Page 140 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

Islamic Renewal, Radio, and the Surface of Things 125

reduced to the authority of debating skill” (1994, 36–37) and influence
emerges from the “public clash of arguments” (97). It stages that mode of
learning as an aspect of religious legitimacy and it was a mode of presenta-
tion that had enormous affective power.
In broadcasting his tafsir over the radio a centuries-old religious prac-
tice was encoded within the radically different form of electronic waves
reorganizing that practice and subjecting it to the spatial and temporal
disfiguration brought about by the medium. It also placed the tafsir within
the institutional and professional guidelines of a public service broadcaster,
one that emphasized balance between competing ideas rather than a single
truth; comprehensibility to a mass audience, rather than a display of theo-
logical erudition; and familiarity with the professional and cultural codes
associated with the civil service bureaucracy within which both Gumi and
broadcasters were trained. It is the link between the technological capaci-
ties of the medium, combined with wider educational and social shifts
brought about in Hausa society at that time that created the affinity
between aspects of radio as a material and professional practice and an ide-
ology of religious reform emerging from within a modernizing Muslim
revival. We can see how this articulation works by exploring in closer detail
the link between Gumi and radio and the bitter controversy it provoked.

Gumi and the Rise of Izala

Gumi’s role in religious revitalization in northern Nigeria has been widely
10
discussed. Because he was trained at the SAS Gumi learned Arabic flu-
ently and was one of the first students to be sent outside of Nigeria for
study to the Sudan, initiating his connection with the wider Muslim world.
Returning to Nigeria, Gumi became part of the colonial civil service first
as a teacher, and later an Islamic judge, finally reaching the position of
Grand Khadi of Northern Nigeria. Grand Khadi was one of the most
important bureaucratic posts in the region and gave him access to Ahmadu
Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Region of

Nigeria at independence. Because of his fluent Arabic and connections in
the Middle East Gumi came to act as the Sardauna’s translator and reli-
gious advisor at a time when Bello was becoming a prominent player in
international Muslim politics (Paden 1986), opening up new networks of
support and influence for Gumi. Indeed it was from the Gulf states that
Gumi and later Izala received much of the funds to build mosques, trans-
late and publish books, train and fund teachers, and distribute cassettes.
Gumi became the most important figure in the intensified relations