Page 141 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

126 Brian Larkin

between Hausa Muslims and the rest of the Islamic world that took place
during the 1970s and 1980s.
It was a result of these bureaucratic and religious connections that in
the late 1960s Gumi was chosen to broadcast his Ramadan tafsir over
Radio Kaduna, the largest radio station in West Africa. Gumi was already
known for his regular religious columns written in the Hausa language
newspaper Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo (Truth Is Worth More Than a Penny) and
his regular radio, and, later, television appearances gave his teachings tre-
mendous exposure. From these fora Gumi developed his Salafi inspired
attack, arguing Sufism was an innovation in Islamic practice that went
against the basic teachings of Islam and that those who followed it were
not even Muslims. Given the largely Sufi character of Nigerian Islam, his
teachings had a volatile effect, drawing intense criticism from Sufi leaders
and sharply dividing Nigerian Muslims. In 1979 the rise of a dynamic new
anti-Sufi movement was formalized with the creation of Izala whose fierce
attacks on Sufism resulted in sustained, often violent, religious conflict
that dominated Nigerian Islam for decades.

The Surface of Things

Gumi forcefully articulated the ideological basis of his anti-Sufism in a
variety of different media: articles, books, audio and video cassettes, radio,
and, later, television programs. Up until this time religious conflict in
Nigeria had largely been between differing Sufi orders, especially the
Tijaniyya and Qadiriyya and sometimes within those orders themselves
(Anwar 1989; Paden 1973). This conflict came to a head in the 1950s and
1960s as both of these orders underwent their own revival at the hands of
two charismatic Sufi sheikhs, the Senegalese Ibrahim Niass of the Tijaniyya
and the Qadiri cleric Sheikh Nasiru Kabara. In 1972, however, the dynam-
ics of this conflict were upended when Gumi published his main theolog-
ical assault on Sufism, Al Aqidah Al-Sahihah Bi Muwafiqah Al-Sharia’
(The Right Belief Is Based on the Shari’a, 1972), plunging him into imme-

diate controversy. This was a summation of ideas he had broached in pub-
lic and in newspaper articles over the years and now collated in a sustained
attack.
In the Aqidah, Gumi attacked Sufism for innovating new rituals and
prayers and for claims by Sufi Sheikhs that they had secret knowledge hid-
den from ordinary Muslims. In response, Gumi claimed Sufis used magic
“to fill the hearts of the weak ones with fear” and to fool the unwary who
do not question their leaders because “they follow them blindly in their