai (259,429)

Arab, Shuwa (204,890) Bura (111,823) Igala (107,350) Zerma (76,911) Bariba (65,808) Esan (61,529) Gbari, East (40,639) Gun (29,373) Tuareg (23,442) Chamba Daka (17,546) Arab, Syrian, Somali (11,722) Maguzawa (11,721) Egyptian (651)

See also

• Islam by country

References

•  • [ e] Islam in Africa
Sovereign states	Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Cte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda So Tom and Prncipe Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa Sudan Swaziland Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe
Dependencies and other territories	Canary Islands Ceuta Mayotte Melilla Puntland Runion St. Helena Socotra Somaliland Western Sahara