Islamic Thought in Africa: The Collected Works of Afa Ajura (1910-2004) and the Impact of Ajuraism on Northern Ghana 9780300258202

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Islamic Thought in Africa

W O R L D T H O U G H T I N T R A N S L AT I O N

A joint project of Yale University Press and the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, World Thought in Translation makes important works of classical and contemporary political, philosophical, legal, and social thought from outside the Western tradition available to English-speaking scholars, students, and general readers. The translations are annotated and accompanied by critical introductions that orient readers to the background in which these texts were written, their initial reception, and their enduring influence within and beyond their own cultures. World Thought in Translation contributes to the study of religious and secular intellectual traditions across cultures and civilizations.

SERIES EDITORS

Stephen Angle Andrew March Ian Shapiro

Islamic Thought in Africa The Collected Works of Afa Ajura (1910–2004) and the Impact of Ajuraism on Northern Ghana

Alhaj Yu¯suf S.a¯lih. Ajura (Afa Ajura) Translated by Zakyi Ibrahim

New Haven & London

This publication was made possible in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author. Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Philip Hamilton McMillan of the Class of 1894, Yale College. Afa Ajura’s original works copyright © by the Estate of Afa Ajura. English translation and introduction copyright © 2021 by Zakyi Ibrahim. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please email sales [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in Electra type by Newgen North America. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2020951712 isbn 978-0-300-20711-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my parents, Mba Alahji Ibrambila and Mma Maata, and to Afa Ajura, with immense appreciation and respect

Afa Ajura in his “wisdom posture.” Credit for this photo goes to Afa Seidu and Afa Ahmad, Afa Ajura’s foster child and son, respectively.

CO N T ENTS

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xiii

Translator’s Introduction

1

Poem 1: Damba Digoli (Damba Month)

97

Poem 2: Dunya BinshaƔkam Dina¯ra (Everything in the World Shall Perish)

99

Poem 3: Dolya Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni ŋun Namtiŋo (Our Lord God, the Sole Creator, You Must Obey)

137

Poem 4: Afa Za¯ ŋunpaƔ Nyu BuƔli (Any Person Who Allows His Wife to Drink the Potion for Exorcism)

144

Poem 5: Fa Khudhu¯ (And You Must Take)

154

Poem 6: Kutilga (You Shall Not Be Saved)

159

Poem 7: Nsab Nsabliŋo (I Compose This Writing of Mine) Poem 8: Dolya Tidu¯ma Ka Doli Anabŋo (Follow Our Lord and This Prophet)

164

Poem 9: Afa Nim Za¯sa Nin Binya (All Clerics Have Not Seen: Against Wird)

vii

168

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viii

Contents Poem 10: Bukari Mawla (A Eulogy)

170

Poem 11: Ninsal Kutonya Tidu¯ma (A Human Being Cannot See Our Lord)

172

Poem 12: S.alli S.ala¯tan (Send Blessings Upon)

174

Poem 13: TipaƔri Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni (We Thank Our Lord) Poem 14: Ansarsi Ma¯na (He Who Mocks)

176

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Poem 15: Nah.nu Junu¯du H . abı¯bina¯ (We Are the Army of Our Beloved) Poem 16: Afanim Tola Ayirmo (The Clerics Have Gone Wild) Notes

185

Index

225

181

179

PRE FACE

It is fair to say that when Afa Ajura was born, around 1910, Islam had already established its roots firmly in Ghana, including the Northern Region. It is also known that the type of Islam practiced in Ghana was based on either the Tija¯niyyah or the Qa¯diriyyah Sufi orders (the Qa¯diriyyah order was named after Shaykh Abdul Qa¯dir al-Jı¯la¯nı¯, d. 1166; the Tija¯niyyah will be explained later). Almost all of Afa Ajura’s teachers were either Tija¯nis or Qa¯diris. However, even though Tija¯niyyah Sufism had permeated the entire country by the time Afa Ajura was preaching, it was a different version from what some of his former teachers had practiced. The version of Tija¯niyyah Sufism founded by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, the so-called Ibra¯hı¯miyyah branch, though a minority in Senegal, its birth country, had dominated most of West Africa, including Ghana, by Afa Ajura’s time. Tamale, Afa Ajura’s hometown in particular, had no single known non-Tija¯ni or non-Qa¯diri among its scholars. All the scholars belonged to either the Tija¯niyyah or Qa¯diriyyah Sufi orders, and to the Ibra¯hı¯miyyah branch of Tija¯niyyah, specifically. Although initially a respectable member of the scholarly echelon in Tamale, Afa Ajura was the first person to speak and write against the beliefs and practices of the Tija¯niyyah order in the Northern Region. Also, in one of his poems, he claims that Shaykh Bukari Mawla had successfully convinced many of the Tija¯niyyah members to abandon it at Asamankese, in the Eastern Region of Ghana. But we also know from his eulogy that the shaykh must have met an untimely death. The question is what the religious terrain would be like in Ghana and Tamale today, had Afa Ajura not launched what we termed Ajuraism (Ajura¯wiyyah) with its polemical tone against the Tija¯niyyah and the traditional practices around 1952? Ajuraism is a reform-oriented educational approach of

ix

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Preface

Afa Ajura, informed by his concept of orthodoxy and orthopraxy according to Sunnah that rejected the status quo of traditional Dagomba practices and the syncretism and innovation of Tija¯niyyah Sufism. He considered this approach, also known as Munchirism, as “undiluted” Islamic thought and practices based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The poems in this collection are an open window through which one may peek into the past and assess the possible impact of Afa Ajura and Ajuraism on today’s religious beliefs and practices in northern Ghana. No longer do we only hear opinions from his supportive disciples and opposing detractors; but, for the first time, through his poems we hear directly from the “horse’s mouth.” For example, what were his positions about funerals and weddings? Did he relish attacking his opponents or did he have some reservations about that? These and many more questions can be answered confidently through his poems. Again, the Dagomba, Afa Ajura’s tribe, one to which the majority of Tamale belong, was largely Muslim. But their Islamic practices were also known to be syncretistic. In addition, there were large numbers of them who continue to pay homage to their ancestral gods, believing that without such traditional practices they could not lead successful lives. The majority of the Dagomba indulged in exotic wedding and funeral practices that were an amalgamation of local traditions and Islamic principles. The local Muslim clerics took advantage of the situations for their social and economic benefits, irrespective of how un-Islamic or opportunistic they were. The clerics also continued to dabble in the business of tibbu (Islamic divination), through which they were able to promise the people everything they desired and to keep the population captive, in the name of God, the Omnipotent. Even though this may seem innocent and theologically sound, the manner in which they were claiming to help the people and the process through which they were diagnosing, prescribing, and preparing their “effective” potions were outright ethically deceptive, if not theologically questionable. Once again, Afa Ajura was the first scholar to stand up to what he considered bad wedding and funeral practices as well as unscrupulous divination. He composed poems addressing all of these practices. It was in these areas that his impact was clear, as he managed, in a relatively short period, to convince a large segment of the population to abandon these practices. The question remains as to how, without Ajuraism, his reform message, and his hard-hitting intervention, this majority Muslim population would be performing their weddings and funerals today. Afa Ajura’s own view simply credited God’s providence: “But for our Lord’s protection, / Here in Dagbon, religion would have been ‘dead.’ ” Yet his foster child and successor, Afa Seidu, still provided his own answer, “If God

Preface

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had not brought forth Afa Ajura, Islamic religion in Tamale would have been bad.” Afa Seidu saw Afa Ajura’s role as part of God’s intervention to safeguard Islam in northern Ghana. However, I would argue that gauging Afa Ajura’s impact must go beyond his efforts to reform the religion by attacking his opponents’ beliefs and practices and winning over many followers, something he would describe as “enjoining good and forbidding evil.” Assessing his effect must include the establishment of his Anbariyya school and the impact that made on the local Muslim population and on its graduates both nationally and internationally. How and why Afa Ajura did all that he did are explained in the introduction, an articulation of which is inspired by his poems. It is my hope that presenting this collection of poems will be the beginning of uncovering the real impact of Afa Ajura in northern Ghana. I hope that scholars and historians of Islam in Africa will take the opportunity to analyze his poems more deeply and arrive at conclusions that will shed more light on the state of Islamic thought in Africa and Ghana.

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A CK N O WL E DGM ENTS

My greatest gratitude goes to my wife Rukaya Yakubu and daughters Niena Huyaam Ibrahim and Kassi Hanaa’ Ibrahim, for not only bearing with me for skipping some of our planned family vacations, but also for giving me constant impetus to live and helping keep me sane and nourished for the duration of writing this book. I also profess my sincere appreciation to Andrew March and the esteemed editors at Yale University Press for accepting to publish this book as part of their World Thought in Translation Series. I thank both Professors Paul Levesque and Bradley Starr, the immediate past chairs of the Religious Studies Department at California State University Fullerton, for their moral and departmental support toward this project. Dr. Hisham AlTalib and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) have my appreciation for funding my maiden trip to Ghana to commence the field research on this book. The following people also have my sincere thanks for their significant contribution toward this book: Afa Sa‘ ¯ıd Abubakar (Afa Seidu) of Anbariyya, for his extensive account and intimate insights about Afa Ajura, and on behalf of himself and Afa Ajura’s family, for granting me and Yale University Press the permission to write and publish this book; Alhaj Ibrahim Mahama, for his rare and illuminating details about Afa Ajura; Alhaj Mallam Fari, the late Deputy Imam of Zohi (Yendi), for his unique and insider perspective about Afa Ajura’s early activities; Afa Baba Madaha, without whose recitation I could not have been able to translate Afa Ajura’s poems; my elder brothers, Mr. Abu Sufian Ibrahim, for his zeal in acquiring the first copies of Afa Ajura’s poems, and Afa Sayutey Ibrahim, for diligently facilitating the audio and video recordings of all the recitations; and Afa Ahmad Ajura, for sending me some precious photos of Afa Ajura. I also thank all those from whom the manuscripts and the photos were obtained. xiii

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Acknowledgments

Other people deserving of my appreciation include Dr. Abdulai Salifu Asuro, Dr. Amin Alhassan, Dr. Abdulai Iddrisu, Dr. Abass Braimah, Dr. Abdul Rauf Ibrahim, Afa Abdul Rauf Isma‘il, Afa Abdul Sami‘ Issah, and Afa Ajura’s children, especially Afa Nuruddin, Afa Abdul Hannan, Afa Abdul Ghaffar, Afa Abdul Wakil, Afa Abdul Qahhar, Afa Abdul Wadud, and Afa Abdul Muqatdir. Finally, I send my thanks to all of Anbariyya’s senior teachers, Afa Tanko Abubakar Ishaq, Afa Issah Iddris, Afa Abdul Razzaq Umar, Afa Iddris Abdul Hamid, and my good friend Dr. Abdul Aziz Umar, for including some of their knowledge and views that I heard from them over many years in this book.

Translator’s Introduction

But for our Lord’s protection, Here in Dagbon, religion would have been “dead.” —Afa Ajura (1955) If God had not brought forth Afa Ajura, Islamic religion in Tamale would have been bad. —Afa Seidu, Afa Ajura’s foster child and first successor (2009)

This collection presents an accessible and precise translation of and commentary on the works of Alhaj Yu¯suf S.a¯lih. Ajura (ca. 1910–2004), popularly known as Afa Ajura. A self-professed orthodox Islamic scholar, he forcefully introduced, and passionately advocated for, what I term Ajuraism. Ajuraism is a reform-oriented educational approach of Afa Ajura, informed by his concept of orthodoxy and orthopraxy according to Sunnah that rejected the status quo of traditional Dagomba practices and the syncretism and “innovations” of Tija¯niyyah Sufism. He considered this approach, also known as “Munchirism,” as “undiluted” Islamic thought and practices based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah. A passionate polemicist, he spent decades writing and preaching against other Muslim scholars and local traditional practices, such as Tija¯niyyah Sufism, Islamic divination, the moral conduct of women, extravagant weddings, and traditional funerals. Moreover, he accomplished all of this in the local Dagbani language. His literary corpus consists of a 153-page collection of handwritten poems in Dagbani language using Arabic scripts (ajami). The manuscripts included here, which address multiple intellectual issues and diverse socio-religious topics, constitute sixteen poems. The translation is accompanied by an extensive survey of Afa Ajura’s social, religious, and intellectual background, a 1

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Translator’s Introduction

contextualization of the environment in which he founded and ran his Sunni community (Munchiri, Ajuraists), and an assessment of the impact of Ajuraism, his writings, and his preaching on the Anbariyya Islamic Institute and Muslim communities in northern Ghana. Afa Ajura (literally, a scholar from Ejura, a town in Ghana’s Ashanti Region) was born in Ejura in about 1910 to a Dagomba (Dagbamba) family,1 and received his early traditional Islamic education in Dagbon (homeland of Dagomba people, in the Northern Region), and his advanced Islamic training from all over the country. He was known by his real name Alhaj Yu¯suf S.a¯lih. only in formal settings, rather than his nickname Afa Ajura. During his career he would strive to convince the Dagbamba and Ghanaian society to live and perform all Islamic rituals according to what he believed was consistent with Islamic orthodoxy/orthopraxy. The method he chose to bring this about was a determined campaign against all traditional practices related to funerals and weddings, consulting diviners and ancestral spirits, and/or engaging in religious syncretism. Although he was a Maliki by madhhab (one of the four main Sunni Islamic legal schools), some critics believed that he had been captivated by the Saudi version of Islam (H . anbali), even though he never identified with H . anbali or Wahhabism.2 According to the manuscripts, he was unapologetically interested in strictly following what he thought was the Sunnah of the Prophet (the Qur’an and H . adith). He also remained completely oblivious of what others may identify as “AfroIslam,” seen as a combination of universal Islamic teachings and practices with some elements of African values and ethos. This general posture of his may not be unprecedented in an African setting, but he was one of the rare scholars who committed his rhetoric and teachings to writing in the form of local vernacular poems to be recited by his followers. In addition to being a religious leader, Afa Ajura was also a much sought-after figure in Ghanaian politics. For decades, he left indelible marks on the political scene in northern Ghana. Ghanaian politicians frequently sought his support. From President Kwame Nkrumah in the 1950s to President Jerry John Rawlings in the 1990s, when Afa Ajura was active, no politician could win seats in and around Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region, without his active support. In fact, he publicly supported and campaigned for political and chieftaincy aspirants, activities that, depending on the government, sometimes caused him to be harassed or resulted in his detention. He was also notoriously famous for speaking his mind and writing on such social issues as the moral conduct of women, extravagant wedding ceremonies, and funeral rites.

Translator’s Introduction

3

The poetry collection consists of sixteen hand-written poems in 153 pages, 75 percent of which is in Dagbani and 25 percent in Arabic. The poems, which address multiple issues and consist of diverse socio-religious topics, range between 40 pages to 1 page (or 750 to 7 verses) per poem. Composed between the early 1950s and late 1960s in Dagbani using the Arabic scripts (ajami), these texts were meant to be memorized and chanted by his followers. The poems cover an array of topics with theological, social, polemical, and even genealogical information. Given the nature of this material, Afa Ajura clearly was eager to educate a community that he felt, rightly or wrongly, lacked either a basic or, at least, an adequate, knowledge of Islam. Of course he was also responding to his society’s religious and social imperatives. Consequently, without explicitly quoting the Qur’an and H . adith literature, he intricately wove basic Islamic teachings into sophisticated theological arguments and introduced important figures in Islamic and Dagomba historiography, including ancient prophets and medieval Dagomba overlords. Worth highlighting here is his strong polemical stance against both local Muslim scholars (the Tija¯niyyah Sufi members, Na¯wun nyarba) and traditional Dagomba practices. By accusing the former of syncretism and religious innovation (bid’ah), he oriented his listeners toward his own conception of Islamic orthodoxy. As he attacked the traditional people for adhering to idol worship and un-Islamic rites of passage, he called them to Islam and presented it as the best alternative for salvation both in this world and the hereafter. He set all of his arguments in the popular local poetic style to attract and captivate even the highly uninformed of them; for it was meant to be (and was) chanted and sung in public. Most of the longer poems are multifaceted in their concerns and hardly address single social and theological issues. A FA A JURA : EA RLY L IF E AND EDUCATION

Born to a learned man who was a cattle owner and a cola-nut trader on the colonial Gold Coast,3 Afa Ajura’s full name was Alha¯j Yu¯suf S.a¯lih. ’Abdallah4 S.a¯lih. Sa‘ı¯d.5 His father, S.a¯lih. (Afa Adjei),6 who hailed from Savelugu,7 traveled frequently between the nation’s northern and southern territories for all sorts of commercial activities. Due to his long absences between trips, Afa Adjei, like many traders, would always be accompanied by his wife, Madam A’isha Adam (Mpaɣa Ashetu) from Gumbihni, a suburb of Tamale. During one of their trips, in about 1910, Afa Ajura was born in the town of Ejura.8 Various plausible years have been suggested for his birth. Although

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highly debatable, the only documented version so far, by Abdulai Iddrisu, is 1890.9 This would put Afa Ajura’s age at the time of his death in 2004 at 114 years. However, according to both his trusted disciple-successor Afa Seidu and his legal advisor-lawyer Ibrahim Mahama, Afa Ajura must have been born around 1910, which would make his age at the time of his death a reasonable 94. Afa Seidu intimates that he once asked Afa Ajura about his birth year, to which he responded, “I am told that I was born around the year one chief of Savelugu [Naa Mahama, r. 1902–10] was dethroned and another one [Naa Bukari Piɣu, r. 1910–21]10 enthroned.”11 He then asked Afa Seidu to go and confirm with Mr. Ablai (as an educated man who was versed in the history of Dagbon, before he became the chief of Saakuba) what year it was. Mr. Ablai confirmed that the year these momentous incidents occurred was 1910. In addition, discussing the chieftaincy politics concerning Yaa Naa Alhassan (r. 1900–1917), Martin Staniland writes: “His [Yaa Naa Alhassan] brother at Savelugu, Mahama, fell from favour with the British and was removed in 1910 and jailed after he had been found to be in communication with Yendi. . . . When Mahama was deposed, the British appointed Andani’s second son, Bukari, to Savelugu.”12 From this historical account, one should be fairly certain that these were the incidents Afa Ajura was referring to, and that he was born around 1910. There is additional circumstantial, yet strong, evidence in Afa Ajura’s poems that he was not an elderly man (sixty to seventy years old) when he started composing them. His depiction of himself in some of the early poems seems to cast doubt on 1890 being his birth year. In the poem “Afa Za¯ ŋunpaɣ nyu Buɣli” (Any Person Who Allows His Wife to Drink the Potion for Exorcism),13 in which he admonishes the chiefs and people of Tamale regarding visiting the shrine of nana, he refers to himself: “You must heed the admonishment of this young man.14 / Repent, and this fasting you must perform.” In an earlier poem, “Dunya Binshaɣkam Dina¯ra” (Everything in the World Shall Perish),15 he writes: “They denounce the speech from a young boy, / Yet the speech of the white-bearded, [is] only an experiment.” The contents of these two poems show that they were composed between 1953 and 1955.16 It is unlikely that any person, especially a Dagomba man in his mid-sixties, would literally refer to himself as a “small boy,” even metaphorically. Being born in 1890 would have made Afa Ajura a sixty-five-year-old man in 1955. However, some of Afa Ajura’s children are convinced that he was more than a hundred years old when he died. Like many famous personalities in history,17 Afa Ajura’s birth was shrouded by a couple of legends. For example, it has been said that his mother’s pregnancy

Translator’s Introduction

5

lasted for two years (that is why his birth was believed to be “unexpected”), and that he was born with a complete set of teeth.18 A twelve-month pregnancy was not unheard of in Dagbon culture—in fact, the name Dayooni is reserved for a child whose mother’s pregnancy was believed to last for twelve months—but a two-year pregnancy was truly unheard of. In Afa Ajura’s case, it was probably some confusion, miscalculation, or simply a fabricated legend, as suggested by Iddrisu.19 Born on the road, with survival uncertain, Afa Ajura was not formally named until his parents’ caravan reached home in Dagbon. Thus, during their stopovers in the villages on the way back, the newborn was simply referred to as “baby Ajura” in reference to the town of his birth: Ejura. Thus Ajura, corrupted in Dagbani, stuck as his name, even after he was eventually named Yusuf upon the family’s arrival in Savelugu. As for the prefix “Afa,” this was simply added when he became a real scholar. A FA A JU RA ’S EDUCATION

Not much is known about Afa Ajura’s childhood. According to Afa Seidu, Afa Ajura was early sent to Afa Aliru (Khalid or Ali) Sabali,20 a relative who happened to be a learned man. It is not clear if his father intended him to be educated or taken care of as a foster child, especially since the father was himself a trader and frequent traveler. But it is safe to suggest that, as a scholar and a relative, Afa Aliru was expected to do both, since doing so was regarded as the responsibility of any foster parent who happened to be a scholar, even with a child who was not a relative. Afa Ajura also received part of his early education from Limam Tahiru (Imam Tahir), once a chief imam of Kumbungu.21 Never really being close to his father as he grew up, Afa Ajura soon developed an interest in seeking knowledge. He traveled extensively and studied under prominent scholars. At Salaga, a prominent locale for politics, trading, and learning,22 he studied with Mallam Alhassan Salaga (d. 1934), who himself “rose to become the Tija¯niyyah chief muqaddam in Ghana.”23 That Afa Ajura exhibited an unusual familiarity with the history of Dagomba chiefs and customs in his longest poem, “Dunya Binshaɣkam Dina¯ra,” may be explained by the fact that he was once a student of this scholar, who reportedly wrote on the history of Dagomba and Moshi.24 Afa Ajura also may have studied with Alhaj Umar of Kete-Krachi (aka alSalgawi) during the latter’s old age. Alhaj Umar was certainly one of the best and potentially the most prolific Muslim writer Ghana has ever seen. It is, however, unlikely that Afa Ajura studied with him at Salaga, as Alhaj Umar did not

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settle there after the 1892 civil war.25 Although Alhaj Umar visited Salaga in later years, the vivid memory of the war was so overwhelming that he vowed never to settle there. When a disciple once asked him about Salaga after he had moved to Kete-Krachi, he responded in a poem: “I will never visit her for the rest of my life / With the intention of staying, and this is well known.”26 Afa Ajura, therefore, must have proceeded to Kete-Krachi to study with the elderly Alhaj Umar after completing his study with Mallam Alhassan, who was himself a student of Alhaj Umar. Thus he must have been born after Alhaj Umar composed this poem, which (as stated at the end of the poem) was on February 4, 1908 (Muh.arram 9, 1326). During his active preaching in the 1970s and 1980s, Afa Ajura would quote Alhaj Umar’s works more extensively than any other source, besides the Qur’an and the H . adith. It is ironic that he used to quote this prolific Tija¯nı¯ giant’s works in his rhetoric against other Tija¯nı¯s in Tamale. Even more curious is that his genuine admiration and appreciation of these Tija¯nı¯ scholars did not inspire him, like so many others, to continue with their Tija¯niyyah tradition. In fact, his studies of them can be seen to have offered him a unique insight and effective arsenal which he would later unleash successfully on his Tija¯niyyah rivals both in Tamale and in Ghana at large. In his attacks on the Tija¯nı¯ scholars in his later poems, Afa Ajura seemed to completely ignore, let alone explain, the fact that his former teachers whom he so admired and quoted were also staunch Tija¯nı¯s. Instead, he focused his relentless rhetoric against his Tija¯nı¯ counterparts in Tamale and Dagbon. One plausible explanation for why he did not continue with the Tija¯niyyah was that throughout his search for knowledge, he neither became too attached to any particular scholar nor ever bought into the popular Tija¯niyyah “master-student relationships.”27 Besides, his admiration for specific Tija¯nı¯ giants like Alhaj Umar stemmed from their general reform message of “enjoining good and forbidding evil” (al-amr bil-ma‘ru¯f, wannahy ‘anil mukar), whereas his attack on the Tija¯niyyah centered on the core beliefs and practices of the Tija¯niyyah Sufi order.28 So it was easy for him to bifurcate the activities of these scholars and selectively reject one29 while conveniently coopting and escalating the other.30 For he saw rejecting Sufi practices as part and parcel of “enjoining good and forbidding evil,” which, to him, would mean that there was no bifurcation of any sort. In the southern part of the country, we are told, his teachers included one Mallam Muhammad Dan Jı¯gala, of Kumasi,31 the father of the famous scholar Mallam Adam Baba. He also studied under Mallam Sahmuddı¯n, at Asamankese or Nsawam, and, in Accra, under Mallam Gadal, the father of Mahmu¯d Gadal, another popular scholar and graduate of Islamic University of Medina.

Translator’s Introduction

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All of these teachers were also notable Tija¯nı¯ members, even though some of them eventually renounced the order. In addition to these scholars, Afa Seidu spoke of others from the various towns of southern Ghana, especially Kadjebi, where Afa Ajura himself confirmed he had lived and studied,32 immediately prior to returning to Tamale. But Abdulai Iddrisu lists almost all of the big cities in southern Ghana, among them Koforidua, Wenchi, Hohoe, and Saman Prestia, as places where Afa Ajura sought knowledge as a young adult.33 Another possible teacher was the Togolese scholar Shaykh Bukari Mawla. Although his family was originally from Sokodé (Togo),34 according to one of Afa Ajura’s poems included in this collection, he also lived in Asamankese, in Ghana’s Eastern Region, where Afa Ajura may have met him. The poem, “Bukari Mawla” (A Eulogy), composed in Arabic, was Afa Ajura’s eulogy of this shaykh when he died. Its contents show both Afa Ajura’s admiration for Bukari Mawla as well as his intimate knowledge of this scholar and his activities.35 However, according to Ousman M. Kobo,36 it is highly unlikely that Shaykh Bukari Maula could have been one of Afa Ajura’s teachers, for a couple of reasons. First, he points out that Bukari Mawla was active in the 1960s, which would make him too young to have been Afa Ajura’s teachers—and in fact Afa Ajura had finally returned to Tamale in the late 1940s. Second, he says that Bukari Mawla was not a well-recognized scholar of the caliber of those Afa Ajura must have sought (like Mallam Sahmuddin) as teachers. According to Kobo’s own sources, Bukari Mawla was more activist than learned man, and was known for his puritanical ideas and actions. He was nicknamed “a scholar with a whip” (Hausa: mallam mai bulaala), because he would whip people (women) he believed were flouting Islamic rules. The picture Afa Ajura painted of Bukari Mawla in his poem is totally different from that of Kobo’s sources. Afa Ajura considered Bukari Mawla as deeply learned, pious, brave, and rightly guided for preaching against what they both deemed as the innovation and heresy of the Tija¯niyyah. He seemed to have seen himself in a similar light. In the poem, Afa Ajura calls Bukari Mawla: “Reviver of the Sunnah of the best of creation, Muhammad. / With effort and deterrence, Mawla never tired.” The best explanation of why Afa Ajura must have eulogized Bukari Mawla in the manner he did would be that Afa Ajura had admired his activities and decided to eulogize him as a beloved colleague. Afa Ajura was himself known for his strict interpretation of Islam and was also depicted as more of an activist than a scholar by his opponents. Upon becoming an established scholar, Afa Ajura returned to Tamale in the Northern Region and made it his home. While in Tamale, his last teacher, whom Afa Seidu remembers vividly, was Mallam Sodanji, whom Afa Ajura

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brought down from Prang,37 to tutor him in tafsir (Qur’an commentary and exegesis). Afa Ajura rented a room for him at Mba Galakanje’s house (Galakanje yili),38 and spent a full year studying the exegesis of the Qur’an with this scholar. During Ramadan of that year, the Mallam conducted the public tafsir at Afa Ajura’s mosque, while Afa Ajura performed it during the next year’s Ramadan with his teacher seated beside him as an observer. When Ramadan was over, he granted Afa Ajura his ija¯za (permission to teach).39 Curiously, before the 1970s, he had stopped performing the public tafsir until his death in 2004. E ARLY A CTIV ITIES: ISL A M IC DIVINATION AND TRADING

When Afa Ajura finally returned and settled in Tamale, he became part of the scholarly echelon. This group consisted mainly of Tija¯nı¯ followers with their base at the Tamale Central mosque, which “served as the main place where Sufi practices dominated and Tija¯niyyah Mallams [scholars] congregated.”40 His early activities in the city point toward acquiescence, cooperation, and participation with the Tija¯nı¯ clergy. For example, he joined them in the popular celebrations of Prophet Muhammad’s birth (mawlid annabi; the first poem in this collection, believed to be his first ever, was composed on one of these occasions)—celebrations he would later reject vehemently. Mawlid celebrations, which are common among Sufi orders and mystically inclined Muslim groups around the world, are occasions for the participants to express their undying love for Prophet Muhammad and spend countless hours, and possibly days, praising him and praying for him. They may involve some sort of feasting, preaching, and, depending on the group’s orientation, dancing. Today, due to their resemblance of other religions’ flamboyant celebrations, such as Christmas, non-Sufi Muslims, like Afa Ajura, consider Mawlid celebrations as “innovation” (bid‘a: a newly concocted practice with no legitimate precedent in Islamic orthopraxy),41 which must be shunned.42 In Tamale, Afa Ajura also practiced the common trade of scholars of his day, Islamic divination (tibbu), in which they manipulated the Qur’anic wisdom and verses ostensibly to solve people’s impending or insurmountable problems. According to some respectable historians and observers of Islam in Africa, such functions and the attendant expectation of their efficacy were part of what originally attracted Africans to Islam and why it took root among the Dagombas in the first place.43 And they remain, frankly, the sole reasons why such practices may never be completely eradicated in Ghana. Though such expectations of functionality and efficacy have always accounted for the endurance of traditional rituals and ancestor worship, the Mus-

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lim clergy managed to convince the people that, unlike the traditional ancestors and spirits, the Muslim God is the Omnipotent and the best of all allies and support. Moreover, once He is on one’s side, that person (or tribe or group) will always be victorious or successful and his (their) problems alleviated or minimized. While this belief is cardinal and true in Islamic thought, the process of tibbu and the scholars’ role remain questionable. Afa Ajura would later compose poems against such processes and practices. Yet their own role, the clergy would insist, was simply to facilitate a link between the people and the Omnipotent God, a better practice than leaving them engulfed in the rather polytheistic habits of ancestor worship. The processes of Islamic divination that Afa Ajura would later denounce and renounce included the scholars’ writing a combination of Qur’anic verses, God’s and angels’ names, and creating talismans and amulets to ward off sorcery or attract benefit; their preparation of potions for them to drink or in which to bathe; and their recitation of the Qur’an and other spiritual books on the people’s behalf for a variety of purposes and occasions. All of this, a cleric gets to master and sources of which he accumulates as he goes along from one teacher to another during his extended period of divination apprenticeship.44 By all accounts, Afa Ajura was considered an effective Islamic cleric/diviner. Among his known patrons and clients were some notable chiefs in Dagbon, including the legendary chief of Karaga, called Naa Ziblim (Karnaa Ziblim, r. 1918–47), and the chief of Chogu (at Sakasaka neighborhood) known as Choɣnaa Mahama (who helped facilitate the land for the main Anbariyya campus). Some of his clients would regularly consult him or invite him to stay for weeks and months in their villages to work on their behalf, create talismans and amulets, and prepare potions for them and their families.45 Choɣnaa Mahama, as intimated by Mallam Fari (Afa Ajura’s first foster child), was more than a client, though; he was a close friend with whom Afa Ajura would periodically dine. They lived in the same neighborhood, about four hundred to five hundred meters apart. On several occasions, whenever delicious food was prepared for Afa Ajura, instead of eating it alone at home, he would make Mallam Fari (then a child) carry it to the chief’s palace, and both friends would eat together.46 This speaks volumes about the relationship, confidence, and trust they had in each other. Culturally speaking, chiefs in Dagbon are generally perceived to be too high in status or too magically endowed to eat food from the same bowl with someone else without negative consequences accruing to the latter. So, with this cultural assumption, many Dagombas would accept that Afa Ajura’s sharing of his food with the chief meant more than just a strong bond and intimate

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relationship between the two men. They would also be inclined to believe that he was spiritually fortified enough to withstand or repel any negative consequences. This latter point is potentially one of the reasons why his later claim to have destroyed all of his spiritual apparatus was met with extreme skepticism or utter rejection by his opponents. In their minds, his claim to have set ablaze all of his documents and apparatus for this practice (if he really did burn “all”) would be immaterial, for he must have already physically imbibed and spiritually infused all of the necessary magical and spiritual powers that he could. Afa Ajura would vehemently deny this latter perception about his acquired powers. However, as popular as he was and as effective as he was ultimately perceived to be in this practice, Afa Ajura would eventually abandon the practice of Islamic divination, publicly burn all of his copies of the documents used for such practice (of which his Tija¯nı¯ opponents remained highly skeptical), and become its ardent critic. In July 2015, Afa Ajura’s children allowed me access to his bedroom and living room, where his books, papers, and some documents about Anbariyyah school were left untouched since his death in 2004. Even though they were dusty and unorganized piles of papers, I was able to browse through them. I did not notice any materials that one could identify as tibbu sources. There were several scholarly books of tafsir and H . adith, some papers with his handwritten notes, as well as a few personal letters and Anbariyyah’s documents. As a young man, Afa Ajura also dabbled as a drummer for the once-popular Amajoro dance. Now a defunct form of entertainment, “it used to attract large crowds in northern Ghana.”47 This aspect of his life is relatively unknown; however, it does show that he was socially active. Although socially and culturally significant, it is possible that this role as a drummer might not only have been overwhelmed by his later wide religious reputation, but might also have rendered him less enthusiastic, if not more ashamed, to speak about it, which would explain the ensuing lack of information. Another relatively unknown part of his life is his early commercial activity. Not only was he a businessman and a serious trader in the local garment industry, he was also a tailor, a designer of traditional clothes, and a weaver of Muslim and Hausa hats. According to Mallam Fari, he and Afa Abukari (another loyal foster child) were Afa Ajura’s assistants when the latter used to hand-make traditional Muslim clothes (kpargu/batakari) in all sorts of designs. He used to hand-weave hats as well, which he would arrange in piles of hundreds with other kinds of clothes for wholesalers in Tamale. Then he would take some and travel northward to Walewale, Gambaga, and Bolgatanga for retail sales. He would return with other types of clothing that were not commonly on sale in

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Tamale. For this, he had a reliable customer base among the Yoruba traders in Tamale who would come for wholesale purchases. Mallam Fari, whose name in Hausa means “white”—and indeed he had an extremely fair complexion—recalls that during Tamale’s market days,48 Afa Ajura would dress him in a sample robe (zabba) and a nicely designed hat, and then make him stand for hours as a form of display and advertisement. He would attract buyers, who usually remarked how handsome he looked in the clothes. This is reminiscent of some of today’s advertising techniques in the fashion industry, where handsome and beautiful models wear sample clothes.49 Afa Ajura, it seems, had found his niche in the local commercial milieu. However, from this time on, Afa Ajura’s activities would take a completely different direction. The moment he launched his Ajuraism, around 1951–52, he was preoccupied with the building and expansion of his mosque (which is still ongoing today, in 2020). The mosque, initially built by contributions from his followers, was his primary focus and served as a base for all of his activities henceforth. These later undertakings of Afa Ajura fall into three broad categories: teaching and educating his followers; preaching and reforming Dagbon society; and composing poems in support of his teaching, preaching, and reform.50 Let us examine these three categories in detail. TEA CH IN G A N D EDUCATING

In the 1940s, before he began preaching seriously and when he was still a fully committed tailor and trader, Afa Ajura would periodically spend his free time teaching a few adults who sought him out as a learned man whenever he was in town. Notable among these early students were Mba Mumuni (from the Agric neighborhood, from whom the original manuscripts of Afa Ajura’s poems were obtained), Alhaj Mikaila (a former clerk and translator at the court), Afa Iddris (Mba Iddi at bus stop neighborhood), Afa Iddrisu Zei (affectionately called Sayyiduna Ali at Salamba neighborhood), Afa Usman ( also known as Afa Asim-nyinbuŋa, who lived a stone’s throw away from Afa Ajura’s mosque), Mba Amiru (a cola-nut seller), Mba Mumuni (moroo: a man from Moshi tribe), and Jagbo Doo (literally, a man from Jagbo, whose real name escaped Afa Seidu). All of them, and a few others, remained Afa Ajura’s closest disciples until his or their death, except for Afa Asim-nyinbuŋa who, by the 1970s and 1980s, had become one of his staunch adversaries reportedly due more to chieftaincy allegiances than religious differences. Some of these and other prominent people would later constitute his trusted and influential “committee” of advisors.

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The adult educational process at that time was very traditional: a study circle consisting of several students who received their individual lessons separately while the rest waited for their turn. All adult students (exclusively male) would bring the texts they intended to study and from which they would take their lesson, usually making notes and extensive marginalia. But each student would also bring as many texts as possible, from which his colleagues intended to study. This way, after one’s turn was over, instead of leaving he would pick the text of the next colleague and follow along as the latter received his tutoring. This means that, depending upon the number of students or each individual’s time availability, every student had the opportunity to master several texts within a few months or years. However, since students joined independently and there was no fixed period of enrollment, there was always the likelihood of overlap between their enrollment and graduation. Yet the time for convening sessions always seems to have been tailored for the teacher’s convenience: usually either after the dawn prayer (fajr) or between late afternoon (‘asr) and sunset prayers (maghrib).51 Never recognized as formal schools, they did not have names like the later formal schools that were exclusively for children. These adult study circles did not generally preclude any teacher from establishing a school for children. In fact, almost every teacher would have a few nonadult pupils, mostly those given to him to raise and teach, who served as his regular students.52 So while Afa Ajura periodically convened his early adult study circles, he was also responsible for raising and educating several children. It was a common practice to give or offer children to scholars, chiefs, wealthy people, and relatives to raise. Christine Oppong has identified this as “fostering” (as opposed to “adopting”).53 This is akin to fostering or adopting children in the Western world, minus the formal registration. As in the case of a couple’s biological child, the foster parents’ love, responsibility, and obligation are usually standard parental ones, just as the discipline meted out by the foster parent to the child is normal, as expected by the custom. But in reality, the deep feeling of “belongingness” on the child’s part and the true feeling of custody on the adult’s part are usually lacking, even though “parenthood” is always sincerely recognized in no uncertain terms. In other words, no matter how loved a foster child is, and no matter how proud both child and parent are of each other’s closeness and tight relationship, everyone still recognizes that the child is somebody else’s. This lack of a feeling of true belonging is one of the reasons why a couple that is physically unable to produce its own biological children is never fully satisfied with adopting a relative’s child, for they always long for or aspire to have their “own child.” Nowadays, due to high literacy and the erosion of traditional

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culture, the practice of fostering has lost its significance, albeit not completely or entirely.54 The majority of foster children end up returning to their biological parents as adolescents, although some stay forever with their foster family. These two scenarios have been observed in the case of the children who were given to Afa Ajura to raise and teach. Mallam Fari (Abdul-Rahman) relates how, as children during the 1940s, he and Afa Abukari lived with Afa Ajura and his family in a rented house before his current house in Tamale was built. Afa Ajura taught them the Qur’an, and they helped him prepare and make the clothes he sold. According to Mallam Fari, at the suggestion of his grandmother in Yendi, his family agreed to give him to the chief of Karaga (Karnaa Ziblim) the next time the latter visited Yendi, who in turn was to find him a suitable teacher. When his father (Afa Issah) divulged the family’s intention to the chief upon his arrival in Yendi, he immediately suggested that he would also send the boy to a trusted friend of his, Afa Ajura, in Tamale. So the chief took the young Mallam Fari back to his village, Karaga, where he stayed with the royal family until Afa Ajura arrived, about three months later at the chief’s behest.55 As usual, Afa Ajura stayed in Karaga for a few weeks performing Islamic divination in the service of his client, the chief, and then later took Mallam Fari along to Tamale. Mallam Fari lived with him, learned the Qur’an, assisted him in sewing, and later helped him teach and manage the growing number of pupils, until he returned to his own family in Yendi during the early 1960s. Many years before his return to Yendi, he witnessed the arrival of several pupils to Afa Ajura’s house, among them Afa Seidu, Afa Ajura’s famous disciple and successor.56 By the 1950s, Afa Ajura had been given several children to teach and raise, and he continued to accept children during his trips. One of these pupils was Shaykh Sa‘id Abubakr Zakariyya Ibrahim (aka Afa Seidu), who, when he was about eight years old, was given by his father to Afa Ajura during one of the latter’s trips to Gambaga. His father declared that the boy was to be considered as a permanent “trust” (ama¯na) in Afa Ajura’s care,57 the return of whom he would not expect until the Day of Judgment. Though now Afa Ajura’s successor in the community and living with his family in his own home about half a mile away in Tamale, Afa Seidu still considers himself part of Afa Ajura’s household and instinctively refers to the latter’s home as “our home” (tiyiŋa). The concept of ama¯na (Arabic for “trust and guardianship,” now used in Dagbani) was common in familial and matrimonial relationships among the Muslims of northern Ghana. In the case of children, it was exactly like fostering and adoption. But when accompanied with the specific declaration of ama¯na,

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the fostering was considered permanent, and also meant that the child was expected to never return to his or her biological parents. This, according to Afa Seidu, was exactly what his father intended when he sent him to Afa Ajura. However, the concept of ama¯na also appears in nuptial arrangements, in which a young girl is offered generally to another head of a household not for fostering or adoption, but for matrimonial purposes. The head of the household has the choice to marry her himself or to marry her to one of the young adult men in his household. This type of arrangement has always been precipitated by the hopes and expectation of creating or fostering some kind of close mutual relationship between two families. Although marriages can always falter, there was an added pressure on both families for this ama¯na marriage not to break up, even if both husband and wife have to be perpetually compelled by their respective family elders to remain together, for neither family would want to be perceived as the one who broke the promise. Afa Seidu recollects that when his father took him to Afa Ajura, the latter pulled out a little book and registered both his and his father’s names. This suggests that, if not on a recruiting mission for pupils just as yet, Afa Ajura was certainly in a recruiting mindset. It also marks the beginning of his deliberate move toward establishing a formal school. Afa Seidu stayed with Afa Ajura in Gambaga for a few days, during which he began to teach him the Qur’an. Afa Ajura later took his new pupil back to Tamale to teach and raise him.58 Mallam Fari, a senior student by this time, recalls Afa Ajura himself assuming the responsibility of tutoring Afa Seidu and leaving Mallam Fari to teach the other pupils. These two represent a classic culture of fostering in Dagbon tradition relative to becoming a mallam/scholar. ANB AR IYYA ISL A M IC SCH OOL : BEGINNING AND EXPANS ION

By 1951, Afa Ajura had decided to turn his informal Qur’anic school, composed of his foster children, into a formal school named the Anbariyya Islamic School (Madrasat al-ʻAnbariyyah al-Isla¯miyyah), which included some children of his close disciples and associates in Tamale. In this new format, students learned not only the Qur’an, but also rudimentary Arabic and basic liturgical and legal books. Probably convinced that anbar relates to a particular captivatingly scented perfume,59 Afa Ajura must have picked the name in hope that it would be a good omen that, like the scent of that perfume, his school’s reputation would rise into the air and attract admiration far and wide. By the 1970s and 1980s, Afa Ajura would, on many occasions, testify gleefully that “Anbariyya has truly taken off” (yi’ya: literally, “has risen or has flown”), suggesting that his

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hope for the good omen had been realized. He always used this phrase while reminiscing about his accomplishments, as reflected in the exponential number and exceptional caliber of the graduates his school has produced or sent abroad for higher education. Aside from Mallam Fari, Afa Abukari, and Afa Ajura’s own son Afa Halawayhi (who were more senior than the rest), as well as Afa Seidu, the other foster children living at Afa Ajura’s house at that time were Afa Abdul-Razzaq Umar (son of Alhaj Umar Warboɣu), Mbe Yakubu Savelugu, Afa Umar, Afa Abla Kasuli, Afa Mahamma (Ŋampir-kurli), and Afa Mahamma (Ŋampir-bila). Of these early foster children, only Afa Abukari, Afa Seidu, and Mbe Yakubu married and started their own families while still living at Afa Ajura’s house; and only Afa Seidu and Afa Abdul-Razzaq remained part of the Anbariyya School today as senior teachers. However, for the next three decades, in the early part of which his new school would be moved about a mile away to a large campus and developed into the organized and well-structured modern Anbariyya Islamic Institute (Ma‘had al-‘Anbariyy al-Islamiyy), Afa Ajura continued to accept foster children from Tamale, various villages (e.g., Savelugu, Bimbila, Yendi, and Saŋ), and later from Accra and other big cities, to live in his house or on the campus.60 On the other hand, for this school to function effectively, Afa Ajura also admitted children of some of his trusted disciples; however, they would live at home. He even recruited others without the knowledge of their parents at first. According to Mallam Fari, once Afa Ajura visited his good friend Mba Buhjilli (Buɣjilli, not too far away at Tishiɣu). Upon leaving the house, he spotted two children, Baba and Hamdawayh, sitting outside the house. He ordered them to follow him home, which they did. When he arrived home he presented them to Mallam Fari and asked him to begin teaching them how to recite the Qur’an. “That was how they both became part of the school,” said Mallam Fari.61 Other children of his disciples who did not live there included Afa Salisu (though he lived next door at Mba Musa transport house), Afa Sibawayh (another son of Alhaj Umar Warboɣu), Issah Iddris (Afa Issah Moro), Afa Iddris Abdul-Hamid (Afa Iddrisu Bila), Afa Sulayman Mahmud (Afa Sul-bila), Afa Abdul Aziz (ward K), and Afa Abubakar Iddris (Afa Abu). As time went on, they were joined by others. At this point, Anbariyya was only one class: the entrance hall (zoŋ), or the outside near the main entrance, taught by Mallam Fari, as the mature student.62 The first cohort of Anbariyya students included some females. In addition to his two sons, Alhaj Umar Warboɣu enrolled his two daughters: Mma Jawzau (who later became Afa Ajura’s wife and bore most of his children) and Mma

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Hamdalah (Mbe Anda). Though from a different cohort, Mma Salima (daughter of Mba Shero) and Mma Subaihata, who both later became Afa Ajura’s wives, were also early students.63 Together, these pupils from diverse constituencies studying at Afa Ajura’s house marked the establishment and beginning of his Anbariyya Islamic School.64 The first class was conducted in the entrance hall (zoŋ) of his house and, sometimes, outside the house near the entrance door. The structure and format of the Qur’anic schools which Afa Ajura and others had been running up until then were very traditional. First, as stated above, generally the student body, consisting of up to twenty or more, might be a combination of relatives or children of friends or complete strangers unrelated to each other; they might be living there permanently, or for as long as it would take them to master or complete the entire Qur’an, or they might only be attending daily. Second, the venue was usually the house’s entrance hall (zoŋ). This hall was almost always used as a sleeping room for the male children of the house, although it could also be used for diverse purposes, depending on the “social standing and profession of its owner.”65 But the venue could also be in the shade of a tree inside or outside the open compound house. Third, pupils sat on the ground, either in rows or in a semicircle facing the teacher. And last, the format was based on rote memorization, learning Qur’an verses at a time by forcefully and loudly repeating them, from a slate written upon by the teacher or by a senior pupil, until the verses were perfectly memorized. When a lesson was deemed well memorized, the slate was washed clean and the next lesson was written on it and learned. This process was repeated until a pupil mastered the first or second chapters of the Qur’an, after which he was promoted to reading from real printed text, usually identified as a “chapter of Yasin” (chapter 36 of the Qur’an; but the printed copy consisted of all the shorter chapters from 36 to 114), if the parents could afford to purchase it. While there was not always a celebration or a feast after the completion of certain chapters, there was always feasting and celebration (walimah), in special clothes, after the entire Qur’an had been learned. Until the 1960s, Christine Oppong observed, in Dagbon the parents of the boy who had completed the Qur’an paid around “ten cedis (100 pennies)” and provided animals and food for the feast.66 The entire process of learning the Qur’an usually did not involve any effort to understand it or even how to write its verses. Although rare, and particularly for very young but brilliant pupils, one might learn to read the entire Qur’an without being able to write a single verse. This means that most Qur’anic school teachers did not understand its content until they joined the traditional adult study circles discussed earlier.

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Afa Ajura seems to have had high ambitions to create a formal school and the zeal to transform it into a well-structured modern school with a new format, given what he was able to accomplish in less than two decades. In this new format, students still learned how to read the Qur’an, but they were also introduced to other subjects in a very rudimentary form, such as Arabic, creed (ʻaqı¯da), the Prophet’s biography (sı¯rat al-nabawiyya), and jurisprudence (fiqh). Importantly, apart from the Qur’an, individual tutoring in other subjects was replaced by teaching the students collectively in a modern conventional fashion. Before long, students’ numbers began to grow exponentially. This prompted Afa Ajura to arrange for a steady influx of teachers. According to Afa Seidu, as the number of pupils grew, Afa Ajura asked Mallam Fari and Afa Halawayh to move out of their room, and turned it into another classroom.67 Due to the dramatic and continuous increase of students, Afa Ajura added more classes. Under a mango tree near a grinding machine at Mba Musa’s (Musa Transport) house next door, two classes were conducted after Afa Ajura persuaded him to move the machine to Kanvili to make more space. The first teacher Afa Ajura hired was a Mauritanian man named Mallam al-Shingiti. Afa Ajura later sent him to Savelugu, while appointing a more knowledgeable Gonja man named Mallam Iddris to run the school at home. He was considered an excellent teacher who drastically improved the students’ knowledge. The next teacher, Ustadh Usman Rashid, came from Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region. A graduate of the conventional secular secondary school system, Ustadh Usman Rashid was well versed in all Islamic and Arabic disciplines. In fact, he was so capable and effective that when he left Anbariyya five to six years later, not only had he advanced the student’s standards in Arabic grammar (nahw), but they could also speak and write letters in Arabic. However, Usman Rashid’s arrival led to Mallam Iddris’s departure. During Usman Rashid’s tenure, Mallam Ibrahim Basha (Duktur Bayan) paid Afa Ajura a courtesy visit from Kumasi in 1964–65. It was not clear at that time if he already intended to seek appointment at Anbariyya or not. However, according to Mallam Basha’s recent explanation (on tape recording), he was in Tamale courtesy of a close friend’s invitation. But before he returned to Kumasi, Mallam Basha inquired if Afa Ajura would allow him to teach at Anbariyya. Afa Ajura responded: “I am your uncle, so you can come anytime you are ready.”68 Afa Ajura then gave him enough money to enable him to bring his entire family and his Dagbon students (Afa Abdul Salam and Afa Muhammad Sabri). Mallam Basha went back to Kumasi and soon returned with his family and students. “That is how Afa Basha came to Anbariyyah,” concludes Afa Seidu.69 Mallam

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Basha was considered a very knowledgeable and effective teacher. He built on the improvements achieved by his predecessor, Ustadh Usman Rashid. In 1968, Mallam Basha not simply left Anbariyya but also broke away hoping to “nurture his own tree, so as to benefit from its fruits.” Such was his ambition, as allegedly stated in his resignation letter presented to Afa Ajura and read publicly at the mosque.70 Surely, he founded his own school (the Nuriyya Islamic School, reminiscent of his alma mater in Kumasi).71 During the late 1970s his school would rival Anbariyya; in fact, it was considered only second to it among all of Tamale’s schools. The next teacher to assume the mantle of Anbariyya was Ustadh Abdul-Rahman, who had just returned from Egypt after years of study. By this time, the mid- to late 1960s, the first batch of Anbariyya students—Afa Seidu, Afa Salisu, Afa Abdul-Razzaq, Afa Issah, Afa Sibawayh, Afa Sulayman, Afa Iddris, Afa Harun, Afa Abu, Afa Mukhtar, Afa Abdul Aziz, and the rest—were now teachers themselves, even though they still took classes from whoever was the lead teacher. Although Ustadh Abdul-Rahman became Afa Ajura’s regular translator into Arabic, he did not seem to have a strong impact on the students. Ustadh Issah Bello returned from Nigeria and joined Anbariyya around 1968.72 Of all the Anbariyya teachers up to that point, it is agreed that he had no equal in terms of the depth of his knowledge of the Qur’an and the Arabic sciences (e.g., grammar, morphology, rhetoric, literature, and composition, all of which came to embody real advancements in Islamic-Arabic education). Issah Bello hailed from a popular Nigerian tribe called Yoruba, who were famous in Ghana, prior to the 1970s, for their commercial acumen and zeal. For that reason, they took citizenship in all of the West African nations that were deemed conducive for business. Before he came to Ghana, his family had been notable among the Yorubas in Tamale for a long time. In fact, his elder brother Ustadh Ahmad, although less famous, was also an accomplished scholar. Not only did he breathe some level of enthusiasm into Anbariyya’s young teachers by teaching them advanced courses in the Arabic sciences, his coming also coincided with the school’s being ushered into a new phase of infrastructural expansion. In addition, he was a great asset when it came to Afa Ajura’s correspondence with the institutions or representatives of the Middle East.73 He was also, as was Ustadh Abdul-Rahman before him, a reliable translator from and into Arabic whenever an Arab guest speaker came over. Issah Bello was also an accomplished poet who composed poems in Arabic to be used in student plays.74 Issah Bello left Anbariyya and, a few years later in 1973, founded the Manhaliyya Islamic School, which, in Iddrisu’s words, would come to be considered

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“one of the satellite makaranta [school] devoted to Anbariyya.”75 Again, we do not know exactly why he left Anbariyya, but most likely this was the result of a combination of factors, such as his confidence in the prospects of his own bright future, being his own boss, and, possibly and as speculated by Iddrisu, for being “passed over as recipient of the first scholarship to the Islamic University of Medina.”76 On its own, however, the latter reason was highly unlikely, as Afa Abul-Rauf Isma‘il (a foster child of Afa Ajura and a graduate of the Islamic University at Medina) insisted. As one of the closest students to Ustadh Issah Bello who still remembers some of his poems meant for students’ plays, he was certain that the former did not leave due to his failure to secure a scholarship because he was too new and too learned to take offense at this. After Ustadh Bello left, Afa Abdul Rauf was one of the few students who still pursued the former for deeper learning in some Arabic subjects, while still living in Afa Ajura’s home and school.77 Iddrisu is correct in dismissing the notion that any doctrinal conflict was responsible for Issah Bello’s departure. After he left Anbariyya (differently from Mallam Basha, who was believed then to have been making disparaging comments about Afa Ajura), Issah Bello was not known for speaking negatively about Afa Ajura. He was always invited to, and attended, Anbariyya functions. One concrete proof for this statement is that his school was considered to be attached to Anbariyya, and his teachers and students always saw themselves as being part of Anbariyya’s arm. After leaving the school, one of Issah Bello’s prominent activities was his Qur’anic study sessions (tafsir: exegesis and commentary of the Qur’an). He was known for his deep knowledge of the sacred text, and people would throng to his house especially during the month of Ramadan to listen to him. He was later courted by the Ghana armed forces to serve as a Muslim chaplain in Takoradi, the capital of the country’s Western Region.78 Ustadh Issah Bello’s death in a horrific road accident in 1987 was devastating to Afa Ajura.79 M IDDL E EA STERN T EACHERS , NEW C A M PUS, A N D SCHOLARS HIP S

Both Ustadh Abdul-Rahman and Ustadh Issah Bello were still at Anbariyya when Cairo began sending teachers or missionaries who had a comprehensive knowledge of Islam to Africa to help Muslims transition from an “archaic” system of instruction into a modern medium of Islamic learning. But as Anbariyya may have been on the modern path for years, its foreign teachers were initially confined to teaching the instructors themselves certain advanced subjects, to

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occasional nocturnal preaching sessions organized by Afa Ajura, and to addressing certain special gatherings. Yet, the deployment of foreign teachers had a drastic impact upon Anbariyya in terms of its improvement and image, due in part to students’ mastery of Arabic language. After all, according to observers like Benjamin Ray, the knowledge of Arabic has long been acknowledged as a source of special status among Africans.80 On the other hand, mastery of this language facilitated quick and deeper access to other Islamic disciplines, such as tafsir, H . adith, theology, jurisprudence, and history. Due to these Egyptian teachers, Anbariyya’s first generation, who by then formed the core of the local teachers and who were the direct beneficiaries of the foreign Arab teachers, has become both experts and fluent in Arabic. Their own students, who quickly benefited immensely from them, would soon lead the “intellectual revolution” that was to engulf Ghana in the subsequent decades.81 Anbariyya’s students learned Arabic so rapidly and so well that before long the Arab teachers’ schedules would be extended to include teaching the higher-level classes. So, what had been achieved by deploying Arab teachers to Anbariyya was fluency in Arabic with a sense of prestige in the community, and the ability to consult other important Islamic sources without having to sit in front of a teacher for months in order to learn a particular book’s contents.82 This, indeed, was the fortunate advantage that gave Afa Ajura’s Anbariyya a head start.83 Shaykh Muhammad, the first Egyptian teacher deployed to Anbariyya, brought his family, which included two young children named Hanan and Tariq. Tall, slim, and always clad in what was believed to be the formal attire of al-Azhar alumni,84 his arrival in Tamale was cause for celebration. Droves of people, including Anbariyya students singing in white uniforms, thronged to the now defunct Old Tamale Airport at Nyohini to welcome him. At that time, Afa Ajura and his followers saw this scholar’s deployment as a clear index, not only of his triumph over his rivals, but of him having truth on his side—both realities worthy of celebration and euphoria. Afa Ajura had transformed the entire north side of his house into a selfcontained apartment equipped with modern amenities for the use of Shaykh Muhammad and his family. This was appropriate, for the shaykh’s wife was secluded, ostensibly for religious reasons,85 and pragmatically because she had not many Arab friends with whom she could socialize. The only people she could conceivably, and rarely did, socialize with in Tamale were a few Lebanese families. There was no telling whether this isolation had any negative impact upon the couple. But as it later became apparent with most of the Arab teachers, not only did they seem to highly appreciate their postings to Anbariyya, but they

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also extended their contracts after the initial ones had ended, even though they may have been subjected to some form of diminished and restricted lifestyle while in Tamale. This is because their socio-economic status as Egyptians conferred upon them immense benefits, not to mention their relatively exorbitant salaries as expatriates. Shaykh Muhammad’s children meanwhile, especially the younger boy Tariq, found friends and playmates among Afa Ajura’s own children and grandchildren, which allowed all of them to pick up the other’s language with relative ease. Under Shaykh Muhammad, Anbariyya witnessed another significant milestone. By 1969–70, about four large classrooms (three for males and a larger one for multiple levels of females’ classes), an office, and a teachers’ lounge were built at Nyanshegu campus, about a mile away from Afa Ajura’s mosque. The official opening of this campus, on January 22, 1970, was celebrated with pomp and pride, and on the list of invited distinguished guests were “Mr. B. K. Adama, Member of Parliament and minister of parliamentary affairs, and ambassadors of the UAR [Egypt and Syria], Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Tunisia,” recounts Iddrisu.86 That Afa Ajura financed the building of the school mainly from his followers’ small contributions was bound to impress both government officials as well as foreign representatives. That these ambassadors were truly impressed by his efforts is also substantiated by their subsequent support of Anbariyya via foreign teachers, scholarships, and, possibly, financial assistance for several decades to come. Less than a year later, in 1971, four classrooms were added to the structure which were situated along the line of the office structure. By 1975, a two-story building for classrooms was built, with only the first floor ready for occupancy. A couple of years later, about four classes and an extra office were built to connect the existing classroom for the females. When the second level of the building was ready for use five years later, Anbariyya could boast of more than thirty usable classrooms, even though all of the classrooms were actually occupied only after 1990. After the school was moved to this new campus, Afa Ajura negotiated with the Ghana Education Service (GES) to introduce English learning in his school, which would also employ his Arabic-Islamic teachers with full salaries. By 1971– 72, English teachers were teaching parallel with their Arabic-Islamic counterparts. The school week remained the same as before: Saturday to Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday considered the weekend. Thus teachers and students could have a break and attend the congregational Friday prayer without having to abandon classes. Afa Ajura saw this format as “Islamic,” which rendered any suggestion of altering the schedule a contentious matter. Initially, the officials

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of the Ghana Education Service went along with this and made sure that they posted only Muslim English teachers in Anbariyya. But this arrangement was relatively short-lived for several reasons. First, perhaps due to agitation on the part of some English teachers, the debate about systematizing the school’s daily schedule arose. It was possible that some teachers may have preferred the national schedule of attending school from Monday to Friday and taking a break on Saturday and Sunday. Second, some top officials at the Ghana Education Service may have interpreted Afa Ajura’s posture as an affront to the national system. They might also have seen his personality as a challenge to their own egos, since he would not bow to their demands as government officials who had the leverage of paying his Arabic and Islamic teachers’ salaries. They started to relentlessly press him for change in the school’s schedule. Finally, it would be hard to completely rule out religious, political, and tribal undertones, which always linger in many of these types of problems in Ghana at that time, at least, from the perspectives of Afa Ajura and his followers. Expectedly, Afa Ajura saw everything as an attack upon Muslim sensibilities and therefore mounted fierce resistance. The majority of Tamale’s other Islamic schools, including Mallam Basha’s Nuriyya School, had succumbed to the directives of the Ghana Education Services to consider Saturday and Sunday as the weekend. Afa Ajura went to the extent of organizing several of his nocturnal preaching sessions, not only to voice his disagreement and challenge the government officials and his Muslim counterparts who had given in to the pressure, but also, and characteristically, to explain to his followers how his position was grounded in religious principles.87 It is believed that several people advised him to accept the directives, but to no avail. By 1978, when all efforts to reach a meaningful compromise failed, all English teachers were withdrawn from Anbariyya and the Ghana Education Service no longer paid the monthly salaries of his Arabic and Islamic teachers. Many people considered Afa Ajura’s resistance as unnecessary, if not outright inconsiderate;88 for that action had effectively robbed his Arabic/Islamic teachers their decent monthly salaries. Even though they continued to teach and were paid a meager monthly stipend out of their students’ paltry fees, it was almost nothing compared to what the Ghana Education Service had been paying them. However, in the 1990s when Afa Ajura withdrew from daily decision making, Anbariyya authorities, then consisting mainly of the first group with which he started the school, struck a deal with the Ghana Education Service and created a parallel secular English stream of learning along with an Islamic one, which now has primary, junior high, and senior high schools.

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Also around the late 1970s, the school’s official name was changed from the Anbariyya Islamic School to the Anbariyya Islamic Institute (Ma‘had al‘Anbariyy al-Islamiyy) on the grounds that it was now too large and too advanced to remain a “basic” school. Its new status as an institute allowed it to project the aura of an advanced institution with some level of sophistication both in content and structure. But the name change was only formally registered sometime in the early 1980s; I saw the “Certificate of Incorporation” in Afa Ajura’s room, which was duly registered in 1983. Now, as for the physical structures, it is interesting to note that no building contractors were ever hired to erect the edifices. Instead, Afa Ajura mobilized his followers’ free expertise, usually by announcing during the Friday prayer that volunteers should come to work on the weekends. Naturally, scores of his followers enthusiastically came out to help with the construction. Sometimes, older students were deployed, working along with everyone else and carrying gravel or bricks or fulfilling other necessary tasks. A few regular expert workers continued with the construction during the weekdays. Afa Ajura himself would always be physically present, chatting and sometimes doing some light lifting. Although it was not always clear if his physical presence was some form of indirect coercion or deliberate motivation, people ultimately volunteered their labor and their money. In addition, it is unclear whether a particular group or nation financed his massive structural undertakings, even though his later, close relationship with the Saudis must have brought some form of funding, albeit inconsistent and negligible as a dependable source; because the main source for construction right up to the present has been contributions solicited from his followers. However, some of Anbariyya’s recent structures would only be financed entirely by outside entities after his death, when some international entities and some local politicians, hoping to woo the support of his followers, began to entice them with building projects. After 2000, sourcing for foreign funding materialized and astute politicians started to align themselves with Afa Ajura’s Sunni community by offering governmental assistance to build more structures. The Honorable Alhaj Mustapha Ali, a Northern Regional minister in the administration of President John Agyekum Kufuor (r. 2001–9), arranged to erect another two-story classroom block for Anbariyya on the far north side of the campus with the support of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GET Fund).89 This was and still is considered a brilliant and strategic move on the minister’s part, for the Anbariyya community was never his governing party’s (the New Patriotic Party [NPP]) favorite constituency. However, because of his efforts on the community’s behalf both his person and his reputation continue to benefit immensely from the Anbariyya

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leaders’ prayers each time there is a gathering. And even though the NPP does not receive Anbariyya’s block votes, Alhaj Mustapha Ali, who died in 2013, remains one of their favorite politicians. The Honorable Alhaj Haruna Iddrisu, National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Tamale South and the current minority leader in Ghana’s parliament, with other politicians, also championed a construction project: a multistory edifice to complement some existing structures at Yendi/ Salaga road. The existing structures, completed in 2003 at this new campus, were sponsored by the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and marked the beginning of exclusively using outside funding for Anbariyya’s projects. Although politically expedient, this MP’s actions were somehow anticipated, as he is perceived to be a sympathizer of Anbariyya community.90 He also continues to receive a barrage of prayers and accolades from Anbariyya’s leaders both in public and in private. Recently, another two-story structure was again put up on the main Anbariyya campus through the help of these politicians, who continue to impress the Anbariyya community and receive their constant prayers. As of 2019, Anbariyya has a total of 101 functioning classrooms on both campuses. This, in a country where some villages have entire schools conducted under trees.91 Afa Ajura’s transformative success and Anbariyya’s rising popularity in Ghana are not only evident in the erection and furnishing of the buildings, but also in the sheer number of students who study there and the caliber of their education. By 2010, Anbariyya had attracted so many students that it had a total of four nurseries, twenty-five affiliated primary schools, two junior high schools, and one high school. The high school is recorded as one of the highest performing schools in the Northern Region. There is also a new faculty of education opened in the past few years, although it has not yet been accredited by the government. Proceeding with the deployment of Arab teachers, shortly after Shaykh Muhammad left, the short, stocky, and gregarious Shaykh Abdul-Muqtadir AbdulBaqi arrived. He impressed Anbariyya’s instructors as being the most brilliant scholar they had ever studied with. Although brilliant, Shaykh Muhammad had been young and still a novice. Shaykh Abdul-Muqtadir, on the other hand, was mature and experienced and had memorized everything he taught at Anbariyya. A specialist in Arabic and Arabic literature, he taught Arabic rhetoric (balaghah) from memory and provided all of the relevant definitions, rules, and examples from the Qur’an and pre-Islamic poetry. All of that apparently based on textbooks that he had memorized and never brought to Ghana.

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When Shaykh Abdul-Muqtadir arrived, the Anbariyya School had already been moved from Afa Ajura’s house at Sakasaka to the new campus at Nyanshegu.92 In anticipation of his arrival, two new self-contained quarters were built, the first one of which his family occupied. Among his family was his young, disabled but active son Ha¯nı¯. The child’s prosthetic leg, always covered by his trousers, was noticeable only because of his limping and the rugged shoes peeping out from underneath his trousers. He was ubiquitous on the campus, always playing with friends and classmates. The shaykh’s wife, though secluded perhaps only for lack of friends and nowhere to go, seemed to be an urban and very gregarious lady. The family must have come from one of Egypt’s larger cities. Shaykh Abdul-Muqtadir and his family were fortunate to be joined, during the late 1970s, by another Saudi-trained Egyptian teacher, Shaykh Siddiq Muhammad Siddiq. While in his final years of study in Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Siddiq had met at least two groups of Anbariyya students,93 who provided him with a preview of Anbariyya and encouraged him to join the school upon his graduation. This latter event was made possible by the emergence of Saudi Arabia’s religious and foreign policies of training and then dispatching foreign teachers and missionaries to Africa. Thus, the new Egyptian graduate arranged to be posted to Anbariyya. While in Tamale, he occupied the quarters next to Shaykh Abdul-Muqtadir’s. A young and novice scholar, his tall physique and youthful exuberance contrasted with the short and mature presence of Abdul Muqtadir, but the two matched fittingly in terms of their gregariousness.They often went places together and visited friends. Shaykh Siddiq’s arrival ushered Anbariyya into another phase of academic advancement. With two Arab teachers at one time, the local instructors doubled their own lesson times and scope of learning, and scheduled more instruction time for students in the higher-level classes. Shaykh Siddiq also championed sending more Anbariyya students to Saudi Arabia for further studies. Both the instructors and the students found in Siddiq a friendly teacher. The senior instructors regarded him as their peer, and the students saw him as a companion they were happy to be of service to. Since he initially came without his family, he needed male students’ assistance at home. This was an opportunity for him to forge close relationships with students, and a chance for the students to perfect their spoken Arabic. When Abdul Muqtadir finally left after his second tenure had expired, the Egyptian teacher Shaykh Muhammad Ahmad al-T.awı¯l arrived to take over his courses and accommodations. Of all the Arab teachers, Shaykh Muhammad

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al-T.awı¯l exhibited the most Islamic piety and devotion. A villager from Upper Egypt, he left the most indelible mark of any Arab teacher on the students’ learning and improvement. After one or two years of teaching the senior and junior instructors and a couple of courses to the senior-level class, he took over all the courses scheduled in the senior class and dedicated himself to teaching them, with no single course reserved for the local teachers in that class, while continuing to teach the instructors. According to Anabriyya’s teachers, his decision was precipitated in 1981 by the arrival of a Sudanese delegation from Khartoum’s Islamic African Center (al-Markaz al-Islami al-Afriqi), which recruited only three students from the senior class, and offered them scholarships to study in Sudan.94 It was also inspired by his desire to make as many high-caliber students ready and available should the Sudanese delegation return the following year for another recruiting mission, as its members had promised. The recruiting process of this Sudanese delegation was strikingly unique, at least to Anbariyya’s authorities. The three-member delegation simply showed up unannounced on the Anbariyya campus and asked its authorities to convene a class of brilliant students whom they could test and interview on the spot. The three were brought directly to the senior class. Some students, like Sulaiman Mohammed,95 attended this class for several years; for there was no higher class beyond this, and there was no other option for students than to be appointed as an assistant instructor (musa¯‘id). The delegation asked the teachers to leave and then distributed exam papers. After a fixed time, they stopped the exams, collected the papers, dismissed all students, and immediately graded the exams. When they announced the grades, they called the names of the three students who had achieved the highest scores. It was not clear whether they wanted more but could get only the three who had passed the test, or whether they only picked those three with the highest points out of many who had passed the test. They interviewed them, got their details, and left, promising that they would send tickets for their flights. They asked them to prepare their travel documents as they waited for their tickets to arrive. Once the tickets arrived, the students left for Sudan. For some reason that is not clear, no delegation ever returned in subsequent years. Apart from the usual courses that Shaykh Muhammad was expected to teach (e.g., grammar, jurisprudence, theology, history, rhetoric, and tafsir), he introduced several newer subjects and truly revamped the class schedule. For instance, he required the senior class to arrive one hour early before usual class time, in order to relearn how to recite the Qur’an. This was a revolutionary move, because the students already had mastered this, or so they believed, and had taken a course called Tajwı¯d al-Qur’an (Better Recitation of the Qur’an)

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before they reached that class.96 Yet not only did he teach them advanced tajwı¯d,97 he also introduced this early-morning recitation to make sure that the students heard him recite each verse of the Qur’an (talqı¯n) according to what he believed to be the tradition of early Muslims reciters. In addition, Shaykh Muhammad introduced a new subject, unheard of in Anbariyya let alone in Tamale, Qawa¯’id al-Imla¯’iyya (Rules of Dictation/Writing), which resembled grammar and morphology, but only for writing (not calligraphy). Ironically, senior and junior Anbariyya instructors had never studied this subject before, and so some of them would join this class whenever it was in session. My understanding is that this course was discontinued after he left Anbariyya. All of the textbooks he used in his classes were the same as those used at al-Azhar institutions in Egypt. Shaykh Muhammad apparently had a larger family than his predecessors, a wife and four children: Zaynab, Ahmad, Muna¯, and Asma¯.’ The older two were enrolled in appropriate classes at Anbariyya. By 1983, when Ghana was undergoing a serious famine,98 he employed two of his brightest students to come in the evening and give extra tutoring to his two older children in exchange for dinner and extra money. Additionally, his tenure coincided with Mallam Basha’s Nuriyya School’s welcoming its own set of Egyptian teachers. So aside from Shaykh Siddiq and his family at Anbariyya, Shaykh Muhammad and his family had a very close friendship with another Egyptian, Shaykh Mustafa, at Mallam Basha’s Nuriyya School. They visited each other and went out together quite frequently. They seemed very happy and extended their tenures. A strikingly grim day during their stay occurred in 1981, when Egypt’s President Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated.99 Visibly shaken, they took several days, if not weeks, to recover. Shaykh Muhammad remained for several years after Shaykh Siddiq’s tenure had finally expired and he had left. However, the latter had further renewed his tenure for the third time, but only at another Islamic school in Madina, a suburb of Accra, Ghana’s capital. He still had relations with Anbariyya and kept in constant communication with them. When an unassigned number of Egyptian teachers were posted to Ghana, Shaykh Siddiq happened to meet them at the Egyptian embassy in Accra. He quickly called and advised the Anbariyya authorities to request the one he believed was the best: Shakyh Abdul-Ra¯ziq Muhammad ‘Ata¯. After meeting and listening to him for a brief moment, one was bound to be captivated by his extreme eloquence and his boldly beautiful use of Arabic, facts that might have impressed Shaykh Siddiq to recommend him to Anbraiyya. Though his deep knowledge of Arabic was obvious, he relished displaying his oratorical prowess either in class or in normal conversation.

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This was Abdul-Ra¯ziq’s niche and his unique contribution to Anbariyya, and students appreciated his obvious ability in this regard and were motivated to express themselves in similar fashion. A tall middle-aged man, he never brought his family to Anbariyya but would always spend his annual holidays with them in Egypt. Abdul-Ra¯ziq, as it turned out, was the last Egyptian teacher to teach both the instructors and students concurrently; for those who came later only taught the students. From the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s, three other Egyptian teachers taught at Anbariyya: Shaykh Samir, once a judge in Alexandria, Egypt; a stocky teacher whose name, not surprisingly, everyone forgets because his stay was brief due to suspicions of bad behavior;100 and the very short and mild-mannered Shaykh Yunus. All of them were dedicated to teaching only students, particularly, at a time when Anbariyya had already started welcoming back its own graduates from Saudi Arabia,101 who had begun offering secondary-level courses to students. So, from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s, Afa Ajura opened Anbariyya’s doors to foreign teachers who, in turn, inculcated in its students the highest standards of modern Islamic knowledge that the Northern Region of Ghana has ever witnessed. Anbariyya was fortunate to have all these teachers sent to it, leaving observers to ponder whether all of that was enough to justify Afa Ajura’s famous assertion that “Anbariyya has really taken off.” All of the above, however, coincided with Anbariyya’s regular sending of its best and brightest students to the Islamic University at Medina, Saudi Arabia, on scholarships. In fact, the three students who had gone to Sudan in 1981 ended up being an anomaly. Perhaps due to that Sudanese center’s internal management problems with students, who were mainly foreign, no Anbariyya student ever went there in subsequent years. How did the scholarships to Saudi Arabia start, who were the beneficiaries, and how did their study abroad contribute to Anbariyya’s advancement? The following is based on Afa Seidu and Afa AbdulRauf,102 two of Afa Ajura’s foster children who also had unique experiences as far as the scholarships were concerned. Prior to 1968 and especially after that, Afa Ajura was embroiled on two fronts of protracted religious altercations in Tamale: his dispute with the Tija¯niyyah followers and his breach with his nephew Mallam Basha. The ensuing religious tension in Tamale, the center for Islam in Ghana at that time, was so high that local authorities seemed to run out of ideas as to how to manage them. This situation was brought to the attention of the Saudi ambassador, who was both a diplomat and a religious person. Once an inspector general of the police, who hailed from the north, B. A. Yakubu brought Afa Ajura and Mallam Maikano, the Tija¯niyyah group’s leader, each a copy of the Qur’an on behalf of the am-

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bassador in the hope of forging a reconciliation. This did not have any discernible positive impact. Either motivated to find a lasting solution to the tensions in the north, or hoping to spread a Saudi “version” of Islam (Wahhabism), the Saudi ambassador Ahmad Ali Mubarak sent a representative, Alhaj ‘Umar of Accra,103 to Tamale to assess the situation and make recommendations. For some unknown reason, he only visited Afa Ajura and Mallam Basha and not the Tija¯niyyah groups.104 This decision may have been a combination of conspiracy on Afa Ajura’s side and Alhaj ‘Umar’s own Ahl al-Sunna leanings, which kept him away from the Tija¯niyyah group. Shortly after his return to Accra with his observations, the ambassador concluded that the confusion had much to do with the lack of deeper knowledge of Islam on all sides. He therefore decided to request scholarships from his government for all sides. The declared explanation for the scholarships was that after the students had studied together in the same classes, lived together in student hostels, and learned the “truth” together from the same sources, they would be able to bridge the gap between their leaders and inaugurate some form of lasting peace in Ghana. Although benignly altruistic, this can easily be construed as creating the perfect opportunity to indoctrinate innocent Muslim students who would spread the Saudi version of Islam after their graduation. This would be a particularly compelling case, for they were not only assured of imbibing the “Wahhabi” version of Islam, but were also expected, if not guaranteed, to be recruited and paid handsomely to disseminate whatever they had learned among their own people. In 1971, Anbariyya was offered three scholarships to the Islamic University in Medina, Saudi Arabia. The beneficiaries were Afa Seidu, Afa Tanko, and one Mallam Mahmu¯d. On Ramadan 17, 1971, Afa Seidu, Afa Tanko, and Mallam Mahmud, along with other students from other schools, departed for Saudi Arabia. Staying in Jeddah overnight at the ambassador’s family residence, and arriving the following day in Medina,105 all of the students except Mallam Mahmud, who fell ill and was quickly isolated, passed their medical examinations, interviewed to gauge their academic levels, and were then assigned to the appropriate classes. Mallam Mahmud died from his illness about three months later. Ambassador Mubarak soon left and a new replacement came. But the efforts to offer scholarships continued unabated, although it would take a few years to materialize. In 1975, during the tenure of Saudi ambassador Fu’a¯d Alfı¯, Anbariyya again was offered three chances for scholarships. In 1975, the nominees for the scholarships included individuals from the first and second groups of Anbariyya School: Afa Abubakar Iddris, Afa Muhammad

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Mukhtar Ahmad, and Afa Yusuf Iddris (his foster child from Savelugu, popularly known as Afa Toɣma: literally, “the namesake of Afa Ajura”: Yusuf).106 These nominees eventually went to Saudi Arabia, but without his foster child, Afa Toɣma. Another foster child from Bimbila, Afa Abdul-Rauf Ismaʻı¯l, went instead. The third cohort of scholarships came in 1978 and benefitted Afa Iddris Abdul-Hamid, Afa Salih Iddris, and Afa Husayn Sa’ı¯d Jarjaa. Afa Ajura’s foster child, Afa Toɣma, was again unlucky as his application was unsuccessful for the second time. In 1979, Afa Ajura quickly sent Afa Toɣma’s documents and those of his own son Afa Abdul-Hannan, and his soon-to-be son-in-law Afa Sulayman AbdulRahman Nabila.107 Fortunately, all of the applications were accepted and their travel went smoothly. Anbariyya continued to enjoy an excellent position for advancing all of the four groups of scholars upon their graduation. Thus, in eight years Anbariyya dispatched eleven students to Islamic University in Medina, an unparalleled feat in all of Tamale and the Northern Region of Ghana. The role that Shakh Siddiq played in these admissions should not be underestimated. In 1986, a delegation from the Islamic University in Medina came to interview a fresh set of Anbariyya students. That year, Anbariyya was again offered three scholarships; they were given to Afa Yahya Abdul-Rahman (Shafiq), Afa Muhammad Awwal ‘Uthman, and Afa Yahya Muhammad Hafiz. In 1990 three candidates were admitted to the Islamic University: Dr. ‘Abdul-‘Aziz ‘Umar, Afa Zakraiyya ‘Umar, and Afa ‘Uthman ‘Abdul-Karim. Thus between 1980 and 1990, Anbariyya sent nine students abroad (three to Sudan and six to Saudi Arabia). By 2009, Anbariyya had about forty-one graduates from Saudi Arabia alone, including two with a Ph.D. and two others with M.A. degrees.108 In the decade since then, many more have graduated, with one additional Ph.D.,109 another Ph.D. still in progress, and several M.A.s, either completed or in progress. In addition to these, other students have graduated from universities in Sudan, Egypt, Niger, Mauritania, Libya, and other countries. Although the value of the content of these scholars’ knowledge in Ghanaian context may or may not be contestable, they nevertheless are Islamic scholars in the true sense of the word. The scholarships enabled them to broaden their knowledge and make themselves useful to the Anbariyya Islamic Institute and to the Muslim communities in the country’s Northern Region. No single Islamic institution in Ghana today can boast of having more foreign graduates still teaching in the same institution than is the case with Anbariyya. With all of the foreign teachers and graduates from abroad teaching in this relatively large campus, it is fair to conclude that Afa Ajura’s endeavors to teach his people Islam and provide them with knowledge in a world-class institution have yielded

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more positive fruits than he might have anticipated, even if the school literally has not “taken off.” In the end, his efforts to educate Ghana’s Muslims were not as contentious and polarizing as his preaching was. PREA CH IN G A N D REFORMING

Preaching, by its very nature, is bound to include some form of critical commentary on other people’s ways of life, behaviors, and attitudes in order to assess the type of guidance to offer. But the language of preaching may differ from preacher to preacher depending on the subject matter and the audience. As some preachers are diplomatic, polite, and discreet, others are accusative, combative, and aggressive. Afa Ajura, as it is evident in his poems and sermons, combined both of these approaches in his preaching. And that combination, in equal measure, won him scores of followers and many detractors. To properly evaluate the impact of Afa Ajura and Ajuraism on the communities in northern Ghana, we will trace his preaching career in the following section, highlighting the topics and influence of his teachings. It is reasonable to date the beginning of Afa Ajura’s active preaching to around 1952–53.110 For up to this time, he was seen participating in some of the activities of the Tija¯niyyah fraternity, although there is no evidence that he partook in the Tija¯niyyah litanies. During the 1952 visit of Shaykh Ibrahim Abdullah Niasse,111 the famous leader of the Tija¯niyyah group in West Africa, who led the group in celebrating the Mawlid al-Nabiyy (Prophet’s birthday), Afa Ajura was listed as one of the notable scholars in attendance.112 Coincidentally, “Damba Digoli” (Damba Month), the first poem attributed to Afa Ajura in this collection, was believed to be composed and recited to commemorate the celebration of this occasion. Part of the poem reads: We love Muhammad, whose birth occasioned this gathering, To pray to our Lord, for those who begot him. To impress113 upon our children and wives the need to learn about him, To know his name and to learn about those who gave birth to him.114

The contents of the poem (eighteen verses in all) indicate that Afa Ajura intended to teach the public more about the biography of the Prophet and his ancestry than to simply shower him with praise as was usually the case on these occasions.115 Participation in that Mawlid al-Nabiyy demonstrates that Afa Ajura had not yet commenced his active preaching, in which he came to attack the activities of the Tija¯niyyah. In hindsight, the trajectory that Afa Ajura’s approach was to

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take could have been anticipated by his ignoring the tradition of praising the Prophet, and his using the poem to teach the public about the latter’s lineage. That trajectory was to culminate in teaching people the “necessary” knowledge about their religion. As I showed above,116 the second poem composed by Afa Ajura, in which he highlighted most of the topics that his entire preaching has covered,117 came in 1953. By 1953, not only was Afa Ajura no longer partaking in activities alongside with the Tija¯niyyah members, but he had actively commenced preaching. Prior to 1952 and before his active preaching, though, Afa Ajura would infrequently preach about current affairs on an ad hoc basis, especially when someone asked a question that required an involved response or during naming ceremonies and funerals. There are both general and specific explanations for what triggered his active preaching. Generally, Afa Ajura convinced himself that the people of Tamale and the Ghanaian society in general practiced Islam in a manner far removed from what he considered to be “proper” Islam;118 and that they adhered to beliefs that could not be further from the true cardinal beliefs of Islam.119 So, he vowed to fight and change the profound deviations. In Islamic theology, this posture is generally classified as al-amr bil ma‘ruf, wa nahı¯ ‘an al-munkar (enjoining the good and forbidding the bad), or subsumed under the concept of tajdı¯d (renewal) for the Muslim ummah. Afa Ajura was not the first scholar in Ghana to take it upon himself to fight general “innovation” (bid‘ah) in the religion, and certainly not the first in Islamic history. In Ghana, Alhaj Umar of Kete-Krachi and others had already fought such battles under those claims,120 except their definition of innovation was not exactly the same as Afa Ajura’s. For, while Alhaj Umar may have practiced Tija¯niyyah litanies, Afa Ajura, as we will see, definitely included those practices in the list of “innovations” that needed to be combated. In medieval Islamic history, theologians like Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) and Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab (d. 1792) fought their own battles with that mantra.121 And medieval theological groups like the Mu‘tazilah are known to be staunch proponents of al-amr bil ma‘ruf, wa nahı¯ ‘an al-munkar.122 Specifically, however, what triggered Afa Ajura’s active preaching occurred when he was once giving a lesson to a student from Matn al-akhd.arı¯, one of the popular religious books used in West Africa for beginners in Islamic learning. During the lesson, he came upon a statement in which the author lists what is incumbent upon any Muslim to gain knowledge of: “It is not permissible for him [a Muslim] to perform any deed until he ascertains what is God’s ruling in its regard, and he should ask scholars, and should imitate those who follow Prophet Muhammad’s path; those who give directions for obeying God and

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warn against following Satan.”123 Afa Ajura, after reading this, paused for a few moments as if he had never read that part of the book before (which he had taught for years). Then he thought, “Who are those who follow the Prophet’s path and give directions for obeying God? Are we them or not?” Thereafter, Afa Ajura vowed he would not perform any deed until he ascertained what God’s ruling was with regard to it.124 This posture is displayed uncompromisingly in his poems, where he insists on obeying God (Qur’an) and the Prophet Muhammad (Sunnah) in multiple places. When Afa Ajura decided to preach actively, he abandoned his trading activities, let go of all his adult students so they could seek other teachers,125 and dedicated himself to deep research and study for about six months. When he emerged, ready to preach, he carved himself an odd-looking walking stick. This walking stick had a part that was straight and several knobs, some of which had crooked parts. Over time, as he was using this stick, people enquired into its purpose. Afa Ajura seized every opportunity to explain these things, in most cases to a slowly gathering crowd. First, he would point to the straight portion of the stick, symbolically referring it to the “true” religion of God: one that is always straight and worth following. He would quote the Qur’an’s opening chapter, which states: “Guide us upon the straight path [al-s.ira¯t. al-mustaqı¯m]” (1:6). His other favorite verse was 6:153, “And that this is my path, the straight one, therefore follow it, and follow not [other] ways; for they will lead you away from his way.” In his longest poem, Afa Ajura writes: “Truth resembles a straight path. / He who stays on it shall never veer.”126 Then he would point to the multiple crooked sides, and symbolically refer to them as innovations and additions (bid‘ah) that people have fabricated in the religion, and show how they are unacceptable and lead ultimately to hell fire. He would quote the H . adith on bid‘ah,127 and explain how the scholars of Tamale and Ghana are perpetrating innovations in multiple ways. As this was going on, he also visited some local chiefs to deliver his “show and tell” message. There is no telling how many followers this approach might have won him, but it was a novel way of initiating the people of Tamale to his upcoming preaching sessions and his message. Still, that did not make his transition to active preaching any smoother. For he would face serious obstacles and ridicule along the way. “After this time,” Afa Seidu narrates, “Afa called me and wrote the names of some people in Tamale on a sheet of paper for me to go and summon.”128 Notable among them were Mba Gumdilana (near the mosque across the street to the west), Mba Foreman, Alhaj Mumuni DC, Mba Abalsi (at a neighborhood called poloya foŋ or “I line”), and Afa Yakubu Ka’lika’li (later chief of Zoɣu).129

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When the group assembled, Afa Ajura revealed to them his intention to go public with his preaching. He told them that he had concluded that someone needs to speak out against what is being perpetrated in the name of religion, which could not be further from the truth. He said that what the majority of scholars do and preach in terms of the wird of Tija¯nı¯ is fabricated; that what the majority of Dagombas practice during wedding and funeral ceremonies and how the clerics handle them are un-Islamic; and that visiting traditional soothsayers and patronizing Muslim diviner/clerics for help are un-Islamic activities. And he added that he was ready to preach against all that and to teach people the right path to Islam—the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah of the Prophet. Finally, he told them that he needed all the support he could get from them. All of those in attendance pledged their unwavering support to him and his Ajuraism course. Afa Yakubu Ka’lika’li asked Afa Ajura to send the young Afa Seidu the next day for a gas lamp, since they would need one to light the nocturnal preaching sessions (Arabic: waʻaz.; Dagbani: waazu).130 The first-ever preaching session Afa Ajura undertook was held at the house of Mba Gumdilana (Gumdilan yili: near the mosque across the street to the west).131 The number of attendees was very low, and although Afa Seidu insists that it may have something to do with the novelty of Afa Ajura’s message, it could as well be due to poor or no publicity. When Afa Seidu was asked to do the head count, he found there were only seventeen people including Afa Ajura. By the end of the session, however, they noticed some increase in their numbers. Still, they were convinced the number could not have been up to thirty. The increase was perhaps due to some passersby suddenly venturing in to take a listen. These numbers are significant for being so small. Although they did not totally represent Afa Ajura’s entire following at that time, the lower attendance still speaks volumes at that early period in terms of how rapid his following would soon grow. From the late 1960s on, Afa Ajura could boast of a larger following in Tamale than that of his Tija¯nı¯ opponents. By then, his nightly preaching sessions were always packed, to such an extent that at closing time people filled most streets of Tamale. The second preaching session was held at the house of Mba Forman, in the Warzehi neighborhood, also to the west across the street from the mosque. Attendance this time was much improved, perhaps due to the improved publicity. Whenever there was going to be preaching, Afa Ajura would ask Afa Seidu and others to spread the news in town. So, Afa Seidu would either rent a bike or walk around informing people about the day and the venue. However, this improved publicity also brought unwarranted attention and unprovoked tension.

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Their opponents were there ready to taunt them and to pelt them with stones, booing and shouting. They did almost everything they could to not only distract them, but also to put a halt to these sessions. Afa Ajura always tried to calm his followers’ nerves and continued to preach. The harassment continued for subsequent preaching sessions, until he and his followers also devised ways to protect themselves as their numbers kept growing exponentially. At every corner of the neighborhood, they would station strong men who would ensure that no adversaries came close enough to cause trouble. The number of preaching sessions grew rapidly when individual followers of Afa Ajura continued to extend invitations to him to hold sessions at their respective homes and neighborhoods. Given the fact that Afa Ajura was motivated by the beliefs and activities of the Tija¯niyyah fraternity to break away and launch his preaching sessions, it was surprising to learn that his early preaching did not target his opponents’ religious practices. The content of Afa Ajura’s early preaching was basic; he only taught the fundamentals of Islam, including the faith, daily prayers, almsgiving, fasting, the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), respect for parents and elders, love for relatives, and so on. This is corroborated in his magnum opus and the longest poem in this collection (poem 2). In this poem, he not only began with fundamentals of Islamic faith and practices, as well as admonishment to Muslim families on how to lead an Islamic life, but also completely ignored attacking the Tija¯niyyah. It is also instructive to note that Afa Ajura composed his poems concurrently with his preaching, not only to shed light on what he was preaching, but so they could be memorized, recited regularly, and applied. So, long before each preaching session started, some of his students would lead his followers in chanting the poems loudly and nonstop for hours until the actual program commenced. Later, in the 1970s, when Afa Ajura had discouraged the chanting of his poems in public, this chanting was replaced by hours of recorded Qur’an recitations before each preaching session. The impact of Afa Ajura’s preaching was felt almost instantaneously. Even though he had yet to unleash his unrelenting attacks on Tija¯niyyah beliefs and practices, he already had people “converting” to his side. During every preaching session, people would come to Afa Ajura and renounce Tija¯niyyah publicly, while others would bring their silsilat to him to indicate that they were Tija¯nı¯s before but have now abandoned it. (The silsilat—literally, “chain”—is a certificate of belonging to the Tija¯niyyah fraternity through the chain of Sufi masters who initiated them.) Before long, Afa Ajura’s followers outnumbered the Tija¯nı¯s in Tamale to the point that “we could defeat them in physical confrontation,” Afa Seidu claimed.132

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However, to ascertain the broader legacy of Afa Ajura’s preaching, one has to go beyond the numbers and assess the impact of his activities vis-à-vis the specific issues he vowed to combat in terms of Tija¯niyyah Sufi activities and African traditional practices. Apart from the Tija¯niyyah wird (litanies) and the beliefs associated with them, Nathan Samwini, in his excellent book The Muslim Resurgence in Ghana since 1950, identifies four activities of the Tija¯niyyah in Ghana that he deems as fusion and syncretism between Islam and African traditional customs: “(i) the mawlid al-nabı¯, (ii) the elaborate performance of the funeral of members, (iii) the manufacture of charms and amulets, and (iv) the exorcism of witchcraft spirits.”133 Although historians in general and Africanists in particular see this syncretism as a nuanced, yet fascinating, aspect of Islam in Africa, these were exactly the issues against which Afa Ajura preached and composed, and for which he was perceived as “uncompromising” or even a “Wahhabi.”134 Below are examples of the contents of Afa Ajura’s preaching, including some of the issues Samwini listed above. B I D‘A H (IN N OVATION ) IN MARRIAGES AND WEDDINGS

What historians and sociologist call syncretism, cultural adaptation, and assimilation among societies and cultures, Afa Ajura would describe as “innovation” (bid‘ah) or “ignorance” (jahl or ja¯hiliyya) in Islamic religion. And so he would preach against it no matter what. As intimated above, when he started preaching, he turned his fullest attention to enlightening the people of Dagbon and teaching them the basic fundamentals of Islam. But regarding negative practices, among the first issues he tackled were un-Islamic weddings. Afa Ajura insisted that, as Muslims, Dagombas have to restrict themselves to what is sanctioned by Islam and renounce all that is rooted in traditional practices; whether the Dagombas be those of families who have converted to Islam long ago,135 or those individuals committing themselves to following true Islam in recent times, they were expected to adhere to the religion strictly in all their activities, including wedding ceremonies. Not only did he feel that some of the traditional practices were simply un-Islamic, but also that they were socially immoral, sexually abusive, degrading to brides and grooms, and financially exploitative. In the past, following a long and exploitative negotiation for the hand of the bride,136 weddings were initiated by female members of the groom’s family who ambushed the bride at her home at night, to put traditional henna on her and restrict her from ever stepping outside the house until the wedding was completed a few days later. Knowing about the date, the bride, conniving with her bridesmaids, would usually elude the ambush and run into the woods or

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hidden places. The wisdom behind this cultural practice of hiding was to avoid giving the impression that she was too much in love with the groom and that she was in a haste to leave her family home. So while the women waited for her, the groom and his friends would go looking for the bride and the bridesmaids. This hide-and-seek could take hours, until the young ladies were found, and possibly the whole night until they returned by themselves at midnight or the next morning, when they would have unambiguously made the point to their families and the families of the grooms. When the groom and his friends found the bride and her friends, they would forcibly carry them home as they resisted. Whether she was successfully ambushed at home or forcibly carried back home, the henna would be applied on her and she would burst into tears and cry, again further signaling her unwillingness or lack of preparedness to change homes (this was the case regardless of whether she cared for the groom or not). This ritual might seem a harmless cultural practice, but Afa Ajura posited that it was un-Islamic and a waste of time. He emphasized that the dramatic and time-consuming practice of the bride and her bridesmaids escaping, the young men hunting them down and physically carrying them home as they resist, and the bride yelling at the top of her lungs after the henna was applied were all unacceptable to the dignity of the young bride, and therefore un-Islamic and deleterious to the wedding process. For the next two or three days, during the afternoons and evenings, there would be drumming and dancing at both the bride’s and the groom’s homes, with men and women enjoying themselves in provocative dances. Afa Ajura preached and wrote against these dancing and drumming practices in wedding ceremonies. He also rejected the mingling of men and women in such dances. He perceived that the drumming and dancing were avenues for promiscuous men and women to take advantage of the situation, as they display their bodies and fashion, and pervert others’ minds. Then there was the role of the alwanka lady, usually an elderly woman in the neighborhood who assumed the responsibility of teaching the bride what was necessary for her as a Muslim bride.137 Afa Ajura elaborates on this in his poems, an example of which is below. From the moment the henna was applied, the bride freshened up and changed into one of the four to six clothing items that the husband had provided earlier, usually her least favorite or the cheapest one. She wore that for the next day or two until the day she would be sent to the groom’s house. In the afternoon, the alwanka lady came and sat her in a ceremoniously public area of the home, usually on a mortar used to pound food in the middle of the house. The bride was stripped half-naked in front of onlookers, including children,

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with only a small piece of cloth covering her breasts and private parts. The purpose of this was to instruct her how to ritually cleanse herself after having sexual intercourse.138 Not only was this a total humiliation, which was usually clear from the face of the bride, but the alwanka lady would keep the new clothes that the bride was wearing prior to the instructions, the new shoes, and the new mat on which the bride had slept for the past two days. The following are some relevant portions from “Dunya BinshaƔkam Dina¯ra”: Do not be scared of the Alwanka and her power to kill, She and her potential to kill shall perish. Desist from inviting the Alwanka, Her invitation is a pure loss. She knows nothing about marriage. Leave her alone. There she sits and yells. Do not invite a bad liar, a great liar, All her readings are an utter loss. Do not invite, she is an armed robber Who would confiscate your wife’s clothes. Where are the shoes and the mat? She has concocted her little scheme to confiscate.

At night, two or more elderly women would take the bride in the company of several young women to the groom’s home and deliver her to the husband’s room, where the bed sheet must be white. Outside, they would linger around waiting for the marriage to be consummated. Knowing that the elderly women and others would be nearby, and hoping to further send the message of her modesty and disinterest in sexual intercourse, the bride would resist the groom’s attempts to consummate the marriage, a situation that usually turned physical. If it took longer than expected, the elderly women perhaps would even inquire sarcastically through the door or the window whether the groom was unable to consummate and needed some help in guidance or muscle. No matter how long it took, the groom was expected to physically subdue the bride and consummate the marriage. So quietness would eventually prevail in the room as the bride was expected to ultimately be exhausted and give up her resistance. The marriage would then be consummated, and those eavesdropping outside would get the message loud and clear. Whether or not the bride was a virgin was to be made known through a residue of blood on the white sheet. Some stain of blood on the white sheet meant she was a virgin, and a clean sheet meant she was not. The next day, the blood-stained sheet would be taken, along with three roosters and other items,

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to the bride’s family amid jubilant songs and ululations as an appreciation for their great work for raising a chaste girl. If the bride happened not to be a virgin, which would be deduced from the clean sheet, it was sent alone to the family who would get the message. They may be disappointed or demoralized as they embarked on damage control and assigning blame. Here are some relevant verses of the poem: Do not witness the blood from the marriage consummation, Observing it is simply a loss. Whoever insists on viewing the blood Shall become blind in the hereafter. He shall never lay an eye on the Prophet, Crying, all his tears, he shall lose. He who fails to see the Prophet in the hereafter, He and his deeds shall be lost. Discontinue publicly bathing the bride, Sitting her on the mortar is taboo. Also discontinue going into hiding, All of that is an utter loss.

Again, although this might seem like an innocent and exotic cultural tradition, Afa Ajura believed it to be full of unethical, perhaps uncivilized, and certainly un-Islamic practices. It seems that the desire of the Dagombas to ascertain whether or not the bride was a virgin not only was a cause for most of the marriage practices, but it might have dwarfed any ethical and moral aspects and rendered them insignificant. From the bride’s feigned resistance of her new husband’s sexual advances to the husband’s visceral use of force to make love to his new bride, and from the old ladies’ shameless snooping around to witness the moment of marriage consummation to the embarrassing display of the blood-stained white sheet and to the flamboyant ululations on their way to the bride’s family, none of that is acceptable in the eyes of “true” Islam, according to Afa Ajura. Yet in their quest to ascertain ownership over the woman’s sexuality, they were willing to overlook any humiliation of the bride and anti-Islamic behavior along the way. In the end, Afa Ajura was successful in eradicating these practices. Of all the issues he combated and all the activities he undertook, stamping out undesirable wedding practices remained the most successful of his activities. Today, his followers (Ajuraists/Munchiris), his Muslim opponents (Tija¯niyyah/Naawuni nyarba), as well as the traditional people do not practice many of these wedding practices that he spoke against. Curiously, the only wedding practices that some

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of his opponents in Tamale still insist upon are the drumming and dancing. As for the brides going into hiding, the alwanka publicly bathing the brides, families insisting on the bride’s virginity, and all its attendant practices like using white bed sheets and looking for blood, none of those is practiced anymore. Perhaps, people may have understood how his claims made sense, and possibly, how he may have saved everybody their dignity and wealth, to say of nothing of how these practices were un-Islamic. Although Afa Ajura remains as polarizing as ever due to his attack on Tija¯niyyah beliefs and practices, his opponents would hardly deny him the credit for eradicating those wedding practices. And this success came so early, and so fast, that many young people in northern Ghana today are unaware that these activities were ever a part of wedding practices. Ironically, one consequence of the general disinterest in some of the traditional wedding practices such as insisting on brides’ virginity is widespread premarital sex. Because people no longer care much about young girls’ virginity, there is no pressure on them to insist on abstinence before marriage. In the end, it seems, people have prioritized simplicity, freedom, civility, respect, or from Afa Ajura’s perspective, religious guidance, over customs. Finally, due to his vocal opposition, Afa Ajura should be credited for the end of these traditional wedding practices in northern Ghana. But one cannot totally ignore the role played by globalization and high rates of literacy. Some of these wedding practices seem to be unethical, uncivilized, or simply crude for the sensibilities of the Ghanaian society that is becoming increasingly educated and connected to the global civilized community. This fact may speak positively in favor of Afa Ajura’s initial inclination to resist those practices. Yet, culturally inclined Dagombas may still wish that some of the traditional wedding practices had continued. B ID‘A H (IN N OVATION) IN FUNERAL RITES

Funeral rites have been affected by syncretistic practices in northern Ghana. Due to the role of Islam and Muslim clerics among the population, “Islamic” observations have been introduced and have become dominant over most of the traditional practices.139 The original Dagomba funeral rites without the “Islamic” influence remains unknown to the population. For even today, in a staunchly non-Muslim Dagomba funeral, the Muslim clerics have a significant role. This must be due to the fact that Dagombas have put their trust in Muslim clerics for quite a long time. However, in Samwini’s words, “Tija¯niyyah a’imma [clerics], perhaps also aware of the African’s respect for the dead, exploited the

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situation to earn some income for themselves.”140 So how did they manipulate the traditional and Islamic practices to earn a gain for themselves? Culturally, the Tija¯niyyah clerics were known to dress in huge clothes known as kpargu (batakari, in Hausa) and turbans, even more so when they were attending a funeral. A kpargu, by design, has a large pocket covering mostly the front section of the piece, and it may extend in length from the chest to about the knees. It was very conducive in facilitating the carrying of large quantities of coins from funeral donations, and possibly, any type of loose food, such as local fried dough called maha (ma¯sa, in Hausa). The maha would usually be sprinkled with sugar during funerals, which the clerics appreciated very much, a delicacy demanding extra expense from the family. For ordinarily, people in their homes did not sprinkle sugar on the maha before they ate it; instead, they mixed honey or ate it raw without sugar or honey. Whenever somebody (Muslim or non-Muslim) passes away, it is a communal matter that everyone must abandon their work to attend. Muslim clerics are informed formally and they all gather, usually at their leader’s residence, in order to attend as a group. The first thing they do there is recite the famous Qul huwa Alla¯h (chapter 112 of the Qur’an: the proper name is Al-Ikhla¯s.) a thousand times for a special fee. To recite this so many times is not difficult for it is one of the shortest chapters in the Qur’an, with only one to two lines, depending on the style of writing employed. Orthodox Islamic theology holds that, due to its substantive content, it represents one-third of the Qur’an as stated by the Prophet Muhammad.141 Indeed, the chapter summarizes the monotheistic message of Islam that God is One, has no father, no son, and no equal. Many Muslims believe it is efficacious to recite along with chapters 113 and 114 as they may protect a Muslim from sorcery and the evil machinations of other people.142 Informed with this knowledge, Tija¯niyyah clerics concluded that it is efficacious to recite it over a deceased person before he or she is buried. The Tija¯niyyah clerics dubbed this chapter as the fida¯’ (Arabic for redemption). They would also ask for a piece of white cloth on which the deceased person will be laid inside the grave (not to be confused with the shroud in which the corpse will be covered), in order to write another thousand fida¯’ on it for additional fees. The idea was to redeem the deceased from any possible hardship or punishment that may be encountered in the grave or on the Day of Judgment. This was based on the Islamic belief that people shall be resurrected in their grave and asked questions by angels about their life and worship in this world. With satisfactory answers and prior good deeds, one was saved from punishment in the grave. But with unsatisfactory answers and unacceptable deeds, one was beaten with a huge cudgel by angels.143 So by reciting and writing the

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fida¯,’ Tija¯niyyah clerics sought to redeem the deceased from any punishment from the grave and the Day of Judgment. At first, this may make sense to the clerics, given that there is theological proof that the chapter has some efficacy for Muslims in this world. But Afa Ajura argued that reading and writing this chapter for the dead is an unfounded innovation (bid ‘ah) that is not sanctioned by the Qur’an and H . adith: in short, that it is un-Islamic. He argued that clerics concocted the ritual for their own selfish financial gains. He also accused Tija¯niyyah clerics of performing the ritual prayer for the dead called the jana¯zah (an obligatory prayer to be performed in congregation for any deceased Muslim) for non-Muslims who do not deserve it for fees. And that they even take the dead person’s clothes home to wear. Interestingly, this practice is reminiscent of the one that took place during the time of the Protestant leader Martin Luther in the fifteenth century, regarding the sale of indulgences. Catholic popes and the princes had been selling indulgences to the wealthy of Europe and taking monetary donations from them in exchange for a certain escape from purgatory, a waiting place of anguish that people have to pass through after they are dead. In addition, the popes and the princes had amassed holy relics that, in exchange for a large monetary donation, rich people could view up close to obtain blessings from the relics. Martin Luther, a Catholic priest himself, believed that nobody (including the pope) had the power to save or redeem anybody else from any punishment after death. That power resided with God (Jesus) alone. He maintained that all that one needs to be saved is to believe in Jesus as the savior. Martin Luther writes in his ninety-five theses: 5. The pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority or that of the canons. 6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring and showing that it has been remitted by God; or, to be sure, by remitting guilt in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in these cases were disregarded, the guilt would certainly remain unforgiven.144

For this stand, Martin Luther was excommunicated and banished. Today’s group of Protestants owe their existence to him and his reformation. Whether there was any parallel between the Tija¯niyyah of Afa Ajura’s time and the Catholic popes of Martin Luther’s era, or whether or not they both had solid theological grounding for their actions, the issue of financial opportunism is quite apparent and potentially damaging. Certainly, there is a theological parallel between Afa Ajura and Martin Luther in their argument that religious leaders are not in the position to redeem other human beings after their death.

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In one poem, “Fa Khudhu¯” (And You Must Take), Afa Ajura declares: no soul over another soul has any control. On their way to the cemetery, the Dagomba mourners would continue their traditional crying, yelling, and ululating. The clerics did not create or encourage this. But Afa Ajura still spoke against these practices as un-Islamic, and went ahead to fault Tija¯niyyah clerics for their silence about it. Returning from the cemetery, there would be a postburial wake, where the clerics would recite the entire Qur’an for a special fee in addition to the donations that would be made by individual members of the family and friends in exchange for special supplications for themselves and the deceased. Then there was also a special fee for reciting the book called Dala¯’il alkhayra¯t (The Index of Good Things), written by Muhammad al-Jazu¯lı¯.145 The book is considered by the Tija¯niyyah as another one that blesses and is blessed, for it contains different versions of blessings (s.alawa¯t) for Prophet Muhammad. This first day of a person’s passing concludes with large quantities of food having been prepared as guests and extended family members are expected to arrive from other towns and villages to stay for several days to a week. Some, particularly the elderly female members of the extended family, stay in the room in which the deceased person had been living. Until the third day, cooking and feeding the guests are the primary activities. On the third day, the seventh day, the fortieth day, and at one-year anniversary, there are recitations of the entire Qur’an, each time for a special fee, and recitation of the Dala¯’il al-Khayra¯t for another special fee. How the recitation takes place is quite noteworthy. As both the copies of the Qur’an and the Dala¯’il al-khayra¯t are usually in loose sheets, the chief cleric, normally the chief imam (limam) or his deputy called na¯yimi (corruption for Arabic na¯’ib; literally, “deputy”), picks one or two sheets of the Qur’an, depending on the number of potential readers. He then passes the rest to the next person to pick, who also passes it to the next individual, until the pages have all been taken. Those who have less confidence in their ability to read decline or only pick one sheet and struggle with it until the end. Interestingly, some may pick even though they would be unable to read the Arabic text. In that case they hum along with the crowd until the end, when everybody returns their copies. This way, they are finished quickly depending on the number of readers. One would notice that different chapters and different pages, or different parts of the same chapters, are being read at the same time. So it is safe to say that, logically, the entire recitation would not be coherent. Of course, spiritually and symbolically, it may not need to make sense or be coherent. Each recitation session for each day ends in individual attendees, who may or may

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not be relatives or family members, standing up and throwing money into the raffia bowl and requesting supplications for the deceased, themselves, and their own families. Nobody may request supplication unless he has money to offer the clerics by throwing it into one or several raffia bowls situated in front of the lead cleric. A person planning to dispense of ten pounds, or of some cedis,146 would always have change in coins.147 When seeking the supplication, each coin or few coins come with a special request. A person may stand up for several minutes until he or she runs out of money, which could take more than five or six series of requests. Each of these sessions has always been considered lucrative for the clerics. After the recitation and supplications are over, all the money collected goes to the clerics to be shared among them based on their ranking. This is where the large pockets on their clothes come in handy. After each cleric gets his share he simply dumps it in his large pocket. Meanwhile, as the men are praying and reading, women are busy preparing food. Soon, bowls of food are brought for the participants to consume, including fried dough (maha) and other sweets. Special bowls of food are also sent to each cleric’s home, so clerics have a choice to stay and eat or to go home for their meals. Afa Ajura preached against all of these practices, which enabled his followers to abandon the substantial financial burden. From the money to be paid for recitation of the Qur’an and supplications on the first day, the third day, the seventh day, the fortieth day, and the one-year anniversary, to the amount of food prepared to feed the guests, not to speak of the time people spend attending these sessions, it is easy to fathom how relieved Afa Ajura’s followers must have felt. For them, when someone dies, the general rule is that no food be prepared for the guests who come to commiserate and accompany the funeral to the cemetery. Only the relatives of the deceased prepare the corpse for burial, without any advanced reading or writing of the Qur’an. What is necessary is to ritually clean the deceased and cover him or her with a cloth without reciting or writing any part of the Qur’an. They bring the corpse outside the house or send it to the mosque and say the ritual prayer (jana¯zah), according to Prophet’s teaching.148 They ask publicly if the deceased owes money to anyone. The idea is to pay that debt before the burial. If there is no debt to be paid, they take the corpse to the cemetery and bury it. After the burial and still at the cemetery, one scholar or two makes a supplication for the deceased and gives a short admonishment to attendees highlighting how they should follow God and how each and every one of them will die and be in that situation one day. When they return home, before they disperse, another short supplication and admonishment is made for people who were not present at the cemetery. The

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admonishment ends with a voluntary solicitation of donations from the attendees to be given to the family. Then everybody disperses, except the family members and their close friends, who stay back to commiserate with them. Nothing formal is done after this. However, due to requests from families to conduct preaching sessions and to take advantage of praying for the deceased, it has now become very common among Afa Ajura’s people to organize a preaching session on the third day, when the scholars again admonish the congregation. This too ends with voluntary contributions from attendees to be given to the family, which serves as the final part of the funeral. Usually, people disperse and only the family members and their close friends stay back for that day. The following day, one hardly sees any sign of mourning or lingering people. Afa Ajura has been successful in fighting against these practices, insofar as he has gained a large following who abandoned them. The recitation of the thousand Qul huwa Alla¯h and its writing on the white sheet are no longer practiced, by either his followers or the Tija¯niyyah. However, the latter continue to recite the entire Qur’an, the Dala¯’il al-khayra¯t and the public supplications, perhaps due to the clerics’ own financial interests, and despite the financial burden that it brings upon the families. Samwini puts it well when he writes: “Even though these rituals are considered by the a’imma [clerics] as spiritually beneficial for the dead, the huge financial burden and loss it imposes on the bereaved relatives and friends, whether Muslims or non-Muslims, is immense but perhaps often overlooked by the a’imma.”149 Since funeral attendance is not usually along religious or sectarian lines, Afa Ajura’s followers attend the Tija¯niyyah funerals and vice versa through extended relatives or friendships. However, whenever his followers attended Tija¯niyyah funerals, they kept themselves aloof from participating in the Qur’an recitation or paying for supplications. But Afa Ajura himself always interrupted recitations at any Tija¯niyyah funeral that he attended, or he would participate and at the end confiscate all the money for the family. So as time went on, whenever the clerics saw him in attendance, they would leave and the floor would be left for him and his followers, even though that family might have been Tija¯niyyah. He could get away with his actions because he always had strong men with him who were ready to physically fight. In addition, as it was speculated, the Tija¯niyyah clerics seemed to be afraid of him, believing that he was endowed with spiritual and magical powers even though he claimed he had renounced everything that he had. There was another aspect of funerals that Afa Ajura preached against that had more to do with traditional practices. During the first day of the death, all in-laws were expected to send a small amount of money and food stuff. On

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the third day, the seventh day, the fortieth day, and at the one-year anniversary, in-laws were obligated to contribute substantial amounts of money, and bring large quantities of food, including animals like goats, sheep, or even cows, depending on their status in the community. Because these gifts and contributions were to be displayed and announced publicly, marital relations suffered for some husbands’ failure to contribute appropriately and timely. Some wives and in-laws would feel disappointed if inappropriate gifts and contributions were brought by sons-in-law. There were stories of some sons-in-law who would feel pressured to the extent of going to steal animals in order to present them at their in-law’s funeral, simply to prove that they were not weak or worthless. Afa Ajura spoke against this practice, and some of his followers have also used it as an excuse not to make such contributions. Culturally, Dagombas are still inclined to help their in-laws during funerals, so Afa Ajura’s followers simply elect to contribute informally and modestly in order to avoid being perceived as practicing the traditional customs. So Afa Ajura is seen to have made a positive impact as far as funerals are concerned. WITCH C RA F T AND EXORCIS M

The practice of witchcraft is very common all over sub-Saharan Africa. The extent of its prevalence and the manner and areas of its application, however, depend on the region or the tribe. Generally, it is used for malevolent purposes to inflict maximum harm and to stagnate or neutralize someone else’s fortunes. The famous anthropologist of religion E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who did groundbreaking research among the Azande people of the Central African Republic and among the Nuer people of South Sudan, believed that witchcraft permeates every aspect of the people of the Azande.150 Every misfortune is considered a result of somebody else’s witchcraft, and nobody among the Azande does anything unless he or she inoculates himself against witchcraft. This is not the case among the Dagomba people of northern Ghana, who do not blame every misfortune on witchcraft. However, until the present day, some serious illnesses and untimely deaths of young people, particularly in the villages, were either blamed squarely on certain elderly women (usually the maternal aunts), or suspected of being orchestrated by them. This was the case in northern Ghana through the 1950s. Generally, there were two ways that any serious suspicion was handled. First, a powerful and magically endowed person (usually an elderly man) in the village or the neighborhood would be brought to exorcise the suspected old lady and strip her of all potential powers and disarm her completely. She would be

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made to confess all her activities and possibly reveal the names of every victim in whose demise she had ever been directly or indirectly involved. Then she would be sent to a special locale where she would join other suspected witches in isolation for the rest of their lives. This course of action was usually adopted when the suspect had respected adult children around, who would naturally not stand by idle while their mother was beaten and humiliated. Strangely, the woman’s children could even be involved in negotiating what action should be taken if they could not vouch for their mother’s innocence. Another way that witchcraft suspects were handled involved young men in the village secretly mobilizing among themselves and attacking the suspected lady at night. They would claim that they were acting without the approval of the village elders, who, in reality, had only turned a blind eye. They would attack her seriously with lashes, sticks, and kicks. They would drag her by force to the outskirts of the village and leave her to die or take refuge in another village. In the latter case, the suspect usually would find one or more sympathizers who would discreetly help her escape to another village in which she had a relative who could not turn her away. Yet, this could be only a postponement of her woes. For it would only be a matter of time before she was suspected of another act of witchcraft. Significantly, the suspects in this situation are those without influential children in the village. It was, however, rare for a suspect to be killed due to suspicion of witchcraft. These two types of consequences may sometimes overlap, especially when a suspect who had no children is beaten after she had been initially put through the exorcising and confession process.151 During the early period of Afa Ajura’s preaching, in 1955, there was a popular incident involving witches, witch hunters, and exorcism that assumed the name of nana.152 It began with an elderly Ashanti woman—probably known as Nana, for her age, power, or stature—who first arrived in Tamale in one of several mini Mercedes Benz vehicles (called mallam nyanka) packed with Ashanti women whose heads were shaved clean. After her arrival, she claimed that she captured witches to exorcise them. Before they moved on to other parts of the northern villages, such as Nabuli,153 as well as Gushegu (where they set a permanent camp),154 they had settled at Mba Abdulai Simwaya’s house, which was near Afa Ajura’s mosque to the east. Significantly, Dagbon women who had some magical powers themselves joined Nana’s group as witch hunters (buɣ-bahi). These witch hunters were considered Nana’s representatives, and were themselves called nana. They would enter houses and claim to flush out all witches. They and their supporters would subject the accused elderly women to beatings and claim to exorcise them by giving them potions to drink and shaving their heads.155

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These incidents have been corroborated by police reports as documented in the 1955 Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) in Tamale. Iddrisu quotes one report as stating: “in the middle of the circle confronting a bewildered and much frightened old woman who had been indicted as being a witch. All the time . . . this old woman never uttered a word, but she obeyed every command of the witch-finder.”156 After some time, Nana’s convoy moved on to a permanent camp near Gushegu, where suspected women were forced to go for exorcism. People who had problems and suspected witchcraft was behind them could also visit there for clarification and possibly for identification of the particular women who were bewitching them. They would also be given a specially concocted potion to drink for their purposes. Nana became a quasi industry, so that owners of vehicles in Tamale or Gushegu and their representatives suddenly became popular as the number of daily trips there increased. Local chiefs and Tija¯niyyah clerics were also part of this industry. Tija¯niyyah clerics, with their claim of being able to exorcise witchcraft through the power of Qur’an, joined the fray. Commenting in one report Samwini writes: “‘Mohammadan [sic] leadership claimed [they] could exorcise evil influences from people.”157 But Afa Ajura objected and mounted spirited attacks on several fronts of the nana business, including on the local chiefs and the clerics. Afa Ajura circulated and complained to most of the chiefs in Tamale (Gukpenaa, Chogu chief, Nynashegu chief, Lamashegu chief, etc.) and insisted that if they would do nothing to protect the poor women who were being accused and molested undeservedly, then he would fight to save and protect them. He warned that if he saw a witch hunter harassing any woman in his neighborhood, he would mobilize his people to attack them. For that reason, all the elderly women around his neighborhood were safe and nobody could accuse them of anything. A certain witch hunter at Mba Yakubu Kobe’s house who happened to like and admire Afa Ajura was disappointed that she could not operate in her own neighborhood due to his vigilance. Afa Ajura dedicated a long poem to addressing this controversy, lashing out against the clerics and the chiefs and seriously admonishing average people. Afa Ajura saw this to be problematic in several ways. First, he did not accept the belief that any human being (including the elderly women), no matter the perception of their magical powers, could be capable of causing someone’s death without God’s volition; hence, the women were being wrongly accused.158 Second, the abuse and maltreatment of the elderly women, if sanctioned by the culture, were totally unacceptable as far as Islam was concerned. It was true that, culturally, Dagomba people respected the elderly and would strive their

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hardest to protect them. Yet when it came to the witches, they were willing to ignore that cultural value. Third, Nana, the witch hunters, and the clerics were taking advantage of the people’s vulnerabilities to extort their money. Fourth, when the chiefs abdicated their role of protecting the vulnerable women, he warned them and vowed to take over the protective role. The following extracts are from the 190 verses of the poem “Afa Za¯ ŋunpaƔ Nyu BuƔli” (Any Person Who Allows His Wife to Drink the Potion for Exorcism): If a wife of any cleric drinks nana, The two-month fast becomes obligatory. Anybody who turns into a witch hunter, you must shun, Going to hellfire becomes his destiny. . . . The chief and the imam involve themselves in a quarrel, With no greetings between them in this era. They took their people and sold out, And many cars in this Dagbon they purchased. Which ancestral shrine ever turned into a business In this Dagbon, where vehicles are bought? Which shrine ever moves around towns In this Dagbon, where chiefs are worshiped? . . . Any follower of an idol must repent. In this era, an ancestral priest is nothing. Through that, it is money that they seek, And around here in Dagbon, they wander. They have found a trade in which they engage Inside this Dagbon they peddle. Both women and children have recognized them. Here in Dagbon, nana’s secret is out. . . . Whoever makes a Muslim drink the exorcist’s potion, The punishment for that shall engulf him. Whoever humiliates a Muslim Shall also be humiliated on the Day of Resurrection. . . . Where is that agent to the ancestral shrine? Two months of fasting he must perform.

Afa Ajura made his followers wear special uniforms and march to the streets for the occasion of fighting nana. They sang the poem at radio stations and on

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the streets. Before long, the people abandoned their visits to nana. So, Afa Ajura was successful in combating the phenomenon of nana. But it cannot be said that he eradicated the entire phenomenon of witchcraft or people’s belief in it. Nor was he able to stop his Tija¯niyyah rivals from engaging in the practice of exorcism in general. Today, witchcraft is common mainly in the rural areas. But a theological argument that no human can possess magical powers to harm another human would be difficult to sustain, according to Islam.159 And to totally deny the potential effect of witchcraft is to deny the power that God has allowed Satan. For witchcraft is perceived to be part of Satan’s machinations with a potency that is unconquerable, except when directed against those whom God has protected.160 What is required of Muslims, therefore, is to seek God’s protection as the most powerful and omnipotent protector over Satan and his army.161 In the end, it is best to take a phenomenological approach to explain witchcraft, witches, witch hunters, and those who claim to exorcise the witches. For it is hard, if not impossible, to make complete sense of the entire phenomenon and pronounce concrete explanations. Even though Afa Ajura and other Muslims of his ilk want everyone to disavow the potency of witchcraft as unnecessary superstition, the large segment of the Dagbon population, including some of Afa Ajura’s followers, seem to believe in its potency, even if they do not engage in it. And as a result, some of them try to protect themselves, not in the way Islam or Afa Ajura teaches them to (simply seek refuge in God through supplication and recitation of Qur’an), but through traditional/spiritual protection or through the Muslim clerics who claim they could protect them. The reality on the ground is that, as some of the elderly women were certainly wrongly accused and found themselves victims of unfortunate circumstances, others deliberately may have engaged in some activities (i.e., sorcery or magic) ostensibly to harm other people they hated or wished to harm. Now, whether or not they were effective or their targets were actually affected by malevolent activities is hard to ascertain. Also, as some of the few who deliberately intended to harm others through sorcery were usually coerced into confessing, others strangely took pride in confessing how they had bewitched others. No matter what, if we care to investigate when a target of witchcraft has actually been visited with some unfortunate incident, there has to be some scientific explanation for it.162 ISL A M IC DIV INATION (TIBBU)

Tibbu is a profession whereby Muslim clerics claim to use the esoteric wisdom and secrets embedded in the Qur’an to help people solve certain insur-

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mountable problems in positive and, sometimes, negative ways. The supposed wisdom and secrets may be Qur’anic verses, or God’s or angels’ or even jinns’ names. Tibbu is Hausa’s and Dagbani’s corruption of the Arabic word t.ibb (literally, “healing,” “treatment,” or “medicine”). As a profession among Dagombas and Ghanaian Muslims, tibbu is more than just healing. It has come to embody, first and foremost, diagnosis, divination, and foretelling people’s problems and then forecasting, prognosticating, and prescribing the outcomes and solutions of the issues. As a practical matter, it involves the experts diagnosing their clients’ problems through manipulation of a number of pebbles or cowries; or spreading sand and drawing some lines and writing certain calculations; or looking into a container full of water, all as methods of divination. The service eventually involves writing the combination of verses, God’s names, or angels’ names along lines and graphs on pieces of papers that are used to turn into charms and amulets. These also may be written on a slate to be washed into a potion in which clients are bathed or which they drink. The amulets, charms, and potions are meant as a service for clients who are unable to read or write these secrets in Arabic. But they have come to be standard, even if a client can read or write Arabic. The clerics may also literally recite some of their secrets on the clients or their families or at their house as a way to fortify them. Therefore, actual healing is just a fraction of what tibbu involves. The belief is that the verses or the names have some esoteric potential to which only the clerics are privy, ones that they learned through their long years of apprenticeship under their teachers. Due to lack of apparent connection between the literal verses and the problems for which they are used, some highly learned Muslims who only understand the apparent and exoteric meanings of the Qur’an are at a loss as to why and how certain verses and names are utilized by these clerics. It has been stated that, like almost every Tija¯niyyah cleric, Afa Ajura also dabbled in this activity early in his life, quite successfully. But he later renounced and began to preach against it. The role played by Tija¯niyyah clerics regarding the exorcism discussed above was based on their capacity as experts of tibbu, which is why Afa Ajura attacked them in both scenarios. When Afa Ajura started preaching against the Sufi beliefs and practices of the Tija¯niyyah group, some individual clerics renounced them and joined him, only to find themselves under attack by him for the practice of tibbu. He composed poems condemning tibbu, the clerics who practiced it, and their clients who patronized them. The arguments for his denunciation of tibbu take several forms. First, it is asserted that the clerics are not only engaging in lies and deceit, but are pretending to usurp God’s role as the true knower of the unseen and the hidden

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(al-ghayb, alghuyu¯b: Qur’an 6: 59, 73; 10: 20), and what is to occur the next day or in the future (Qur’an 31: 34). This is an act that challenges the sovereignty of God and is considered a form of polytheism. Second, it is said that the clerics were extorting their clients, the majority of whom were poor and vulnerable. In this view, not only did the clerics create circumstances in which the clients would remain emotionally and psychologically dependent on them, they also used that dependence to sustain their own livelihood. Some of them would become wealthy people themselves, especially whenever they found a number of wealthy or politically connected patrons whom they could manipulate and keep perpetually ensnared. Third, it was claimed that the clerics engaged in un-Islamic innovations and practices. For this reason, even though it is not advisable to refer to any Muslim as “non-Muslim,” Tija¯niyyah clerics, due to the first charge, are sometimes considered as such by their opponents among the non-Tija¯niyyah Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama’ah (formal name for the Sunni sect as opposed to the Shiʻa sect in Islam) in Ghana.163 It is considered a form of innovation for tibbu to use the Qur’an because, even though a Muslim may recite chapters 113 and 114 and other parts of the Qur’an for protection,164 there is no basis for writing and making them into amulets and charms; nor is there an authentic precedence in Islam for writing them on a slate, washing them, and drinking or bathing in them. Tija¯niyyah clerics, on the other hand, argue that they are doing nothing wrong by facilitating access to the Qur’an to uneducated Muslims in the best ways possible. Even though the majority of patrons seek resolution of serious socio-economic problems, some consult the clerics with intentions to inflict harm on other people, destroy their wealth or health, and prevent them from being successful. Tibbu, therefore, may be seen as contributing to the deterioration of society. Ironically and on rare occasions, both perpetrator and victim may be consulting one and the same cleric, who, instead of advising them to desist, would rather exploit them for his selfish gain until one of them gets frustrated and moves on to another cleric. Afa Ajura writes in the poem “Dunya Binshaɣkam Dina¯ra”: Some scholars morphed into soothsayers, Moving among towns, they divine. Some spread soft sand in front of them, Which they investigate and consult with their fingers. Others fill sacks with pebbles, One by one, they pick to foretell the future. Abandon these lies, my friends, Punishment for a liar is endless.

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He also writes in the poem “Afa Za¯ ŋunpaɣ Nyu Buɣli”: Some clerics have completely turned into diviners. Here in Dagbon, you all recognize each of them. Whoever spreads the sand and predicts,165 How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever counts pebbles and foretells, How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever looks into a bowl of water and divines, How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever also writes and prophesies, How different is he from the witch hunter?

Usually, after a consultation, the client is asked to perform certain offering, varying from donating money or dry food or clothing or animals of all kinds, depending on the gravity and significance of the problem at hand. As some of the prescriptions come with specific requirements as to whom the things are to be given, sometimes a portion would go to the cleric or his associates or relatives. Another way to dispense the offerings would be to leave them with the cleric or his associates—a perfect opportunity for them to benefit from the sacrifice, either by not carrying it out as prescribed or by offering it to themselves or relatives. In all of this are indications of dishonesty and self-serving practices. Afa Ajura condemned the clerics on that score as well, explaining that the whole industry of tibbu is much like that of witchcraft, in terms of its efficacy or lack thereof, its attraction to people, and their continual patronage of it. Yet, no conclusive explanation could be offered satisfactorily, let alone objectively and scientifically, to confirm the result of tibbu. As a matter of fact, tibbu came and still comes with dire socio-economic consequences for many people involved and the society at large, although few people would acknowledge that. For instance, due to their dependence on the clerics and the perception of their “efficacy” to impact matters, many citizens (Muslims and non-Muslims) tend to behave recklessly in all aspects of life with utter disregard for the law or for any negative consequences. People in highly responsible positions are led to believe with a degree of certainty and assurance that when the time comes for accountability (auditing or investigation), they will be able to rely on these “powerful” and “effective” clerics who could get them off the hook through significant sacrifices. And in Africa, where corruption is rampant and defrauding is a nonissue to most politicians, civil service workers, private business owners, and even some average people, the tibbu clerics should bear the brunt of the blame of the society’s malpractice. Sadly, the

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scenario described above regarding people’s attitudes and the clerics’ roles is not something that will end anytime soon. Currently, not many clerics speak about it as Afa Ajura used to do. In fact, some clerics, especially those perceived to be the most “effective,” are revered as demigods or king makers, with politicians and powerful people in the society shamelessly pampering them. Whether or not Afa Ajura was successful depends on the perspective of his followers. When he was preaching against the practice, not only did he get many people to abandon patronizing the tibbu clerics, but many of the latter forsook the practice at the risk of losing their livelihood. Perhaps due to safeguarding their economic interests, there were those who wholeheartedly agreed with Afa Ajura in rejecting Tija¯niyyah beliefs in general, but who also reluctantly disagreed with him on the validity of tibbu. This group counted itself among his followers (Munchiri),166 but still practiced tibbu, not daring to let Afa Ajura become aware of their continued engagement in such practice. Today in Tamale, Afa Ajura’s followers are generally known to reject the tibbu clerics. However, there are still some of them who, on the basis of “culture,” could not shun the tibbu practice. Finally, it should be noted that when it comes to visiting the tibbu clerics, there is no distinction among average Tija¯nis or Ajuraists in terms of clerics or patrons, even though the majority of both the clerics and patrons remains Tija¯niyyah. In the end, economic factors and, to a certain extent, social benefits are responsible for the continuation of both the practices of tibbu and exorcising of witchcraft in northern Ghana. But a large segment of contemporary Ghanaian society rejects tibbu, which, without Afa Ajura’s intervening role, would have been more widespread than it has become. It is easy to see how Afa Ajura’s positions were strict on several issues, but there is no denying that his preaching and writings have made a big difference for the Muslims of northern Ghana. WIRD (L ITA N Y) OF TIJA¯ NIY YAH

The practice of wird or awara¯d (litanies) among the Tija¯niyyah was the most contentious and polarizing issue between Afa Ajura and his opponents. Wird is the Tija¯niyyah practice associated with beliefs that, in turn, provoke passionate feelings and polemics. In fact, the beliefs associated with these litanies and their founders provoked the most negative reactions from the Tija¯niyyah’s opponents. Without the beliefs and the potential consequences associated with them, the Tija¯niyyah litanies may be considered the sort of innocent and exotic practices in which members of Sufi fraternities the world over are known to engage. Prominent among Tija¯niyyah beliefs is the notion that a special prayer

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called S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. lima¯ ’ughliq (or S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.) brings benefits to those who invoke it for Prophet Muhammad; trust in the significance of the wird itself for those who practice it; and faith in the virtues and spiritual standings resulting for the founders of the order. Before discussing these beliefs, the practices, and Afa Ajura’s objections, it will be instructive to shed some light on the background of Afa Ajura’s Tija¯niyyah opponents in Tamale, the Naawuni nyarba (in Dagomba, “those who see God,” a sarcastic name which the Tija¯niyyah did not approve of). The Naawuni nyarba belong to the Sufi order that was popular in Ghana the time when Afa Ajura was active and with whom he argued. That group was the Ibra¯hı¯miyya (or Niasse) branch of Tija¯niyyah, also known as the Jama¯‘at al-fayd.a (Community of the Divine Flood). They are a subgroup of Tija¯niyyah, founded by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse (d. 1975) in the late 1920s.167 Born in a village called Taiba in Senegal in 1900,168 Shaykh Niasse declared himself the representative of Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ (d. 1815). Some of Afa Ajura’s own Tija¯niyyah elder teachers, like Alhaj Umar of Kete-Krachi (d. 1934), did not practice the Ibra¯hı¯miyya version of Tija¯niyyah. Alhaj Umar, for example, was much older and must have died within four to five years of founding the Ibra¯hı¯miyya chapter in Senegal. In other words, the Ibra¯hı¯miyya Sufi practices, with its emphasis on tarbiya (spiritual training), unacceptable to other senior Tija¯niyyah brethren in Senegal,169 had not yet firmly taken hold in Ghana during the lifetime of Alhaj Umar and his colleagues. This is noteworthy because one wonders why Afa Ajura did not attack his teachers who were either devout Tija¯niyyah or Qa¯diriyyah, and instead attacked his own contemporaries who practiced the Ibra¯hı¯miyya’s version of Tija¯niyyah. Also interesting is the possibility that Afa Ajura had acquiesced to Tija¯niyyah scholars until after the visit of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse to Ghana and Tamale around 1952. Was there something particularly unsettling about the Ibra¯hı¯miyya version of Tija¯niyyah that provoked him? Although this is an intriguing line of investigation to follow, the reality was that it may have been a coincidence that his polemics started shortly after the visit of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, for his rhetoric was against both the Ibra¯hı¯miyya in particular and the Tija¯niyyah in general. In other words, he had deep-seated problems with the Tija¯niyyah Sufi order including what some of his teachers had practiced, not only the Ibra¯hı¯miyya version. The main Sufi order itself, the Tija¯niyyah, was founded in 1782 by Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯, who was born in what is today Algeria, in 1737.170 Unlike Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ did not write many books himself, except his prayer book Ah.za¯b wa awra¯d (Groups and Litanies).171 But several writings have been composed by his disciples and attributed to him,

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some even while he was still alive.172 Jawa¯hir al-maʻa¯nı¯ (Gems of Indications), the most important source and certainly the oldest, contains some of the most vital information about the Tija¯niyyah order, its beliefs, its practices, and its founder. Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse did not only elaborate on some of these books in his own writings, but also considered himself a fulfilment of one of the most important prophecies in them: the coming of the Fayd.a (Divine Flood or Divine Emanation). A statement is attributed to Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ in AlIfa¯da al-ah.madiyya (Statements from Ah.mad), to the effect that “a [Divine] flood shall come upon my companions, so that the people will enter our path in throngs.”173 Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ said that Prophet Muhammad had told him “in a waking moment, not during sleep,” that “you are among those who are safe [a¯minı¯n], and anybody who sees you is among those who are safe, as long as he dies as a believer. So also is anybody who has been generous to you through service or otherwise, as well as anybody who has fed you, they will all enter paradise without reckoning or punishment.” The Prophet allegedly added after he asked him for guarantees, “I surely guarantee all of that for them without end [d.ama¯nah] until you and they are my neighbors in the highest paradise [‘illiyyu¯n].”174 Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse’s claim to be the fulfilment and the bringer of this Divine Flood was tantamount to his claim to the “supreme leadership of the Tija¯niyyah, at a time when he had not yet reached the age of thirty.”175 This calls for comment on at least two counts: his relationship with other “senior” Tija¯niyyah leaders and his relatively young age. Regarding the other Tija¯niyyah masters and their followers, it was expected that not all of them would accept his claim of supreme leadership of their order. In fact, most iconic Tija¯niyyah leaders in Senegal, including Muhammad Khalifa, his eldest brother and the successor of their father’s za¯wiya,176 denied Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and rejected his claims and methods. They were called munkiru¯n, or deniers and rejecters, a description that would be used manifestly to identify Afa Ajura and his followers later in Ghanaian context. Yet there were a few leaders that Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse himself mentioned as his supporters, who, according to Rudiger Seesemann, “do not precisely represent ‘the great men’ of the Tija¯niyyah path.”177 So there was fierce push back and rejection of his claims to the extent that he had to justify his claim, draw parallels between his situation and those of Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯, other saints (awliya¯’), Prophet Muhammad, and previous prophets, in terms of how all had been rejected by their own people who had denied their roles.178 He and his group were considered a minority and had to move to the newly found settlement a few miles northeast of Kaolack called

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Medina. Even so, their numbers would grow exponentially in a relatively short period to include many surrounding nations.179 As for his youth, in a spiritual context the truthfulness or veracity of his claim does not matter much. After all, some hagiographical sources attribute the leadership to Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse by projecting this role back to his childhood, rendering any debate about his unsuitability at age thirty almost moot. Although Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse may not have used the Qur’an to argue in his favor on this matter, the Qur’an does make clear that Jesus was endowed with messengership and prophethood while he was still an infant in a cradle (19: 30). This young age was even more irrelevant for Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse if his followers could convince themselves of his miraculous deeds, the fulfilment of his claim by having more followers and his “superiority over his opponents.”180 In religious and spiritual matters, the actual or alleged age of a leader does not seem to matter as long as he has large numbers of people to believe and follow him. In the case of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, not only did he have many followers but those disciples claimed to experience a superior and more intense type of worship, which further intensified his following.181 Afa Ajura’s issues with the Tija¯niyyah revolved around the latter’s belief regarding Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tı¯ja¯nı¯’s quiddity and role, and the claims they made about the virtues and rewards of their signature practice of the wird. According to Jawa¯hir al-Ma‘a¯nı¯, the most authoritative source of the Tija¯niyyah, Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ had met Prophet Muhammad “in a waking state, and not in sleep” (yaqz.atan la¯ mana¯man),182 in the desert village of Abu¯ Samghu¯n. The Prophet not only offered him the litanies, but also gave him permission to teach them to the general public (al-khalq ala¯ al-‘umu¯m). Additionally, the Prophet had revealed to Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯, not only the latter’s own elevated status, but also the virtues and benefits of the litanies. This occasion is described as the fath. (the “illumination” or “opening”), which some would compare to Gautama Buddha’s nirvana (enlightenment). In addition, the authors suggested that Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ encountered the Prophet more than once: in 1782 (1196) and in 1786 (1200).183 These encounters may not be problematic the way that others, including Afa Ajura, have pointed out, if one accepts Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯’s position in the Tija¯niyyah’s cosmology. As Seeseman aptly writes: “One peculiar feature of Tija¯nı¯ doctrine with regard to fayd. is the claim that Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ occupies a special position in this cosmos. As Seal of the Saints (khatm al-awliya¯’) and pole of the poles (qut.b al-aqta¯b), he acts as the channel of the spiritual emanations originating from God and coming from the Prophet. Thanks to his mediation, his followers can ascend directly to the Prophet and the Creator.”184

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It is through this cosmology that Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse was able to situate himself as the fayd. emanating from Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯. According to one former Tija¯niyyah follower, who tried to reveal some of their secrets, tarbiya (spiritual training) involves five presences (h.ad.ara¯t) through which disciples are taken. First, they learn about God’s oneness and how he created everything; second, they learn how the Prophet was the first creation, and how every other creation came from him; third, they learn how Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ came from the Prophet and that every other creation emerged from al-Tija¯nı¯; fourth, they learn that Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse came from Shaykh al-Tija¯nı¯; and finally, they learn how Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse is now the manifestation of kaun dukka (Hausa: “entire creation”).185 From the perspective of critics like Afa Ajura, all of the claims regarding the status and nature of both Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ and Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse amount to nothing but absurd innovation and, in their eyes, heresy.186 The original litanies of al-Tija¯nı¯ (wird al-Tija¯nı¯) that he claimed to have received from the Prophet are numerous, according to Jawa¯hir al-maʻa¯nı¯. However, some of these are obligatory (la¯zimah) ones and some are optional (ikhtiya¯riyyah). The obligatory ones include a hundred times of saying istighfa¯r (seeking forgiveness of sins); a hundred times of invoking blessing on the Prophet (any version, but preferably S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.); and a hundred times of haylalah (saying la¯ ila¯ha illa¯ Alla¯h, “there is no God but God”). This is to be performed after the dawn prayers (s.ubh.) till sunrise (d.uh.a¯) and after the late afternoon prayer (‘as.r) until the night prayer (‘isha¯’), but in practice, it is after the ‘as.r. One is expected to make it up later upon failing to perform it at the prescribed times.187 The nonobligatory litanies, also called waz.ı¯fah (“duty,” “task,” “assignment”), are in practice considered the third for the day and come after sunset prayer (maghrib). They include a hundred (this is the prescribed number; in practice, it is thirty) times of istighfa¯r (seeking forgiveness of sins); a hundred (in practice, fifty) times of S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.; two hundred (in practice, a hundred) times of haylalah; and eleven (in practice, twelve) times of jawharat al-kama¯l (The Jewel of perfection [a special version of prayer for the Prophet]). But these nonobligatory litanies, according to Jawa¯hir al-Ma‘a¯nı¯, may be performed either in the morning or in the evening. They may also be repeated twice if it is convenient.188 However, there is also a weekly h.ad.rah (presence) performance on Friday evenings or Thursday or Sunday. Among Tija¯niyyah beliefs regarding the benefits and virtues of the obligatory litanies, according to Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ himself, is that anybody who receives them from him directly or from any of his deputies to whom he has given permission will enter paradise along with his parents, spouses, and his

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descendants.189 Afa Ajura used to refer to this doctrine, as well as another claim that restricted the reward to only seventy from each of his paternal and maternal lineages. His arguments and refutation will come below. Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse’s own version seems to lay emphasis on what is known as tarbiya. Tarbiya, according to Niasse, is essential and is meant to remove the veil that stands between the believer and his Lord, an act that “reduces the probability” of punishment.190 He also emphasized mystical experience and spiritual annihilation more than many Tija¯niyyah groups. Through tarbiya, any believer, not only a few elites, can reach illumination. This is why some modern researchers considered Niasse’s tarbiya as a sort of “democratization” of Tija¯niyyah.191 So Niasse was seen to systematize Tija¯niyyah and establish some practical and short-cut paths to illumination. For Niasse, tarbiya starts with talqı¯n (instruction/implantation) of some wird formulas known as special litanies (al-awra¯d al-kha¯s.s.a) or litanies of spiritual training (al-awra¯d al-taribiya).192 S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.,193 which, according to Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯, was not mandatory but highly recommended, appears in Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse’s tarbiya as indispensable. But the virtues associated with it and its invocation somehow made it obligatory. It is a special prayer formula in which one invokes God’s blessings upon Prophet Muhammad. It was part and parcel of Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯’s litanies. The rewards for reciting it only once are unimaginable. It is not easy to reconcile between the multiple statements about the rewards in Jawa¯hir al-ma’a¯nı¯. One version states that reciting the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. “once equals the reward of 6,000 times of each and every praise of God that ever occurred since the beginning of creation; of every remembrance and every supplication, whether big or small, and even of the Qur’an.”194 In addition, when ‘Alı¯ H . ara¯zim, the author of Jawa¯hir al-ma‘a¯nı¯, queried his master Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ about a seeming deficiency in S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.’s language regarding its lack of invoking peace (sala¯m) like any other invocation upon the Prophet, Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ quickly disabused him of any notion of possible deficiency. He clarified that S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. is a divine matter (amr ila¯hı¯), and that intellects have no part in it. In fact he even doubled down on singing its praises and virtues by explaining that “if you estimate 100,000 societies, each society having 100,000 tribes, and each tribe consisting of 100,000 men, and each man invokes blessings upon the Prophet 1000 times daily for 100,000 years, with a version other than S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih., the total rewards for all these people in all those nations for all those years will not equal the reward for a single S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih..”195 Finally, Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ referred to the Prophet, telling him that there is no better way to invoke blessings upon him

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than with S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.. He then explained, “Had everybody and everything in the seven heavens and the seven earths tried to describe S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.’s rewards, they would be unable to do so.”196 Afa Ajura would challenge his Tija¯niyyah counterparts on all of these claims as he preached and composed his poems. Again, without the inflated rewards and the excessive virtues that are ascribed to the litanies, they may simply be viewed as some exotic supererogatory practices in which most Sufis are harmlessly engaged. Likewise, without the repeated flamboyant and exalted attributes assigned to the Tija¯niyyah founders and leaders,197 one could have simply considered all the love for them as naïve and innocent hero worshiping. Furthermore, without the categorical claims of seeing the Prophet (or God) “in a waking state and not during sleep,” one could have easily brushed aside claims of the encounters as acceptable dreams or metaphors. But the kind of exorbitant rewards one gets for loving or seeing Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ and Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, or for belonging to the Tija¯niyyah or performing the litanies, seem too good to be true for non-Sufi Muslims. This argument gains significance especially when there are no such unqualified claims toward the Prophet himself or toward the performance of the obligatory Islamic practices as prescribed in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Apparently, Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ admits that the deeds expected of the Tija¯niyyah, in terms of wird and S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih., do not come close to matching their excessive rewards. Yet due to the weak and sinful nature of the population during his time and afterward, God has been “merciful and generous to them only requiring them to perform few deeds, ‘God chooses for his mercy whomever he wills, at a time he wills.’”198 Afa Ajura, perhaps being aware that his opponents, especially the leaders, know this very well, accused them also of abusing God’s mercy and taking it for granted as they continue to engage in sinful activities themselves. During his preaching and sermons, Afa Ajura would attack the Tija¯niyyah by ridiculing Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯’s alleged physical encounters with Prophet Muhammad. He would insist on the impossibility and absurdity of that claim by pointing, first, to the actual years between the Prophet and Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯. He would remind his listeners that the Prophet died in year 10, after Hijra (or 632 c.e.) in Medina, Saudi Arabia, while Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ was born in 1150 of Hijra (1737 c.e.) far away in Algeria. This roughly comes to about 1,140 years between the Prophet’s death and al-Tija¯nı¯’s birth. Afa Ajura would argue that neither he nor anybody with an objective mind and dispassionate inquiry could fathom a possibility of a physical and actual encounter occurring between the two, to speak of nothing about the Prophet imparting any knowledge to him.

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However, in Jawa¯hir al-ma‘a¯nı¯, the author, ‘Ali al-H . ara¯zim, asks his master Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ regarding the nature of the Prophet’s informing people during his lifetime and after his death. He responded that the matters that the Prophet used to impart to people during his lifetime were in general for public consumption, and that ended (literally, “its carpet has been folded”) by his death. But what continue are special issues that he imparts to a select few (al-kha¯s.s.). In such cases, they continue unabated during and after his demise.199 It is easy for believers, including non-Sufis, to accept how one, especially the very pious, may communicate or even be tutored by the Prophet (or God) in a dream or directly in their hearts.200 So both the question and the answer provided here did not solve the most contentious matter of meeting the Prophet in a “waking state” (yaqz.atan). Yet, some Tija¯niyyah adherents would cite several pious people in Islamic history who also claimed to have seen and met with the Prophet. Some even claimed to have shaken hands with him. The Tija¯niyyah also cite these alleged encounters to substantiate their own claims of the Prophet’s appearance during their daily wird or on Fridays. Unfortunately, none of that would advance the debate in any positive and convincing way. Although they have the right to make any claim, it could never be proven objectively, even though that may be accepted metaphorically by many among Sufi esoteric circles. Again, on the esoteric basis, the argument would get more complicated since the claim to see the Prophet was categorically in a “waking state.” Second, Afa Ajura would assume for the sake of argument that if Shaykh al-Tija¯nı¯ saw the Prophet in a dream (granting that seeing him physically in a waking state is impossible), who taught him these extraordinary litanies that he did not teach his companions, wouldn’t that indicate a sort of betrayal of his responsibility as God’s messenger? On what basis should the Prophet fail to teach the best litanies to his favorite companions and family, including his daughter Fatima, only to teach that to a “stranger” after a thousand years? These two points were answered by Shaykh al-Tija¯nı¯ himself as recorded in Jawa¯hir al-Ma‘a¯nı¯.201 But to a persistent challenger like Afa Ajura, he would not allow them the space to use their own arguments, or perhaps, they were unable to employ their own arguments properly. Afa Ajura quoted the Qur’an and the H . adith consistently. For instance, in trying to dispel how the Prophet could not have betrayed his responsibility, and therefore, could not have given any litanies to Shaykh al-Tija¯nı¯ instead of his own companions, Afa Ajura would refute them with verses such as Qur’an 5: 67 or 62: 2.202 In fact, some of the verses were peripheral to the main argument, since the Tija¯niyyah did not actually claim that the Prophet had shirked his Prophetic responsibility in order to warrant quotation of those verses. Afa Ajura

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would also delve into how Abu Bakr, the first caliph and the Prophet’s fatherin-law, was his favorite companion. He was the Prophet’s only company during the migration, and when they were both stuck in a cave while being pursued by Meccan enemies (Qur’an 9: 40). He would also reiterate how Fatima was the Prophet’s favorite daughter by quoting H . adith.203 All of this was to argue that had the Prophet been in possession of any additional useful litanies to teach, these loved ones would have been the recipients, and not some “stranger.” Once again, these Qur’anic verses and the H . adith do make the case for his love and closeness to his daughter and friend, but they may not necessarily support or deny the main arguments, except by extension. For the Tija¯niyyah did not deny that the Prophet loved his daughter or friend. Without addressing any possible shirking of responsibilities or betrayal by the Prophet, Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ again answered the question of why the Prophet, knowing the extraordinary virtues and reward of the litanies, did not pass them on to his companions and loved ones. He offered three things that prevented the Prophet from revealing the great litanies. First, that the Prophet knew how late in time the litanies needed to be revealed and, at the same time, there was no right person to whom God intended to reveal them during his own time. Second, that had the Prophet revealed this great “virtue” (reward) to his companions in exchange for the “little deed” (al-‘amal al-qalı¯l: “litany”), they would have requested that he explain it, due to their strong desire to know the story. And revealing the person was not meant to happen in their time. For this reason, the Prophet did not mention it at all. Lastly, that as a way of showing mercy, God delayed the revelation of the litanies until people needed them more; at which time, due to their weakness and ill behaviors, they only needed to perform little deeds in exchange for abundant rewards.204 These explanations do not make sense at all (at least, not according to trusted sources or sound minds) in the larger context of the Prophet’s mission and obligation as a messenger sent to teach people their religion (Qur’an 62: 2). Besides, they remain pure conjectures on the shaykh’s part, ones that may only be accepted by his followers or mystically minded people. It was strange that Afa Ajura’s Tija¯niyyah opponents did not debate him on their own terms as Sufis whose beliefs are rooted in esotericism. Instead, they pretended to prove the impossible according to the exoteric understanding of Islam, by claiming that the wird and the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. can be traced clearly to the Qur’an. Had they attempted to refute his attacks on their own terms with all the sophistication that Sufi literature entails, it may have been easier for them to prevail, even if they might not have been on the right side of the universal Islamic orthodoxy. For, to some experts on Africa, what the Tija¯niyyah believed

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and practiced is uniquely Afro-Islam, which can be appealing as a legitimate area of academic study. One might be tempted to believe that they avoided Afa Ajura because they consciously heeded the advice offered them in Jawa¯hir alma‘a¯nı¯, to ignore challenges from any deniers of their claims.205 It is doubtful this was the case, though, because some of them actually tried on a few occasions to debate Afa Ajura in Tamale. T H E GREAT DEB ATE WIT H MALLAM MAIKANO

In the mid-1960s, escalating religious tensions between Afa Ajura’s followers (Ajuraists/Munchiri) and the Tija¯niyyah fraternity (Naawuni nyarba) engulfed Tamale and its environs. Before and during the time Afa Ajura appeared on the religious scene in Ghana, Tija¯niyyah dominated the religious landscape not only of Tamale, but also of the entire country with almost all the great scholars belonging to it. As previously noted, when Afa Ajura settled in Tamale, he was part of the scholarly echelon based at the Central Mosque, dominated by the Tija¯niyyah. But before long, Afa Ajura began to challenge the status quo in almost every aspect of the religion. The Tija¯niyyah scholars initially tended to dismiss him as a young and aggressive nonconformist. Some studies with Tija¯niyyah sympathies not only portrayed him as an agitator with politically inclined activism and as one who liked to argue, but also that his meteoric rise and overwhelming following were due to his astute political maneuvering.206 The suggestion is that Afa Ajura was not a serious scholar with deep knowledge of Islam. That turned out to be a fatal denial on the part of the Tija¯niyyah at their own peril. As one would glean from his poems in this book, he was, on the one hand, a scholar, well versed in Islamic theology and law, Arabic sciences, and Dagomba tradition, and, on the other hand, a principled man with the zeal and conviction to match. Afa Ajura began his active preaching after 1952, and by the mid-1960s, his opponents came to realize that he was a force with which to reckon. So they tried every method to slow him down and destroy his reputation and, according to some anecdotes, to neutralize him spiritually. They imported top Tija¯niyyah giants from around Ghana and West Africa to energize their followers and counter Afa Ajura’s appeal to the local population. One of the Tija¯niyyah’s favorite scholars in Ghana was Mallam Abdullai Maikano. Stationed at Prang in the Bono East Region (previously Brong Ahafo Region) of Ghana, Mallam Maikano was a very young, charismatic leader “who visited Tamale quite often. For from the day he would arrive, Tija¯niyyah people would continually make cash offerings to him until the day he would leave.”207 Whenever he was in Tamale,

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the tension increased, for as he preached, Afa Ajura would also counter with his own. That was the case in 1968, when the chief of Tamale, Gukpenaa Alasani, became fed up with the situation, and, in consultation with the regional minister and police commissioner, arranged a debate between the two factions in hopes of putting an end to the tense animosity. At the Police Park (now, Tamale Jubilee Park) in March 1968, Afa Ajura and Mallam Maikano were brought to settle their religious differences once and for all by debating the true nature of S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.. Afa Ajura was supposed to prove that it was not a legitimate prayer to be invoked upon the Prophet and that it was not found in the Qur’an or H . adith, and for that matter it did not possess the rewards and virtues that had been ascribed to it. And in turn, he was supposed to prove exactly the version that the Prophet himself had taught his followers to use: S.ala¯t Ibra¯hı¯miyya (related to Prophet Abraham). Mallam Maikano, on the other hand, was expected to prove the exact opposite: that S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. had its roots in the Qur’an. Abdulai Iddrisu stated that Mallam Maikano was advised by his Tija¯niyyah friends in Tamale to demand that the debate be in Arabic, convinced that Afa Ajura had deficiency in the Arabic language. He also suggested that Afa Ajura might have scored an early point by arguing that if they debated in Arabic, the purpose of their debate would be defeated since the audience would not understand a word, let alone the arguments that they would make.208 So they settled on debating in Dagbani and Hausa. Regardless, the idea that Afa Ajura was deficient in Arabic was nothing but a self-serving myth concocted by the Tija¯niyyah. It is true that some scholars in West Africa who studied and even tutored others in all the great Arabic sources, including the Qur’an and its commentaries, remained highly deficient in Arabic when it came to oral speaking. But Afa Ajura was not one of those. For included in this collection are a few poems he composed in classical Arabic, exhibiting a deep mastery of the language and the intricacies of Arabic grammar and rhetoric. In addition, his Tija¯niyyah opponents may not have known that he sometimes delivered Friday sermons in Arabic without notes, before proceeding with Dagbani.209 This could not be done if one did not have a mastery of a particular language. In addition to the Qur’an, Afa Ajura had asked his students to bring to the debate all six of the great H . adith collections. In contrast, Mallam Maikano arrived with his contingent with nothing “except that he wore his signature turban,”210 said Afa Seidu. So the debate began with Afa Ajura trying to prove his case. He began by reading the Qur’anic verse that enjoins Muslims to invoke blessings and a prayer of peace upon the Prophet: “God and His Angels bless

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the Prophet, so you who believe, invoke blessings and real peace upon him too” (Qur’an 33: 56). He continued on to say that if Muslims are required to invoke blessings upon the Prophet numerous times in the process of their obligatory daily ritual prayers as well as in their own supplications, the question of the debate was which kind or what version are they required to use? The Qur’an did not specify. So, Afa Ajura explained, Muslims are supposed to follow the messenger of Islam, who was the beneficiary of the blessing that was to be invoked. He first asked for the most authoritative source of the Prophet’s actions and statements according to Sunnis, the H . adith as compiled by Imam Muh.ammad Isma¯‘ı¯l al-Bukha¯rı¯ (d. 870), to be brought and read aloud while he translated. In al-Bukhari, under the “Book of Prayers” in the chapter of “Invoking Prayer upon the Prophet,” a companion of the Prophet by the name of “Ka‘b ibn ‘Ujrah” had reported that “once the Prophet came out to them and they asked him, ‘O Messenger of Allah, we have known how to invoke peace [nusallim] for you, but how do we invoke blessings [kayfa nus.allı¯] upon you?’ The Prophet responded: ‘Say, O God send blessings [s.alli] upon Muh.ammad and Muh.ammad’s family, the way you sent blessings upon Ibra¯hı¯m’s family, indeed, you are Praiseworthy and Glorious. O God bless [ba¯rik] Muh.ammad and Muh.ammad’s family the way you blessed Ibra¯hı¯m’s family, indeed, you are Praiseworthy and Glorious.’ ”211 Afa Ajura asked that, one after the other, all the other five authentic H . adith books—S.ah.ı¯h. Muslim, Sunan Abı¯ Da¯wu¯d, Sunan Ibn Ma¯jah, Sunan al-Nasa¯’ı¯, and Sunan al-Tirmidhı¯212—be brought and read for everybody to hear. He declared that he and his Munchiri followers believe that this version, called S.ala¯t ibra¯hı¯miyyah, is the only one Muslims are required to invoke upon the Prophet during the ritual prayers, as one of the H . adith categorically stated, and generally in other circumstances. So his contention was that every Muslim should follow the Prophet’s lead and use this version if they want to be considered as part of Prophet’s community (ummah). On the other hand, Afa Ajura concluded that his opponents believed in using a different version of the prayer, one that Prophet never taught: S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.. They argued that it was found in the Qur’an. They believed that reciting it once was greater than reciting the Qur’an several thousand times. He read to them the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.: “O God, send blessings [s.alli] upon our master Muh.ammad, who opens what has been closed, and who seals what has gone before; who supports truth with truth, and who guides to the straight path; and upon his family, [send blessings] that accord with his true status and his exalted position.”213 Afa Ajura then said that it was one Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ who claimed that the Prophet gave it to him after his death more than 1,140 years later in broad daylight in Algeria. He stated that he did not believe that to be true, and he did

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not believe that it was the right version to use in invoking the blessing upon the Prophet. He simply implored everybody to follow the Prophet’s teaching as found in the H . adith books and use the version he taught his companions and all Muslims. The chief of Tamale, Gukpenaa Alasani, then invited Mallam Maikano to speak and to explain his side of the argument in a succinct way, as Afa Ajura did. Mallam Maikano took his turn and, in his way of proving that the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. can be found in the Qur’an, started to recite chapter 48 of the Qur’an. His approach was to demonstrate that each word or most of the words in the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. can be traced to the Qur’an. The problem with that was, as the entire supplication cannot be found anywhere in the Qur’an directly or H . adith, he had to locate each isolated word from different chapters and, in some cases, he had to show how certain words could be derived from the Qur’anic words. He started first by pointing out that alla¯humma (“O God”), can be traced to the beginning of the Qur’an 3: 26, “Say, O God, Owner of the sovereignty, you give sovereignty to whom you please.” Second, he moved to the next obvious word, al-fa¯tih.. Unlike the first word, this one does not exist anywhere in the entire Qur’an except in one plural form (al-fa¯tih.ı¯n, 7: 89) and many derivatives. And its two popular derivatives come from 48: 1: “inna¯ fatah.na¯ laka fath.an mubı¯na¯” (“Surely, We have given you a clear victory”; literally, “We have opened to you a clear opening”). To prove that S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. is rooted in this particular verse is quite tenuous if not impossible. So Mallam Maikano struggled with this quite a bit to a point of being unintelligible, especially following Afa Ajura’s succinct demonstration. So Mallam Maikano was incoherently going on and on to the point that the chief had to interrupt. The chief asked him to be brief since people were getting tired under the scorching sun. But, unable to express himself fluently in Hausa language by asking him to “make it brief,” he used broken and street Hausa, saying: “Mallam Maikano, kanyanka¯shi gazere gazere” (literally, “please cut it short, short”). This was a direct translation from Dagbani expression ŋma¯mili jı¯ jiya. In fact, Hause people would not use such an expression, let alone such words. For his part, Mallam Maikano tried to assure the chief that he could explain, and using his classic polished Hausa, he kept repeating: “Sarki, da¯kanta, na¯ fadi” (“O Chief, exercise patience, I will explain”). But due to the chief’s crude expression, the crowd had erupted into laughter. Serious commotion ensued, leading to an informal conclusion of the debate. Afa Ajura’s followers started to celebrate, concluding that he had won the debate even though there was no formal declaration that he had won. They also convinced themselves that the

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chief and local government officials in attendance had known where the truth lies, even though the official report was inconclusive that “it is sad to report that the meeting ended in confusion and nothing concrete was achieved.”214 Although there was another gathering, about a month later, organized by the then deputy commissioner of police (who later became the inspector general of police) B. A. Yakubu, between the two factions represented by Afa Ajura and Alhaj Adam, it was not meant to be a debate. Instead, the official line was to bring them together, even though reports suggested that it was full of threats. The commissioner was perceived to have sympathies for the Tija¯niyyah side, who were also overwhelmingly supportive of his side in terms of Dagbon chieftaincy affairs.215 He eventually gave each of them a copy of the Qur’an on behalf of the Saudi Arabian ambassador.216 Frankly, in the great debate, the expectation of proving their cases was unequal, not in terms of the magnitude or lack thereof of their tasks, but with regard to the expected methods each should employ. In reality, Afa Ajura was to prove his case by simply pinpointing the existing verses and H . adith. Mallam Maikano was to weave unrelated verses and cherrypick isolated words to prove beliefs and practices that have esoteric origins. Clearly, the methods and criteria for success were unequal. But it was for each of them, especially Mallam Maikano, to realize that unevenness. So it was sheer complacence for him to go into the debate with such a claim, given that he was to make his case to a largely illiterate and religiously unsophisticated crowd. In other words, since he knew that there was no direct Qur’anic verse or H . adith to point to, except by weaving unrelated words together, that method was not going to convince such a crowd, or the well-determined Afa Ajura. So, he was entering a losing battle. This is where the contention that it is difficult to prove esoteric beliefs gains it significance. The whole belief that S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. can be found in the Qur’an can only be sustained on esoteric understanding of the Qur’an (academically, there is such thing as esoteric understanding and interpretation: tafsı¯r al ba¯t.inı¯).217 Esoteric understanding means it does not follow normal and conventional linguistic and analytical parameters. Sufis adhere to the esoteric because God endows it to those he wishes without effort on their part and without their following the normal rules of learning. Esoteric meaning may have nothing to do with the outer meanings of words or verses. Considering this as the general nature of esoteric interpretation, it goes without saying that it would be suicidal to claim to prove a point with esoteric origins based on exoteric methods. And therein lies Mallam Maikano’s and the Tija¯niyyah’s problems. Esoteric understanding is only accepted by Sufi followers or by some academics interested in researching it. So one would be setting oneself up for a defeat if he claims he

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could prove a practice that was initially founded through esoteric approach to an audience who neither believe in such an approach nor are able to understand it. Though not exclusively, some Sufi masters like Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 1111) or Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabı¯ (d. 1240) believe in esoteric understanding of the Qur’an and spiritual texts. And in fact, al-Ghazali contends that esoteric understanding must never be revealed to average people. Why? Because once it is revealed to them, they would be unable to comprehend it, and they may lose trust in the scholar who is claiming it, and worse yet, lose confidence in the text or the author. So the best option for the Tija¯niyyah was to ignore any challenge and clearly admit that S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. was not susceptible to challenge or to proof of its origin, and that it is in the domain of esotericism and in the realm of divine, as advised by Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯. This is also why one may be led to think that the Tija¯niyyah scholars themselves may not have been sophisticated enough to tackle the question with the approach it deserved. For it is not clear how many of them actually were well versed in the academic study of esotericism. How many of them have studied other intellectual works that are wholly based on esoteric analyses? Ibn ‘Arabı¯’s works, such as Fus.u¯s. al-h.ikam (Bezels of Wisdom) or Futu¯h.a¯t al-makkiyyah (Meccan Revelations), are based on an esoteric understanding of Islam that scholars interested in esotericism or Sufi literature must study. To understand them, one has to be sophisticated enough, open-minded enough, and resigned to the fact that esoteric understanding does not succumb to logic, coherence, or proof, as we know them, and that it is ultimately unprovable in terms of demonstration of true or false and correctness or incorrectness. This means that esoteric understanding may not seem intellectually sound, though it may be so spiritually. If one is not open to esoteric analyses, then any discussion on that basis may seem to be nothing but foolish conjecture and, possibly, wild hallucination. And it is true that esoteric analyses can, in truth, be utterly confusing, frustratingly unintelligible, and thoroughly incoherent. However, the esoteric understandings that are meant for spiritual enhancement are far safer than those meant for intellectual analyses. For in the case of spiritualties, followers readily accept them and put them into practice. Such is the case of the Tija¯niyyah litanies and their virtues. It does not matter spiritually whether or not it makes sense that Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ could have received the litanies from Prophet Muhammad in broad daylight. It does not matter spiritually whether or not the rewards ascribed to one single S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. are possible and realistic. But the problem arises the moment one shifts the focus into the

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realm of exotericism and claims to make it intelligible to average intellects that operate under well-established and proven logical parameters. For instance, it would be illogical to fathom that the Prophet, who died in Medina in year 632 and was buried there, would meet somebody after more than a thousand years later in a faraway distance place like Algeria, in a “waking state, not in a dream.” It would be impossible for intellects to grasp that, even though it does not matter spiritually. On the other hand, the intellectual analyses of esotericism are not always easy to follow. Since one is trying to make sense out of the discourse, one may not be able to help but see the incongruence between certain claims. However, even with such difficulty, intellectual analyses of esoteric content may still be useful for other purposes, historically, philosophically, or sociologically. Hence, academics are not prepared to abandon it entirely. Finally, in the context of Afa Ajura and his gulf with the Tija¯niyyah of Tamale with regard to the wird, there is another perspective that Afa Seidu discussed during the interviews. Although it may be considered purely polemical, it deserves to be brought up. Afa Ajura objected to the wird of Tija¯niyyah partly because he considered its detrimental social consequences. Because of the beliefs associated with the litanies in terms of their efficacy for God’s forgiveness and guarantees to enter paradise, Afa Ajura insisted that some of the Tija¯niyyah followers were totally immersed in socially obscene actions, such as adultery and fornication, to say nothing of cheating and deception. Afa Seidu claimed that some of the leading members of Tija¯niyyah in Tamale used to be swingers who occasionally wife-swapped. Although this wife-swapping charge is a serious accusation, and may be unbefitting for great scholars like Afa Ajura and Afa Seidu to make, it remained a reality that some of the top Tija¯niyyah scholars were accused of engaging in extramarital affairs, particularly those who dabbled in serious tibbu and divination. But, inasmuch as tibbu was not restricted to the Tija¯niyyah, neither was the adultery and cheating that were associated with it. Some non-Tija¯niyyah clerics admittedly were also suspected of engaging in adultery. Yet this remains a serious puzzle in the case of the Tija¯niyyah, as their practices were meant to make followers more devout and ascetic. But to engage in promiscuous behavior (sometimes disguised as spiritual assistance to the women) was antithetical to the whole mission of Tija¯niyyah. Because I have never read about this aspect of the secret behaviors of Tija¯niyyah anywhere, I am not sure if researchers are unaware of it or if they have deliberately neglected to pursue it. It would be interesting for researchers to do more sociological investigation into these

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alleged behaviors. It is also not clear if this secretive promiscuous dimension was unique to either the Tija¯niyyah of Tamale or Ghana as opposed to those in other countries. Afa Ajura saw these habits as another negative consequence of the Tija¯niyyah belief in the extraordinary benefits of the litanies. He expresses these accusations in his poems. Due to his strong opposition to the Tija¯niyyah, Afa Ajura and his followers, whom I designate as “Ajuraists,” were labeled Munchiri—a corrupted version of munkiru¯n: rejecters and deniers. This term was mentioned earlier during the discussion of the emergence of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and the opposition he and his followers encountered from other Tija¯niyyah in Senegal. Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse called those who denied his role munkiru¯n,218 and blamed them for accusing him and his followers of “not being [true] members of the Tija¯niyyah—[when they are indeed the] ignoramuses who have never stood up for the cause of their Imam [Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯], and who have no connection with the Tija¯niyyah apart from taking the litanies!”219 So it made sense that due to their denial of the Tija¯niyyah in Tamale, Afa Ajura and his followers would be given the same epithet as the early deniers of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse in Senegal. However, when asked about their perception about the name Munchiri, Afa Seidu responded that they liked it very much at first. However, what the Tija¯niyyah of Tamale meant by calling Afa Ajura Munchiri was different from what Afa Ajura and his people initially construed it to be. Based on the early Senegalese experience, the Tija¯niyyah must have called Afa Ajura and his people Munkiru¯n due to their denial of Tija¯niyyah beliefs and practices. Afa Ajura and his Munchiri, on the other hand, thought they were so called because they had rejected the bid ‘ah (innovations) of the Tija¯niyyah. To their mind, the term clearly expressed their true position as rejecters of innovation, a self-explaining term in which they took pride. This explains why the name (Munchiri) stuck until today. Both sides initially liked it and used it, though with entirely different understandings: one with its bad connotation, the other with its positive sense. However, after some time, Afa Ajura did not like the term Munchiri for his followers or Na¯wun Nyarba (seers of God) for the Tija¯niyyah. In an audio recording by Afa Ajura himself, he is heard admitting how he forbade his followers from using these names. Thus, he had a change of heart about the constant bickering between them and their name-calling of each other, not only because of his dislike of the name per se. In one of the Arabic poems, “Fa Khudhu¯” (And You Must Take), he objects to being called Munkiru¯n (“rejecters”), insisting that they are followers of God and the Prophet. (It is for these reasons that I prefer to use the term Ajuraism.) He writes:

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Pay attention and listen. Do not call us “rejecters,” For we are the people of Sunnah220 and not “rejecters.” Even if you try to kill us, we shall never obey you, Following the Sunnah of the best of mankind is sufficient. TH E POEMS

Afa Ajura admits in his “Dunya Binshaɣkam Dina¯ra”: My Lord vehemently rejects singing, But approves of that which is for admonishment. That which advises people is blameless. But he abhors all bad songs.

Besides teaching and preaching, Afa Ajura also engaged in composing poems in order to complement his preaching. They consist of sixteen handwritten poems, comprising 153 pages, 75 percent of which is in Dagbani and 25 percent in Arabic; the few Hausa ones are not included here. The poems, which address multiple issues and consist of diverse socio-religious topics, range, in the original version, between forty to one pages (or 750 to 7 verses) per poem. Composed between early 1952 and late 1968 in Dagbani using the Arabic scripts (ajami), these texts were meant to be memorized and chanted by his followers. The poems cover an array of topics with theological, social, polemical, and even genealogical information. Given the nature of this material, Afa Ajura clearly was eager to educate a community that he felt lacked either a basic, or at least an adequate, knowledge of Islam. The following are introductions to all sixteen poems in this collection.

poem 1: damba digoli (damba month) The poem “Damba Digoli” is believed to be the first one that Afa Ajura ever composed, around 1952, when he recited it during that year’s celebration for the occasion of Prophet Muhammad’s birth (mawlid al-nabiyy). For this occasion also coincided with the visit to Tamale of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, the most famous Tija¯niyyah Khalifa in West Africa and the leader of Ibra¯hı¯miyyah faction of Tija¯niyyah Sufi order. We are told that at that time Afa Ajura was still part of the Tamale scholarly echelon, which was dominated by the Tija¯niyyah members, and whose base was at the Central Mosque in Tamale. Invited there to make a speech, Afa Ajura took the opportunity to deliver this poem to educate the public about Prophet’s genealogy. In hindsight, this particular poem

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was to give an inkling to the future trajectory of Afa Ajura’s method of insisting on teaching people what he thought was important in their religion. This was considered a departure from the usual tradition where speakers would take the opportunity to shower praises and countless invocations on the Prophet. Following this occasion, it did not take long for Afa Ajura to sever ties with the Tija¯niyyah fraternity and launch his own preaching spree. The second and third poems in this book show that when he composed them, he was not on good terms anymore with the Tija¯niyyah group. At only eighteen verses, this first poem is packed with information for those who are new to Islam and stand to learn about the background of the Prophet. The annotations of it provide useful details about the names and roles of the Prophet’s ancestry. The poem begins with the Prophet’s birth information, followed by the details of his patrilineal genealogy going back to Ishmael and Abraham. The Prophet’s matrilineal ancestry was not prolonged as it meets with his patrilineal one at the fourth great grandfather, Kila¯b. A few verses followed praising the Prophet himself before it closed with the significance of learning about his ancestry and praying for them. poem 2: dunya binshaɣkam dina¯ra (everything in the world shall perish) With about 750 verses, the poem “Dunya Binshaɣkam Dina¯ra” is Afa Ajura’s magnum opus. It resembles the Qur’an’s chapter 2, “The Cow,” in terms of its length (compared to the other poems) and varied subject matter. It also resembles other parts of the Qur’an in terms of repetition, narration of historical events, and polemical undertones. This is meant only as a description, not of course to compare Afa Ajura’s poems with the Qur’an. Considering how Afa Ajura relied on the Qur’anic contents for both his preaching and his poems, he would consider any remote resemblance between his poems and the Qur’an as an honor. However, even though he relies heavily on the Qur’an, he does not quote it in the poems, except perhaps on one or two occasions (e.g., where he speaks of commercial malpractice: “Woe to those who give short measure”; Qur’an 83: 1). Nor does he even allude to the Qur’an, except in one or two places (e.g., where he talks about enmity between human beings and the Satan: “It is written in the book. . . . The hatred between him and us is endless” (Qur’an 17: 53). This general lack of direct reference seems strange, since his preaching was always filled with Qur’anic quotes, and as it may be observed in the notes, almost every other verse of the poem can be traced to the Qur’an or H . adith. We do not know

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if Afa Ajura deliberately intended it to mimic or channel the Qur’an. But it is obvious that he gave this particular poem a serious thought and meticulously planned its contents. As the second and longest poem of Afa Ajura, this work surprisingly has nothing to say about the Tija¯niyyah’s beliefs and practices (wird) that he attacked in his preaching. Instead, it is full of admonishment for the traditional people, the average Muslim, and newly or potential convert to Islam. Afa Ajura begins by taking the reader or the listener through the basic monotheistic message of Islam. He highlights obedience of God as the only one, his omnipotence, his volition, and his decree. He then moves to emphasize obedience to Prophet as the means to salvation. After this, Afa Ajura summarizes the pillars of Islam, to which he would later dedicate many pages. The topics in the poem are many, and first I will highlight those with religious, historical, and cultural significance. Religiously, Afa Ajura’s explanation of the five pillars of Islam is significant in the sense that he provides crucial instructions as well as things that would nullify them. Historically, not only does he exhibit a mastery of historiography in Islamic literature—both pre-Islamic and Islamic historical figures and incidents—but his awareness of the Dagbon overlords (from 1416 to 1953) is an area of learning that many Dagomba people would appreciate today. Many Dagombas would not know these kings, let alone expect Afa Ajura, the staunch Muslim scholar, to have any knowledge of them. Indeed, the way Afa Ajura weaves them into the poem as he acknowledges their greatness, and yet depicts them as defeated and insignificant before Almighty God, is noteworthy. Culturally, Afa Ajura spoke on several things, and at least three of these are worth mentioning here. First, his details about the wedding practices in which Dagombas used to engage, and the eradication of which he could entirely be credited for, were worthy. Second, the practice of tibbu, through which the local clerics managed to hold the population captive with regard to claims of solving their problems, was certainly a cultural phenomenon that refused to be eradicated. It remained a perfect amalgamation and syncretism of traditional and Islamic practices. And third, were Afa Ajura’s narration and criticism of the northern women going to the mining town of Akotia in southern Ghana. To be accurate, he was not criticizing their trips per se; rather, the intentions behind them and their consequences were the real problems, as he saw them. This is reminiscent of today’s socio-economic migration from the north to the southern cities by some poor and uneducated northern young ladies, called kayayo/kayaye. Before and during Afa Ajura’s time, men were also part of this migration wave, as one may infer from the poems, except that Afa Ajura did not express

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that as a problem. Nevertheless, this poem provided necessary details that many Ghanaians never thought happened, and about which they would appreciate learning. This is especially true today, when the issue of kayayo/kayaye has become a national issue that haunts politicians who are scrambling to find a lasting solution to it. Perhaps, Afa Ajura was ahead of his time in seeing such a migration as a socio-religious problem. Finally, the language he employed, especially regarding the women he accused, sounds somehow sarcastic, perhaps condescending, and certainly judgmental. Below is the list of topics as one may observe from this 750-line-long poem for easy reference. monotheism obedience to God obedience to the Prophet summary of the pillars of Islam good interpersonal relationships raising children properly young adults and daily prayers women’s role in raising young girls the hereafter and eschatology women’s relationships with each other northern women visiting the mining town of Akotia (cultural history) women and marriage alcohol consumption engaging in lies offerings prescribed by diviners and soothsayers tibbu (Islamic divination) prohibition of idol worshiping (types of idols) bad wedding practices (cultural history) men should stop chasing women funeral practices commercial malpractices backbiting, gambling, and smoking avoid wearing dirty clothes ablution (instructions and what nullifies it) daily prayers (congregation and what nullifies it) fasting (relationships with women and what nullifies it) almsgiving (who should receive it) pilgrimage great kings and nobility will also die (pharaohs and others)

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ancient tribes prophets and messengers (Adam to Muhammad) on the bravest people of Dagbon on the founders of northern tribes list of Yaa Naas (overlords) of Dagbon (1416–1953) warriors of Dagbon battles worshiping God and abandoning traditional gods death and aftermath shun traditional offerings death and funerals and survivors people and actions leading to paradise conclusion of the poem: obedience to God and Prophet love for prophet’s companions prayers and supplication poem 3: dolya tidu¯ma na¯wuni ŋun namtiŋo (our lord god, the sole creator, you must obey) Afa Ajura must have composed this poem early in his preaching and composing career. Its contents show that he was still preoccupied with teaching the average people their religion. It also includes clues about his heavy reliance on the original Islamic sources, such as al-Bukha¯rı¯, Muslim, and Muwat.t.a’ of Imam Ma¯lik ibn Anas, and his call for people to study them. This is a very important signal that after his magnum opus (poem 2), where he taught the people the basics of Islam, he was ready to call them to study for themselves. Hence his citation of these great books. Most tellingly, its swipe at his Tija¯niyyah adversaries was mild and brief, as if he was inviting them as well to study these original sources. This tells us that he was more focused on educating the average person than unleashing his arsenal against the Tija¯niyyah. The poem he composed after this particular one in 1955, though, had a specific topic, nonetheless spoke at length and more forcefully about the clerics among the Tija¯niyyah. Although Afa Ajura reminded his readers and listeners about obeying God and prophet in all his poems, this particular one had him repeating that call multiple times. Again, the content showed him address a variety of topics in haphazard fashion. Yet he emphasized certain basic crucial information such as God’s omnipotence, the need to worship him and depend on him alone, as opposed to the ancestral gods, as well as some details about the hereafter and paradise. Specific topics of this poem include the following:

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reward of obedience to God and the Prophet reminder about the pillars of Islam original sources in Islam (H . adith and fiqh) importance of learning impossibility of seeing God (as the Tija¯niyyah allegedly claimed) following Prophet and the Rightly Guided Caliphs pilgrimage to Kaolack (Senegal) to visit the Tija¯niyyah leader monotheism and God’s attributes Moses and pious man Khidr on real knowledge description of paradise Day of Resurrection list of important prophets intercession of Prophet Muhammad for those who follow him people’s accountability and reckoning (h.isa¯b) poem 4: afa za¯ ŋunpaɣ nyu buɣli (any person who allows his wife to drink the potion for exorcism) This poem was precipitated by a specific incident that took Tamale and the Northern Region by storm. It was about witches, witch hunters, and exorcism that assumed the name of nana. It began with an elderly Ashanti woman, probably known as Nana for her age, power, or reverence, who first arrived in Tamale claiming to hunt down witches and exorcise them. Before they moved on to other parts of the northern villages, they had settled at Mba Abdulai Simwaya’s house. Some Dagbon women had joined Nana’s group as witch hunters (buɣ-bahi). These witch hunters were considered Nana’s representatives, and were themselves called nana. They would enter houses and claim to flush out all witches. They and their supporters would subject the accused elderly women to beatings and claim to exorcise them by giving them a potion to drink and shaving their heads. After some time, they moved on to a permanent camp near Gushegu, where women who were suspected of being witches were forced to go for exorcism. People who had problems and suspected some witchcraft could also visit there for clarification and possibly for identification of the particular women who were bewitching them. They would also be given a specially concocted potion to drink for their purposes. Nana became a quasi industry, and vehicle owners in Tamale and Gushegu and their representatives suddenly became popular as the number of daily trips there increased. Local chiefs and the Tija¯niyyah clerics were also to be dragged into this industry. The Tija¯niyyah clerics with their

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claim of being able to exorcise witchcraft through the power of Qur’an joined the fray in exorcising the witches. Afa Ajura objected and mounted spirited attacks on several fronts of the nana business, including on the local chiefs and the clerics. Afa Ajura went around and complained to most of the chiefs in Tamale and insisted that if they would do nothing to protect the poor women who were being accused and molested undeservedly, then he would fight against that to save and protect them. He warned that if he saw a witch hunter harassing any woman in his neighborhood, he would mobilize his people to attack them. The poem starts with Afa Ajura passing a juristic verdict for anyone who drinks the exorcist potion: that two-month fasting becomes obligatory. This merits special attention. He probably got it from the Qur’an 4: 92; 58: 4. This verdict presents him as exercising ijtihad (juristic exertion) using what is called “analogy” in the Islamic legal system. Analogy is one of the four sources (Qur’an, Sunnah, consensus [ijma¯’], and analogy [qiya¯s]) of the Sunni Islamic legal system. It is used when there is no direct legal ruling for a particular problem, and scholars have to rely on rulings on other problems to come to a verdict due to some similarity in both problems. So, since there was no ruling for drinking exorcist potion in the Qur’an or H . adith, Afa Ajura had to use his individual judgment based on other Qur’anic verses. The interesting thing here is that as he made these verdicts, Afa Ajura somehow flipped the rulings of the Qur’an. There are two places where fasting two months is prescribed as expiation. One is Qur’an 4: 92, with regard to accidental killing of a Muslim; the other is Qur’an 58: 4, when one illegally divorces his wife in pre-Islamic Arab style called z.iha¯r. This means a man is declaring that his wife’s body (backside) is like his mother’s in terms of how taboo it is to enjoy her sexually. Thus the wife was left in a limbo of not being clearly divorced, and yet she had no matrimonial relationship with the husband. This was the main reason why chapter 58 was revealed, as this z.iha¯r practice was outlawed by the Qur’an and three steps of expiation were prescribed for those who did it. In the accidental killing of a Muslim, two-month fasting came as the last option. But in z.iha¯r divorce, two-month fasting came as the second option. This is why I suggested that Afa Ajura flipped the ruling. Again, the best way to explain his verdict is to follow Qur’anic prescription style as well. Scholars believe that the Qur’an prescribes the steps in expiation to balance between punishment and real situations of people involved, by providing options that they can implement. In the case of an accidental killing of a Muslim, the perpetrator must (1) free a Muslim slave woman and pay blood money (with other variations on whether he is a Muslim or not); or, if he cannot afford that, (2) fast for two

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consecutive months. However, in the case of z.iha¯r, the Qur’an’s prescriptions were (1) to free a slave (sex or gender of the slave is not stated), (2) to fast for two consecutive months, and (3) to feed sixty poor people. Now, why did Afa Ajura name fasting as the first option? The best answer would be the realities involved in choosing the options. Fasting for two months is the most easily applicable one, as there were no slaves to free in the first place. He also placed the feeding of sixty poor people before freeing a slave. From this perspective, he was truly applying ijtihad. Significantly, through analogy, Afa Ajura added another, fourth option: one hundred lashes. This option is a punishment in Qur’an 24: 2, for fornication. Afa Ajura might have included it in case the other three were not feasible. The main topics in this poem include his verdict on the person who drinks the exorcist potion, as well as discussion on the phenomenon of nana. He also blames the chiefs of the Northern Region and the Tija¯niyyah clerics. He also touches on the Arab idols that the Qur’an condemned; eschatology; and punishment in the afterlife. He calls for respect for Muslims by not forcing them to partake in nana’s business. He specifically blames tibbu (Islamic divination) and the clerics who engage in it. He ends with prayers and supplication.

poem 5: fa khudhu¯ (and you must take) Fa Khudhu¯ is Afa Ajura’s first poem in Arabic in more than eighty verses. When I began translating it, I wondered why he would compose in Arabic, considering his major audience could not speak a word of Arabic. Before long, I had formed a hypothesis about that. Right from the start, Afa Ajura went straight to accusing the Tija¯niyyah of calling him and his followers rejecters or deniers (munkiru¯n). As explained earlier, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and his followers had encountered strong opposition from other Tija¯niyyah in Senegal. He called those who denied his role munkiru¯n and blamed them for accusing him and his followers for not following true Tija¯niyyah. So it would make sense that due to their denial of the Tija¯niyyah in Tamale, Afa Ajura and his followers would be given the same name as the early deniers of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse in Senegal. My initial hypothesis as to why Afa Ajura composed this poem in Arabic has to do with his wanting to send a message to a different audience beside his usual one at home. Considering its content, this poem must have been targeted at the leadership of the Tija¯niyyah either in Tamale or other parts of Ghana, or even in Senegal, all of who understand Arabic. At some point, Afa Ajura attacked the Tija¯yyah leader, presumably the one in Senegal: “The necks of shaykhs before

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him are bowed / Even though he himself is not a shaykh or a murid except [one who perpetuates] doubts.” Furthermore, he made certain claims that he had vanquished the leader of the Tija¯niyyah. One of the understandings is that he meant Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse himself, even though he never debated him. But the story goes that Afa Ajura sent him several letters for a one-on-one debate while both were in Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage, without any response. So for that reason, he might have concluded that he had “vanquished him,” and therefore made such claims. Although this sort of reasoning would hardly be acceptable, it goes to support the thesis that he must have written this poem, at least in part, for external consumption as well. Afa Seidu narrated a story that, in 1960, Afa Ajura was invited to a celebration of Prophet’s birth in Accra, for which he took the former along. The scholars in Accra wanted him to speak about the impossibility of seeing God, as some Tija¯niyyah allegedly claimed. They expected him to speak about the Qur’an’s story regarding how Prophet Moses sought, but was denied, to see God. Instead Afa Ajura told the crowd that he wanted to uproot the principal practice of wird itself, and with it the claim of seeing God. Afa Ajura laid bare all his arguments against the Tija¯niyyah with all the scholarly greats of Accra in attendance, including the unrivaled Mallam Sura¯qah and Mallam Hamza, who, at that time, still practiced wird, but later abandoned it and became Afa Ajura’s good friend. Although Afa Seidu did not make any connection to this poem, my own impression is that Afa Ajura must have composed this poem in Arabic, along with those in Hausa that I was unable to include in this collection, during or shortly thereafter this gathering. He must have had other Tija¯niyyah leadership outside Tamale as his target audience. This is particularly relevant, as the poem includes his explanation about wird and the claim of seeing God. Another support for this external audience thesis has to do with one of the poems (included in this volume) written in Arabic called “Bukari Mawla¯” (A Eulogy). It was a eulogy for one of his favorite friends, who was of Togolese origin and probably met Afa Ajura in Asamankese, in Ghana’s Eastern Region. The friends and family of this scholar must have been Afa Ajura’s prime audience; and since they were unlikely to understand Dagbani, Afa Ajura’s best option was to write in Arabic or Hausa. Once again, he wrote Arabic to mainly target a specific audience. One myth perpetuated by Afa Ajura’s Tija¯niyyah opponents in Tamale is worth debunking with these Arabic poems: that he did not know Arabic. Some of them claimed that he was “deficient” in Arabic. But from these poems one can conclude with certainty that these charges were nothing but a feel-good,

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self-serving myth concocted by the Tija¯niyyah. Out of sixteen poems in this collection, four of them (25 percent) are in Arabic. Nobody can compose at least four poems in Arabic if he does not know the language. It never occurred to me that anybody would make such a claim, and I never heard it myself. I only got to learn about this when I was doing the research to write this introduction. What is a bit puzzling is why his Tija¯niyyah opponents would concoct this untruth even though they must have heard his Arabic poems? Most of the salient topics from this poem include: a push back on the epithet “rejecters” warning against following the Tija¯niyyah attacks on the Tija¯niyyah virtue of prophets attack on Tija¯niyyah’s leader attack on Tija¯niyyah’s concept of love and friendship to God invocations taught by Prophet Tija¯niyyah and seeing God prayer and supplication

poem 6: kutilga (you shall not be saved) “Kutilga” was probably Afa Ajura’s most condensed and concise admonishment yet. It must have been composed between 1955 and 1960, putting it among the early poems. It contains advice for the average traditional Dagomba person and the Tija¯niyyah member (although he does not mention them by name). It is shown above how Afa Ajura commenced his poems by educating the population about what he thought was necessary for their religion. After that he directed his attention to the local clerics, whose activities he rejected such as their roles in funerals and tibbu (divination). Then he unleashed his attacks on his Tija¯niyyah opponents regarding their Sufi believes and practices. Here, he addressed all these groups directly. In “Kutilga,” Afa Ajura seems to focus on summarizing the beliefs, practices, and behaviors that he judged as unfit to save anybody from the hellfire in the hereafter. In other words, he listed behaviors that would lead a person right to hellfire, regardless of what one thought of their merit. The poem is exhaustive, yet not too long; the topics are so varied, yet not irrelevant, and the verses are straightforward, yet not too elaborate. For the Dagombas of the Northern Region, this composition could as well serve as Afa Ajura’s blueprint for what they should and should not do in order to escape the hellfire.

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It opens with an admonishment to obey God and the Prophet, to fear God as the best way to escape the hellfire. That one must not be deceived by one’s family, status, or knowledge or even simply going to Mecca for pilgrimage. He calls for people to pray and warns against drinking any type of potion that the clerics concocted for whatever purpose. He proscribes attending funerals only to partake in the traditional practices. Afa Ajura advises women to maintain modesty, calls on everybody to shun consulting Islamic diviners, and reminds the clerics that wearing scarf and turban cannot save them in the hereafter. Other issues that he warns against include ostentation, fighting other Muslims, chasing other people’s wives, worshiping ancestral spirits, engaging in baths for weddings and deaths, and doing good deeds to show off. He ended with admonishing people to repent and seek God’s mercy as the effective way to be saved and go to paradise. poem 7: nsab nsabliŋo (i compose this writing of mine) This piece is Afa Ajura’s recounting of his and other people’s role or participation during the 1960 celebration of Nigeria’s independence. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s pan-African leader, selected him and other political and opinion leaders to witness this historic event. Nigeria’s independence was celebrated on Saturday, October 1, 1960, at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos. In this poem, a narrative about the political history of Ghana and Nigeria, Afa Ajura recounts meeting several Nigerian dignitaries and political players. He names several members of the Ghanaian delegation to this momentous occasion, leaving us a relatively short but remarkably elaborate account of the main players. Significantly, he lists the important figures of Tamale at the time, whose relationships speak volumes as to the politics of Ghana’s first republic. Alhaj Mumun Iddi DC, one of Tamale’s delegation, remained Afa Ajura’s loyal friend until the former’s death. He is seen in several pictures taken with Afa Ajura at Anbariyyah’s gatherings. For his part, Alhaj Yahya Iddi, one of Tamale’s foremost opinion leaders during his lifetime, was also seen as influential in Nkrumah’s government. Not many people in Tamale today are aware of his role then, and they may not believe that he and Afa Ajura were on good terms politically. Both were, by the 1970s, considered to be supporting diametrically opposing parties in political, religious, and chieftaincy affairs. In fact, by the 1980s, they were both accused by Jerry John Rawlings’s military government of being behind civil unrest in the Northern Region, for which they, along with others such as the chief of Savelugu, were detained as representatives of different factions. Interestingly, since their detention was not considered punitive per

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se, but a mere isolation from their people as a way to maintain law and order, they were accorded some degree of respect, and were not put in cells or prison. So people could pay them visits as they were seated just behind the main police counter. As seasoned opinion leaders, they were always seen talking and laughing with each other under the detention. This poem, an eyewitness account, testifies to Afa Ajura’s clout in the political terrain of President Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana in 1960, and is a rare depiction of the geopolitics and political history of African independence. The topics in this poem revolve around the important figures of both Ghana and Nigeria as well as tribes and cities. Afa Ajura began by listing: the representatives from Tamale and the Northern region: Alhaj Yahya Iddi, Alhaj Mumuni Iddi DC, Alhaj Mahmudu Zero, and Afa Ajura some representatives of the Ghanaian government: Honorable Imoru Egala, Honorable Kojo Botsio, and Alhaj Tanko of Kumasi Afa Ajura’s patriotism and praise for mother Ghana Nigerian leaders: Sir Ahmadu Bello, Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, President Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Mallam Aminu Kano, and Chiefs of Kaduna, Baribari, and Zaria tribes: Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Junkun, and Baribari cities: Iko, Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, and Zaria poem 8: dolya tidu¯ma ka doli anabŋo (follow our lord and this prophet) Afa Ajura composed “Dolya Tidu¯ma” while he was on a trip to Accra, the capital of Ghana. It is one of the few poems with a record of the year it was composed, 1965. By this time Afa Ajura was already established and was no longer an underdog in Tamale. Politically, he was in a good position, as he had supported the government of the day: Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party. We have no information about what this trip to Accra was about. Whatever its purpose, one can be certain that Afa Ajura would have met with some political leaders at the time, considering his rapport with the government of the day. In addition, Afa Seidu claimed that on several occasions, he and Afa Ajura had paid visits to some of the embassies of the Muslim nations, each time they were in Accra. My understanding was that they never went purposely to visit them, but each time they were in Accra, they paid them visits. So this trip would not have been any different. Finally, the fact that Afa Ajura composed

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this poem in Accra, albeit in Dagbani, shows that his mind was pondering the issues he raised, prompting one to believe that he must have encountered some of the Tija¯niyyah members during that trip doing what he was always speaking against. Regarding the outline of this poem, once again he begins it by calling his audience to follow and obey the Lord, Prophet Muhammad, the H . adith, and the Companions. He immediately accuses the Tija¯nis (calling them people of Tarbiya: spiritual training) of claiming to see God, causing divisions, and pursuing other people’s women. Afa Ajura also faults them for replacing true Islam with their concocted wird litanies and for “worshiping” Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, as the demigod, while listing all the names and epithets that are used for him. Afa Ajura points out that the shaykh and his followers were not welcome in many parts of Africa. Yet his followers in Tamale boast of owning and storing the drips of water with which the shaykh performed ablution. Other issues he addresses include: warning against following and obeying the Tija¯nis addressing the Tija¯niyyah scholars directly to desist from bragging advising them to seek proper religious knowledge types of expertise that may be considered knowledge the truth on the day of death, in the grave, and in the afterlife punishment in the grave supplication and thanks to God praise of God admonishment to obey and follow God and the prophet

poem 9: afa nim za¯sa nin binya (all clerics have not seen: against wird) In his classic polemical fashion, Afa Ajura went straight into condemning the signature practices of the Tija¯niyyah, the wird and the tarbiya. Wird or awra¯d are litanies that Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ taught to his followers and encouraged (or obligated) them to perform three times daily. It is claimed that he was given these litanies by Prophet Muhammad in broad daylight. Their performance guarantees a person paradise and forgiveness of all his sins and that of his relatives. Tarbiya, “spiritual training,” is simply a process of wird devised by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse to intensify and accelerate the experience attainable in wird. For some Tija¯niyyah of Ghana, these are one and the same and are used interchangeably.

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Afa Ajura claims that in many West African countries, no true scholar can prove that wird can be found in the Qur’an and Sunnah. He is correct about that, as was demonstrated above. To claim that wird is found in the Qur’an or H . adith would be suicidal. However, many Tija¯niyyah followers, especially those who follow Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, do not care whether or not the litanies are authentically found in the Qur’an. But for Afa Ajura, anything that he cannot trace to the Qur’an and H . adith must not be followed. Hence his problem with the Tija¯niyyah group. The subject matter of this polemical poem is nothing but admonishment against the performance of Tija¯nı¯ litanies, and a call to abandon that path. Afa Ajura calls Muslims to maintain the path of Prophet and his companions. He challenges the Tija¯niyyah to demonstrate a reliable source for their practices. In the end, he claims that some people are listening and shunning the Tija¯niyyah path, which he concludes is better for their own pockets, as they will not be making any more contribution to their shaykhs.

poem 10: bukari mawla (a eulogy) This eulogy was composed following Afa Ajura’s learning about Shaykh Bukari Mawla’s demise in detention. Originally from Sokodé, Togo, Shaykh Mawla settled in the town of Asamankese, in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Afa Ajura claimed that Shaykh Bukari Mawla preached against the Tija¯niyyah practices and was able to convert many people. According to some sources, due to his zeal to reform the community, the shaykh was sabotaged and detained. While he was in detention he met his untimely death. The eulogy portrays the shaykh as one of Afa Ajura’s favorite scholars. He was the only scholar that one may truly consider as Afa Ajura’s idol and role model. He writes: “Through Shaykh Bukari Mawla, the Mawla clan has been blessed. / I, indeed, so wished that I belonged to the Mawla clan.” Afa Ajura never expressed such strong feeling toward anybody, besides the Prophet and his companions. Admittedly, as stated earlier, he fondly quoted Alhaj Umar of Kete-Krachi, his former teacher, but we have also seen that Alhaj Umar remained an important Tija¯nı¯ master. And as we well know by now, Afa Ajura was not an admirer of Tija¯niyyah members. However, Afa Ajura considered Shaykh Bukari Mawla as pious, brave, and rightly guided for preaching against what they both deemed as the innovation and heresy of the Tija¯niyyah. This is why the shaykh’s death was so shocking to him, a situation that necessitated composing this moving eulogy for him. Seeing himself in the same

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light, Afa Ajura called him: “Reviver of the Sunnah of the best of creation, Muhammad. / With effort and deterrence, Mawla never tired.” He ends this eulogy with a sincere, deep, and comprehensive supplication for the shaykh. During the recitation, after a soloist reciter completes each verse, a chorus follows with: “Here I am, here I am [labbayka, labbayka], O rightly guided Shaykh Bukari Mawla.” These initial words (labbayka, labbayka) are reminiscent of what pilgrims recite during the hajj in response to God’s call for them to perform the hajj. Now, this eulogy was delivered in Arabic, as I suggested above, due in part to the fact that Shaykh Bukari Mawla’s family and friends were unlikely to understand Dagbani. So Afa Ajura’s option was to write in either Arabic or Hausa. In this case, he preferred Arabic, expressing himself beautifully and using the best literary tools in Arabic rhetoric (bala¯ghah). One verse that stands out for its eloquence and beauty is verse 2: “My tears pouring, like the clouds sending down the rain, / I, indeed, shall never forget Shaykh Bukari Mawla.”221 The literal translation of the Arabic is: “My tears are clouds, sending down the rain.” In Arabic literature, one of the best ways to express a “simile” is to completely omit the article and tool of simile (ada¯t al-tashbı¯h) while at the same time maintaining the aspect of simile (wajh al-shabah). Rather than say “my tears are ‘like’ clouds sending down the rain” one simply claims “my tears are clouds sending down the rain.” This way of expression is a double figure of speech. First, one expresses resemblance between his tears and clouds (in reality, they are not similar; hence figurative speech); and second, one omits the linguistic tool (e.g., like) that expresses the resemblance. However, one also maintains the aspect of the resemblance, in this case “sending down the rain.” This is to emphasize the claim that his tears in their pouring are exactly like clouds in their sending down the rain. That is why this type of simile in Arabic rhetoric is called al-tashbı¯h al-mu’akkad (“the emphasized simile”).222 With this example, in addition to the fact that the entire poem is composed in Arabic, one may conclude that Afa Ajura did know Arabic well, contrary to what his opponents claimed.

poem 11: ninsal kutonya tidu¯ma (a human being cannot see our lord) “Ninsal Kutonya Tidu¯ma” is another polemical poem that Afa Ajura composed to educate the average person as a warning against joining the Tija¯niyyah group. One of the accusations labeled against the Tija¯niyyah is the claim that they “see” God; hence their name Naawuni nyarba (literally, “those who

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see God”). The name probably started sarcastically and eventually stabilized into a fittingly negative identifier for the Tija¯niyyah, the same way Munchiri (munkiru¯n: “rejecters,” “deniers”) was derogatively applied to Afa Ajura and his followers. Meanwhile, this concept of “seeing” God is, once again, a misplaced topic; one that cannot be construed by Muslims whose whole Islamic Weltanschauung is predicated upon the exoteric (not literal) understanding of Islamic texts and simple logic. Much to the objection of the Tija¯niyyah, Afa Ajura’s success both in winning arguments and in convincing many people hinged largely on his zeal and commitment to clearly follow the Qur’an and Sunnah as well as on his use of simple logic. So even if the Tija¯niyyah did not literally mean seeing God physically, a metaphorical meaning of “seeing God” would still be difficult to convince a person like Afa Ajura in the face of abundant verses. He would then label them as infidels or those who overstep the acceptable limits in Islam. The two common verses that Afa Ajura and his representatives liked to quote against the Tija¯niyyah are Qur’an 6:103 and 7: 143.223 The first one simply describes God as being beyond the perception and grasp of human vision, “No vision can grasp Him while He grasp all visions. He is Subtle, the Aware” (Qur’an 6: 103). The second one is demonstrably used more to dramatically reject the possibility of seeing God, at least in the world. That was when Moses pleaded with God, on Mount Sinai, to see Him, the latter categorically told Moses that, “You will never see Me [lan tara¯nı¯]. But look at the mountain, if it remains firm in its place, then you may [fasawfa] see Me” (Qur’an 7: 143). There is no exoteric understanding of these verses that would render seeing God, in reality or metaphorically, possible. However, from the esoteric perspective, not only can seeing God be read into other verses, but it can be read into these ones as well. Though esotericism in reality is not the same as a lack of knowledge or capricious interpretation, critics would be inclined to see it that way. My own observation from studying esoteric Qur’an interpretations (Tafsı¯r Abdul Qa¯dir al-Jı¯lanı¯ [Commentary of Abdul Qa¯dir al-Jı¯lanı¯]) and literature (Ibn al-‘Arabı¯: Fus.u¯s. al-h.ikam) is that authors claim to draw their analyses entirely from divine inspiration and “openings” (Ibn al-‘Arabı¯: Futu¯h.a¯t al-makkiyyah). These are not subject to basic rules of hermeneutics or the simple logic of exotericism. Interestingly, there is no guarantee that what one esoteric scholar says about a particular verse can be replicated either by themselves or another in the same or different circumstances. So what the Tija¯niyyah of Tamale needed to do was to make it clear that their claims were based on esoteric (hidden, not metaphorical) considerations,

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ones that are not subject to logic and exoteric (obvious, not literal) principles of hermeneutics, as argued by Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ himself in Jawa¯hir alma‘a¯nı¯. Failure to set the terms of the debate in their favor or simply in consonance with the reality of their beliefs and practices has earned them humiliating defeat and cost them adherents. This poem is unique in that Afa Ajura commences and ends it without the usual praises to God and supplication for Prophet. He dives right into his polemical rhetoric. He begins by declaring his own rejection of the concept of seeing God in this worlds. He continues on to show how angels, prophets, and the Companions did not see God, before he warned the Muslims to stay away from joining the ranks of the Tija¯niyyah. He aptly reminds people about their best option, the five pillars of Islam, and concludes with the advice that people should seek proper knowledge about God instead of contributing monies to their Tija¯ni leaders.

poem 12: s. alli s. ala¯tan (send blessings upon) Some argue that “S.alli S.ala¯tan” is another poem that Afa Ajura wrote during one of his trips to Accra, but there is no solid proof for such a claim. As we have seen, poem 8. “Dolya Tidu¯ma,” written in Accra in 1965, has the place and date recorded at its end. But the present poem lacks such authentication. However, from the fact that Afa Ajura composed this poem in Arabic and based on its content, one could accept that he wrote it in Accra, particularly if he was invited to partake in a birthday celebration of the Prophet in the majority company of Tija¯niyyah scholars. Since the scholars in attendance were from all over the country, it is quite reasonable to assume that they did not understand Dagbani. So Afa Ajura, pondering to compose something to share with the gathering or simply leave them with some thoughts, would have done so in either Arabic or Hausa. In this scenario, it is entirely tenable that he wrote the poem in Arabic. In terms of its content, “S.alli S.ala¯tan” is a typical Afa Ajura’s polemics against the Tija¯niyyah at its best. From an editorial point of view, it is one of the few poems in which one may witness Afa Ajura’s own commentary on the verses. As usual, he starts as he ends, with a prayer for the Prophet, and declares his absolute dependence on the Qur’an and the H . adith. He then condemns and rejects anything attributed to the Tija¯niyyah’s shaykh. He showers praise on the Prophet with beautiful names and descriptions. And he again reproaches the Tija¯nis and their litanies and compares them to the disbelievers and idols of several past generations, from the time of Noah to Abraham to Muhammad. He admonishes people to shun boasting of belonging to the Tija¯niyyah

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fraternity, and insists that some regular mundane professions are better than being a Tija¯nı¯. Finally, he closes with supplication. poem 13: tipaɣri tidu¯ma na¯wuni (we thank our lord) In Tamale, Tija¯niyyah scholars were not ready to cede the fight to Afa Ajura for followers. It is true that Tamale and Ghana at large had mainly adherents of Tija¯niyyah. This was especially true before and when Afa Ajura started to actively preach. In a few years, it is claimed that his followers outnumbered those of his opponents for the reasons with which we would conclude this long introductory essay, including his zeal, his simple message, his truthfulness, and of course his strict following of the exoteric understanding of Islamic literature. Nevertheless, some researchers with Tija¯niyyah sympathies, like Ibrahim, sought to undermine his achievement and success by shifting the blame to Tija¯niyyah youth, who obviously abandoned the spiritual training (tarbiya) to which their fathers ascribed. But this is a strangely backward argument. Why should young people be blamed for the low esteem of a Sufi order simply because they have shunned the same activities that could be the root cause of their lackadaisical attitudes in the first place? If the youth’s seriousness would have made any difference in Tija¯niyyah’s popularity, the eagerness of their parents (who had always been loyal, energetic, and committed) would have made the most difference. In other words, since the first generation’s commitment to the Tija¯niyyah did not lead to increase in popularity, loyalty, and retention of the youth, why should the youth be blamed? Afa Ajura’s success, however, was not only based on his own youth remaining loyal, but on new followers who were converting to his side increasingly over time. But most importantly, his success did not depend on numbers alone, but also on the content of his message. This meant that people (either his followers or not) tended to like the way the Munchiris performed their activities and so they increasingly adopted Ajuraism, while at the same time they gradually abandoned the Tija¯niyyah’s modus operandi in rituals, weddings, funerals, and excessive requests for contributions that were not used for any meaningful projects. These are realities that Ibrahim never cared to deeply analyze when addressing Afa Ajura’s success vis-à-vis Tija¯niyyah failures. This poem must be seen from the perspective of the race between Afa Ajura and his Tija¯niyyah opponents in Tamale to convert people to their respective sides. Consequently, it seems to have been directed at a specific, anonymous Tija¯nı¯ scholar who apparently was staking his claim over the population. In “TipaƔri Tidu¯ma,” Afa Ajura immediately attacks the Tija¯ni interlocutor for

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allegedly coercing people to follow a particular Tija¯niyyah shaykh (either Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ or Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse). He argues that everybody has a shaykh and possibly several of them, who are worthy of one’s respect and appreciation. And by the way he uses the word “shaykh,” it seemed he was using it metaphorically, thereby attempting to undermine the role and significance of the actual Tija¯niyyah shaykhs. This was far from what the Tija¯niyyah intended when they call someone a shaykh. Afa Ajura continues to undermine the shaykh and accuse the scholar for using the shaykh as a ploy to entrap followers. He then warns people not to fall for such entrapment. He admonishes them instead to respect the clerics who performed their naming ceremonies when they were infants. Here is one of the few places where Afa Ajura categorically disabused the Tija¯niyyah and everybody else of the notion that he was himself abrasive and abusive. He writes: We do not want trouble, so leave us alone.224 Following the Prophet in this religion is sufficient. We all are the Lord’s servants, so leave us alone. On the Day of Resurrection, no shaykh will be able to help us. I am not insulting any shaykh; that is a taboo. But your speech has elevated them beyond their proper place.

He concludes by blaming the scholars of sowing division among Muslims and using their call to wird (litanies) in order to earn money.

poem 14: ansarsi ma¯na (he who mocks) With only seven verses, “Ansarsi Ma¯na” is Afa Ajura’s shortest extant poem. It is also unique for being the only one composed in both Dagbani and Arabic. I am told that he composed this for Muslim women in particular. The context is that during wedding ceremonies, Dagbon women used to sing lyrics that many decent Muslims would consider as obscene and vulgar. As we have seen, he fought tirelessly and reformed the wedding practices in Dagbon, so this poem must be considered as part of that effort. Since Afa Ajura preached against engaging in “bad” songs, he needed to replace them with some “good” ones. This poem was intended to that effect. And considering its content, this was truly an excellent poem to both entertain the women and admonish them. One intriguing observation is why would he include Arabic in this poem even though the women almost certainly did not understand Arabic? The simple explanation is that out of the seven verses, only the last two are in Arabic. And fittingly, they are meant to invoke prayers upon the Prophet, leaving the

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first five verses to focus on admonishment. He tied the significance of his advice to entering paradise. Among the evil behaviors that he proscribed are mocking others, arrogance, breaking up families, abandoning one’s parents, lies, and swindling. He taught Muslims to pray for paradise. Finally Afa Ajura made a supplication for the Prophet, his family, and his companions.

poem 15: nah.nu junu¯du h.abı¯bina¯ (we are the army of our beloved) One of Afa Ajura’s last poems, “Nah.nu Junu¯du H . abı¯bina¯,” was written for school children to be recited and sung during plays and for entertainment. My understanding is that Afa Ajura had banned his schoolteachers from singing and dancing performances as part of the Prophet’s birthday celebrations. As other Tija¯niyyah schools continued with such performances, children and their parents were becoming more attracted to those schools. Not to be outdone by other schools, Afa Ajura’s head teachers, like Mallam Basha (during what was dubbed as wasan makaranta, or school plays) and, later, Ustadh Issa Bello (during what was labeled as z.uhu¯r al-Islam, or the coming of Islam), devised creative ways to keep students attracted and entertained without having to celebrate the Prophet’s birthday. They reenacted plays in accordance with the ancient stories of prophets, such as Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice his son Ishmael, or Abraham’s people’s attempt to burn him in a bonfire. The material for the entertainment consisted of poems and songs extracted from several books from the Middle East. As a poet himself, Ustadh Issa Bello composed some for such purpose. This particular poem of Afa Ajura was written to advance this entertainment repertoire for Anbariyyah. Of all the poems in this collection, this seems like one simply meant for children. The language is simple and direct, yet it contains some adult concerns like supplication for himself, for all the people of Tamale, and for the Prophet Muhammad. But the main point of this poem, it seems, was for the students to praise the Prophet and entertain themselves.

poem 16: afanim tola ayirmo (the clerics have gone wild) “Afanim Tola Ayirmo” was Afa Ajura’s last poem. It was a response to Alhaj Muntaqa, one of the foremost Tija¯niyyah scholars in the Northern Region, who had composed a polemical poem insulting Afa Ajura and Munchiris. His poem in its entirety is not extant, but we have enough of it to contextualize the tone of Afa Ajura’s response and the graphic nature of his language in this poem. Although Afa Ajura does not mention Alhaj Muntaqa by name, Mohammad

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Saani Ibrahim, a Tija¯niyyah-inclined researcher from Tamale, openly identifies Alhaj Muntaqa and cites a couple of his direct insults of Afa Ajura in his Ph.D. dissertation. Ibrahim writes: Hear me O people, there is no god but Allah, It is only the fool who become a Munchire. It is very difficult to identify a fool whose mouth is not spilled with spittle. It is the imbecile elderly who support the Munchires.225

During Afa Ajura’s preaching sessions, there was one ardent supporter of his, Mallam Sa¯ni, who would often interrupt with praises for Afa Ajura, saying, “The caterpillar! He has once again uprooted all the trees! The sword! He has once again cut with the sword!” Due to this expression, when Alhaj Muntaqa decided to compose his poem against Afa Ajura, he titled it “Catapilla” (The Caterpillar). I believe the verses cited above by Ibrahim are from that poem. However, I was able to record the following verses of Alhaj Muntaqa’s “Catapilla” (The Caterpillar). All the parts of the caterpillar226 have been dismantled And the edge of the sword227 is blunted, unable to cut anything. During the month of kpini,228 I faced off with the Munchiri229 in Tamale, I can inform you that he knows nothing. From the Qur’an and H . adith,230 I challenged him, But the Munchiri could only answer with Sibroo and Azindoo.231 The Munchiri tells you that God will curse you if you break up the maternal home, Knowing nothing, he only runs to the lawyers. It is an innovation in Sharı¯’ah to hire a lawyer, He who ever becomes a Munchiri shall learn nothing. While in Mecca, he refused to pebble the Satan, No child ever pebbles his father; no witness for that. A Munchiri is born as Satan’s child, He is in Tamale begetting his grandchildren; a terrible guy. Whether you drink alcohol or steal, a Munchiri likes you, A Munchiri is afraid of whoever praises God; he hates it.232

From listening to “The Caterpillar” one cannot but recognize that it mirrors in melody, intonation, and in poetic meter exactly Afa Ajura’s first poem, “Damba Digoli.” It is not clear if this is what Mohammad Saani Ibrahim meant when he stated about Alhaj Muntaqa that “he adopted the same techniques as Afa Ajura.”233 However, Mallam Fari, Afa Ajura’s first foster son from Yendi, recollected that when he returned to his family home in Yendi after years of living

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with Afa Ajura in Tamale, he began to take some lessons from Alhaj Muntaqa, who was living there at the time. The latter had asked him to give him his copies of Afa Ajura’s poems. Mallam Fari claimed that it took a long time before he could get them back from Alhaj Muntaqa.234 So it should not be a surprise that his poem mimics Afa Ajura’s own perfectly. “Catapilla” (The Caterpillar) had adversely affected the Munchiris immensely. So Afa Ajura composed “Afanim Tola Ayirmo,” to respond in kind. He convened a nightly preaching session in downtown Tamale, and asked that “Catapilla” be read publicly before he recited his own response. After it was read, he told the crowd that insulting people is unacceptable in Islam. But the way Alhaj Muntaqa had insulted him and his followers could not be left unanswered. He quoted a Dagomba proverb that says, “If someone kicks you, you do not fail to kick him back unless you have a weaker leg.” In other words, if someone insults you, you must retaliate unless you are not equipped to do so. With that in mind he was going to respond to Alhaj Muntaqa’s poem with his own. Before long, Alhaj Muntaqa died in Gushegu. Mohammad Saani Ibrahim described the death as happening “under mysterious circumstances.”235 Afa Ajura reportedly wept when he heard about it and later saw some photos. Afa Seidu insisted that Afa Ajura was so sad that he regretted his persistent squabble with Alhaj Muntaqa. This, however, contradicts what the Tija¯niyyah group believed, as exemplified in Ibrahim’s insinuation of Afa Ajura’s alleged elation and boastful posture. Ibrahim writes: “To show his [Afa Ajura] resentment against this Tija¯ni cleric, he organized a sermon a day after the latter’s mysterious death and said that anyone who tried to vie with him would be made to disappear in broad daylight, just like Shaykh Muntaqa.”236 Significantly, Afa Ajura forbade his followers from reciting this and other poems ever again; he stated this in his own words in a newly discovered audio recording, though not in connection with Alhaj Muntaqa.237 Apparently, forbidding the recitation was the main reason why this poem remained unknown among his followers. In addition, all of Afa Ajura’s poems in this collection were nearly completely forgotten among his followers a few decades later because he had discouraged them from reciting them after this incident. We know this to be true from his own confession and from the difficulty we encountered in the process of this research to find people with access and knowledge of these poems. His followers, including the ones who were known to be reciting these poems, do not clearly remember them anymore. Although we have copies of his Hausa-language poems, we could not find a single person to recite them. In a few years, there may not be anybody who would be able to recite them, even in Dagbani. Fortunately, we have the poems now on audio and video recordings.

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From what is claimed about Afa Ajura’s regret and especially what is now a known fact about his proscription to his followers—to the point of forgetting the poems—from ever reciting this and the other poems, it was highly unlikely that Afa Ajura would have celebrated the death of Alhaj Muntaqa as gleefully and boastfully as Ibrahim and the Tija¯niyyah would have people to believe. For Afa Ajura did not deliver a sermon the day after Alhaj Muntaqa died, only one before the latter’s death, in which Afa Ajura responded with this poem, and in which any possible invectives may have admittedly been directed at Alhaj Muntaqa. Ibrahim must have been misinformed, confusing this preaching session (that Afa Ajura convened before Alhaj Muntaqa’s death in order to retaliate with this poem) with an alleged sermon that never took place after Alhaj Muntaqa’s death. What was most likely to have occurred is that some of Afa Ajura’s ignorant followers unfortunately might have welcomed the shaykh’s sudden death by using boastful statements to that effect. This must have spread among the Tija¯niyyah fraternity, who were more than ready to accept the rumor as Afa Ajura’s own reaction to their distinguished shaykh’s death. In this scenario, although the Tija¯niyyah could conceivably blame Afa Ajura for what his followers may or may not have said, that still did not prove that he said what is attributed to him, especially when there is proof that he seriously forbade his followers, out of regret, from ever reciting this retaliatory poem. CON C L US ION

It is clear that Afa Ajura was effective in converting the majority of people in northern Ghana to his Ajuraism (Munchiri). Before he appeared on the scene, the majority of the population in Tamale and its environs was Tija¯niyyah. When he began actively preaching, his followers were very few. But in a relatively short period, he was able to convince the majority of the population to come to his side. There are several explanations for his success. Some researchers say that Afa Ajura’s success was based on his political alignments and affiliations. They base their analysis of him on this assumption.238 Although there may have been some truth to this in the mid-1970s onward, up until that time, from the 1950s when he started preaching, Afa Ajura was the underdog. His relationship with President Kwame Nkrumah’s administration, which some may see as an example of his political clout, was in the minority compared to the many more individual Tija¯niyyah members in Tamale and Ghana who were big players in Nkrumah’s government. It is believed that, due to the influence of many Tija¯niyyah followers, President Kwame Nkrumah used to invite Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse

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to Ghana, or regularly send him gifts and requests for his prayers.239 So the Tija¯niyyah members were politically more connected in Nkrumah’s government and subsequent ones than Afa Ajura. And to relate Afa Ajura’s success to politics or anything other than his zeal, his activities, his sincerity, or the simplicity of his message is to try to undermine his concrete role. By the 1960s and early 1970s, he had already gained the majority of his following, enough to match or outnumber the Tija¯niyyah even though he had been on the wrong side of the successive governments,240 until General Acheampong’s military regime (1972–78). Again, although he was on good terms with Acheampong’s administrations, some of those in charge of religious affairs, like Major Sualihu, remained staunch sympathizers of the Tija¯niyyah. Major Sualihu reportedly did everything he could to sabotage Afa Ajura’s relationship with General Acheampong. So, whatever political alliances Afa Ajura had in the 1970s and 1980s, these came after his successes rather than enabling them. In terms of his overall success and the decline of the Tija¯niyyah, one cannot discount his simple message, his effective school, and, frankly, the ineffective role the Tija¯niyyah scholars in Tamale played in preaching. Political connections hardly coerced people or made religious terrain conducive toward one particular side to the exclusion of the other. Today, the reality on the ground is that many young people whose parents are staunch followers of the Tija¯niyyah do not care much for the daily wird of the Tija¯niyyah. Finally, from the examples given above of Afa Ajura’s preaching, any objective observer would be hard pressed to ignore the fact that, even though he came across as very strict at times, his arguments generally made sense.241 From speaking against abuses in wedding practices involving the alwanka’s role in humiliating the brides and grooms, to the funeral practices where the clerics extorted the deceased relatives for their financial gain in exchange for prayers and salvation; from fighting on behalf of the old women accused of witchcraft, to challenging the local clerics who held the population captive and claimed to solve their impending problems; and finally, from mobilizing the construction of many classroom buildings mainly with donations (that he could have used for his own purposes but did not), to sending many unrelated students abroad on scholarships (when he could have sent his own children): it is not hard to understand why Afa Ajura was successful. Although I made my position clear in terms of the above, as a researcher who acknowledges nuances in world religious practices and beliefs, I would invite readers to make their own judgment about Tija¯niyyah beliefs and practices. The purpose here is to explain and analyze the information that is available to us.

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Poem 1

Damba Digoli (Damba Month) Language: Dagbani Year: ca. 1952

On the twelfth of Damba month,1 he was born.2 On the twelfth of Damba month, he was born.3 Pick your ear, and about those who gave birth to him you may hear.4 Arab folks, noble folks, gave birth to him.5 The names of Prophet Muhammad’s mother and father you should know.6 ʻAbdulla¯h, the son of ʻAbd al-Mut.t.alib begot him.7 Ha¯shim, ʻAbd Mana¯f, and Qus.ayy,8 Together with Kila¯b, the son of Murrah, they begot him.9 Ka‘b, Lu’ayy, and Gha¯lib begot him.10 Fihr, Ma¯lik, and al-Nad.r begot him.11 Kina¯nah, Khuzaymah, and Mudrikah.12 Ilya¯s, Mud.ar, and Nizar begot him.13 Ma‘add and ‘Adna¯n, all of these gave birth to him.14 Isma¯ʻı¯l, son of Ibra¯hı¯m, begot him.15 ¯ With Aminat al-Zahriyyah, his maternal ancestry begins.16 Wahab and Abd Mana¯f gave birth to him. Zuhrah, with Kila¯b, along with Murrah.17 Noble folks among Arabs begot him. During delivery his mother did not bleed. No mess,18 no pain was felt before he was born. For his arrival, angels came to wait. For his birth, no midwife was present to witness.19 Angels Gabriel and Michael were also present, And with perfume from paradise they sprayed. Only for him did God create these heavens. Only for his sake did God create everything.

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To God we pray for the servants who followed him, And to God we pray for those who gave birth to him. H . alı¯mah al-Sa‘diyyah was the one who nursed him,20 And A¯minat al-Zahriyyah was the one who gave birth to him. We love Muhammad,21 whose birth occasioned this gathering.22 To pray to our Lord, for those who begot him, To impress upon our children and wives the need to learn about him,23 To know his name and to learn about those who gave birth to him. We are grateful to our Lord who created us, And for those who begot him we ask salvation.

Poem 2

Dunya BinshaƔkam Dina¯ra (Everything in the World Shall Perish) Language: Dagbani Year: ca. 1953–55

Everything in the world shall perish, But our Lord’s sovereignty remains infinite.1 We must obey our Lord, the Eternal, So that we shall receive interminable rewards.2 It is the Lord who has created everything,3 The trees and the grasses shall all expire.4 His sovereignty overwhelms everything,5 Both the commoner and the royal shall die.6 That Lord, it is He who sees and hears,7 And knows whatever is hidden.8 That Lord, it is He who created those kings,9 No matter how long a king lives, he shall perish. God’s own sovereignty He has exalted,10 And it is only His rule that never ceases. We praise the Lord’s supremacy, For it is He who offers or denies any gift.11 He provides or denies whomever He wishes,12 And we accept whatever he does to us. It is the Lord who created all of us,13 And it is He who causes us to live or die.14 He may offer a gift to a hopeless person,15 While the hard-working one16 sits and watches. That person may throw away his gift,17 While you sit there, watching and groaning. When He does whatever He wills to us,18 We must all accept and smile.19

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Whether it is bad or it is good,20 We must reach out to accept it and relax.21 It is that God who decrees death among us,22 For any living being must ultimately expire.23 No matter how long you live and age,24 You shall depart when your time comes to die.25 God’s sovereignty is great and exalted, And it is only His life that does not expire.26 Any patience may be exhausted and depleted, But the Lord’s patience is unlimited. One may decline something from any generous person, But our Lord’s generosity cannot be rejected. In heaven and on earth, He is our Lord,27 The Lord who neither eats nor drinks. There is no God but our Lord,28 And whoever challenges Him shall perish. Then his reign shall last for only three days, And toward the fourth it will begin to crumble. Crashing down, he shall be dethroned And people will be up in arms crying. The sovereignty of the great God is sufficient. His reign neither diminishes nor dissolves. We must obey His Messenger Muhammad29 So that we will be loved unceasingly. The son of a fair-complexion Arab, Our love for him is interminable.30 The son of the Quraysh clan, Our love for him is endless, Please lead us before our Lord On the Day of Judgment, we plead, Such that He will forgive our bad deeds And, with smiles, we may pass across the bridge.31 Love all of the messengers, And, unlike the Christians, do not discriminate among them.32 Fasting and daily prayers you must perform.33 Follow nothing else, for that too shall perish. Almsgiving and the pilgrimage you must execute,34 But whoever cannot afford to do so is hereby excused. Boasting among yourselves you must eschew. And all sorts of swaggering in the world shall cease.35

Poem 2 Maintaining family relations, you must love,36 For our current life shall end. All the friendships you must uphold, For you will be infinitely rewarded. Sometime back, we used to be ignorant,37 But now we are becoming enlightened.38 Religion used to be mere darkness. But now, lamps are here to illuminate.39 You must admonish the children as regards daily prayers, For some of them have become like Christians. At the age of seven, you must begin to instruct, But at ten, you may discipline.40 However, never hang your cudgel On your shoulder and use it to hit. In this colonial era, never use it,41 Lest you be arrested if you hit and crack open a head. Our Lord the children do not want to worship. Instead, they engage in simpa dance.42 All the nice haircuts they get. On their heads, as they flamboyantly display. In shorts and shirts they are clad, And on roads they solicit [presents]. He buries one hand deep in his pocket, And in the other, it is a cigarette he inhales and exhales. The belt on his waist is firmly tightened, Walking like a “fashion model,” he proudly giggles. He feels no shyness whatsoever, And does not even know what it is. He hopes to take over Tamale by force, And thus complains when anybody tries to replace him. All over his face, sweat oozes, And every bit of his wisdom he exploits. When it is time for the z.uhr prayer,43 Performing it is unthinkable. Even ‘as.r44 and maghrib45 as well, Prostrating on the ground is implausible. So is the approaching ‘isha¯ prayer,46 The performance of which will never occur. He likes to maintain his face bright and shiny, For that he will perform the fajr prayer.47

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Keep him away, and do not let him follow your children, For misfortune is quite contagious. You must dismiss whomever abandons the prayers, Do not permit yourself to be in their company. Among your children, why would you need an infidel? Punishment for an infidel is everlasting.48 Each and every one of your daughters Never perform their prayers on time. You never intend to teach [them] the religion, But you school them in the selling of fula.49 You train them how to prepare kulkuli,50 And instruct them how to make koshei. If a penny is missing after she sells, She beats her severely and lashes. They coach her on how to seduce the promiscuous, And teach her how to sleep with men. She can climb all the walls of your home,51 For she is taught by both the grandmother and the mother. The mother will rush to her assistance, And if she could not climb the mother would support. Only at the initial cockcrow will she return. To keep an eye open, the mother will appear. Whether or not the father is awake, she will observe. The immoralities of these women are endless. The Lord sees and hears.52 He is witness to all that you do.53 The Lord sees and observes. He uncovers whatever is concealed.54 One can hardly abandon what one is used to. If the girl gets married, they constantly quarrel. Do not let loose the children like sheep, Counsel them daily and do not skip a day. Repent, and obey our Lord, For He forgives all sins.55 If you teach them how to follow the religion, You will be happy when the Day of Judgment arrives.56 Do not glorify your children like kings, [For] both a child and his father shall die. Have you witnessed the terror in the hereafter? A child and his father may fight each other.

Poem 2 Have you seen the terror in the hereafter? A wife and her husband may fight each other. Have you observed the terror in the hereafter? Two friends may fight each other. The terror in the hereafter is great. A king and his deputy may fight each other. The terror in the hereafter is overwhelming. An eye and its owner may argue with each other. The terror in the hereafter is immense. A fowl and its owner may quarrel with each other. The terror in the hereafter is overwhelming. A stomach and its owner may disagree with each other. The terror in the hereafter is engulfing. Cattle and their owner may dispute with each other. The terror in the hereafter is intense. Sheep and their owner may squabble with each other. Let us be humble before our Lord and request That He forgive all of our sins.57 Let us repent and obey our Lord.58 That will surely help during the interrogation in the hereafter. Pray at all of the prescribed prayer times,59 So that you shall be comfortable in the hereafter. Admonish your wives regarding their prayers, For the vices of some women are endless. They are not enthusiastic about worshiping our Lord, For gold earrings are all that they desire. They dangle little baskets and purses, And on the streets they solicit men. With their veils they wrap Their heads, walking around bragging. During their trips to the marketplaces they boast, Unaware that markets surely close. They value nothing but seeking money, Completely oblivious that money surely runs out. They are concerned with purchasing power in life, Quite heedless that life itself must end. Wealthy people have gone, and left behind. Everything that exists must perish.60 Over there your merchandise is unsellable, For in the hereafter no trading exists.61

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Whatever merchandise you take there, In the hereafter, no buyers will be attracted. If you understand both the obligatory and the Sunnah, Then arriving in the hereafter, you may sell. Any woman who meddles in peoples’ affairs Shall weep on the Day of Judgment. She confides in each and every friend That “I intend to divorce my husband so I can enjoy.”62 The men are now useless to us. I want to live relaxed and uninhibited. I can travel to Kumasi63 and Bolgatanga,64 Riding all sorts of cars boastfully. I am pleased with my only child, I want to live relaxed and unhampered. In Akwatia, money is abundant.65 There, one earns wages in the pound66 currency. Arriving there via the train you board, The hospitality alone suffices. All of us have visited there, And upon our return we dressed up and changed. Once you try hard enough to get there, You may purchase that Pankukurwa.67 Once you try hard enough to reach there, You may buy that Kusunkusuli.68 Once you try hard enough to arrive there, You may purchase that Taasinkumbuli.69 Once you try hard enough to visit there, You may buy all of the nicest dishes. Once you try hard enough to go there, You may secure the soundest sleep. Once you try hard enough to land there, You may own all of the nicest shoes Once you try hard enough to settle there, You may have all of the beautiful rings. You will find all of the good headscarves there. And if you work hard enough, you may purchase All sorts of ŋmanamsi that are found there.70 If you work hard enough, you may buy All the special outfits, [for they] are abundant. If you work hard enough, you may own

Poem 2 Your own room and, upon your return, you could decorate, Sitting comfortably as you relax. You would firmly fix with nails at the far end Upon which to hang your shoes and watch. To one side you would make your bed, Laying contentedly as you rest. Whenever a fellow comes to visit, She weeps lamentably while returning home. You have abandoned the talkative, And frying your meat to consume.71 At that moment she confused your wife. You and she argue constantly. So cruel would her heart become That she yells at all your jokes. So pompous she had become by this time, And yet she cries at any little remark of yours. She sleeps on the floor at this time,72 And yet she screams at a slight advance from you.73 So quiet that she resembles a deaf-mute, And yet she suddenly yells upon your inquiry as to what is wrong. She supports her jaw with her hand,74 And yet she may burst into a funeral song, If you inquire, “What is wrong, dear aunt?”75 She will never, ever respond. Now, she has caused your wife to divorce [you]. Now, sitting quietly, she returns. If an immoral woman approaches, you must banish her, For ill-fortune and good-fortune are both contagious. All of her mind is on Akwatia. She hopes to go there so she can dress up and come back. She wants to go and gather everything, To selectively wear and clean. Is money all over the garbage dump?76 A fool is unaware that one must sweat.77 At this time she would dissolve the marriage, And then go to love the Frafra and Dagati men.78 She hopes to return with a lot of money, So that the husband would cry upon seeing her. To guide her, the friend would arrive And tell her of the ways and means she could defraud [men].

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You must shun the Dagomba guys. That they would get back their stolen money. You should follow the Frafra and Moshi guys,79 For if you follow them you shall benefit. Bulsa and Dagati men you should court,80 For if you court them you shall benefit. Kurmani Jakr you should follow,81 For if you follow them you shall benefit. And Zambarma people,82 I would say!83 Bringing back his salary, he would display All of it. You may confiscate it from him. And sitting there, he would stare at you, Even a minor problem, absolutely nonexistent Issues with him, utterly impossible to find. Removing your beads,84 you throw [them] on the floor. Sitting there, he watches and smiles. This woman’s beads are countless, he thinks. Oblivious of evil charm, a fool shall be afflicted. You have now essentially become his bank. You get to save all of his money, Spend [it] on purchasing clothes and scarfs. Send them back home to store. You traveled there only because of money, So no tribesmen should you ever reject. Also from the scholars maintain your distance. Feeding their household is a big problem. They are very poor and possess nothing, Yet, they would prevent you from going out to the latrine, In the room, he would confine and seclude you, Finding a cloth to wear, so difficult it becomes. Avoid the Dagomba guys too, For you shall regret coming close to them. Returning with the salary he receives, He resists giving out a three-penny coin.85 If one penny drops while he is counting You jokingly pick it up, and he protests furiously. You will be lost if you mistakenly marry the wrong man. Poverty shall befall you, and you shall be divorced. You will be done if you proceed to love. Finding a cloth to wear, so difficult it becomes.

Poem 2 What can a shilling and a three-penny coin buy?86 Yet, along with insults, that is what he throws at you. With that, all around the market you would roam And he, sitting around, would relax. After you wander around and return, He would be upset while accusing you of tardiness. Utterly impossible. For these guys I shall never fall Dating a Dagomba man, absolutely unimaginable. That is it for me. I will never, ever love. Dating a Dagomba man, utterly inconceivable. Consequently, this Moshi man I have come to pick, And I, sitting around, am very comfortable. This Moshi guy of mine has no grievances. Jealousy is something that he has never, ever entertained.87 Blood flows from her face. As it fills her mouth, she spits it out. The moment the sense of regret overwhelms her, She rushes back home crying By this time she is infected with chronic gonorrhea.88 Alone in solitary, the thinner she gets. At this time she begins to peddle all of her clothes That she might defeat the incurable disease. Indeed, she peddled all of her clothes, That she might treat the incorrigible disease. Where is that Pankukurwa?89 She sold all of it for a lasting cure. Where is that Kusunkusuli? She peddled all of it for a permanent cure. She took down that Taasinkumbuli. She disposed of it all for an everlasting cure. She unpacked all of the nicest dishes. She got rid of all of them for an enduring cure, For so long now, she has been suffering internally. Alone in solitary, the thinner she gets. All of her clothes are now gone, But her severe fever does not abate. She is mortified to go back there. Upon seeing her friend, she insults her. “You caused my divorce and desertion,” “And so the animosity between us remains ongoing.”

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“All of my sins are upon you.” “May all of your deeds quickly dissipate.” Avoid and stay away from such a divorcee, For her friendship is nothing but futile. To her, even if you deliver the entire world All of your generosity shall be in vain. Hellfire is her abode in which she shall stay, Being whipped while continuously flipped.90 In her mind, all of the evil thoughts are jammed. She plots to get each of her friends divorced, Prevent her from befriending your wife, For ill-fortune, you see, is contagious. Do not let her follow your wife around, For her association with your wife is perilous. You must all repent and exercise patience, For whatever is happening shall end. Hold on to your husbands dearly And do not abandon them so you may relax. Evoke your husbands’ compassion, Any good deed is doubly recompensed. Have patience and maintain your marriage, The reward for marriage is manifold. The woman who denigrates her husband Shall be lashed on the Day of Judgment. Hellfire is her abode in which she shall stay, Being whipped while continuously flipped. Any woman who obeys her husband, Following and serving him, will receive extra rewards. Into hundreds and fifties her rewards shall run. Not a single good deed shall be dropped. All the young women in paradise. You will own the house and be thankful. They would come and kneel before you, Praying for you and appreciating you. Because of that I strongly urge You to ignore any hearsay and think.91 Conform to the principles of marriage, You shall be abundantly recompensed. While living in this world, do not get fixated. Life in the world surely shall end.

Poem 2 Rather, seek the life of the hereafter, Life in the hereafter is indeed inexhaustible.92 Those women who oppose marriage? Rewards for marriage are endless. Women have indeed repudiated marriage, While they solicit on the streets. When, still youthful and beautiful, she was touted,93 She paraded, displaying herself, on the streets.94 How sleek and smooth she now looks,95 Still oblivious that beauty eventually recedes. But when her breasts become saggy and floppy, Then she would return and become weepy. At this time, nobody is attracted to an old lady, Only the tired old Moshi man would welcome her. Exercise patience in your marriages and firmly hold to them, Your rewards shall be handsome and endless. Stop taking pride in attending the marketplaces, You and the markets shall certainly perish. Desist from drinking liquor, Punishment for drinking it does not end. Do not befriend alcoholics, Their punishment is unrelenting. Alcohol is considered an intoxicant,96 Punishment for alcohol does not end. Eschew telling lies against each other,97 Punishment for this does not end. Stop accepting the bad sacrificial offerings,98 Punishment for this does not end. Renounce offerings prescribed by diviners and soothsayers, Punishment for this does not end. Reject offerings prescribed by the earth-priests,99 For punishment for this does not end. Some scholars morphed into soothsayers, Moving among towns, they divine. Some spread soft sand in front of them, Which they investigate and consult with their fingers. Others fill sacks with pebbles, One by one, they pick them out to foretell the future. Abandon these lies, my friends, Punishment for a liar is endless.

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On the Day of Judgment you will vehemently protest. Crying in protest shall be continuous.100 Learn how to perform ablution, Your share of the reward shall be abundant Sacrificing chicks will not save you. Charity for the sake of the Lord shall save you. I never abuse people,101 Though speaking the truth is surely excruciating. He who owns no change of expensive clothes cannot speak. Any advice from a pauper goes unheeded. Truth is really hard to propound. He who owns no change of expensive clothes cannot promulgate. Truth resembles a straight path. He who stays on it shall never veer.102 The clear and pure-hearted will listen, But the dark-hearted will reject and complain. Truth may be disregarded in the beginning, But it must be heeded in the end. They denounce the speech from a young boy, Yet the speech of the white-bearded, only an experiment. God accepts whomever He wants,103 And rejects whomever He wants. My Lord does not dislike anyone. God will make obscure anyone who rejects Him. It is likely that a child is better than an adult, Yet people continue their praises, unaware of this possibility. The arrogant person will acknowledge nothing.104 The egotistical person shall never find peace. Madness comes in numerous types. Rather than signal the ancestral worshiper, you must tap.105 Do not worship the wood that you yourself collect, Your wood shall attract only wood dust. Shun worshiping the stones, Worshiping them is simply a loss. Eschew worshiping the trees, Worshiping them is simply a loss. Reject worshiping those clays, Worshiping them is simply a loss. Do not worship the snake and its caretaker,106 Worshiping them is simply a loss.

Poem 2 Disdain a puff adder and a python, Worshiping them is simply a loss. Do not worship a turtle and a crocodile, Worshiping them is simply a loss. Do not worship a black cobra and a lion, Worshiping them is simply a loss. Do not follow that soothsayer who uses the Qur’an,107 Worshiping him is simply a loss. Do not elevate the mosque at Sabali,108 Worshiping it [not in it] is simply a loss. Avoid worshiping the rivers,109 Worshiping them is simply a loss. Stop visiting Yebyili,110 Visiting there is simply a waste. Stop attending Siyari, Attending it is simply a waste. Abjure sacrificing to your ancestors, Mollifying them is simply a futility. Do not witness the blood from the marriage consummation,111 Observing it is simply a loss. Whoever insists on viewing the blood Shall become blind in the hereafter. He shall never lay an eye on the Prophet, Crying, all his tears, he shall lose. He who fails to see the Prophet in the hereafter, He and his deeds shall be lost. Discontinue publicly bathing the bride,112 Sitting her on the mortar is taboo. Also discontinue going into hiding,113 All of that is an utter loss. Do not obey the whims of old ladies, All of that is an utter loss. They know nothing about marriage. Engaging in mischief, they also laugh. The Alwanka created all of this,114 Her little scheme, she concocted to subsist. She does not obey what the Lord commands, She only cares about her subsistence. All that happens is her fault. On the day she dies her belly will burst.

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Do not abandon speaking the truth, Reward for the speaker of truth is manifold. On the Day of Judgment, before our Lord You will precede everybody while laughing. Do not shirk the duty of evicting the Alwanka, Simply because she has magic that can kill. Do not be scared of the Alwanka and her power to kill, She and her potential to kill shall perish. Desist from inviting the Alwanka, Her invitation is a pure loss. She knows nothing about marriage. Leave her alone. There she sits and yells. Do not invite a bad liar, a great liar, All her readings are an utter loss. Do not invite, for she is an armed robber Who would confiscate your wife’s clothes. Where are the shoes and the mat? She has concocted her little scheme to confiscate The meat she finds and puts aside. All of the big chunks she takes. She avoids the tendon and the bones, All the while looking around embarrassed. To see who among you is watching So she could also target him for elimination.115 She would teach jealousy to the bride, So she could learn how to apply jealousy. But to your first wife she teaches sorcery,116 By which she eliminates your other children. She instigates your wives against each other, So that they become embroiled in constant fighting. Your bride, as well as her jealousy, Gets skinnier as she is deeply enmeshed in jealousy.117 During the night she avoids your bed, For which you inflict upon her a beating and lashes. A jealous woman is like your wife. One whose wife is unrestricted will not be safe. O scholars, stand up on your feet, Draw your swords so as to fight.118 Do not spare any hypocrite.119 Draw those swords so as to fight.

Poem 2 O wives, obey your husbands. Rewards for obeying your husbands do not diminish. Alone like a horse, do not abandon While being generous and kicking. Wearing all the talismans we adore, Adornment around the neck is admired Stop chasing after promiscuous men, Going after them is an utter loss. O men, hold onto your wives. Do not abandon them to attain your freedom. Stop chasing after promiscuous women, Going after them is an utter loss. The lousiest man they adore, So do not think you are the only one and revel. They eat a cockroach and a fly. They consume geckos and bed bugs. Heed my advice and you will prosper But you will be lost if you reject it. Both a promiscuous woman and a thief, Their acquaintance is a misfortune. They resemble a hyena, On all of your calves they prey. If any scholar abandons the H . adith,120 On the Day of Resurrection he shall be whipped, On the Day of Resurrection he shall be bridled, And while dragged on the ground he shall be flogged. Like a horse, his jaws shall be pressed. And his belly hit and pushed. Any woman who does funeral crying,121 All of that is an utter misfortune. If she fails to stop and repent, On the Day of Resurrection she shall cry. Hellfire shall be her abode, And she shall be lashed and kicked around, Her mouth shall be turned into the mouth of a warthog, And silent, like a deaf mute, she sits there. Her mouth shall be turned into the mouth of a warthog, And howling and crying, she sits there. Stop taking inflated profit margins,122 Taking it is an utter loss.

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Do not take it without his permission, But one may take it as long as he approves. Abandon providing a short measure,123 Short measuring is an utter loss. This is clearly written in the Qur’an, Short measuring is an utter loss. “Woe to those who give short measure,”124 Who increase measure and decrease. Do not point with a little finger and a mouth,125 Using them in a pointing gesture is a loss. Do not touch and wiggle with a little finger. Blinking an eye is also unacceptable. All of this is initiated by Satan, Punishment for all of that is unrelenting.126 Do not play woli and checkers,127 Playing them is a total loss. Gambling and lottery—all of them128 In the end are misfortune. Stop smoking cigarettes, Smoking tobacco is equally a catastrophe. Do not be heedless and inhale it through your nostrils,129 Inhaling it is a pure tragedy. Do not wear dirty clothes, Performing prayers in them is a waste. Do not wear that filthy cap, Performing prayers in it is a waste. Trousers that sweep the floor, Performing prayers in them is a waste. Any garment that drags on the floor, Performing prayers in it is a waste. A prayer mat that no longer has any fur,130 Performing prayers on it is a waste. He who prays without inquiring, His prayers are an utter loss. Learn the proper way of prayers, Performing as one wishes will not be rewarded. Learn the proper ways of ablution, Cleansing as one wishes will not be rewarded. Ask how to perform the ablution, Ask each and every day. Do not skip.

Poem 2 Whoever is unable to read a book, Must try his level best to continually probe. Whoever refuses to ask but continues to pray, All of his prayers will be rejected. Whoever fails to learn how to perform the ablution, All of his prayers will be in vain. Any prayer he performs is nullified. Not a single one of his prayers is accepted. Knowing what is obligatory or recommended,131 You must inquire about everything before you perform it. Reject the arrogance in your heart, For no arrogant person advances. Abandon the ancient traditions, All of them must be discarded. Learn about that which nullifies ablution, Such as using the latrine or urinating,132 Touching your private parts with your hand, Or with the inside of your palm. There is no problem with using the back of your fingers, But touching them with the inside does cancel. Do not play with the sides of the fingers, Touching with the sides dissolves. Pushing your private parts forward for a good look at them, If done deliberately, also invalidates. This is not a problem when it is done inadvertently. Meanwhile, flatulence also nullifies, As does emitting preejaculation fluid, Any type of preejaculation fluid abolishes. It is not a problem to take a short nap, But taking a deep one does nullify. If a sleep is long but mild,133 You may choose to make another ablution. Being intoxicated or mentally ill, Illness that causes unconsciousness, all do nullify. Touching women for you is softer. Once you touch and enjoy you also invalidate the ablution.134 He who touches with no intention to enjoy, It is still nullified as long as he feels pleasure. Whoever among us has sexual intercourse With a beautiful lady, his ablution is also nullified.135

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Whoever performs ablution and is unsure, As long as it is an extended period his ablution is annulled. So many types are prolonged sittings, If not an idle sitting, then that does not nullify. Ask about the ritual cleansing after sex, Whoever cleanses without inquiring is lost. Make the proper intention before you bathe, Whoever bathes without intention is lost. Quick bath is not the proper way, Whoever bathes carelessly is at a loss. Ask and learn about its proper way, Whoever bathes quickly is at a loss. A menstruating woman must inquire, Cleansing without asking is a waste. Ask about new mother’s ritual cleansing, Cleansing without asking is a waste. Ritual bathing for Friday prayer as well, Make an intention if you want to perform it. Cleansing of the deceased, my friend the Yarnaa,136 Admitting your lack of knowledge, you had better ask. Any non-Muslim who converts to Islam, His ritual bathing must also be learned. I now instruct you on how to perform the ablution. You must follow these steps to execute it. Wash both wrists three times each. Washing four times will be not be rewarded. Pick your nostrils clean. Do not pray with all that filthiness. Clip its hair with a sharp knife, Leaving them long conceals the filth. Look at the water before you apply. If the water looks different, do not use it. Seek to perform it with pure and clean water, But do not replace a sweet-tasting water. Once you draw it closer to your nose, And it smells different, find a substitute. Once you taste it in your mouth And it tastes different, then change it. Scoop it to take a look at it. If it looks different, then replace it.

Poem 2 Whether dirt, soap, or oil, If any of them gets in, you must replace it. Begin to wash with the right hand, After which the left hand must be washed. Gargle with water, Use a chew stick if available. Inhale water into your nose Three times, you must inhale Then hold on to your nose and blow. But do not blow too hard, lest it hurts. Wash your right arm,137 And then your left one as well. All of these washing must be done in threes. Wash between the fingers, And three times cleanse your face. Use all of that to clean and rinse. For the head, you need only one wipe. Those wiping three times must reduce. The ears need to be cleaned only once, Both the outer and the inner parts Pick inside the ears thoroughly, You should properly clean the back. For the feet there is no number of times to wash. It is your discretion how thoroughly you wash. Begin with the right foot, Follow it with the left foot. Learn the proper way to begin the prayers, Begin it your own way, and you will receive no rewards. Identify the proper place to situate your hands, He who does as he wishes shall receive no reward. Discern the proper manner of prostration, He who prostrates as he wishes shall receive no reward. Avoid being tardy in your daily prayers, Tardiness in performing them is a loss.138 Whoever delays in his daily prayers, His punishment does not end. From this world until the next, All of his deeds are in vain. Whoever hopes to see paradise And to be rewarded endlessly,

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Perform ablution and wait for the prayer call, And pray in congregation.139 Do not be heedless and insist on praying alone, An individual’s prayers do not receive much reward. If you remain heedless and insist on praying alone, You shall be offered only a single reward. If you pray in a congregation, Your rewards will be abundant. Six of tens plus one ten.140 Such would the angels record. The individual receives only one reward. If he is unfortunate, it might even be deleted.141 Follow whatever your imam does, And do not ever pray separately. Do not look from side to side, Do not look behind you. Abstain from little smiles. Laughing during the prayer is intolerable. Do not play during the prayer, A playful person’s prayer is not accepted. Stop scratching yourselves, Whoever scratches boldly receives no reward. Do not smash lice during the prayer, And do not sweep them aside. Avoid killing a little black ant Also avoid killing a bed bug. If, however, you unintentionally do so, In that case your reward is recorded. So is laughing, if you forget and engage in it. In that case, your reward is recorded.142 Avoid nullifying your fasting, For some people, fasting is a waste. How could you fast and after that imbibe alcohol? For an alcoholic, fasting has no merit. From it he will gain nothing. All of that thirst was for naught, And his stomach, he simply starved So as to maximize and save his food. While fasting, avoid staring deliberately At other people’s wives, for that nullifies it.

Poem 2 Ignore flirting with them, Excessive playing also invalidates. Do not invite other fellows’ wives, They certainly are all-invalidating. Do not summon the unmarried women, Even their scent alone does nullify. Shun engaging in mockery, Mocking other people really undermines.143 Eschew dabbling in lies, Telling lies is also detrimental. Abjure backbiting during fasting, Backstabbing is also damaging.144 Abandon preparing those potions,145 Potions for people are but a waste. Stop writing for the elderly woman,146 And do not be a scribe for the elderly man. The food that the lover has brought, Break your fast with it and it is nullified. All the fried yams she has given, And you laugh as you devour them. Sugar and gruel she has presented, And you laugh as you quaff them. Also the rice that she offered And you brag as you consume it. At night she herself would arrive, Over there she lays herself and watches. “She adores me!” you think deep in your heart, So on your back you lay yourself and smile. And your trousers you released for her, Lying there, she receives you. As your wife is in her room weeping, That to give a single penny, you yell. Everybody loves the unchaste woman, So do not assume it is you alone and boast. Like a market patron, she resembles Any open market they would patronize. She confiscated all of your fasting, And threw it away and watched.147 After the fasting it will be over, Seeing her around, no more greetings ever.

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All of your big laughter has been ceded, And beyond the laughter is sheer regret. Before your Lord you will be humiliated, And on that day you shall be lashed for your greed, A heavy chain shall be tied around your waist, And you shall be dragged and kicked on the ground. Do not sniff the snuff, Inhaling it will nullify your fast. If one sniffs heedlessly while fasting, His whole endeavor of fasting is a loss. God does not care about your millet, You and your grains are a loss. Abandon the three-day-fasting,148 Fasting for three days will not be rewarded. Our Lord has commanded fasting for thirty days.149 Whoever fasts as he wishes shall not be recompensed. Following the religion is quite hard. Following one’s whims, shall not be compensated. Obey what God prescribed, Whoever follows his ancestors is lost. Perchance you are better than your grandfather, Do not follow his ideas, lest you deviate. Whoever digresses away from the Lord Shall stray on the Day of Judgment. Offer almsgivings properly.150 Do not follow your whims as you offer. This fellow hates me—do not give! Do not follow your desires as you offer. This fellow, I loathe—do not provide! Do not follow your impulses as you offer. This fellow does not greet anyone! Do not follow your urges as you offer. This fellow greets everybody! Do not follow your caprices as you offer. This fellow respects me! Do not follow your fancies as you offer. This fellow married your exwife. Offering him alms is never forbidden. Alms may be given to a rich person. Do not follow your whims as you offer.

Poem 2 Alms may be presented even to an alcoholic. Do not follow your desires as you offer. Alms may be delivered to the unchaste woman. Do not follow your impulses as you offer. You may give alms to all Muslims. Do not discriminate against some as you offer. You may provide alms to every poor person, But do not carry them to a distant place to offer. Whoever decides to carry them afar, The Lord will not accept his alms. If cash is saved for a full year, Without loss or decrease, you must offer alms. You may give to all the elderly men. Together with their wives, you may offer. You may provide to all the elderly women. To anyone who prays, you may offer. The offering must represent all of your money, So do not hide some as you offer. Do not engage in trickery regarding this, Whoever dabbles in trickery shall be lost. Each and every year you run and hide, But on the Day of Judgment you shall be exposed. He who selectively gives alms as he wishes, Whatever he offers is a waste. He has squandered all of that money, Not a single reward shall be recorded. Your reward is as much enough as you are praised, Acting ostentatiously is not recompensed.151 He went afar only to be commended, Thus he desires the commendation, not the reward. Whoever is heedless and goes afar Is a liar, so leave him alone with no reward. Whoever fails to offer the alms properly Has embarked on a futile endeavor with no reward. Any wealthy person who avoids Paying the alms is in sheer loss. He will receive multiple cuts all over his face, And on his sides there will be even more cuts. All the money shall be melted152 And used to burn him as he is beaten.

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Go on pilgrimage to Mecca and pray.153 If you cannot afford to do so, you shall be forgiven. Upon your return, hold steadfast. Do not exalt yourself and brag. Shun all the bad deeds, Whoever atones does not rescind. Do not be so fond of swearing by the Ka‘bah, Swearing by the headband is also forbidden.154 If one circumambulates the Ka‘bah seven times, All of your bad deeds shall be erased. Seventy of your maternal relatives Shall also have all of their bad deeds wiped.155 Seventy of your paternal ancestry Shall also have all of their bad deeds expunged. I need not speak about your own situation. Daily, your rewards are multiplied. Following the pilgrimage, Daily, your rewards are increased. Following that, never chase after a woman. Daily, your rewards are amplified. Discipline yourself, and you will be pleased, Whoever rejects self-discipline shall be lost. Remember all of the thirst you endured And all of the hunger, for they shall be in vain. All your fatigue is rendered a loss, And your crying out of loss is endless. If you turn it into kingship, Your entire pilgrimage becomes useless. If you are identified as a “cleric” you protest, But if recognized as an al-haj you smile. If you are not praised with bayt Allah,156 You frown and you insult. But if you are extolled with bayt Allah, Your face brightens and you smile. You own the head cord and hold it tight,157 But your pilgrimage is without reward. You own the white scarf and hold it tight, But your pilgrimage is without reward. You also own the cassock and hold it tight,158 But your pilgrimage is without reward.

Poem 2 You own all of the seating and hold it tight, But your pilgrimage is without reward. The hajj, never turn it into a business, Sending goods back home to peddle. You cannot obtain two things at once, So one of them must not be offered. If your ambition is the haj, Then do not send goods back home to trade. If your goal is wealth, then pick And send the goods back home to sell. Knowledge is superior to your pilgrimage, So desist from boasting and bragging about it. Sincere belief is superior to your pilgrimage, So stop boasting and bragging about it. Daily prayers are superior to your pilgrimage, So discontinue boasting and bragging about it. Fasting is superior to your pilgrimage So refrain from boasting and bragging about it. Giving alms is superior to your pilgrimage, So stop boasting and bragging about it. Pilgrimage is better with knowledge. Whoever performs with knowledge is blessed. He knows all there is to know about it. Whoever performs with ignorance receives no reward. He confuses sesame seeds with millet, And mixes sand with grass. He confuses sesame seeds with black-eyed peas. Whoever performs with ignorance receives no reward. He confuses sesame seeds with small red beans. Whoever performs with ignorance receives no reward. He confuses sesame seeds with pigeon peas. Whoever performs with ignorance receives no reward. He confuses sesame seeds with okra. Whoever performs with ignorance receives no reward. He confuses sesame seeds with red millet. Whoever performs with ignorance receives no reward. Seek knowledge before you travel, For traveling in ignorance is a loss. Inquire if you are unable to read, Whoever performs as he wishes receives no reward.

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“I am also rich, and shall therefore perform the pilgrimage.” Whoever so performs the pilgrimage does so only in vain. If you are rich, then you must pay A young scholar to teach you. Never seek a cleric who divines with sand, For he is unable to know and instruct. Pursue the one who studied books, And offer him money so he will tutor you. Desist from boasting about nobility, A slave as well as nobleman shall both perish. Ponder over this in your hearts, For one day nobility shall cease. Any noble one will be laid in the dirt, They will bury him deep down and stomp on top. Once upon a time no shoes could pass159 By the front yard without their yelling. Today your sides are being trampled with feet. How able are you to shout now? Where are those who used to yell? Who kept swaying and moving? O my brethren I am stricken with terror, For all of the power in the world shall perish. Stop acting haughtily, Whoever falls due to self-elevation cannot take off. He is confined to one spot, where he sits and sleeps, Repeatedly stretching himself as he relaxes. Whomever God Himself has applauded All of humanity shall also praise. Stop enjoying princely status, All the sovereignty in the world shall end. Where are all of the great kings of the past?160 They have all come to an end and perished. Pharaoh and the rest,161 where will you find them? He is now in the next world, crying. Shaddad and the rest,162 where are they now? He is now in the next world, crying. Nebuchadnezzar II and the rest, where are they?163 He is now in the next world, crying. Where are your friends from the ‘A¯d tribe? They are now in the next world, crying.

Poem 2 His father Nasr, where is he now?164 He is now in the next world, crying. The wealthy Qa¯ru¯n, where is he now?165 He is now in the next world, crying. All of the Lord’s friends, where are they now?166 They are now in the next world, smiling. Where have all the prophets gone? They are all dead and gone. Adam and Noah, where are they? They are all dead and gone. Heber and Abraham, where are they? They are all dead and gone. Shelah and Jonah, where are they? They are all dead and gone. Job and Jacob, where are they? They are all dead and gone. Joseph and Moses, where are they? They are all dead and gone. Aaron and Jethro, where are they? They are all dead and gone. What of Ishmael and David? They are all dead and gone. How about Solomon and Zachariah? They are all dead and gone. What of Zachariah’s son John? They are all dead and gone. Jeremiah and Isaiah, where are they? They are all dead and gone. Elijah and Elisha, where are they? They are all dead and gone. Also Ezekiel and Joshua included? They are all dead and gone. Where are Jesus and Muhammad, our beloved? They are all dead and gone. Where are all those I listed? They are relaxing in the next world. Can your ancestors be considered equal to them? Yet here you sit yapping and bragging That “this world, which we own, belongs to us.” Get lost! Your insanity remains unabated.

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Where are those in whom you take pride? Take no pride in anything, for it will all perish. With eyes wide open, you pout and shout. You terminally ill person, do not shout. That asthma of yours will soon attack.167 You terminally ill person, do not yell. Have you forgotten about your psychosis? You terminally ill person, do not scream. Nobody owns the entire world. Stop pounding your chest and howling. All of your swaggering shall end up in the garbage dump. Stop pounding your chest and hollering. The world has floored the most powerful and determined people. Whoever carries it on the head shall unload it.168 The world is heavier than a stone anvil. Whoever carries it on the head will put it down. If you lack conscience, then note That the shade of a ficus tree does move. Where are all of the large-chested people? Do not pound that tiny chest of yours. Where are all the notable people of Dagbon? They are all dead and gone. Where are all the bravest people? They are all dead and gone. Where are KaluƔsi and the rest? They are all dead and gone. Where is Kumpatiya Golingoling himself? They are all dead and gone. Where is Saamoro and his battle bow? They are all dead and gone. Where is Babatu and his battle bow? They are all dead and gone. Where are the founders of MoƔli?169 They are all dead and gone. Where are the founders of Gurma? They are all dead and gone. Where are the founders of Mamprugu? They are all dead and gone. Where are the founders of Dagbon? They are all dead and gone.

Poem 2 Some of them, I would mention; so you keep account. Keep that in your mind and ponder. Where is the sovereignty of Naa NyaƔsi?170 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Zulandi?171 They are all dead and gone. Where is Naa Bierguwumda?172 They are all dead and gone. Where is Naa Darigudamda?173 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa Zolgu?174 They are all dead and gone. Where is that Zonŋmaya kushe?175 They are all dead and gone. Where is Naa Niŋmitooni?176 They are all dead and gone. Where is the sovereignty of Naa Diman?177 They are all dead and gone. Where is the sovereignty of Naa Yanzo?178 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa DarzeƔu?179 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa Luro?180 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness TituƔri?181 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa ZaƔli?182 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa ZolkuƔli?183 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Gungobli?184 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa Zangina?185 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa SiƔli (Andani I)?186 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa BinbeƔu?187 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa Garba?188 They are all dead and gone.

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Where is Naa Saa Ziblim?189 They are all dead and gone. Where is sunsu¯ni Naa Ziblim?190 They are all dead and gone. Where is Naa Andani Kurli?191 They are all dead and gone. Where is the kingdom of Naa Mahmi (Mahama)?192 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Kulunku?193 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Simani?194 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Yakubu?195 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Ablai?196 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Andani?197 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Alasani?198 They are all dead and gone. Where is his Royal Highness Abudu?199 They are all dead and gone. Where is that son of Naasikai?200 They are all dead and gone. Where is Naa Mahama Maldi?201 They are all dead and gone. Stop boasting about bravery, For you and your bravery shall expire. Where are the warriors of Kirzan?202 Stop pounding your chest and bragging. Where are those who fought with the Zambalmas?203 Stop pounding your chest and bragging. Where are those who fought at Adiboo?204 Stop pounding your chest and bragging. Where are the warriors of BaƔyam?205 Stop pounding your chest and bragging. Where are those who fought at Binzabgu?206 Stop pounding your chest and bragging. Where are those who fought at Dohni?207 Stop pounding your chest and bragging.

Poem 2 Where are those who fought at Sanŋ?208 Stop pounding your chest and bragging. Stop showing off with bravery, For showing off with bravery does not pay. Tracing their footsteps to get to them, You must carry a gallon of water to drink. Repent and obey our Lord, Obedience to our Lord is doubly rewarded. Insist on speaking the truth, A truthful person shall never lose. And obey what His Messenger has instituted, Obey nothing else, for that shall also perish. Shun Wunbei209 and the Jahi,210 The Jahi and Wunbei shall also perish. Do not consult the dark and thick grove, The dark and lush grove shall soon dry up. Do not patronize the ancestral gods, All ancestral gods are doomed to expire. God has created us only for His worship.211 He who fails to worship is lost. God loves the one who worships Him.212 He will offer you a reward that never ends. He who repents to Him and worships Will have all of his bad deeds forgiven. All you drunkards must repent And obey that infinite God. Eschew following your whims, Following one’s desires leads nowhere. Obey the God who, alone, created you,213 You shall receive your share of the abundant reward. A servant who ploughs for his Lord214 Shall get to consume all of the best yams. A servant who rejects farming for his Lord Is yelled at if he touches even a little piece of yam. And his wrist wiggles and shakes. And if he is unlucky he is whipped. The one for whom ill fortune is decreed, God shall protect His own decision. So I beg for your patience, No one should dispute God’s decision.

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He who cleanses his heart listens. God admits the seeker of paradise. This is not one person’s issue alone, So do not try to handle it alone and complain. If you really take pride in bravery, Then exercise patience and do not shout. But if truly impatient, then go ahead and yell. Your brethren are in the wild, howling.215 A lion, a leopard, and a hyena—all of them. Go to them and roar altogether. Stop being proud of children and wives, Wives and children shall all perish. You shall depart for the next world all alone, Your wife will not take a step with you. You shall enter into the grave all alone, Your children will not lift a foot. Questions shall be posed to you alone, With good deeds you shall be saved. Questions shall be asked to you alone, With several questions, you will be sitting. You shall cross the bridge again,216 all alone, And you shall be assisted with good deeds. You will become in this abode a complete bachelor, For your bride will not take a step. Here, your herds of cattle will stay put. None of them will move a leg. The sheep and the goats as well. None of them will move a leg. You and any of your wives have argued. None of them will lift a foot. You and your children have quarreled. None of them will take a step. You and any of your friends have disagreed. None of them will take a step. With all of your brothers you had disputes. None of them will take a step. With all of your fraternity you argued. None of them will take a step. New husbands will marry all of your wives. They will also laugh while insulting you.

Poem 2 The stepfathers will adopt all of your children. They will abuse them verbally and physically. All their clothes are shabby and ripped, Finding a single morsel to feed is challenging. Life in this world is nothing but disappointment,217 Yet life in the next world is unending.218 Avoid seeking recognition in this world, For any worldly recognition must come to an end. Shun seeking love in this world, Love for and of the world surely ends. Whoever my Lord loves, All the people shall love. God’s love is far better and superior, But human love, elusive and finite. Our Lord sees and hears everything, So whatever you do is recorded.219 Whether you like or hate somebody, Both of you shall perish. All love in this world is feeble, And betrayal in this world is unrelenting. Whoever is dying shall die. Impudence in this world shall end. Seek good deeds in it, For whatever you do is recorded. Shun performing traditional sacrifices, The Almighty Lord abhors such acts. The traditional shrine, together with the priest, Shall be whipped on the Day of Judgment. The beginning of traditional sacrifices is unbelief, Which my Lord, the Almighty, despises. Traditional sacrifices are varied. He loathes what is performed by way of tying.220 Traditional sacrifices are diverse. Raffia saucers during the naming ceremony is debarred.221 Also take away the cotton and the millet. Abandon them, for they are prohibited. Stop whipping the guineafowls, And do not pluck the guineafowls before you whip.222 Abstain from pleading to the Sun,223 All of that is something that shall disappear.

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Prophet Muhammad has not prescribed that. All innovations are thereby proscribed. Weighing gold is also prohibited. Whoever is unable to afford is excused.224 Things are made easy for humanity,225 Too much burden is not allowed As the imam you sit around and yell. Who is provoking you to shout? Is your problem with God or the Prophet? Calm yourself down and do not scream. Preparing food is never prohibited.226 But offering money in addition is unacceptable.227 When giving a penny, add nothing else. You are reminded that this is a sacrificial offering. Follow what the Prophet has instituted. What the Prophet has established is well entrenched. It is the Lord who provides food, O sacrifice-devouring imam, do not yell. All your screams are baseless. Seek knowledge that remains forever. Sacrifice and its consumer shall both expire. You do not know who offers it, so do not boast. Only through knowledge may you achieve high status. Fame acquired through knowledge does not dissipate. A scholar is better than that imam Who knows nothing but how to yell. Any scholar who obeys his Lord, Provoke him and you shall be entrapped. Do not underrate any young scholar. Disparage him and you shall be shunned. A scholar is better than that imam Who knows nothing but how to yell. Some scholars have become like the blind. Following their whims, they shout.228 What the Prophet taught they neglect. What our Lord prescribed they circumvent. Some scholars resemble hyenas. A dead animal’s carcass he will consume. All kinds of species he eats. No type of food he forbids.

Poem 2 Regarding the Lord he is not fearful. About the hereafter he does not contemplate. He is oblivious that the Lord watches him. He is ignorant that everything is recorded.229 The foolish scholar is ill-informed about God. Whatever you do is being registered. Paradise cannot be attained like a woman. He who obeys our Lord shall enter. Do not be perturbed by people’s insults. Invective from people shall end. When your time comes to depart this world and die, All your brethren will begin to blame you. Your wives and children, together With all your relatives, will weep. Some, regrettably, cry for themselves. Everybody who arrives is crying. People’s crying for you is ill fortune. Yet not a single tear is shed. They carry their hands on the heads. They scream as you console them. In three days all of their pretensions are exposed.230 When you will find no one to help,231 Those eating food continue to eat, And those drinking alcohol continue to drink. The fat man drinks and fills his belly. Making an appearance, he shouts and laughs, His belly so big, he is unable to walk. So, laying face up he yells. Save all the yelling for the hereafter, When your chest will be stamped as you are beaten. Some take to the roads to dance. Others take to the roads to howl. Your friends and in-laws, together They would hop, staging different types of dances. You never offered a single penny to anyone. Now everyone spends, yet they sing your insults. Getting a shilling out of you meant to confiscate it, And all your bravery you display. He will add more to it, And all along you just sit there and shout.

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Everybody will be eating on the day you die. They will be jumping and dancing. So worship the Lord, the Ever-living. The seeker of paradise does not sleep. Paradise is hard to enter. He who consults diviners shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. An adulterous man shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. Any promiscuous woman shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. An unchaste woman shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who backbites shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who destroys relations shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who mocks others shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who performs traditional sacrifice shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who betrays others shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. A liar shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. A person with no shame shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who introduces innovations shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. She who refuses to stay home shall not be admitted.232 Paradise is hard to enter. A stingy person shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who trails others shall not be admitted.233 Paradise is hard to enter. The tale teller shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. The arrogant one shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who refuses to pay alms shall not be admitted.

Poem 2 Paradise is hard to enter. He who boasts with life shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who dislikes others shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who rebels against his father shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who disobeys his mother shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who rejects daily prayers shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. The malicious person shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. He who kills wrongfully shall not be admitted. Paradise is hard to enter. The spineless man shall not be admitted.234 So diverse are those who shall not be admitted But all of whom, in this writing, I am unable to list. I am afraid to compile a huge book, So the afore-recounted will have to suffice. Let’s wholeheartedly obey Our Lord So that we enter paradise laughing. His Messenger Muhammad we must obey. Undiminishing love we shall attain. All Companions of the Prophet we love. Our love for them is unlimited. All his wives and children as well. Our love for them is boundless. For our dead relatives we pray That God grant them unlimited rewards. My Lord vehemently rejects singing, But approves of that which is for admonishment. That which advises people is blameless, But he abhors all bad songs.235 One another we must truthfully love, Fighting in this world is truly a loss. We seek protection from Satan,236 The enmity between him and us is endless.237 It is written in the book, The hatred between him and us is endless.238

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The animosity between him and us is age-old,239 As Adam and Eve would testify.240 To you, God the Almighty, we supplicate Our supplications to (You) remain unending. Our Lord, we possess nothing, So grant us rewards without limit. For the sanctity of Prophet Muhammad, Grant us infinite rewards. Our master the saved one,241 For his sanctity, we plead. ‘Umar, the distinguisher of truth,242 For his sanctity, we supplicate. ‘Uthma¯n, son of ‘Affa¯n, For his sanctity, we appeal. ‘Alı¯, H . usayn’s father, For his sanctity, we pray. Those who fought battles for this religion, For their sanctity, we petition. Kha¯lid, son of al-Walı¯d, For his sanctity, we implore. Al-Zubayr, son of al-‘Awwa¯m, For his sanctity, we beg. On behalf of all Muslims, we ask. Grant us countless rewards. All those who are alive or dead. Grant us unlimited rewards. For the sake of Mecca and Medina, For their sanctity, we pray. The Torah and the Gospel, For their sanctity, we plead. The Psalms and the Qur’an, For their sanctity, we ask. The sins of our ancestors we ask you to forgive, So that we may enter paradise laughing. Our fathers and mothers together, So that we may enter paradise laughing. My Lord vehemently rejects singing, But approves of that which is for admonishment. That which advises people is blameless. But He abhors all bad songs.243

Poem 3

Dolya Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni ŋun Namtiŋo (Our Lord God, the Sole Creator, You Must Obey) Language: Dagbani Year: ca. 1954?

Our Lord God, the sole creator, you must obey,1 He shall regret on the Day of Resurrection he who disobeys,2 He shall hear and see on the day he dies he who flouts,3 And on the Day of Resurrection, his finger he shall bite.4 Muhammad’s teachings and his path you must follow,5 Daily prayers, almsgiving, and fasting you must perform.6 On the straight path in the religion you must stay, Abandon unfamiliar paths and from them your distance you must keep. God, the one and only; his sovereignty ever interminable,7 We shall get our way on the Day of Resurrection so long as we worship8 That which you find in the Qur’an, you must follow,9 But following your whims is never a good way to go.10 Al-Bukha¯rı¯11 as well as Malik’s Muwat.t.a’12 you should consult, Subul al-Sala¯m13 and Ma¯jah14 do not ignore. Al-Tirmidhı¯15 as well as al-Nasa¯’ı¯16 you should access, Also Muslim17 and the rest, do not disregard. Similarly, away from Abu¯ Da¯wu¯d18 you should not veer, And that known as Riya¯d. al-S.a¯lih.ı¯n19 you should follow. Al-Ta¯j al-Ja¯miʻ lil-Us.u¯l,20 of course, All available, my brethren, so purchase and study If you have no money to purchase, then seek Our Lord, God is the one who delivers, Our Lord is the one to be asked,

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So when in need ask him, and he shall provide.21 His sayings and his messenger Muhammad you must obey. Follow that and on the Day of Resurrection, be saved. Spend your nights probing books rather than sleep. What the Prophet institutes, hold firm and observe. Misfortune, luck, on God’s will they both depend. What God decrees, no human may foretell. All innovations22 abandon and never follow. He who holds on to an innovation shall fall.23 What people concoct, leave behind and never follow. What God did not make, no human can make. Stop hoping to see our Lord, for he cannot be seen. Where our Lord is, no human can perceive.24 The Lord—remember—even Prophet Moses never saw,25 Let alone you—a pathological liar—could so claim.26 Those arriving and claiming of being able to see, Hey, my friend! Stay away and never join!27 Satan’s objective is, I am afraid, to lead you astray.28 Maintain that, and your way on the Day of Resurrection you shall lose,29 Causing religious divisions, O scholar, you must shun, Fabricating your own lies for following you must eschew The straight and wide path you must take, One that Muhammad followed and preserved. The path on which Abu Bakr30 was you must follow. So too the path that ʻUmar31 took you must take. The path on which ʻUthman32 was you must follow. So too the path on which ʻAli33 was you must trace, But the paths that people created on their own you must forsake, Ones that deviate from the Qur’an you must ignore and never follow. Any little thing in this religion that someone invents, So long as it contradicts the Companions’ actions, never follow. It becomes a wrong path, Satan’s path, so never join Any religion that did not exist already, never follow. There are different types of scholars; like hyenas some behave. Exposed to your money, they would rather embezzle. Of our Lord God, the creator, they have no fear. All they seek is this world, and about the Day of Resurrection they forget. Think! Exactly what is right a fool does not quite know

Poem 3 To anybody who comes around pulling him, he submits For an audience with a demigod,34 to Kaolack35 some would travel. But what the Lord deprives, no human can provide. From hard work that demigod himself could benefit, Not from wandering around and giving speeches.36 God chooses whom to deprive or to provide. What the Lord wills, no human can prevent. Whether knowledge or wealth, it is God who bestows. What God decrees, no human can change. Both the lucky and the unlucky, it is God who creates What the Lord decrees, no human can purchase. There are different types of baɣyuya,37 many people are unaware. Innovations are considered like baɣyuya which God condemns. He who seeks glory through a human agent must know. What the Lord deprives, no human can provide.38 Dear friends! Repudiate those lies and come To the Prophet’s path, God’s path, I shall guide. Seeing an angel with his naked eyes, nobody can claim. Only Prophet Muhammad may witness and relay. To the “preserved tablet”39 nobody can be exposed. By our Lord, God, I for one have not seen. Let him who finds this in any reliable source prove. If he is simply not seeking money to defraud Nobody can illustrate of what God’s throne consists. Nor his chair can anybody see and confirm. Nobody can show of what paradise consists. What God conceals, no human can perceive and convey. But this, to some of his messengers, God has revealed.40 Anybody else is unfit to witness What God, in his own essence, conceals. Your status, O scholar, is too low to mention. Getting rich takes several forms; some don’t know. Each person with his secret plan to defraud. Even scholars and saints, none of them ever knew, But some of the past prophets surely did. Repent! Our Lord’s instructions you must obey. These newly fabricated books you must avoid. These fabricated stories, ignore and withdraw. Follow, instead, what you witness, what the Prophet prescribes. They are seeking money to buy nice clothes.

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What our Lord God loves they loathe. Unacceptable is scholarly ostentation, so disregard Boasting and ostentation, God abhors.41 What prompts your arrogance is dwarfed by what others possess. Yet they are conscious of what God commands. Let us be cognizant of God’s commands. Being mindful of God is better than being a cleric. Remember when the followers of Moses asked, “Who knows best?” “I do.” He unreservedly responded. So our Lord God, seriously reprimanded him, Commanding: “To my servant at the river bank, proceed.”42 Any scholar, from another one, must learn. Knowledge is never displayed at the market, lest you can steal. Knowledge is like river water, all may drink With their hands or with cups, to fill their bellies, all may drink. By folding tree leaves, others may drink.43 For me, folding leaves to fill my belly, I drink. You may be saved, my brother, so long as you listen and obey. But you may reject, and on the Day of Resurrection, profusely regret. For the Prophet’s sake, O God, your protection we seek, And for the sake of his wives and children who succeeded. Our Lord, my brethren, is he whose forgiveness we must seek So on the Day of Resurrection, all our sins he may forgive. His messenger Muhammad’s teaching, let us obey. On the Day of Resurrection, he will be pleased he who obeys. Once from the fountain of Kawthar44 you drink. Thirsty you will never be, nor anybody who sips.45 No one feels hungry upon drinking, No upset stomach for all those who guzzle. The courtyard is laced with that which the heart desires. That is paradise; he who obeys him shall enter. One never feels pressure to evacuate bowels, let alone urinate. He who deviates from the straight path shall never enter. Awaiting in paradise are virgins, only for those who join46 Muhammad’s path; one that he followed and preserved. Fried meat, milk, and wine are abundant. Equally abundant is honey, he who follows him shall imbibe.47 A lot in paradise of which ears have never heard. There are things in paradise of which eyes have never seen. A lot in paradise of which a mind has never conceived.

Poem 3 All the delights belong to the one who enters. He who earns his living through the religion he sells Will come, on the Day of Resurrection, weeping, Overwhelmed with regret, for nothing, then, he could compensate. Profusely crying, nobody on that day shall console. All shall be silent on the Day of Resurrection; nobody will dare speak.48 In deafening silence, with whose permission can you speak? Prophets and saints, none may speak, Let alone this grave sinner, can you speak, Then the angels would begin to descend.49 “Who can speak?” The Lord would inquire At this point, the human being, for his bad deeds, is frightened. For all that he defrauded he must pay. Then the Lord would ask: “To whom does sovereignty belong?”50 Who would dare you then to even respond? The Lord God, in his sovereignty continues to revel, Saying: “Silence from all, nobody speaks!” For salvation, to our primal father Adam we would rush, Imploring: Before your Lord, you alone may speak, So immense are my own sins. He would decline and declare, I, myself, am undeserving to plead. Turning to Prophet Noah, we would say: Come and rescue Before your Lord, you alone may speak. So immense are my own sins. He would decline and declare, I, myself, am undeserving to plead. We would rush to Moses, begging: Come and deliver, Before your Lord, you alone may speak. “So immense are my own sins,” he would decline and declare, “I, myself, am undeserving to plead.” We would rush to Abraham, petitioning: “Come and liberate, Before your Lord, you alone may speak “So immense are my own sins.” He would decline and declare, “I, myself, am undeserving to plead.” We would rush to Jesus, praying: come and save. Before your Lord, you alone may speak, “So immense are my own sins.” He would decline and declare, “I, myself, am undeserving to plead.” Then to Muhammad, God’s friend, we would flock. Before your Lord, you alone may speak. O Muhammad, our beloved, we would insist

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Before your Lord, you alone may speak. O Muhammad, our intercessor, we would insist Before your Lord, you alone may speak. O Muhammad, our savior, we would insist Before your Lord, you alone may speak. O Muhammad, our prophet, we would insist Before your Lord, you alone may speak. O Muhammad, God’s messenger, we would insist Before your Lord, you alone may speak. But for you, nothing would God create Before your Lord, you alone may speak. But for you, even the sun he would not create Before your Lord, you alone may speak. But for you, also the moon he would not create Before your Lord, you alone may speak. He would say: God willing, I may rescue And stands up and raises his hands to plead. With beaming and shining face, there he stands And says: “God willing, I may speak, These people of mine, O my Lord, save.” He responds: “All their sins I forgive, But only those who strictly followed your path, you may take Then proceed to open Firdaws51 and pass.” He who followed the wrong path shall be blind and behind he shall stay.52 Then the bridge shall be erected for him to cross.53 About monotheism and ablution one shall be queried. About daily prayers, almsgiving, and fasting, one shall be asked. If you have performed the hajj, you shall be investigated About the source of your wealth, so to speak. If extremely wealthy, you shall also be scrutinized. About your expenditure and the reserves you stashed As a scholar, you shall be interrogated about whom you guided. If you ever took money for guiding people, you shall confess. As an unlearned person, you shall also be grilled. Where were you when the scholars preached? To your town, has no scholar ever come To preach, and to the right path ever guided? Sweet indeed is the truth, yet sour though it begins You taste a little bit, even if it is bad, you may consume. For our Lord God’s protection, let us pray

Poem 3 From this era of ours, badly declining. In this era, hiding is where the truth went Paving the way for the youngsters to mug and rob. O God, our Lord God, it is you we seek. To the straight path, the Prophet’s path, you should guide.

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Afa Za¯ ŋunpaƔ Nyu BuƔli (Any Person Who Allows His Wife to Drink the Potion for Exorcism) Language: Dagbani Year: 1955

For any person1 who allows his wife to drink the potion for exorcism, A two-month fast of expiation becomes obligatory.2 Unable to expiate by fasting, she must inquire. Then sixty orphans,3 whom she must feed. Thus, one of three things she must choose. A slave woman she must set free.4 If she wants another option, she may choose A hundred lashes, which then become obligatory.5 This fasting, if she should ignore it utterly, Then hellfire becomes her abode. One day before her Lord she shall cry. What a loss for the one who takes a drink of exorcism. She has had it! The drinker of nana must listen.6 A two-month fast of expiation becomes obligatory. She who drinks nana must inquire. A two-month fast of expiation becomes obligatory. If the fasting is short by a single day, Then the two months she must start all over again. If she is strong enough but decidedly refuses to do so, The mighty in the grave shall be overwhelming. If she deliberately ignores this fasting, Incarceration of the Day of Resurrection shall be her lot. He who, for the fear of people, goes to drink, His Lord’s judgment shall be exacted. Going to the hereafter he shall sell short, For he has engaged in an endless sale.

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Poem 4 In the ground there is an angel Who shall meet all the mighty and powerful. He who compels others to visit nana Shall soon be visited by the troubles of Resurrection Day. He who gives orders, “From my town, all must vacate!” Shall soon be seized by the town’s true owner.7 He shall soon be dead and leave everything behind And shall be snatched by the destroyer of all kings. He who fears any king more than our Lord, Punishment in the hellfire shall befall him. He who obeys our Lord, the one and only, Shall never, on the Day of Resurrection, become thirsty. He who hopes to see our Lord there Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. Satan’s trap has been unleashed, And any Muslim who takes the drink shall be entrapped. Satan’s trap has been released, And anybody’s wife who drinks the potion shall be entangled. Satan’s trap has been unleashed, And anybody who drinks the potion shall be caught. Satan’s trap has been released, And anybody’s child who drinks the potion shall be seized. He who does not attend but helps someone else to attend Has essentially succumbed to Satan’s trap. He who takes them there with his vehicle Has ultimately surrendered to Satan’s trap. He who pays for their transportation Has basically submitted to Satan’s trap. Where is my uncle the “collector”?8 He has really ceded to Satan’s trap. If you have saved some money and stashed it away, Simply repent, and this fasting you must perform. Abandon it, and your sins shall be forgiven If you try, and this fasting you must perform. But if you refuse to fast, you are welcome To the hellfire. So this fasting you must perform. If you are a powerful person, then keep yelling. On the Day of Resurrection, this fasting you shall perform. Never claim that “I was only coerced into attending,” And as a result, this fasting you refuse to perform.

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Any agent who, on making this trip, continues to encourage Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. Whoever was forcibly sent there by the chief Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. Any wife of a Muslim who drinks the exorcist’s potion Must repent, and this fasting she must perform. Both the husband and the wife Must repent, and this fasting they must perform. This has nothing to do with trickery. They must repent, and this fasting they must perform. Without him, if the wife alone attends, Then she alone must fast. But if she goes in his company Together, then they both must fast. If he sleeps with her Together, they also must fast. Trickery can never erase any sins, Only repentance and performing of this fast can. He who follows his whims and rejects, On the Day of Resurrection this fasting he shall perform. Those among you who took the drink of nana Must repent, and this fasting you must perform. If a wife of any Muslim drinks the exorcist’s potion, Her repentance is to perform this fast. In the Qur’an, it is written That her repentance is to perform this fast.9 In the H . adith, it is written That her repentance is to perform this fast. If a wife of any cleric drinks nana, The two-month fast becomes obligatory. Anybody who turns into a witch hunter, you must shun, Going to hellfire becomes his destiny. He pits a child against an aunt,10 And going to hellfire becomes definite. He breaks up a husband and his wives, And going to hellfire becomes his lot. He pits a man against his in-laws, And going to hellfire becomes a must. A mother and a child engage in a feud, And going to hellfire becomes a certainty.

Poem 4 And he pits friends against relatives, And going to hellfire becomes a done deal. The chief and the imam involve themselves in a quarrel, With no greetings between them in this era. They took their people and sold out, And many cars in this Dagbon they purchased. Which ancestral shrine ever turned into a business In this Dagbon, where vehicles are bought? Which shrine ever moves around towns In this Dagbon, where chiefs are worshiped? They set aside the share for the chief’s entourage, Who ever witnessed such a thing in this Dagbon? O Dagombas, you must open your eyes. In this Dagbon, you have become completely blind. Food has rendered your eyes blind. In this era, the chief’s entourage has been fully satisfied. Everybody is now up on his heels. In this era, nothing is ever repugnant. All the money from the shrine they spend. In this era, nothing is ever taboo. Naa NyaƔsi used not to lay eyes on them.11 Here in Dagbon, only after his reign they settled. For those reasons he used to kill them, But following his reign, they broke up this Dagbon. Where are those great deities of the past? In this era, nothing resembling them even exists. Where are the idols al-‘Uzza¯ and al-La¯t?12 In this era, nothing like them exists. Where are Hubal and Mana¯t?13 In this era, nothing like them exists. Where are Wadd and Suwa¯‘a?14 In this era, nothing like them exists. How about Yaghu¯th, Ya‘u¯q, and Nasr?15 In this era, nothing like them exists. Any follower of an idol must repent. In this era, an ancestral priest is nothing. Through that, it is money that they seek, And around here in Dagbon, they wander. They have found a trade in which they engage Inside this Dagbon they peddle.

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Both women and children have recognized them. Here in Dagbon, nana’s secret is out. The witch hunters are now being jailed. Here in Dagbon, nana’s secret is out. The earth priests are now being jailed. Here in Dagbon, nana’s secret is out. Pound me, if you wish, in a large mortar. Here in Dagbon, I shall never go into hiding. Any chief, to nana’s advice who listens. Here in Dagbon, will see his respect dwindle. He who uses his vehicle for transportation to nana Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. Leave him alone, he who refuses to repent In the hellfire, this fasting he shall perform. Leave him alone, should he brag about his wealth. In the hellfire, this fasting he shall perform. If while boasting with kingship, he resists. On the Day of Resurrection this fasting he shall perform. On the Day of Resurrection true sovereignty he shall witness. On the Day of Resurrection this fasting he shall perform. Whatever he does to you, simply accept. Our Lord waits for him to arrive. On the Day of Resurrection there will be all kinds of actors, And all of them, Munkar16 shall defeat. Everybody on this Earth All of them, Munkar shall beat. Carrying his huge cudgel, he awaits. All of them, he alone shall crush. Do you like yelling? Go ahead and yell. One day, this mouth shall remain wide open. You will be drooling, saliva pouring out. Watch out! Do not boast about your kingship. Laying on your back, speechless. Beware, do not boast about your power. Where is all that yelling? Be careful, do not boast about your power. Walking flamboyantly is over. Watch out, do not boast about your power. All of the chief’s entourage has dispersed. Be cautious, do not boast about your power.

Poem 4 Deep in your heart you must reflect. One day you shall abdicate your reign. Where on Earth17 is your grandfather? To this same reign of yours, he too was crowned. Where is your father who begot you? To this same reign of yours, he too was crowned. A fool is unaware that power diminishes His reign,18 over yours, superseded. You must heed the admonishment of this young man. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. About your reign, our Lord could care less. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. About your perspicacity, our Lord could care less. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. On the Day of Resurrection he kept Nakı¯r19 ready. He shall reach him, he who drinks the exorcist potion. Awaiting you are Munkar and Nakı¯r. Any hypocrite shall meet them. Awaiting you the Day of Resurrection are Munkar and Nakı¯r. Every infidel unbeliever shall meet them. Carrying their huge cudgels, they await. Every family wrecker shall meet them. Carrying their huge cudgels, they await. Every mocker shall meet them. Carrying their huge cudgels, they await. Every philanderer shall meet them. Carrying their huge cudgels, they await. Every drunkard shall meet them. Due to your newfound riches, do not forget That from this dirt a king is created. Both the commoner and the king. From this dirt they are created. The Day of Resurrection is near. Do not forget, and this “world” do not run after. The end of time is near. In this era, all kinds of strange things you shall witness. In this era, brotherliness is no more. In this era, money is what is being considered. No more friendship, as if it were forbidden. In this era, money is all they follow.

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For the cleric, nothing is now taboo. In this era, money is all they chase. For that fellow’s child, nothing is now forbidden. In this era, money is all they seek. Toward the hereafter, friendship you must seek. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. Our Lord sees and hears. We shall all go, and with Him we shall meet. Our Lord hears and sees. Whatever you do, to Him is reported. Seize me, if you wish, for slaughter. We shall all go, and with Him we shall meet. Was Prophet John slaughtered? Zachariah, his father, did not slaughter him. Whatever you do to me I shall endure. You and I together, with Him we shall meet. With a thousand insults, one may choose to heap. You and I together, with Him we shall meet. To this admonishment, he who listens and obeys Shall not feel thirsty on the Day of Resurrection. But he who remains unrepentant and disobeys Shall be burned by the Sun on the Day of Resurrection. Of Munkar and Nakı¯r be afraid. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. Do not turn me into your enemy. I say all of this because I love you.20 Listening to the truth pays well. Whoever listens will be safe from punishment. Any person who lends support to disbelief, Thirst shall befall him on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever expels a Muslim from his town Shall also be expelled on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever makes a Muslim drink the exorcist’s potion, The punishment for that shall engulf him. Whoever humiliates a Muslim Shall also be humiliated on the Day of Resurrection. Where is that agent to the ancestral shrine? Two months of fasting he must perform. Whoever meets a Muslim and respects him, Our Lord will dignify him.

Poem 4 Be he a young or an elderly person, God will dignify him on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever humbles himself before them, God will dignify him on the Day of Resurrection. This, our Lord himself has said, God will dignify him on the Day of Resurrection. Whoever humbles himself before an orphan, God will dignify him on the Day of Resurrection. Repent, and your Lord you must obey. Two months of fasting you must perform. The Almighty God you must obey. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. The Subduer God you must obey. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. It is He who causes kings to die. Repent, and this fasting you must perform. All brethren of mine I seriously implore. And strongly encourage toward this fasting. He who hopes to have serenity on the Day of Resurrection Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. All my strength is hereby depleted. Hey, repent, and this fasting you must perform. Our Lord accepts our repentance. Fear him, and this fasting you must begin. For your Lord’s mercy you must plead, As the gate of repentance is not yet closed. Toward us, our Lord’s mercy is abundant. He is unlike the kings of this world. Nobody is compassionate any longer. To wherever one escapes, He will locate him. Our Lord is the king of patience. He will save whomever sincerely repents. In whatever you are fully engaged, simply abandon it And then repent, and this fasting you must perform. Whatever the witch hunters command do not follow. Instead, throw it away, and this you must obey. What if a person listens to a lunatic’s advice? Throw it away, and this you must obey. What if a person listens to a witch hunters’ command? Before long, he shall be truly mortified.

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Only pathological lies can their mouths speak. Whoever believes them shall be infected.21 What the witch hunters suggest cannot be trusted. Whoever accepts it shall certainly be humiliated. But there are many types of witch hunters, A particular cleric could become a real witch hunter. Whoever is religious, and yet the potion he drinks, Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. Whoever is religious and becomes intoxicated Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. Those who turn the religion into their farms,22 Hey! They must repent, and this fasting they must perform. The speakers of truth have moved on. In this era truth is no more. But for our Lord’s protection, Here in Dagbon, religion would have been “dead.” Some clerics have completely turned into diviners. Here in Dagbon, you all recognize each of them. Whoever spreads the sand and predicts,23 How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever counts pebbles and foretells, How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever looks into a bowl of water and divines, How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever also writes and prophesies, How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever accepts charities the soothsayer prescribes, How different is he from the witch hunter? Whoever writes buƔu24 for a firstborn daughter to wear, How different is he from the witch hunter? Each and every one of you must repent Before the gate of repentance is locked. O our Lord, You alone do we ask, Save all those who performed this fasting. O the Almighty, in you we seek refuge, Save all those who performed this fasting. O the Most Subduer, in you we seek refuge. Those of us, to Your majesty we pray. O the Most Merciful, in you we seek refuge. Save those of us who performed this fasting.

Poem 4 Our Lord, we seek Your protection. From these [evil] deeds of ours, in this era. O the Most Generous, the Most Merciful From these [evil] deeds of ours, save us. To you, our Lord, we plead Mend these deeds of ours in this era. Do not permit Satan to overwhelm us. In You we all seek refuge. With extended hands, we beseech You So that You shall shield our households in this era. Among these evil people, help us From Your path, do not let us stray. On the Day of Resurrection, to You we supplicate, So that to this Prophet You shall deliver us. O our Lord, O our Lord! To this Prophet, take us closer. All of us, we hope You save. And this house25 of Yours, let us enter, Including any Muslim who worships You. And this house of Yours, let us enter. All these sins of ours, O erase. And this house of Yours, let us enter. As well as all the Companions of the Prophet. And this house of Yours, let us enter. Whoever hopes to enter26 paradise Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. Do not get angry at me, For I say this only because I like you.27 Whoever hope to cross the bridge28 Must repent, and this fasting he must perform. All sorts of disrespect, I plead, That you eliminate and render my heart pure. O accept our repentance, to You we pray, All of us who performed this fasting.

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Fa Khudhu¯ (And You Must Take) Language: Arabic Year: 1960?

Prayers and salutations for the master of humankind. Bearer of glad tidings, warner, Hashimite, and the one wrapped in a cloak.1 Pay attention and listen. Do not call us “rejecters,”2 For we are the people of Sunnah3 and not “rejecters.” Even if you try to kill us, we shall never obey you, Following the Sunnah of the best of mankind is sufficient. If indeed they put the Sun and Moon in our hands, We shall remain sincere followers of what we witness By following the consensus4 and the Rightly Guided Caliphs,5 Who, indeed, are the people of the highest summit. There is the sword for the innovators you must pull out,6 The group of innovators and infidels must be vanquished.7 These are the people who went astray and were tyrannical, They changed the religion of the chosen one and the master of humankind.8 These are the people who are all liars, These are the people who are deceptive infidels, These are the people who are consumed with desire for wealth. So they sold their hereafter for this world; they shall incur loss. With His sword we “cut of the heads” of the innovators,9 For we are the army of the chosen one, the master of humankind. Against their collectivity we have obtainable proof,10 But against us they have no proof, only doubts. People of innovation from every direction we have defeated, By God’s leave they shall be humbled.

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He who fails to turn his heart away from them shall regret When he comes on the Day of Resurrection, already having been warned. Here, anybody who turns away from them shall laugh When he arrives on the Day of Resurrection with glad tidings. You and ourselves, we must depend on God alone When he boldly appears on the Day of Resurrection. My brother, no soul over another soul has any control, Our intercession belongs to the pure Prophet alone. Beside him, it is not up to any shaykh; that, you must accept Believe us, if you will; otherwise, you may reject. It is neither on Noah nor Adam, Nor on Moses and Jesus. There is no doubt. Their virtues are superior to every other person, Yet each one of them is gripped with great apprehension. Shun falsehood and seek the truth, and you shall be guided. Otherwise, you shall be among those to be sent to hell.11 The necks of shaykhs before him are bowed Even though he himself is not a shaykh or a murid12 except [one who perpetuates] doubts Like a rabbit he will be held captive by fear, And on the Day of Judgment this protest of ours will be made apparent. Love for the Messenger is not through a folded turban; Rather, love for him means following his commands. You claim that love for him is through your cloth,13 But love for God’s Messenger is not to become an infidel disbeliever. My Lord’s friendship14 is not in what you describe. Instead, His friendship is to be content with what He decrees. Whether good or bad it is the same to them. Whether sweet or bitter, they will never be ungrateful. His friendship is not for the one who flies in the sky Or for the one who clearly walks on the sea It is not for the one who does not look the other in the face, Nor is it for today’s black or red person.15 It is not for the one who keeps himself secluded in the house, So you must ridicule those for whom this is an attribute. It is not for the one around whom people gather, Nor is it for the one who walks around pompously. It is not for the one who dons multilayered clothes,

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Nor is it for the one who has abundant wealth. My Lord’s friendship belongs to the one He likes. There is nothing strange about God regarding that which he decrees. Whether slave or woman you should not be surprised, That would be absolute ignorance and denial on your part. His friendship is to work according to the Qur’an and Sunnah. Regarding these two, no doubt or dispute on our part. Do not overstep the limits in the religion that he brought you. God, indeed, has perfected the religion for humanity.16 Lean toward him, you tyrant, for you are powerless. Be a believer, you apostate, or else remain an infidel. We vanquished all of the innovators and their leader17 Through the power of the H . adith and the Qur’an, recurrently By following the Muslim consensus and the Sunnah Without a doubt, we made the innovators bow their heads, Otherwise who among all of them will appear before us? We are men both in hiding and in plain sight. If you wish to defeat them swiftly Stick with the Qur’an, they will turn tail and flee.18 I advise you to exert yourself in eliminating innovations, With that you shall attain glad tidings on the Day of Resurrection. I ask you to erase all of the lies you write, You have two recorders who document and shall expose, To say nothing of your burial along with this little poetry, You shall meet God on the day when all secrets shall be exposed.19 If they insult us in it, then by God they have sinned. Your reckoning is before God, the Lord of humanity. You are but those who associate partners with your Lord. On the Day of Reckoning you shall face Him. We hope that God will protect us from your evil omen, And that your secrets will soon be revealed. I wish that they had thought before they called us “rejecters” And that our rejection of the innovators had been much easier. With their rejection of the prophets and messengers, Before God they will have neither a share nor a glad tiding. By God, their thousands only measure our tens. Here they are with organs of seeing but unable to see.20 Indeed, I did not hide my feelings about them, But for my fear of God I would not have been so unambiguous. I am eager that my Lord would rescue them for us

Poem 5 By the honor of the Hashimite Prophet, the bearer of glad tidings. Is there among them one who would show us a way? So that we could explain the truth to them without argument? Glory to the one who eternally perfected His religion for us, For the master of existence, the chosen one, the leader of humanity. Glory to the one who offered us the guided path Away from the heretical paths. We are truly grateful. Glory to the one who made His ritual prayers obligatory upon us, As well as fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage. What a glad tiding! What success awaits him who does not deviate from them, But he who strays from them has failed in this world and the next. Here are the invocations taught by the leader of the messengers.21 Glorification,22 praises,23 and God’s greatness24—you must proclaim. Each of them thirty-three times you must recite25 By using your finger phalanges.26 Take it without argument. Look through the prophetic H . adith if you will,27 And take it if you wish. Otherwise, you may reject. The leader of the messengers has informed us about it, So obey him, and without doubt you will be a better person. That, therefore, is from the master of existence, so accept it. If you will, take a look in the H . adith and ponder. All that is not hidden from any scholar Except those ignorant, who do as “you know what?”28 I implore you, my brother, to have mercy on yourself By reading the Qur’an and H . adith so that you may contemplate. Apart from this, do not heed any book, Any book other than these two you must reject. May God reward people who reject innovation. Blessings and glad tidings for them on the Day of Resurrection. May God reward those who carry out His commands Unquestionably, they will be blessed on the Day of Reckoning. May God reward those who follow the Sunnah. Secrets exist only in this world, for they will be exposed in the hereafter. My brother, is there such a thing as “intoxication in worshiping God”? By God, their friendship to Him means intoxication, as you can see. By God it is of no use to them at all. Indeed, I am scornful of you for the infirmity in the end. For them, seeing the Lord is never difficult. Some of them even claim to see the Lord openly.

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I seek the protection of the Compassionate,29 who prevented us From saying this. It is an affliction that appeared clearly. I seek protection of the Compassionate from seeing Him in this world. Did a prophet ever see him openly? Embedded in their claim is a great affliction, But there is no doubt of seeing Him on the Day of Resurrection.30 This claim of theirs is a great impossibility. How strange this claim to see Him openly. Moses to whom God spoke, could not see his Lord,31 So who are you to see God clearly? Abraham did not see the Lord, his friend. It is impossible for him to see the Lord openly. Through them, O my Lord, forgive us, O God. Toward You, O Lord of humankind, we and them come rushing. In honor of Abu Bakr and Abu Hafs,32 Also of Uthman and Ali, all of who bedazzle.33 I pray for the best of entire creation,34 The charming, dignified, pure, and master of humankind. Praise and thanks to the God of Muhammad. Our appeals are only to God, the Ruler. We follow the religion he brought with guidance. To it we are devoted, and we are not “rejecters.” The blessings of God and His peace are upon him And upon his household and Companions, of whom we are proud. We hope that God forgives our sins The most forgiving, the most merciful, and the concealer of flaws.

Poem 6

Kutilga (You Shall Not Be Saved) Language: Dagbani Year: between 1955 and 1960

The Lord alone you must obey and worship, And obey the master,1 for whose sake in the hereafter you shall be saved. People of the world! while in it you must be fearful, For the sake of your wives alone, you shall not be saved in the hereafter. Boast not of your life; equally of kingship and wealth do not boast, For in spite of your kinship and wealth you shall not be saved. If you are a cleric, better seek proper knowledge, For your knowledge of morphology shall not save you in the hereafter. Fear God and do not follow innovations,2 And educate yourself, for no king shall save you in the hereafter. If you are a knowledgeable cleric who simply objects, That knowledge of yours shall not save you in the hereafter. Brag not of your knowledge while you remain unbeneficial, For that knowledge of yours shall not save you in the hereafter. If you are a hajj,3 and yet you remain worthless, Then being a worthless hajj shall not save you in the hereafter. If you are a hajj, do not boast about it, For simply being a hajj shall not save you in the hereafter. The Lord’s and the Prophet’s sayings you must follow. Do not depend on the knowledge of alchemy, for it shall not save you. Before you perform prayers, you must inquire and learn. Forget learning about paradise, for that shall not save you.

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People of the world! your whims you must not follow. Avoid drinking and bathing with potion,4 all of that shall not save you. Do not pound the Lord’s yams only to waste,5 Performing funerals and constant participation shall not save you.6 Like goats, do not let your wives wander aimlessly, Feeding a person while abandoning her shall not save you. Good manners and the correct religion, you must teach, Leaving a woman alone with her desires shall not save you. When outside, you put the veil on your shoulder While carrying your chair. That shall not save you.7 Practicing divination as he counts his rosary, I am afraid; none of your deeds shall save you. Surrounding himself are the potions he prepared. O learned man! these deeds of yours shall not save you. Wearing a scarf and a turban, do not boast. O learned man! these deeds of yours shall not save you. All the obligations8 and the Prophet’s traditions9 you abandoned, None of these behaviors shall ever save you. With other people’s statements, you remain conceited While holding on to the recommended,10 which shall not save you. Imagine yourself getting intoxicated from someone’s consumption of alcohol. None of other people’s statements shall ever save you. While the other fellow worships, you are ecstatic. How will that benefit or save you? No knowledge of prayers, alms, or even how to fast. In the hereafter, your situation shall become like that of a crocodile. Deep in his heart he never believed in the Lord. For lack of knowing, none of your deeds shall save you. Through lies he caused divisions in the religion. If your following is not wholehearted, you shall not be saved. If you build a mosque about which you boast While you fabricate innovation, it shall not save you. If you build a mosque but do not pray, In the hereafter, it shall not save you. So follow the sayings of the Prophet and do not deviate. Just because people seek your audience, that shall not save you. I strongly admonish you not to go astray. Do not switch paths, for none shall save you. Stop gathering yams and preparing potions for distribution.

Poem 6 Follow our master,11 for following him shall save you. Whoever is heedless and continues to write potions shall regret it. If you do not abandon it, your mouth12 shall not save you in the hereafter. Do not engage your mouths in telling tales, Your mouth shall not save you in the hereafter. As you perform your deeds, seek no acknowledgement By announcing it for people to know, it shall not save you in the hereafter.13 When a non-Muslim dies, stay away and never perform prayers on him, If you insist on praying it shall not save you. Do not start fights with others or insult due to your strength, Being strong shall not save you14 in the hereafter. Stop chasing after other people’s wives at every funeral, If you do not stop that, no one shall save you in the hereafter. Avoid consulting ancestral spirits; doing so is forbidden, Your ancestral spirits cannot save you in this world. Yet in the hereafter your sins shall be immense, Not even one of your deeds shall save you. You abandon your wife, ignorant about prayers and menstruation, Uninformed about ritual purification,15 she prays like a crocodile. For marriage and death baths, do not engage anybody,16 And with cloths, scarf, and veil do not compensate.17 Upon a non-Muslim’s death, recite nothing over him And do not take his used clothes to wear. Stay away from their food and their bad offerings, Eating that will lead you astray on the Day of Resurrection. Abandon it. Do not offer charity only for people to see and praise, All that charity shall not save you on the Day of Resurrection. Avoid being generous only to show off and boast, Showing off shall not save you on the Day of Resurrection. O people of the world! do not boast about your royal status, Being a royal shall not save you on the Day of Resurrection. Our Lord, we must thank ardently for His blessings, and We must repent, for only His mercy shall save you.18

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Nsab Nsabliŋo (I Compose This Writing of Mine) Language: Dagbani Year: 1960

As I compose this writing of mine, my brethren, please listen. It comprises stories we brought back from Nigeria.1 It was the Ghanaian leader Dr. Kwame Osagyefo2 Who elected and delegated the four of us to visit Nigeria. Yahya Iddi,3 Mumuni Iddi,4 as well as Mahmudu,5 All were dispatched to visit Nigeria. Yusuf, the current composer, also attended. Together, we all flew to Nigeria, Our airfares and spending money paid for by the governor.6 None of us spent our own money while in Nigeria. Upon our arrival in Iko,7 the governor gave us a car. Every day we drove around as we wished in Nigeria. Women and children participated in the street parades, Rejoicing in the fact that they had regained Nigeria. In Nigeria, the governor honored us greatly. On that Independence Day you should have seen Nigeria. The Yoruba,8 the Igbo,9 and the Hausa,10 The Jukun11 and the Baribari,12 all in Nigeria. Our leader Umaru Egala13 was also in attendance, And it was his lead that we followed everywhere in Nigeria. Also our leader, the one and only Kojo Botsio,14 It was his lead that we followed everywhere in Nigeria. In attendance also, was our leader the chief butcher of Kumasi, Alhaj Tanko, who used to take us around Nigeria. The people’s delight and happiness were indescribable. Great and noble people we have met in Nigeria.

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Yet, of many nations, this Ghana of ours is unique, A distinguished nation, a brave nation—Ghana certainly is that. For the most pleasurable nation, pick our Ghana. The most sprawling nation belongs to Nigeria. We were unable to visit many cities, Yet we did visit most of the biggest cities in Nigeria. A great many honorable people we met. They appreciated And kept saying: “Indeed, Ghana has helped Nigeria.” In attendance was Sir Ahmadu Bello15 himself. His name, all of you have already heard in Nigeria. In attendance too was Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa.16 His name, all of you have already heard in Nigeria. In attendance was President Nnamdi Azikiwe.17 His name, all of you have already heard in Nigeria. On that Independence Day it was hard to see the man; be careful. The most knowledgeable person, whom everybody knows in Nigeria, In attendance was Chief Obafemi Awolowo.18 His name, all of you have already heard in Nigeria. In attendance also was Mallam Aminu Kano.19 His name, all of you have already heard in Nigeria. In attendance were the chiefs of Muslims and Kano,20 The chiefs of Kaduna,21 Baribari, and Zaria.22 In attendance were scholars and great men of knowledge. In attendance were all the great scholars of Nigeria.

Poem 8

Dolya Tidu¯ma Ka Doli Anabŋo (Follow Our Lord and This Prophet) Language: Dagbani Year: February 1965 / Shawwa¯l 1384 H (Composed in Accra, Ghana)

Both our Lord and this Prophet you must follow, And regarding actions, only the Qur’an you must follow. The words of his Companions you must accept, And what you find in H . adith you must obey. People have emerged to cause divisions in the religion, And in this town they break up relatives. A student from his teacher they separate. All friendship in this town they destroy. It is of the people of tarbiyya that I speak, Those who claim to see God in this world. They pursue women and spend their money. They impregnate the women of this town. They will seduce both your wife and your daughter. They will marry two sisters from the same house.1 They take the religion and toss it away, And replace it with their own wird of Tija¯ni.2 They seek their own demigod, whom they worship. In Kaolack3 they call him Ghawth.4 Some refer to him as dha¯t,5 but others prefer anya¯s.6 In this era some still insist upon calling him haske.7 Some say he is qut.b,8 but others consider him the khalı¯fa.9 But some simply refer to him as the shaykh and ghawth of the Tija¯nı¯s. Their lies in Africa are plentiful. And many in Africa rejected him.

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Poem 8 Unwelcome in Kaduna,10 he was ejected. In Kano,11 too, not a foot he would ever step. All over, his followers were arrested and beaten And incarcerated in prisons. Some do repent and abandon the shaykh. And both tarbiyya and Tija¯ni they reject. They cheat people through the cards they have created,12 All the way in Kano and Kaduna. Hey! I warn you. In many towns they cause divisions In this era to acquire their own share in this world. Through my observation I quickly recognized them. In this world they only pursue money, For they seek neither our Lord nor the Prophet. Only the shaykh of Touba13 they seek. They say he is qut.b of the era, I say the era of impregnation, The era of bad luck and era of sheer embezzlement. They boast of possessing the water with which he cleanses his body.14 Yes! Here in Ghana they boast about it. Some drink it, and others wipe their bodies with it. That, here in Ghana, you all heard All of that, and yet you are unable to recognize. Here in Ghana, only I am left among you to decipher Both evil and blessings; these are contagious. Extract yourself and withdraw from these people. No blessed one will ever accept what they say. Whatever they say you must throw into the garbage damp.15 Gather whatever they say and toss it out. Wash your hands from their contribution.16 And pour out that water in the bathroom.17 Bury their writings in the ground.18 Nobody listens to the words of a lunatic. In this town, you now recognize each of them. Do not brag about knowledge, and do not pound your chest. Stop claiming that your equal does not exist in Tamale.19 Knowledge, like sand, is abundant everywhere. Even a hyena has knowledge, and its chest it may beat. Hey! There are different types of knowledge. A carpenter has knowledge, and his chest he may hit. Hey! There are different types of knowledge. A mechanic has knowledge, and his chest he may beat.

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Hey! There are different types of knowledge. A driver has knowledge, and his chest he may pound. Hey! There are different types of knowledge. A thief has knowledge, and his chest he may beat. Hey! There are different types of knowledge. A cleric also has knowledge, and his chest he may pound. Someone may exceed you in knowledge while you sit there and brag, Such as the one who cooks20 for the delight of your mouth; Like the one who, on your naming day, sat down, Wrote your name and placed it in the raffia dish.21 He who combined letters together Wrote your name, and put it in the raffia dish.22 O my friend, do not swagger. Yes, my friend, do not brag, For in religion it is the deed that we demand. The aspects of religion that need to be learned Are what you shall be asked about in your grave. On that day, he who lacks the right knowledge shall learn. In his grave, an intense beating he shall suffer. A day for serious business, nobody around to assist. Alone in your grave you shall stay. I will be absent during your interrogation, as you during mine. You will be in your grave, just as I in mine. One question after another you shall be asked, Whether you like it or not you shall answer. On that day, you may try to proclaim “I was the scholar!” “In the entire Ghana as in Kaolack!” Man of the house himself! I never saw you there. Are you still, in your grave? Tell the angel, “I hate your line of questioning.” In your knowledge, that of Arabic syntax may be lacking. Never decline, and everything you must announce That in all of Africa, you had no equal. You will realize, on that Day, that you know nothing. So long as you veer from the path of religion, You will be fiercely bludgeoned, whose sound you shall hear. And in your grave you shall cry out with a funeral song.23 Your situation on that Day will be worse than that of a giant rat. In your grave all of your bravery shall dissipate. We pray to the Lord that He forgives our sins In this world, for the sake of this Prophet.

Poem 8 We thank the Lord who created this Prophet Among human beings. His sovereignty we praise. We pray to the Lord that He showers His mercy upon us, That He approves of the intercession regarding our deeds, That our prayers and our fasting He accepts, And that He receives our alms and pilgrimage. You are the Almighty God, the Subduer God, God the Peaceful. O look into our deeds! God the payer of debt, God the original maker, God the most forgiving. For our evil actions do not punish us. Through the blessings of this son of A¯minah And the son of ‘Abdulla¯h, O look into our deeds. Ha¯shim’s clan from the Quraysh tribe Inside Mecca, to this child they gave birth. The intercessor, in a neighborhood of the hereafter. In front of your Lord, latch onto our hands firmly. O Forgiver of sins, by yourself you created all of us. In front of You we kneel, so look into our faces. Both the Qur’an and H . adith you must follow. In religion, to anything else do not submit. Both our Lord and this Prophet you must obey. Whoever among us follows Tija¯nı¯, has deserted Whoever abandons prayer while engaging in something else Must prepare for whatever awaits him in his grave.

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Poem 9

Afa Nim Za¯sa Nin Binya (All Clerics Have Not Seen: Against Wird) Language: Dagbani Year: 1960–64?

Nowhere did the clerics ever witness1 How to perform [wird] and tarbiyya.2 Stop performing wird3 and abandon it. He who avoids its practice is guided. He who renounces it is at peace, And on the Day of Resurrection he is safe. Those engaged in wird; the Prophet never performed. He who implements is led astray. His late Companions never did it either. He who fails to reject it is misguided. No real scholar will truly perform it. He who refuses to discard it is in error. No single scholar could emerge Either here in Ghana, or in the Gambia.4 None among wird people ever witnessed Neither in Kaolack,5 nor in Guinea. In Cairo, some have inquired. In Nigeria, others have queried. We forever waited for their shaykhs, But all of their shaykhs have absconded. You must obey what the Qur’an prescribed, He who substitutes6 has gone astray. You must follow what the Prophet teaches, He who deviates is lost. You must conform to Prophet Muhammad, He who defies is crooked.

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Poem 9 How to follow him, the Lord has taught, He who rejects is stuck. You must heed my admonishment, He who refuses to listen is grounded. Follow this path and never separate, He who isolates himself is lost. From the path of our Lord do not deviate. Rather, do not run after this world. We congratulate he who heeds, But we simply watch he who rejects. As some hear and yell, Others keep their mouths shut. All of this may change nothing, So come out boldly and stop pretending. O all shaykhs and muqaddams,7 Here we sat and forever we waited. Visiting Kaolack is no more. Those who reject wird have persisted. Constant contribution is no more.8 As we are safe, it is God whom we thank.

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Poem 10

Bukari Mawla (A Eulogy) Language: Arabic Year: 1960–64?

For our brother Bukari Mawla, my heart aches. Pious, brave, and rightly guided was that Bukari Mawla.1 My tears pouring, like the clouds sending down the rain, I, indeed, shall never forget Shaykh Bukari Mawla. For the women and the youth, his era was full of guidance, Our brides, consummated per the warnings of Bukari Mawla. For Bukari Mawla’s demise, the people of Sokodé2 have shed tears, As we, in Ghana, are crying for the passing of Bukari Mawla. About the people of tarbiyya,3 Asamankese’s residents4 have complained, Some of them have repented through the admonishment of Bukari Mawla. Also about the innovators from Kaolack5 residing in Accra, Some of them have atoned through the admonishment of Bukari Mawla. Through Shaykh Bukari Mawla, the Mawla clan has been blessed. I, indeed, so wished that I belonged to the Mawla clan. For Bukari Mawla I constantly dedicate much of my supplication. Perpetual peace I invoke for Bukari Mawla. Reviver of the Sunnah of the best of creation, Muhammad. With effort and deterrence, Mawla never tired. From evil ways, many people have repented Through the enjoining and forbidding of the master Bukari Mawla. We made the innovators bow their heads here in Ghana Through the admonishment and deterrence of Shaykh Bukari Mawla. I ask my God, the Most Merciful, O accept. O my Lord, have mercy upon Shaykh Bukari Mawla.

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Poem 10 I pray to my God, the Most forgiving, O accept. O my Lord, forgive the sins of Shaykh Bukari Mawla. I plead to my God, the best concealer, O accept. O my Lord, cover the flaws of Shaykh Bukari Mawla. I beg my Lord, the Peaceful one, O accept. Grant peace to the shaykh of the clan of Mawla. O my Lord, the Beneficent, the One, the Eternal. Grant peace to the shaykh of the clan of Mawla. O my Lord, pour the water of mercy on his grave And offer the water of Kawthar6 to the clan of Mawla. In the garden of paradise, O our God, settle him. And to the pure beautiful ladies in the highest paradise, marry him. Bless Muhammad, the best of messengers and The leader and the master of all prophets and messengers.

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Poem 11

Ninsal Kutonya Tidu¯ma (A Human Being Cannot See Our Lord) Language: Dagbani Year: 1960–65

No human being can ever see our Lord Here in this world.1 Such is an impossibility.2 No eye can ever be laid on our Lord3 While in this world. Such is an impossibility. Nobody is capable of seeing our Lord In all of creation. Such is an impossibility. He who claims to have seen our Lord, His entire worship shall be lost. The Angels themselves could not see Our Lord’s essence. Such is an impossibility. All of the prophets could not see Our Lord’s essence. Such is an impossibility. Let alone you, this filthy one. Would you be able to see your Lord? Such is an impossibility. The participant in tarbiyya4 cannot see Our Lord’s nature. Such is an impossibility. Abandon them and try to avoid their lies, For the punishment for a liar does not cease. Any fortunate person will never join. He who joins must quit, for it is utterly unacceptable. He who abandons it shall be safe, And all of his sins wiped clean. If, however, you refuse and join, Then an infidel you shall be called. He who heeds and completely withdraws Shall, on the Day of Judgment, be smiling.

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Poem 11 He who hears and nonetheless stays Shall, on the Day of Judgment, be crying. The participant in tarbiya cannot see Our Lord’s essence. Such is an impossibility. Joining the tarbiya group has no place in religion. Stay out of it, for it is utterly forbidden. None of the prophets ever established it. Leave it, for it is completely impermissible. None of the Companions ever instituted it. Abandon it, for it is totally insupportable. Strict monotheism alone is sufficient. Joining the tarbiya group has no reward. Daily prayers and fasting are enough. Joining the tarbiya group does not pay. Alms-giving and hajj are sufficient. Joining the tarbiya group has no recompense. A pound and a shilling may provide The knowledge about your Lord, once you inquire. A pound and a shilling cannot simply facilitate The knowledge about your Lord. That is unacceptable. A pound and a shilling cannot be collected To teach about your Lord. That is taboo.

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Poem 12

S.alli S.ala¯tan (Send Blessings Upon) Language: Arabic Year: 1965?

Upon the trustworthy, O God, send Your blessings. That Prophet, the master of existence. Myself, this Qur’an has indeed educated. Myself, that H . adith has indeed sufficed. Whatever God said1 is precisely what the Messenger would say.2 Excepting both, to me nothing else matters. Whatever the shaykh said3 is precisely what men say.4 But for me, the divine saying is sufficient.5 Whatever the shaykh said, we, in fact, totally reject,6 Especially if it fails to concur with the divine saying. If it does not coincide with what is in al-Bukha¯rı¯ Or with what is in al-Nasa¯’ı¯, it is, to me, insignificant. Only that which the Messenger prescribed is worthy of following.7 That which the “pole” said is none of my business.8 The Hashimite, of the custodians of Zamzam, he belongs Of the Quraysh tribe. He is enough for me.9 The saying of the pure and of the faithful, The saying of the intercessor,10 they are quite enough for me. Adequate for me indeed is the love for the Messenger. Ample for me indeed is the love for the trustworthy.11 The leader of the messengers, he has educated me.12 About that Tija¯ni, I sincerely could not care less. It is strange—no rather it is futile For someone to boldly claim: “I belong with the Tija¯nis.”13 These litanies and spiritual trainings Are surely nothing but utter fabrications.

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Poem 12 For me, the Prophet’s “litanies” are adequate.14 I don’t care at all for Tija¯ni’s litanies. Useless litanies, litanies of disillusionment, Litanies of superstitions—all litanies of Tija¯ni. Litanies of a liar, litanies of divination, Litanies of tyranny—all litanies of Tija¯ni. Litanies of Pharaoh, litanies of Haman, Litanies of Korah—all litanies of Tija¯ni. Litanies of the devil, litanies of Nimrod, Litanies of Shaddad—all litanies of Tija¯ni. The litanies of Tija¯ni are useless litanies The litanies of infidels are the litanies of Tija¯ni. The litanies of the Magians, the litanies of the Jews, The litanies of the Christians—all litanies of Satan. The litanies of al-‘Uzza¯, the litanies of Mana¯t, Of al-La¯t and Hubal15—all litanies of Tija¯ni. The litanies of Ya‘u¯q, the litanies of Yaghu¯th. Of Wadd and Nasr16—all litanies of Tija¯ni. The Lord of al-Fira¯s? As well as of Suwa¯‘.17 Those are idols, quite better than Tija¯ni. Dear brothers, together repent From the litanies of Shaykh Tija¯ni. A name for mischief-making after declaring faith18 Is to claim that “I am a Tija¯ni.” For you to say, “I am a cupper” Is better than to insist, “I am a Tija¯ni.” For you to say, “I am a carpenter” Is better than to maintain, “I am a Tija¯ni.” For you to say, “I am a blacksmith” Is better than to assert, “I am a Tija¯ni.” For you to say, “I am a farmer” Is better than to contend, “I am a Tija¯ni.” Or a pharmacist, or an engineer Is better than to declare, “I am a Tija¯ni.” O Lord, protect us from the evil of this era. O Lord, save us from the Tija¯nis. And your blessings and peace, I invoke Upon my beloved and the Trustworthy [Prophet].

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Poem 13

TipaƔri Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni (We Thank Our Lord) Language: Dagbani Year: 1964–66?

Our Lord, from the bottom of our hearts we thank you, And through our mouths and our deeds we equally thank you. To follow the shaykh,1 do not go coercing people, For within everybody’s family a shaykh2 already exists. Everybody has a shaykh, so quit bothering people. To earn some pennies, and just to mingle among your peers. If you have a shaykh for the sake of guidance, Then a nanny is also a shaykh for babysitting. Everybody’s father is a shaykh, and so is the mother. Your teacher is a shaykh in his guidance. Your local chief is also a shaykh, and so are his deputies. Your governor is a shaykh in your region. The medicine man for your pelvic pains is a shaykh. While at the hospital the doctor is also a shaykh. So numerous are the shaykhs. Do not discriminate among them. Yet, among his peers, this particular one, you elevate. Due to her daughter, your mother-in-law is a shaykh. Your wife in your household is also a shaykh. Being a shaykh, do not turn into royalty as you swagger, And with a fan, while in prayers, as you flutter. The shaykh himself you have turned into a trap, And your Lord’s servants you keep catching. On the Day of Resurrection, you and the Lord shall wrestle. Deep in my mind, your final abode is terrifying. In this world, once you perpetrate falsehood against the Prophet, Then you must prepare in advance for your final dwelling.

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Poem 13 You strive hard that you must follow only the shaykh, And about that you continue to boast among your peers. Be diligent, O friend, for shaykhs are of different types. So regarding following them, think carefully. On the Day of Resurrection, following a shaykh shall have no reward. Deep in my mind, your final home is petrifying. The one who started teaching you with the slate,3 And the one who wrote and tossed your name into the raffia saucer,4 Also the one who pronounced your name during the ceremony— About this shaykh’s aptitude you must never, ever forget. We do not want trouble,5 so leave us alone. Following the Prophet in this religion is sufficient. We all are the Lord’s servants, so leave us alone. On the Day of Resurrection, no shaykh will be able to help us. I am not insulting any shaykh; that is a taboo. But your speech has elevated them beyond their proper place. Some of you claim they have a way of denying knowledge And that they can take sins and wipe them clean from our hearts. These lies of yours have divided the religion, And opinions in the religion you have divided. As some people “hold” during prayers, they accuse those who “release,”6 And during the prayers they go around killing others. To perform wird, they keep coercing each other And use that as a source of earning pennies on this Earth.

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Poem 14

Ansarsi Ma¯na (He Who Mocks) Language: Dagbani and Arabic Year: 1955–60?

He who mocks others shall never be granted paradise. The arrogant also shall never be granted paradise. He who breaks up families shall never be granted paradise, But he who maintains family relations shall be granted paradise. He who abandons his father and mother is lost On the Day of Resurrection, he shall never have a glimpse of paradise. The Lord hates lies, and swindling you must avoid, He who engages in them shall never lay eyes on paradise. Every Muslim must supplicate: “O our Lord!” “On the Day of Resurrection let us enter paradise.” And then salutation and prayers for our master During our ritual prayers and our fasting, And also for his family and his Companions, During our study sessions as well as in our homes.

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Poem 15

Nah.nu Junu¯du H . abı¯bina¯ (We Are the Army of Our Beloved) Language: Arabic Year: 1966–68

We are the army of our beloved Muhammad, the best of humanity. God is the Creator and the Eternal. For us, his Qur’an is sufficient. We are the pupils of Yusuf [Ajura].1 O God, help him on our behalf. O God, open wide our understanding, Here at our Yusuf’s school.2 O God, let him live long for us In this Dagbon, land of ours. We send you our salutations. O our community, O our people of Tamale, May God protect you for us And give us from His sustenance. Together, you must say “A¯mı¯n.” O our Lord the Concealer, Cover our flaws for us. O Lord of the entire creation, O Lord of majesty and generosity, Forgive our sins. In our deeds and our sayings, Never do we hate anybody Among those here in Tamale.

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Poem 15

O you envious ones, give us a break, For we are the sharpest of swords. Bless [O Lord] our beloved Muhammad, the best of humanity.

Poem 16

Afanim Tola Ayirmo (The Clerics Have Gone Wild) Language: Dagbani Year: 1968–69?

The clerics have gone completely wild, For nothing in this era is taboo. Pursuing each other’s wives is no longer forbidden, Swindling is no longer abhorrent, Impregnating a fellow’s wife is no longer repugnant, Stealing is no longer objectionable. Some clerics even drink liquor. They even brew and distribute it. Some people have been cursed by their fathers, And yet here in Dagbon they boast about their knowledge. Some people have been anathematized by their mothers, And yet here in Dagbon they brag about their knowledge. Besides philandering, they do nothing else. Here in Dagbon, you all know about them. What caused his eviction from Walewale?1 Here in Dagbon, you all heard about it. What drove him out of Diyali?2 Here in Dagbon, you all learned about it. What brought him out of Gushegu?3 Here in Dagbon, you all heard about it. Who would ever farm for him for what he says? Here in Tamale he seeks money, He intends to perform pilgrimage This year, from Tamale here. And for the same, others have already embezzled. Here in Dagbon, you all know about them.

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Poem 16

From every bad source they will spend, For nothing in this era is taboo. All the pious people know That this person will never help others. Around the world they roam, But here in Dagbon, where exactly is his station? All around Bawku4 he has roamed, But here in Dagbon, where exactly is his location? Too great is his fraudulence! Here in Dagbon, you all learned about it. Too much is his treachery! Here in Dagbon, you all are aware of this. Other than lies, he truly commands nothing Except what will earn him money in this era. What led to his eviction from Walewale? Here in Dagbon, you all heard about it. Over there, he has no more dignity. Here in Dagbon, you all learned about it. He escaped from there because he had impregnated a woman. Here in Dagbon, you all heard about it. I am not perturbed by any insults from such a person, Even if he carries drums around this Dagbon. Into an elephant he may turn, if he wishes to do so, Yet here in Dagbon a giant rat will soon be more respectable. I am not bothered by any insults from a member of Tija¯nı¯.5 Around here in Dagbon, we have been showered with invective. So also in Mecca and Medina. Around here in Dagbon, we have been bombarded with insults. Also in every nook and cranny of the world. In this era they have no shortage of insults! Invective from thousands of people we have endured Here in Dagbon, all alone, what else can you do? The one who partakes in tarbiya has no shame. Of them, in this era, you all are aware. All of his admonitions are only folklore. Here in Tamale, you all have heard. In it, not a single Qur’anic verse can be traced. Here in Tamale, you all have confirmed. Any promiscuous person cannot see Our Lord’s essence in this era. Any member of Tija¯nı¯ has no true friendship

Poem 16 Here in Dagbon, you all are familiar with that. He comes along with his lies, But here in Tamale, all of his secrets are revealed. A philanderer has no fidelity, So you must drive him away from your wife. Any promiscuous person has no loyalty. Here in Dagbon, everybody can attest to that. You must stay away from any hypocrite. Many townships in this era have split because of him. They also ruin brotherliness and friendships, And destroy kinship relations. He goes and splits townships, But here in Tamale he can never divide us. O you who perform wird, do not dare me, For here in Tamale I have floored your superior. 6 All members of Tija¯nı¯ are aware That here in Tamale I am not to be challenged. Inside Medina I have defeated The greatest of them in this era, one after the other. Inside Mecca I have overpowered The greatest of them in this era, one after the other. They have no one in front who leads And appears in public, here in Tamale. They beat their chest only from afar, And none of them have I seen, here in Tamale. I am carefully listening and waiting For their written invitation, here in Tamale. The Qur’an as well as the H . adith, Of both, the Tija¯nı¯ member is petrified. Any question regarding their contents they evade, And precisely because of this I overwhelmed them. O you parrot scholar,7 do not dare me, For I have vanquished your superior, here in Tamale. Where is the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.8 found? For us, here in Tamale, please explain. From where did that jawharat al-kama¯l9 appear? For us, here in Tamale, please clarify. Do not gather cola nuts into your mouth, While you continue to recount folktales, here in Tamale. We searched for someone who can explain. And who can accept this poem, here in Tamale?

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He will not tolerate it, whoever is wise, Until you take ownership of this poem. From all those lies you will not benefit, Until you accept this poem of mine. No Tija¯nı¯ woman ever heeds. You must prevent her from befriending your wife. No Tija¯nı¯ child ever listens. Let him keep his distance from your children. It is an utter loss associating with them. In this era, it is people they swindle. In broad daylight some of them rob, While, in this era, others mug. Do not approach any member of Tija¯nı¯, For in this era they have ruined life itself. You, the consumer of non-hala¯l items, stop bragging. Here in Tamale, you have no importance. An unchaste woman is shameless. Around here in Tamale she ostentatiously wanders And turns her shame into the clothing that she dons, And then, here in Tamale, she flamboyantly displays herself. Have you forgotten about the Yoruba10 girl’s pregnancy? Around here in Tamale, you audaciously roam. O you gold swindler, do not swank Around here in Tamale, do not brazenly walk. O you old bachelor, do not boast. And around here in Tamale, do not cheekily ramble. Any tarbiya person has no fidelity. You must insist that he stays away from your wife. Any Tija¯ni member is like a hyena, For in this era they keep rushing to gulp. It is an utter loss associating with him. You must order him to keep his distance from your home. You cannot trust any hyena regarding goats, Thus protect your goats from it. Any hyena cannot be trusted regarding sheep, So repel a hyena from your sheep. A hyena cub cannot be trusted among cattle. So prevent it from approaching your cattle. Even a chick, no hyena will ever belittle, So drive it away from your chicks.

N O TES

t r an sl at or ’ s in t r o d uct i o n 1. S.v. “Dagomba,” retrieved on August 8, 2018 (www.britannica.com/topic/Dagomba). 2. In Ibrahim’s identification of Afa Ajura as a Wahhabi, he seemed to rely on the fact that Afa Ajura’s approach in preaching and reform closely resembled that of the premodern revivalist Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. By calling Afa Ajura a Wahhabi, it becomes easy to tag him as a puritan nonconformist zealot. Interestingly, the epithet Wahhabism itself was originally and subsequently used for this same purpose of negatively identifying the Saudis. The fact that Afa Ajura sent his students to Saudi Arabia also provided an impetus for Ibrahim to make a case for identifying him as a Wahhabi. Even though some Tija¯niyyah students from Tamale and Ghana were also sent to Saudi, their leaders who sent them were not tagged as Wahhabis for that reason. Mohammad Saani Ibrahim, “The Decline of Sufism and the Rise of a New Islam: Some Factors Contributing to the Political and Social Ascendancy of Wahhabist Islam in Northern Ghana” (Ph.D. diss., McGill University, 2011). 3. Ghana, before independence in 1957. 4. Afa Saidu’s (Afa Ajura’s successor) version. He stopped at this name when he was providing Afa Ajura’s name. 5. Mallam Fari’s (Zohi Naaimi: Deputy Imam of Zohi) version. He stopped at this name when he was providing Afa Ajura’s name. 6. He was a contemporary of Kukra Adjei, a Savelugu chief named Darimani, who later became a Yaa Naa and was reportedly deposed in the late 1890s. Martin Staniland, The Lions of Dagbon: Political Change in Northern Ghana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 19, 63, 65. 7. About fifteen miles north of Tamale, the capital of Ghana’s Northern Region. Culturally, Savelugu has been one of the important villages where any prince who occupies its throne is eligible to become a Yaa Naa (the title of the overlord of the entire Dagbon). Several Yoo Naa, another title for the chief of Savelugu, have actually become the overlords of Yeni (the seat of the overlord: Yendi).

185

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Notes to Pages 3–4

8. A town in the south. 9. Iddrisu stated that he was shown Afa Ajura’s hospital card, from which he picked and confirmed the year 1890. Abdulai Iddrisu, Contesting Islam in Africa: Homegrown Wahhabism and Identity in Northern Ghana, 1920–2010 (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2013), 30. While this may be a strong proof, it is also a known fact that Dagombas whose births were not registered immediately, including the present author’s parents, either inflate or understate their age for various purposes later in their lives. According to Lawyer Ibrahim Mahama, in the case of highly respectable and elderly people Dagombas tend to inflate their ages to show their respect for them. Usually, the person’s representative (son or secretary) or the registrar at a hospital or a court, who understandably is awe-stricken by such larger-than-life personalities and simply trying to avoid belittling him or her, would tend to exaggerate that person’s age. Thus it is easy to understand why Afa Ajura’s age might have been inflated on his hospital card. In other words, Afa Ajura did not exaggerate his age; rather, his associate or the clerk at the hospital might have simply “guesstimated” it. This conclusion is gainsaid by other factual proofs that point in the direction of Afa Ajura’s age being less than it was made out to be. 10. He was known as Piɣu, even when he was a Yoo Naa (chief of Savelugu), because he was first the chief of Piɣu; then of Tuɣu; then of Sanerigu; and, lastly, of Savelugu. Staniland, The Lions, 65. 11. Personal interview with Afa Seidu (home, Tamale, July 2009) and Lawyer Ibrahim Mahama (law office, Tamale, July 2009). It is also a local custom to date occasions such as births or deaths by using other landmark events. For example my parents have dated several family incidents according to various momentous events in Ghanaian or Dagbon history (e.g., the year Kwame Nkrumah came to power, the year Queen Elizabeth II visited Ghana, and the year Naa Andani died). Therefore, one can confirm these years only by looking at historical and archival documents or asking certain educated people who can ascertain the actual years. 12. Staniland, The Lions, 63–65. See also his figures 2 (p. 65) and 6 (p. 161). In my further research, I chanced upon a photograph of one chief of Savelugu and his entourage taken outside his palace in 1910. However, I could not ascertain with certainty the identity of the particular Yoo Naa in the picture. It was taken early in 1910 (February 25). 13. This poem was composed to warn people against visiting nana shrines in Dagbon. 14. Literally, “this small boy.” 15. This was one of of Afa Ajura’s earliest poems and the longest. It addressed multiple topics, reminiscent of “The Cow,” the second chapter of the Qur’an. 16. We know that the poem Afa Zaa Ŋunpaɣ Nyu BuƔli” (Any Person Who Allows His Wife to Drink the Potion for Exorcism) was composed in 1955, after the emergence of a nana. Afa Seidu relates how witch hunters came to Tamale and began harassing elderly women and accusing them of being witches. Afa Ajura defended the women and accused the local chiefs of abdicating their responsibilities in this regard. He composed this poem to admonish the people of Dagbon against visiting the nana

Notes to Pages 4–6

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

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shrine in order to drink the exorcism potion. In the poems he not only prescribes a possible punishment for those engaged in such practices, he also lashes out against some of the chiefs and scholars for allowing and encouraging people to make such trips. Abdulai Iddrisu cites archival information in the form of letters from the chief of Tamale (Gukpenaa) to the government agent dated August 9, 1955, and the broadcast made by the chief of Lamashegu on August 6, 1955, that ostensibly justified and, at the same time, discouraged the practice. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 120–21. As for the longest poem, “Dunya BinshaƔkam Dina¯ra” (Everything in the World Shall Perish), we know that it was written in or after 1953 because when Afa Ajura listed all of the deceased Yaa Naas of Dagbon to prove the mortality of human beings, no matter how powerful, he stopped at Yaa Naa Mahama III (1948–53). We understand from this that he composed the poem after Naa Mahama’s death in 1953. We also know from the content and our sources that it was the second poem he composed after “Damba Digoli,” the first one, and before the one on “Nana” (1955), mentioned above. Hence, “Dunya BinshaƔkam” was written between 1953 and 1955. Such as Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Dan Fodio, and similar people. This is not to equate Afa Ajura with any of them, but simply to point to the existence of legends regarding important personalities. His children and close associates are careful not to confirm this, perhaps for fear of elevating their father beyond what he himself would have approved. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 32. A village near Yendi Personal interview with Afa Seidu (home, Tamale, July 2009). See J. A. Briamah and J. R. Goody, Salaga: The Struggle for Power (London: Longmans, 1967). Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 39. Ibid. Ibid., 37. A particular section of the poem seems to reveal a deep psychological trauma that Alhaj Umar underwent following the civil wars of Salaga. The next thirty-eight verses following these two are telling about his anguish from the wars. He writes: “A fellow enquired of my activities . . . Both privately and publicly. / He asked me whether it is Salaga l desire or here . . . Or Hausa or Iko or Macina.” Talatu Mustapha, “A Historiographical Study of Four Works of al-Hajj ‘Umar ibn Abi Bakr of Kete-Krachi (ca. 1850–1934)” (M.A. thesis, McGill University, 1970), 106–8. For the civil wars in Salaga, see Briamah and Goody, Salaga. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 41. Such as the belief that S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. was not only revealed to Shaykh Ahmad al-Tija¯nı¯ directly from Prophet Muhammad, but that reciting it would lead one and seventy of his relatives to paradise; and performance of wird taught by the Shaykh. Sufi activities. Enjoining good and forbidding evil. The capital town of the Ashanti Region and Ghana’s second largest city.

188

Notes to Pages 7–11

32. In an audio recording of one of Afa Ajura’s nightly preachings, he stated that he returned to Tamale straight from Kadjebi where he was teaching. 33. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 43. 34. Sokodé is the second largest city in Togo and seat of the Tchaoudjo and Central Region, located in the center of the country, 339 kilometers north of Lomé. 35. See the poem “Bukari Mawla.” 36. Interview with Ousman M. Kobo, a professor, historian, and Africanist. He is the author of Unveiling Modernity in West African Islamic Reforms, 1950–2000 (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Currently in the Department of History at Ohio State University. Emails, October 6–8, 2016; phone conversation, October 8, 2016. 37. A town in the Bono East Region (formally in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana). It was the seat of the country’s Tija¯niyyah leader during the 1970s and 1980s, according to Mallam Ibrahim Maikano. 38. This is about two hundred to four hundred meters away from Afa Ajura’s home in the direction of the Pentecost Church. 39. Personal interview with Afa Seidu at his house in 2009. From the days of early Islam, when scholars sought to learn from each other, especially at the schools of laws and hadith study sessions, this was the accepted form of certification until the modern era, when academic institutions began to issue educational certificates. It represents the permission and recognition of one’s teacher of his student’s readiness and ability to teach and preach on his own. 40. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 42. 41. Throughout this book, especially, in the poems, bid‘a is rendered as “innovation.” 42. It should be acknowledged that what exactly Islamic orthopraxy or orthodoxy are and who determines them is not a simple matter. 43. For more, see Nehemia Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa: A Study of Islam in the Middle Volta Basin in the Pre-Colonial Period (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). 44. Christine Oppong, Growing up in Dagbon (Tema, Ghana: Ghana Publishing, 2013). 45. Personal interview at Yendi, August, 2014. Zohi Naimi Mallam Fari (Deputy Imam of Zohi), who was Afa Ajura’s first pupil, was given to the latter by this chief of Karaga, Karnaa Ziblim, during one of his trips to Karaga at the chief’s behest. 46. Personal interview (at home, Yendi, August 2014). 47. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 43. 48. Traditionally, the north has a system according to which villages and towns are assigned specific market days on which traders from all other villages and towns can take their merchandise to sell and buy in that particular town. 49. Even until the present, we have never witnessed any traders in the local fashion industry do what Afa Ajura did during the 1940s and 1950s. Those tailors and designers who wanted to display their creations would spread the clothes on the ground or put them on a stick in a form of a cross and then hang them on a wall or a line of rope. I have never seen my father, who used to sew clothes at the Tamale market during the 1960s and 1970s, or any of his friends who used to sell them, display their merchandise

Notes to Pages 11–16

50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60.

61. 62. 63.

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by having a live person wear them. My own tailoring “masters” and their friends, from whom I learned how to make clothes during the late 1970s and early 1980s, would only advertise their wares by drawing or painting them on the shop. As a master tailor myself with my own shop and apprentices, sewing between 1980 and 1990 in Tamale, besides wearing the new designs to weddings and other occasions myself, I never thought about using a live person as advertisement. To envisage a tailor-trader doing so during the 1940s and 1950s seems to be a stroke of genius if not far ahead of his time. Even today in modern-day Ghana, only big name fashion designers stage live-model fashion shows. Average tailors and traders in the local markets still follow the traditional methods. Not necessarily in this order. Oppong, Growing Up, 119. Personal interview with Afa Seidu (home, Tamale, July 2009). Oppong, Growing Up, 82. Ibid., 163. There is a genuine perception that people, especially the aunts, usually mistreat children given to them in ways that they would not do their biological children. This is significant in the past, when some average people would allow their own children to attend regular conventional schools with their school fees being regularly paid, while keeping the adopted child at home uneducated with the excuse that they could not afford the school fees. Here is an example of how Afa Ajura had powerful chiefs as patrons during his early days of practicing Islamic divination. Personal interview with Mallam Fari, 2014. Ama¯na appears in the Qur’an, 8: 27; 23: 8; 70: 32; 33: 72; 2: 283. Personal interview with Afa Seidu (home, Tamale, July 2009). Anbar (Ambergris), in reality, is used in making perfume, defined as “a gray waxy substance, consisting mainly of cholesterol, secreted from the intestines of the sperm whale. It is found floating in the tropical waters or on beaches.” Encarta Dictionary: English (North America). Abdulai Iddrisu offers other meanings and extra clarification. See Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 129–30. Some of the later foster children include Afa Abdul-Rauf Ismail (Bimbila), Afa Amaru Nakoha, Afa Ibrahim (Afa Labi), Afa Yahya (Ŋampir-bila) Afa Salfu (Jacki), Afa Yusuf Iddriss “Afatoɣma” (Savelugu), Afa Muniru (Bimbila), Afa Abdul-Rashid Ya‘qub (Savelugu), Afa Hussayn (Fusein Saŋ), Afa Alhassan (Bimbila), and Muhammed Awwal (Accra). There would be many younger ones from the 1980s until Afa Ajura’s death in 2004. Afa Ajura’s wives also had some foster girls over the years. Personal interview (home, Yendi, August 2014). Both Afa Afa Seidu and Mallam Fari recount this story in exactly the same way. It may be curious that Afa Ajura married daughters of his most trusted disciples, who were also among the early pupils of his school. Culturally and religiously, this has some precedents. Although Dagombas have long been marrying young daughters of their close friends, Afa Ajura may like to rely more on the Islamic precedent. For example, Prophet Muhammad married daughters of some of his most trusted

190

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

Notes to Pages 16–20 companions, some of whom became his immediate political successors. The Prophet was married to A’ishah, daughter of Abu Bakr, and Hafsah, daughter of Umar ibn al-Khattab. As a matter of fact, upon his death in 2004, Afa Ajura was survived by fourteen children and four wives (who included three of his earlier students), who gave birth to all but three (Afa Halawayh, Mma Hamdalatu, and Hajia Naziha) of his children who survived him. Mallam Fari informed me that after the birth of Afa Ajura’s first son and daughter, he and his then wives struggled to have more children, but without success. It took him a long time and a couple of divorces before he married these wives, beginning with Mma Fatima (who was not a student), and began to have many children. From the Dagomba and Islamic perspectives, then, everything about his later marriages would be considered positive, rendering any uneasy (modern) ethical considerations of marrying his students moot. Years ago, I saw a photograph of this class taken several years later with all of these students and their fourth teacher, Ustadh Uthman Rashid. Oppong, Growing Up, 49. Ibid., 120. Afa Seidu, personal interview (home, Tamale, July 2009). Ibid., 2009. Ibid., 2009. Ibid., 2009; Afa Abdul Rauf (phone conversation, Los Angeles, June 9, 2019). Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 133. Ibid., 134. Ibid. A reviewer seems to raise a question that since Ustadh Bello was an accomplished poet with deep knowledge of Arabic, could he be the author of the Arabic poems that are attributed to Afa Ajura? That would not be possible. Afa Ajura started composing his poems in the early 1950s, when Ustadh Bello would have been very young and away studying. Our research shows that Afa Ajura’s last poem, which was in Dagbani, was composed in 1968, the year Bello arrived. Bello could not have composed the earlier Arabic poems for Afa Ajura twelve to fifteen years before his own arrival to Tamale. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 134. Ibid. Interview with Afa Abdul-Rauf Isma‘il (phone interview, Los Angeles, June 21, 2016; June 9, 2019). Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 134. Ibid., 133. See Benjamin C. Ray, African Religions: Symbols, Rituals, and Community (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000). It is true that Arabic disciplines, such as Arabic grammar (nahwu), morphology (sarf), literature (adab), and poetry (shi‘r), were studied, based on the old adult study circles described above. The fact that Afa Ajura and others, like Alhaj Muntaqa and Alhaj Ibrahim Gushegu, were in the position to compose poetry in Arabic shows that they mastered all the Arabic disciplines. In one of his polemic poems, Afa Ajura chides one

Notes to Pages 20–26

82.

83.

84. 85.

86.

87.

88. 89.

90.

91.

92. 93. 94.

95.

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of the local scholars not to boast with his knowledge of s.arf, since there were many who also knew it as well. That was a local intellectual revolution reminiscent, in part, of the current global situation where the prevalence of the internet allows seekers of knowledge in general or Islamic knowledge in particular to dispense of books and scholars. See Martin van Bruinessen and Stefano Allievi, Producing Islamic Knowledge: Transmission and Dissemination in Western Europe (London: Routledge, 2011). If this was not a sheer good fortune, then one would have to see it through the success of Afa Ajura’s own orthodox posture that earned him a notoriety among the representatives of the Middle Eastern countries in Ghana. A long black robe and a red hat surrounded with a white cloth. The Egyptian shaykhs were drawn from al-Azhar University alumni, who were mostly considered conservative missionaries. Hence, their strict belief in seclusion of the wives, as did Afa Ajura (Qur’an 33:33). His own four wives were secluded even after his death. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 135. Iddrisu refers to Afa Ajura’s letter to the Northern Regional Chief Executive in Tamale, entitled the “Official Opening of Madrasatul Anbariyya Arabic and English School, Tamale,” January 22, 1970, PRAAD-Tamale NRG8/19/19/14. He always invoked a hadith that suggests that “Saturday is a holiday for the Jews, and Sunday is for the Christians, and Friday is for us [Muslims].” So why should he forfeit his holiday for other religious groups’ holiday? In the sense that he had practically forced his principled position on all his teachers and students, whether or not they approved of it. The GETFund was established on August 25, 2000, when ACT 581 which established it received Presidential Assent. The Fund started operation in 2001. Retrieved on June 18, 2016 (www.getfund.gov.gh/index.php). At the moment (2020), he is the minority leader in Ghana’s parliament of the fourth republic, as his party the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is now in the opposition. In 2016, he was the minister for employment and labor relations in Ghana. Prior to that he was the minister of trade and industry (2013–14), and before that the minister of communication (2009–13). Ghana Web, retrieved on May 30, 2020 (www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/ NewsArchive/GES-MPA-sign-MoU-to-expose-schools-under-trees-curb-teacher -absenteeism-with-ICT-tools-736959). About a mile away to the north. One of them was Afa Abdul-Rauf, who went to Saudi among the second group in 1975. Phone interview with him in Los Angeles, June 21, 2016. They were Sulaiman Mohammed, Ibrahim Mohammed, and Zayd Mohammed (no relation). They were offered full scholarships including free air tickets to study at the Islamic Center in Sudan. Though ever brilliant (as proven by his recruitment then by the Sudanese delegation and subsequently being one of the few Anbariyya alumni to have become a university professor abroad), Sulaiman had a smallish figure and so all his colleagues were

192

Notes to Pages 27–30

appointed as teaching assistants (musa¯‘ idu¯n: some of whom were easily less smart than he was), while he remained there for several years. It was ironic that being kept to repeat the class ultimately offered him the opportunity to be recruited for the scholarship, an enviable situation most of his bigger colleagues who had become teaching assistants wished they had found themselves in. 96. This involves the rules of reciting the Qur’an. 97. Which included learning the rules through poems. That way the memorization of the rules become easier. 98. E. Ofori-Sarpong, “The 1981–1983 Drought in Ghana,” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 7:2 (1986): 1–20. 99. He died October 6, 1981. Anwar Sadat: President of Egypt (www.britannica.com/ biography/Anwar-Sadat; retrieved on June 13, 2016). 100. Though his problems with Anbariyya were based on speculations, he nonetheless stayed at Anbariyya for a very short period, before he was recalled to Accra by the embassy to be reassigned to another place or sent back to Egypt. Nobody remembers what happened to him after he left Anbariyya. 101. Such as Afa AbuBakr Tanko Ishaq, Afa Muhammad Mukhtar, Afa AbuBakr Iddris, and Afa Seidu. 102. Apart from being foster children of Afa Ajura and benefiting from the scholarships to Saudi Arabia in completely different circumstances, they both also had the opportunity to live in Pacific North America for some time. Afa Seidu lived in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (1997–2007), and Afa Rauf in Los Angeles (1986–present). 103. He was a graduate of the Islamic University in Medina, and the leader of Ahl alSunnah in Ghana. 104. He was still considered part of Ahl al-Sunnah, although he had problems with Afa Ajura. His association with the Tija¯niyyah was largely to spite Afa Ajura, but it is believed that he never partook in their Tija¯niyyah practices. 105. Other students who went to Saudi Arabia that year through scholarships included two from Mallam Basha’s Nuriyya School: Afa Adussalam and Afa Baba. Also from another Islamic school in Tamale, was the son of Alhaj ‘Umar of Nyohini, called Afa Sa‘id, representing his father’s Nahdah Islamic school. From Kumasi, a scholarship to Mallam Basha’s teacher, Mallam Mufti, went to his son, Mallam Sulayman (later Dr. Sulayman). It is significant to note that all of the beneficiaries of the scholarships this year (not exhaustive to include other cities) were from Ahl al-Sunnah, rather than Tija¯niyyah fraternity. This begs the question as to how effective the Saudi plan for peace was to be achieved if the real adversaries (Ahl al-Sunnah and Tija¯nı¯s) were not benefiting from the scholarships on proportionately equal basis. As stated above, Mallam Basha, though not a Tija¯nı¯, had a constant feud with Afa Ajura. Therefore, there was still the chance for the scholarship to bring peace in Tamale. However, with regard to the Tija¯niyyah fraternity, the reality was that they had no viable schools that were in the position to send competent students at that time. But in subsequent years, a small number of students from the Tija¯niyyah group also benefited from some scholarships. 106. One may notice that Afa Ajura had no qualms nominating his foster children, because he never had to worry about potential charge of favoritism (since, culturally, they were

Notes to Pages 30–33

193

not really considered his children). As they were not actually his biological children, their nominations were never perceived as favoritism the way it would have were he to nominate his biological children. 107. He would later get married to Afa Ajura’s daughter Hajia Naziha. It would have rendered this set of nominations even more important to Afa Ajua than stated above, were he to harbor the plans of marrying his daughter to Afa Sulayman before he was nominated. That means he would have been knowingly nominating a future sonin-law only he could have known. As appealing this option is, there is no proof that was the case. For it was true that Afa Sulayman was popularly known to be one of the smartest students in his class, graduating top of his class before he was nominated. Thus the simplest and obvious explanation may be the best. 108. They are Dr. Abdul-Aziz ‘Umar and Dr. Tamim Abubakar. 109. He is Dr. Muhammad Awwal Issah. 110. We define his “active” preaching as when he deliberately started preaching to change the status quo of what he perceived to be the incorrect practice of the religion. The specific subject matter is explained below and in the poems. 111. Nathan Samwini, The Muslim Resurgence in Ghana Since 1950: Its Effects upon Muslims and Muslim-Christian Relations (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2006), 72. 112. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 108–10. 113. Literally, “to open our children’s eyes.” 114. Verses 16 and 17 of the poem “Damba Digoli.” 115. Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 114. 116. When we were trying to ascertain his birth year. 117. Except his attack on the Tija¯niyyah group. 118. Such as performing the wird of Tija¯nı¯; the nature of marriage and funeral ceremonies; and performing Islamic divination. 119. Such as the efficacy of S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. in terms of nullifying one’s sins or qualifying one and seventy of his relatives to enter paradise irrespective of their deeds and sins. 120. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 45–47. 121. This is partly why he is classified as puritan and given eponymous title of Wahhabi. This is also why some erroneously consider Afa Ajura or any one working under such slogan as “Wahhabi.” In fact, if anybody deserved to have an eponym it should be Ibn Taymiyyah rather than Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab, due to his theological and intellectual activities in this regard. 122. On Mu‘taizlah, see Abdullah Saeed, Islamic Thought: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2007). 123. ‘Abdul-Rah.ma¯n Muh.ammad al-Akhd.arı¯, Matn al-akhd.arı¯ fı¯ al-ʻ iba¯da¯t ‘ala¯ madhab al-Ima¯m Ma¯lik (Cairo: Matba‘at Muhammad Ali Subayh, n.d.), 3–4. 124. Muhammad ‘Umar Tontongo, “Al-Shaykh Afa Ajura al-ghniyy: H . aya¯tuh wa shiʻruh al-Daʻawi” (M.A. thesis, Islamic University, Niger, 2009–10), 23–24. 125. Although all of the students had the choice to pick any new teacher, Afa Ajura had recommended Alhaj Muhammad Kobilnabli who used to live at Mohi Foŋ (Moshie Zongo) near the house of Baba Gombila before he moved to his new place at “Water Works Road” (Kumbungu Road). I myself saw some of the adult students of Afa Ajura,

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Notes to Pages 33–44

thirty to forty years later by the late 1980s (by then they were very old), like Mba Iddris (Baba Iddi at Tamale Bus Stop) still going to Alhaj Muhammad Kobilnabli for tutoring with several books piled on his bicycle. Today, all of them have passed away. Interestingly, on my visit to Ghana in 2014 and passing by “Water Works Road,” I stopped by Alhaj Muhammad Kobilnabli’s house to greet his son (Mallam Rashad Muhammad, who was my classmate at Anbariyyah in the early 1980s), who was giving lessons to some young boys at the same place in the same mosque his father used to teach in. 126. Interestingly, Afa Ajura employed a Dagbani word that sounds phonetically like veer (viera). 127. S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, H . adith 2697; S.ah.ı¯h. Muslim, H . adith 4492, 4493. 128. Interview with Afa Seidu, 2009. 129. Coincidentally, he became the father-in-law of Afa Seidu. Thus he is the father to Afa Seidu’s wife Hajia Hajara. 130. Reminiscent of Prophet Muhammad’s approach before he begun preaching. 131. We date this to either late 1952 or early 1953. 132. Interview with Afa Seidu at home, 2009. 133. Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 113–14. 134. See Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 9. 135. Naa Zangina’s time, ca. 1700. 136. Involving multiple financial gifts to, and possibly farming for, the bride’s family, a week will be set for the commencement of the actual wedding. Mohammed Zakyi Ibrahim, “African Islam: Marriage, Mobility and Education of Women in dan Fodio’s 19th Century Reforms,” Religion Compass 3:2 (2009): 171–72. For more, see M. F. Smith, Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa (London: Faber and Faber, 1954), 85–101. 137. Most elderly women are perceived to have magical powers and are therefore feared or revered. 138. In Islam, each time a person has sexual intercourse or has had a period or a wet dream after puberty, one has to ritually cleanse herself or himself before praying. This is called jana¯bah. See Qur’an, 4: 43; 5: 6. 139. I call these “Islamic” because the Tija¯niyyah fraternity considered them Islamic according to their theological interpretations. As we will see, Afa Ajura’s theological interpretation would disagree and consider them un-Islamic or “heretic.” 140. Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 115. 141. S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, H . adith 5014, 5015, 6643, 7374. 142. Ibid., H adith 5016, 4439. . 143. Ibid., H adith 1338, 1374. . 144. Martin Luther, The 95 Theses (www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html; retrieved on July 14, 2016). 145. Muhammad al-Jazu¯lı¯, Dala¯’il al-kayra¯t wa shawa¯riq al-anwa¯r (Beirut: al-Maktabat al-‘As.riyya, 2008). 146. Before independence, Ghana used pound currency, and after independence, cedi.

Notes to Pages 44–50

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147. Shillings and pennies or pesewas, respectively. 148. S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, H . adith 1253, 1254. 149. Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 116. 150. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937). 151. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 121. 152. Nana is originally an Ashanti word for the elderly (man or woman) or any royalty. It also may be used to refer to anybody as a way of respect. The Ashanti are one of the largest and most popular tribes in Southern Ghana. They are rich in history, culture, and land, and are therefore influential in the political and economic landscape of Ghana. 153. Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 118. 154. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 121. 155. Both Samwini and Iddrisu have discussed this in their books. 156. “Police Report on Witch Searches in Tamale,” PRAAD-Tamale, NRG8/19/19/32. See Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 121. 157. Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 118. 158. This belief might have bordered some denial on Afa Ajura’s part. For he might have been the only one to seriously believe that. Even among his followers, no one would have openly challenged or dared any of the women as not having magical powers. It is believed that in certain situations, some of the women reveled in, and took pride in, the fact that people are scared of them for their magical powers. And to openly deny that they had powers would be an insult to them. This was the reality on the ground. To openly deny those women such powers by Afa Ajura without any negative consequences to him was again another reason for his opponents to be convinced of his spiritual or magical powers. 159. S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, H . adith 5016, 4439. 160. Qur’an 15: 40. 161. Qur’an 7: 200; 41: 36. 162. The following anecdote is a true incident that occurred regarding suspicion of witchcraft in one neighborhood I knew in Tamale. In one house, about four young men who lived together as roommates died in a span of a few years. The father had all of them through his two wives. The first and second sons to die were from wife number 2. Right away, wife number 1 was secretly suspected of being the cause of their death. Then followed the death of the other two sons of wife number 1. Wife number 2 in turn came under suspicion for causing their deaths as a way of revenge. Nobody knew for sure, but that was the speculation around the neighborhood. A third son of wife number 2 had already left the family house to take refuge elsewhere after the death of his two brothers. Now, many people believed that the two mothers were behind the deaths of the other’s children. But the possible scientific explanation was that they might have died through a hepatitis C infection, which can be deadly if not prevented or detected early. This was the conclusion of some highly educated friends of the last son to die, who had tried to help him by taking him to the hospital, only to realize

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Notes to Pages 52–59

that it was too late. If it were true that the last son had actually died from hepatitis C according to the medical diagnosis, then that could have simply explained the death of the other three brothers (given that hepatitis C is highly contagious), rather than blaming any witchcraft. Frankly, some believe in this witchcraft so much that even in the face of abundant scientific explanation, they would still insist on blaming the witchcraft. 163. Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 117. 164. S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, H . adith 5016, 4439. 165. Literally it is “whoever hits the sand. . . .” The Muslim clerics who foretell issues usually do so by spreading some sand in front of them, making some lines and numbers with their palms, and then announcing their predictions. Afa Ajura asserts that they are like the traditional non-Muslim soothsayers and diviners who also manipulate certain items to make their divinations. 166. Since Tija¯niyyah beliefs, as we will see below, involved more than accepting tibbu. 167. Rudiger Seesemann, The Divine Flood: Ibra¯hı¯m Niasse and the Roots of a TwentiethCentury Sufi Revival (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 4. 168. Ibid., 31. 169. Seesemann, The Divine, 69. 170. Ibid., 3, 7. 171. Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯, Ah.za¯b wa awra¯d—Ah.mad b. Muh.ammad al-Tija¯nı¯, Ah.za¯b wa awra¯d sayyidı¯ Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ (Tunis: Maktabat Manar, n.d.). 172. Seesemann, The Divine, 3, 257. 173. The author was Muh.ammad al-T.ayyib al-Sufya¯nı¯. See Seesemann, The Divine, 3. 174. Alı¯ H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir al ma ‘a¯nı¯ wa bulu¯gh al-ama¯nı¯ (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-’Ilmiyyah, 1997), 96. 175. Seeseman, The Divine, 31. 176. Ibid., 120. 177. Ibid., 54. 178. Ibid., 49, 55–55, 119. 179. Ibid., 4, 6, 121. 180. Ibid., 29–30. 181. Ibid., 55. 182. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 40. See also Seesemann, The Divine, 46. 183. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 40–41. 184. Seesemann, The Divine, 44. 185. Ibid., 70. 186. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 96; Seesemann, The Divine, 171. 187. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 91. 188. Ibid., 92. 189. Ibid, 98. 190. Seesemann, The Divine, 99. 191. Ibid., 71. See Ousmane Kane, “Shaikh al-Islam al-Hajj Ibrahim Niasse.” In Le Temps des Marabouts, ed. David Robinson and Jean-Louis Triaud (Paris : Karthala, 1997), 316. 192. Seesemann, The Divine, 99.

Notes to Pages 59–65

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193. S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. is translated as follows: “O God, send blessings upon our master Muh.ammad, who opens what has been closed, and who seals what has gone before; who supports truth with truth, and who guides to the straight path; and upon his family, [send blessings] that accord with his true status and his exalted position.” As one of the best translations, this is taken with some modification from Seesemann, The Divine, 276 n. 101. 194. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 100. This translation is similar to Seesemann, The Divine, 100. 195. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 102–3. This comes to 365 octillion. 196. Ibid., 109. 197. Some examples regarding Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯ are given above. See H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 96. With regard to Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, a simple but categorical quote from his book states: “Those who love me and those who see me will enter the Garden of eternity-this is not a fabrication.” Nafah.a¯t al-malik al-ghanı¯ fı¯ al-siya¯h.a ila¯ ard. Bamaku¯ wa Kini (Kaolack: Published by Muhammad al-Ma’mun b. Ibrahim Niasse, 1988); translation, with slight modification, is taken from Seesemann, The Divine, 171. 198. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 104. He lifted the last part of the quote directly from the Qur’an 2: 105 and 3: 74. 199. Ibid., 103–4. 200. Regarding God’s communication with ordinary people, see M. Zakyi Ibrahim, “Models of Communication in the Qur’an: Divine-Human Interaction,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 22:1 (2005): 70–95. 201. See below for such answers. 202. Qur’an 5: 67, “O Messenger, deliver everything that has been sent down to you from your Lord, and if you do not, then you will not have communicated His message, and God will protect you from people”; Qur’an 62: 2, “It is He who sent a messenger, among the people who had no Scripture, in order to recite His verses to them, to make them grow spiritually and teach them the Scripture and wisdom, although before that they were clearly astray.” 203. H . adith on his love for Fatima. 204. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 104. 205. Ibid., 103. 206. Ibrahim. “The Decline,” 84–88. 207. Interview with Afa Seidu at his residence in 2009. 208. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 125. 209. Not that reading from notes on Friday sermon necessarily indicates lack of proficiency in Arabic. For even today, some of the scholars who studied in the Middle East give sermons in Arabic with notes. Today, the tradition of the imams in his mosque, all of who studied in the Middle East, is to always deliver the first part of their Friday sermons in Arabic using notes, and in the second part, translate them into Dagbani. 210. Interview with Afa Seidu, 2009. 211. H . adith 6357, 3370, 3369, 6358, 4797, 4798. 212. In the book of S.ah.ı¯h. Muslim, H . adith 907, 908; 911. In the book of Abu¯ Da¯wu¯d, H . adith 976, 977, 979, 980, 981. In the book of Ibn Ma¯jah, H adith 904, 905. In the book of .

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Notes to Pages 65–91

al-Nasa¯’ı¯, H . adith 1293, 1284, 1286, 1287, 1288. In the book of al-Tirmidhı¯, H . adith 3220, 473. Together with S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, these are the six most authentic H . adith books among Sunnis. Of course, there are other H adith books like Musnad Ima ¯ m Ah.mad . ibn H anbalı ¯ , al-T abara ¯ nı ¯ , and al-Bayhaqı ¯ . . . 213. H . ara¯zim, Jawa¯hir, 91, 100; Seesemann, The Divine, 276 n. 101. 214. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 126, quoting confidential “Intelligence Report for March 1968: Moslem Religious Difference,” March 1968, PRAAD-Tamale, NRG8/3/272. 215. Ibid. 216. Interview with Afa Seidu, 2009. 217. An example of esoteric exegesis is Tafsir al-Jı¯la¯nı¯, by ‘Abd al-Qa¯dir al-Jı¯la¯nı¯, 5 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah). Interestingly this esoteric book does not mention anything about S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. when Qur’an 48: 1 was being interpreted. And that is the nature of esoteric interpretation. There can be no uniformity in it. What one scholar says about a verse, there is no guarantee that another may say a similar thing, or he himself may repeat it at another location. 218. Seesemann, The Divine, 49, 54. 219. Ibid., 55. 220. Short form of “Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama‘ah.” This is also the root of the majority Sunni branch of Islam. 221. “Dumu¯‘ı¯ sah.a¯bun minhu tursilu muznaha¯ . . . Wa innı¯ la¯ ansa¯ dha¯ka Shaykh Bukari Mawla¯.” 222. For more on the types of simile, see Al-Sayyid Ah.mad al-H . a¯shimı¯, Jawa¯hir al-bala¯ghah: fı¯ al-ma‘a¯nı¯ wa al-baya¯n wa al-badı¯‘ (Beirut: al-Maktabat al-ʻAs.riyyah, 2007), 219–49. 223. There are other verses that may point to the possibility of seeing God in the hereafter (Qur’an 75: 23). 224. Literally, “Ti (or: n) la¯ la¯ la¯.” Sometimes one adds, “nda¯n tarma, nmin nabı¯ bi tor wali” (We or I do not want trouble, so leave us [me] alone, I do not play wali with a prince). 225. Ibrahim, “The Decline,” 84–88. 226. Afa Ajura. 227. Ibid. 228. This is the seventh month in lunar calendar. If this was in 1968, then that would have probably been around in October. 229. Afa Ajura. 230. It is interesting to note that Afa Ajura in his own poem claims that the Tija¯niyyah scholars don’t know Qur’an or H . adith and dread anybody challenging them with both. That they only engage in folktales. 231. Sibroo (Sibdoo) and Azindoo are traditional Dagomba names that were not usually given to Muslims. Alhaj Muntaqa probably wanted to show that Afa Ajura knows nothing in Islam other than the traditional ways of life, a derogatory insinuation as such. 232. Afa Baba Madaha, Reciter, 2009. By “praises of God,” Alhaj Muntaqa meant “dhikr and litanies” of the Tija¯niyyah. 233. Ibrahim, “The Decline,” 88.

Notes to Pages 92–97

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234. Interview with Mallam Fari at home in Yendi, August 2014. 235. Ibrahim, “The Decline,” 88. 236. Ibid. 237. Audio of Afa Ajura, no. 2 (22:31) at 3:55–4:12. Personal property shared by the family. 238. Ibrahim, “The Decline,” 84–88. 239. Iddrisu, Contesting Islam, 106. 240. Such as the military regime that overthrew President Kwame Nkrumah, the National Liberation Council and the Progress Party governments, from 1966 to 1972. 241. With the exception (in educational policy) of his objection to the Ghana Education Service’s proposal to change his school’s schedule in order to have Saturday and Sunday as the weekends. Although there was a religious principle there, his utter disregard of his teachers’ and students’ interests remained a puzzling mistake. One explanation for his insistence was that he believed he was being sabotaged or blackmailed by some officials of the Education Service. One would note the gulf between Afa Ajura and Mallam Basha, his nephew, who broke away and founded his own school. According to Mallam Basha, he was the advisor on Islamic Education to the new regional director of education, Mr. A. W. Abrakwa (a reverend minister’s son), who was pushing for this policy around 1975 onward (Samwini, Muslim Resurgence, 124). Afa Ajura may have suspected that he was being pressed into that through the advice of Mallam Basha and others; hence his stubborn resistance. Regardless of whatever he thought of the matter, he needed to compromise for the benefit of his teachers and students.

poe m 1 : d am b a d igoli (d a m b a m o n t h ) 1. Damba is the third month of the Muslim lunar calendar. The full list in Dagbani (Arabic) is as follows: (1) Buɣum (Muh.arram); (2) Damba Bila¯ (S.afar); (3) Damba (Rabı¯ʻ al-Awwal); (4) Ga¯mbanda or Da¯mbanda (Rabı¯‘ al-Tha¯nı¯); (5) Banda-cheina ¯ la¯); (6) Kpini-bila¯ (Juma¯da¯ al-Tha¯niya); (7) Kpini (Rajab); (8) Nolori(Juma¯da¯ al-U bila¯ (Sha‘ba¯n); (9) Nolori (Ramad.a¯n); (10) Konyur-chuɣu (Shawwa¯l); (11) Chimsi-bila¯ (Dhul-Qa‘dah); (12) Chimsi (Dhul-Hijjah). 2. Prophet Muhammad. 3. It is believed the Prophet was born on a Monday, in the third month of the lunar calendar. However, there is a minority opinion suggesting that he was born in Ramadan, the ninth month. Whatever month it was, it coincided with the Gregorian year 570 c.e. 4. Afa Ajura probably took the content of this prophetic biography from ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Hisha¯m, Al-Sı¯rat al-nabawiyyah, vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, 2006), 9–11. 5. These descriptions are popular among Muslims. The editor of Ibn Hisha¯m not only showered Prophet’s ancestors below with positive qualities, but also tried his best to put positive spins on how their names and nicknames indicate the best attributes. See ibid. 6. This is an indication of Afa Ajura’s determination to teach the Dagomba people what he thought they needed to know. Most books on Prophet’s biography start with his lineage. This is in contradistinction with tradition of Tija¯niyyah group and other Sufi

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8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16.

17.

Notes to Page 97 leaning groups, who like to shower the Prophet with praises in such occasions as “Mawlid al-Nabiy” (Prophet’s Birthday). This poem was Afa Ajura’s first, and it was delivered at the Prophet’s birthday celebration, which was organized by the Tija¯niyyah in Tamale in 1952. Soon after, he broke away with them. His father Abdullah died before he was born. The Prophet’s grandfather Shaybah ibn Hashim, popularly known as Abd al-Muttalib since childhood, took care of him after his mother died, when he was only six years old. When this man died two years later, his uncle Abu Talib gained full custody of him and raised him until he became an adult. He taught his nephew to be an astute merchant while taking him along on his trading trips. Ha¯shim’s real name was ʻAmr; Abd Mana¯f’s actual name was al-Mughı¯rah; and Qus. ayy’s name was Zayd. For more on the reasons for their names and nicknames see Ibn Hisha¯m, Al-Sı¯rat, 9–11. Kila¯b’s actual name is given as either H . akı¯m, H . akı¯mah, or ʻUrwah. While his other nickname was Abu¯ Zurʻah. It is reported that he was the first person to adorn swords with gold or silver in ancient Arabia; Murrah’s nickname was Abu¯ Yaqz.ah. Kaʻb’s nickname was Abu¯ Has.ı¯s.. It is said that he was the first one among Arabs with whom people congregated on Friday; that it used to be called “yawm al-ʻuru¯bah” (Arabism day) until the advent of Islam when it changed to “yawm al-jumʻah” (jumʻah day). Another story claims that he was the first to name Friday “yawm al-jumʻah”; and that Quraysh used to congregate on him on Fridays and he would deliver sermons, remind them of the forthcoming Prophet “Muhammad,” tell them how the latter would be from his progeny, and implore them to believe in him. Ibn Hisha¯m, Al-Sı¯rat, 10. Fihr’s real name is Quraysh. It is said that “Quraysh tribe” to which Prophet Muhammad belonged, was named after him. But another report claims that his real name was Fihr, and Quraysh was his nickname. So those before him are related to Kina¯nah tribe; Ma¯lik’s nickname was Abu¯ al-H . a¯rith; Al-Nad.r’s nickname was Qays. Khuzaymah’s nickname was Abu¯ Asad; Mudrikah’s real name was ʻA¯mir or ʻAmr, and his nickname was Abu¯ Hudhayl. Ilya¯s’s nickname was Abu¯ ʻAmr; Mud.ar’s name was ʻAmr, and his nickname was Abu¯ Ilya¯s. There is agreement among historians about Prophet’s lineage until ʻAdna¯n. But there is no agreement among scholars regarding his seven ancestors between ʻAdna¯n and Isma¯ʻı¯l (Ishmael). Perhaps that is why Afa Ajura did not bother mentioning those seven that Ibn Hisha¯m mentioned. Ibn Hisha¯m, Al-Sı¯rat, 11. Isma¯ʻı¯l (Ishmael) and Ibra¯hı¯m (Abraham) are both among the Prophet’s known ancestors. Afa Ajura did not mention the nineteen ancestors between Abraham that Ibn Hisha¯m mentioned. Ibid. The Prophet’s mother is usually described as A¯minat Zahriyya, in reference to her belonging to Banu¯ Zuhrah (Zuhrah clan; ibid., 106), and A¯minat al-Zahra¯’ in reference to her beauty as a flower (zahrah). This Kila¯b is the same person in the paternal genealogy of the Prophet. This means that both Prophet’s maternal and paternal lineages meet at Kila¯b.

Notes to Pages 97–99

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18. Literally, “filth” or “dirt” is used in Dagbani to describe anything that comes out during and after delivery, including the placenta. 19. This is to suggest that his mother’s privacy was not violated by having midwives present. 20. Popularly known as H . alı¯mah al-Sa‘diyyah, daughter of Abu¯ Dhu’ayb, her father’s real name is ʻAbdullah, son of al-H . a¯rith, son of Shijnah, son of Ja¯bir, son of Riza¯m, son of Na¯s.irah. Her husband (Prophet’s adopted father) was al-H . a¯rith, son of ʻAbd al-ʻUzza¯, son of Rifa¯ʻah, son of Malla¯n, son of Na¯s.irah (the same person in H . alı¯mah’s genealogy). Even though H alı ¯ mah al-Sa‘diyyah’s role became popular, there was another . wet mother by the name of Thuwaybah who had earlier nursed the Prophet. It is not clear how long she nursed him, but she nonetheless nursed him with two other infants: Prophet’s young uncle H . amzah and ʻAbdullah ibn Jah.sh. Thuwaybah was a maid for Abu¯ Lahab (Prophet’s infamous uncle cursed in the Qur’an 111: 1–5); Ibn Hisha¯m, Al-Sı¯rat, 9. 21. H . adiths on virtues of love for the Prophet are found in: Al-Bukhari, Kita¯b al-I¯ma¯n, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21; Muslim, 163, 168, 169, 170; Al-Nasa¯’ı¯, 5028, 5029, 5030, 5031, 5032; AlTirmidhı¯, 2515, 2624; Ibn Ma¯jah, 66, 67. 22. It is said that Afa Ajura first recited this poem during a gathering to celebrate the birth of Prophet Muhammad (mawlid al-nabiy) in Tamale. It was considered the first poem he ever composed. It is believed that he was still part of the scholarly echelons of Tamale; those he later considered his ardent opponents. Later in his preaching, he spoke against the practice of celebrating the prophet’s birth as an innovation in the religion, although we did not find any poems against it. He also banned his followers, including his school, from marking the occasion with any celebrations (Islamic schools in Tamale up until the 1990s continued to celebrate the occasion with pomp and pageantry). 23. Literally, “to open our children’s eyes.”

po e m 2: du n ya b ins h a ɣk a m d i n a¯ r a ( e v e r yt h ing in t h e w o r l d s h a l l p e r i s h ) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Qur’an 55: 26–27; 28: 88. Qur’an 3: 132; 24: 52; 33: 71; 48: 17. Qur’an 6: 102; 25: 2; 39: 62; 40: 62; 20: 50. Qur’an 28: 88. Qur’an 2: 20; 2: 148; 3: 26; 5: 120. Qur’an 3: 185; 21: 35; 29: 57. Qur’an 17: 1; 22: 61; 22: 75; 31: 28; 40: 20; 42: 11. Qur’an 6: 59; 6: 73; 11: 123; 13: 9; 27: 74; 72: 26. Qur’an 16: 4; 32: 7; 55; 14; 75: 38. Qur’an 20: 114; 23: 116. Qur’an 2: 245. Qur’an 13: 26; 17: 30; 29: 62; 42: 12.

202 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42.

Notes to Pages 99–101 Qur’an 2: 21; 4: 1; 7: 189. Qur’an 30: 40; 16: 70; 26: 81. Literally, “weak person” (ninchoƔfu). Literally, “strong person” (kpeŋlana). By not offering it to anybody. God; Qur’an 11: 107; 85: 16. Qur’an 9: 59. Qur’an 10: 107. Qur’an 9: 59. Qur’an 3, 156; 6: 60; 10: 104; 16: 70; 39: 42. Qur’an 21: 35. Qur’an 16: 70; 21: 44; 22: 5; 28: 45. Qur’an 7: 34; 10: 49; 16: 61. Qur’an 25: 58. Qur’an 19:65; 17:102. Qur’an 6:102. Qur’an 3:132; 4:59. S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, H . adith 14, 15, 16. S.ah.ı¯h. Muslim, H . adith 163, 168, 169. Sunan alNasa¯’ı¯, 5030. Literally, s.ira¯t. is “path.” But in Islamic eschatology, it refers to a bridge over the hell fire that everybody must be made to cross. Only those destined to go to heaven may cross; but those doomed for hell fire shall fall. Qur’an 36: 66. Qur’an 2: 285. Qur’an 58: 13. Qur’an 58: 13; 2: 196; 3: 97. Qur’an 31: 18–19. Qur’an 33: 6; 8: 75. Literally, “blind” (in the metaphorical sense). Literally, “our eyes are getting opened;” also used metaphorically. Thus, there are many scholars now. Sunan al-Tirmidhı¯, H . adith 407. Literally, “Christian era.” Although this indicates that he composed the poem during pre-independence colonial era, the expression may also simply refer to any “formal administrative government” that is based on European style (as opposed to the previous system of “traditional rule”), and thus may also include any period after independence. Simpa was the local recreational music and dance engaged in by mainly Dagomba youngsters (ten to sixteen years). It is believed that it originated in the 1930s and was considered a fusion of local and “imported western and southern Ghanaian performance styles,” with highly provocative lyrics and dance moves. Additionally, according to John Collins, simpa was frowned upon by older people, as it was considered an improper way for boys and girls to meet. John Collins, “The Generational Factor in Ghanaian Music: Concert Parties, Highlife, Simpa, Kpanlogo, Gospel and Local

Notes to Pages 101–104

43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66.

67. 68. 69. 70.

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Techno-Pop,” in Playing with Identities in Contemporary Music in Africa, ed. Mai Palmberg and Annemette Kirkegaard (Stockholm: Elanders Gotab, 2002), 68. Early afternoon prayers, the second of the daily ritual prayers. The late afternoon prayers (the third). The sundown prayers (the fourth). The fifth and final nightly prayers. The dawn prayer, or first one. Afa Ajura is suggesting that since one needs to keep his face clean, at least, after waking up, it becomes conducive and self-serving to perform the ablution and the morning prayers. Qur’an 14: 2; 22: 57; 67: 6; 70: 1–2. Fulli (singular; plural is fula) is “a ball of food, basically prepared from millet.” Dagbani-English Dictionary, prepared by Roger Blench (Tamale: n.p., 2004), 62. It is usually mashed and mixed with milk and sugar for consumption. Peanut paste biscuit (in shape of a hoop). Dagbani-English Dictionary, 92. In order to sneak out at night undetected. Qur’an 58: 1. Qur’an 58: 3. Qur’an 40: 19; 27: 74; 28: 69. Qur’an 39: 53; 3: 135. Literally, “you will relax.” Qur’an 39: 53; 33: 71; 61: 12. Qur’an 66: 8; 39: 54. Qur’an 4: 103. Qur’an 28: 88; 55: 26–27. Qur’an 2: 254; 14: 31. Literally, “so I can relax.” The capital city of the Ashanti region of Ghana. The capital city of the Upper East Region of Ghana. The main center of diamond mining in the Eastern Region of Ghana. This is reminiscent of recent socio-economic migration from the north to Accra and other Southern cities by some Northern poor and uneducated young ladies, a practice called kayayo/ kayaye. As opposed to penny and shilling coins. This is to show how high wages were over there. Before independence, Ghana (Gold Coast), as a British colony, used to spend pound currency notes or penny and shilling coins. After independence, Ghana changed to “cedi” as its currency notes and “peswas” as coins. And for years, the cedi value was determined to be half of a pound. So for many years, two Ghanaian cedi note was actually known, and spent, as a “pound” by some locals and uneducated merchants in the north. Or fankukurwa, a special set of large dish bowls. Expensive housewares used to decorate rooms. Special type of luggage or containers. Beautiful bowls.

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Notes to Pages 105–108

71. Consuming fried meat was, and still is, a sign of good life among Dagombas. 72. She would not share a bed with him. As there were no chairs in bedrooms, she would have to sleep on the floor. 73. Literally, “little touch.” 74. This was, and still is, a sign of sorrow in Dagbon. 75. “Aunt” or “uncle” are used as a respect for strangers. They may also be used sarcastically as in this case. 76. Literally, tandoƔu is “swish hole” or quarry for swish. But as any swish hole is gradually filled with refuse/garbage, it came to mean “garbage damp” or “refuse damp.” 77. This means that a fool does not know that one must work hard and sweat before he or she gets money. 78. Frafras and Dagatis are two tribes from the Upper East Region of Ghana. In the olden days, most cleaners of public toilets in the Tamale area used to belong to the Frafra tribe. They used to be largely, not entirely, non-Muslims who enjoyed consuming alcohol and eating dogs, all being lifestyles that are frowned upon by Islam. For this and other historical relationships, Dagbambas had no high opinion about these tribes. Although I personally see this as an insensitive and pejorative remark on Afa Ajura’s part, many of his audience, then and now, may see nothing wrong with that. For this is reminiscent of a tribalistic superiority that some tribes feel, mistakenly, they had over other tribes. It is ironic to note that most people from the southern part of Ghana also used to have that wrong feeling of tribal superiority over all northerners, including the Dagbambas. Afa Ajura may be referring to all these tribes here in order to portray them as historically being easily manipulated by some Dagbamba women, not due to the perceived inferiority. 79. Here Moshi tribe is also portrayed as easily manipulated by women, even though Dagbambas believe them to be ancestors. They are a popular and powerful tribe from Burkina Faso who, culturally, have a cordial relationship with the Dagbambas. 80. Bulsa or Builsa are another tribe from the Upper East Region also seen as easily manipulated by the women who considered them as cash cows. 81. Kurmani Jakr is another tribe. 82. Notoriously famous for their commercial acumen, they are originally from Niger. 83. Akuta¯ku is an exclamation expression. 84. Yari are beads, used to be worn by women on the waist as undergarment accessories. 85. Called sampoaa. 86. The shilling was used in preindependence. But after independence, a ten peswa coin was still called a shilling (sulli or silli), while a three-peswa coin was called “sampoaa.” 87. Some verses must be missing after this one. The next verses jump into the middle of another narration. 88. Literally, sabnyooŋa. 89. Or Fankukurwa (a special set of large dish bowls). 90. Qur’an 33: 66. 91. Literally, “look.”

Notes to Pages 109–111

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92. Qur’an 87: 17. 93. Literally, “when her main tooth [nyindaa] was sharp and shining.” Originally, nyindaa is a tooth of a horse or a task of an elephant. 94. Literally, “she follows the streets and flies.” 95. Salli salli salli is a rare expression describing the demeanor and structure of a young horse. 96. S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, H . adith 4343, 4345, 6124, 7172. 97. Qur’an 24: 7; 3: 61; 40: 28. 98. These are prescribed sacrifices suggested by diviners and soothsayers for people to give out as offerings to professional beggars or ancestral spirits in order for desires to be fulfilled. 99. Traditional priests who may be responsible for the land. People may consult them and they would prescribe sacrifices, usually to be offered to the local deities. 100. Qur’an 14: 21–22. 101. With this, Afa Ajura hoped to counter the accusation that he was only insulting his opponents. 102. Interestingly, Afa Ajura employed a Dagbani word that sounds phonetically like veer (viera). 103. Qur’an 42: 25. 104. Qur’an 40: 27; 40: 35. 105. Literally, “rather than yell at an ancestral worshiper, you must tap on his shoulder or clap your hands for his attention.” 106. As Dagbon was also a totemistic society, snakes (singular, “wahu”) and other animals were commonly considered as deities, and the associated priests, their caretakers. However, “wahu” also means “horse.” But considering the history of Dagbon with snakes as deities, as also shown in the subsequent verses, it is unlikely that Afa Ajura meant “horse.” 107. Traditional soothsayers used pebbles as seen above. But although Afa Ajura accused some Muslim clerics elsewhere of using pebbles as well for divination, they are known more for utilizing the contents of the Qur’an. 108. Sabali is a village near the traditional capital of Dagbon, Yendi. The mosque in this village was to the Dagbambas as the grand mosque in Mecca is to all Muslims. 109. Some traditional deities in Dagbon are in the form of rivers. 110. Yebyili is a location for a famous deity that Dagombas patronized, even though it is not a Dagomba deity and is located outside Dagbon at Talensi land in the Upper East Region. It is one of the powerful deities that Dagombas consult for a variety of reasons, including seeking children and healing maladies. 111. This verse represents a beginning of another subject. There was a practice during any wedding and before a marriage was consummated, where a piece of white cloth would be used as a bed sheet; this with the expectation that it would capture a residue of blood after the sexual encounter. This piece of cloth would be displayed the next day for the public to witness and sent to the bride’s family. The purpose of this practice was to clearly document that the bride was engaging in sex for the first time. That not

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Notes to Pages 111–113

only proved her chastity before marriage, but also earned her family the reputation of raising a good girl. Afa Ajura was preaching against this practice, considering it both un-Islamic and humiliating. 112. Alwanka refers to an elderly woman who was tasked to bathe and teach the bride the Islamic ritual cleansing called jana¯ba (Arabic). It was another practice associated to wedding practice where the bride, before being sent to her husband, would be sat on a mortar in the middle of the house, and practically tutored on the process of the “jana¯ba by bathing her.” Although this ritual cleansing is a requirement after every sexual intercourse (one that any Muslim must have known at puberty, not at marriage), the practice of public bathing and tutoring the bride with minimal covering of her body is, according to Afa Ajura, un-Islamic and humiliating. 113. It was also the custom of Dagbon during weddings for the bride to go into hiding on the first night; and only her bride maids (not even her parents) may know her whereabouts. In fact, it was the bride maids who would arrange and help her into hiding. It would take legions of people from the groom’s friends and family some hours to locate her. Upon locating her, she would be beaten up and confined to a room for the rest of the wedding ceremony (at least three days) and until she is sent to her husband. Afa Ajura preached against this practice as un-Islamic. 114. On alwanka and jana¯ba, see note 112. 115. Literally, “for eating.” The Dagbani word for a witch to kill or eliminate someone through sorcery is “eat.” Afa Ajura cleverly used it in the process of talking about “eating” real meat. Note the use of “also,” to insinuate that after literally eating the meat, she would also metaphorically “eat” the onlooker. 116. Literally, “elder wife.” 117. Or, “repeatedly.” 118. This is clearly metaphorical rather than literal. He was not advocating physical violence here. Even though one may read literal violence into this, scholars don’t actually fight with swords; instead they fight with words and knowledge. 119. Literally, muna¯fichi (Arabic, munafiq, “hypocrite”). In the Qur’an and early Islamic community, they were known as those who pretended to be Muslims, but who actually were not. Chapter 63 of the Qur’an, called “The Hypocrites,” is wholly dedicated to talking about them. However, among Dagombas, muna¯fichi is used for a person who backbites or tell tales on others. 120. Literally, afa means scholar. But it is sometimes used simply for a “man” or a “person.” But the fact that Afa Ajura is calling for following the “H . adith,” he must have had a “scholar” in mind, and not a lay person. 121. Traditionally, most women cry loudly and uncontrollably upon learning of someone’s death. As they cry, they make certain statements uniquely for death occasions only. Hence, the description as “funeral crying.” 122. This is regarding commercial malpractices. There was a practice where in the absence, or without the knowledge, of a merchandise owner, someone would inflate a price in order to take the excess profit for himself or herself. In a capitalist or free market economy, there would be nothing wrong with that. But Afa Ajura was preach-

Notes to Pages 114–115

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ing against this practice claiming that was un-Islamic. And so much so in this case, because the person did not enter into an agreement with the owner to take the item and sell it on his or her own. But the merchandise would be in the owner’s store/stall. If unsold or damaged, it would remain the responsibility of the owner. Even in this case, due to the anticipated excess profit, the person may reject a negotiated price that the owner would have accepted himself. 123. Short measuring applied generally to commerce in food stuff and cereal grains, such as rice, beans, corn, etc. In selling to buyers, vendors would measure or weigh the merchandise a little bit short of the actual purported measure. The hope is that in a long run, the leftover in each measure would add up to a substantial quantity that would be translated into added profit. As the next verses indicate, Afa Ajura quotes the Qur’an as condemning such a common commercial malpractice. 124. This is the opening verse of chapter 83 of the Qur’an. The practice is also condemned in other parts of the Qur’an, namely, 11: 84–88, and 7: 85. This translation is taken from M. S. A. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an: A New Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 413. 125. Backbiting and talking behind people usually come with making gestures such as pointing at the victims using fingers or mouths. This way, nobody, except the participants, would tell or even notice if somebody is being talked about. These and the next verses are all geared toward condemning backbiting. 126. This verdict is a result of engaging in backbiting, which the Qur’an prohibits. 127. Woli is a game played generally in all of West Africa. According to a Dagbani dictionary, “it is played on the ground or on a board with two rows of six holes. The object is to capture the opponent’s stones or seeds. There are several ways of playing the game.” Dagbani-English Dictionary, 189. Afa Ajura’s contention is that these are useless and highly addictive games that take a person’s attention away from God and important matters. (Qur’an 62: 11). Although Afa Ajura condemned playing them, these games remain until today, more popular than ever among Dagbambas, including his followers in Tamale and around Dagbon. This is understandable, on one hand, due to the fact that, economically, there is high unemployment that affords people an abundance of time to waste. Socio-culturally, on the other hand, these games remain largely noninjurious (though highly addictive) ways people pass their time (afternoons, evenings, and night). There is usually no waging of monies involved. 128. Qur’an 5: 90–91. 129. Very addictive also was how people used to inhale some dry powdery substance (or from snuff). Usually it starts as a way to control a common headache, and progresses always to a serious addiction. This is also still common in Dagbon. 130. Animal skin, with the fur fully intact, was used as a prayer mat. Afa Ajura seems to be arguing that if it becomes so old and wretched to the point that it loses the entire fur, one should not use it. The reason seems to be how badly its condition would be; one that would be inappropriate for performing prayers. 131. The terms used in Islamic jurisprudence are fard. for obligatory, and mustahabb for recommended.

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Notes to Pages 115–119

132. Literally, yoƔu-ni, going to the bush or wilderness or far away in uninhabited area, to relieve oneself. This expression indicates that until recently, Dagbon, like many parts in Africa, did not have private or public toilets. Instead, people simply went far away into the bush, or uninhabited areas near the homes. So the expression started as “going to the bush” and ultimately the name for “bush” (yoƔu) became the name for relieving oneself. So one would say: “I feel like yoƔu: going to toilet.” After Dagbambas came into contact with Hausa people, banjira (corrupted Hausa of bayan jida: behind the home) replaced yoƔu mainly in nonrural areas, which is still used until today for public latrine and toilet. Here Afa Ajura is stating that whenever one goes to toilet after performing an ablution, in order to pray, he needs to perform a fresh ablution. For the initial one becomes null by the act of relieving himself. 133. Long sleep, where one remains aware of his surroundings. 134. Qur’an 4: 43; 5: 6. 135. With anyone of the opposite sex. Qur’an 4: 43; 5: 6. 136. This is the title for the official palace imam of the paramount chief of Dagbon. Afa Ajura seems to use it here sarcastically for the average traditional scholar. Not ironically, any average scholar would wish to become a yarnaa. 137. Practically and in the Qur’an, washing of the face comes before the arms, Qur’an 5: 6. It is unclear why Afa Ajura would list the arms before the face. 138. Qur’an 4: 103. 139. Qur’an 2: 43. 140. That is seventy rewards. 141. If he is unfortunate not to perform it well. 142. At the margin of the manuscript, there is a partial reference to a Qur’anic verse: . . . “man ʻamila minkum su¯’an bi-jaha¯la . . . ” (“that if any one of you does wrong in ignorance, then repents after that and acts aright, then He is Forgiving and Merciful”). Qur’an 6: 54, in what may be considered as Afa Ajura’s commentary for this line of verse. 143. Qur’an 49: 11. 144. Qur’an 49: 12. 145. Literally, “writing on the wooden slates.” Muslim clerics used to write some names and formulas (that they believe to possess some esoteric potential) on the slates to be washed and drunk as potion for curing ailments, warding off evils, or solving all sorts of problems. Afa Ajura considered these practices to be un-Islamic and baseless. Although he managed to convert many clerics from such practices, it remains today a popular open secret in a very common industry. The popularity may be explained in part by the potential functionality that many patrons think they derive from it, and also by its historical significance to the Dagban nation and rulers as well. For more, see Nehemia Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa: A Study of Islam in the Middle Volta Basin in the Pre-Colonial Period (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). 146. This is preparing the potion. Before the potion is prepared, the cleric will write what he wants on a wooden slate, then wash it into a bowl as a potion. As for talisman, they write on a piece of paper, fold it into the desired size, and tie it. Usually the client would send it to somebody else to make it into a wearable talisman.

Notes to Pages 119–126

209

147. This means that she has caused all his fasting to be rendered useless. 148. Some Dagombas were misled into believing that in Ramadan, instead of the thirty days, one may fast only three, which would suffice. 149. Qur’an 2: 183. 150. Qur’an 2: 43; 2: 110. 151. Qur’an 2: 264; 4: 38. 152. Qur’an 9: 35. 153. This is the beginning on pilgrimage. 154. Makkawiya (ʻ Iqa¯l, in classical Arabic) is a headband or head cord worn by Arabs to hold in place the traditional Arab head gear. But elsewhere as in Ghana, it was worn mainly by people who had the privilege of performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, and wearing it served as one of the indicators that someone actually performed the hajj. So much revered to the extent that people would swear by it just as they would by God (or ignorantly, by the Prophet or the Kaʻaba). 155. This is quite an interesting claim. Reminiscent of the claim about the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. (the reciter of which may claim an amnesty for seventy relatives), Afa Ajura must have been hoping to substitute this Tijaniyya claim with what he thought to be a legitimate one: performing the hajj. As if he was claiming “it is the hajj, not the S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih. that can have seventy of your relatives’ sins forgiven.” 156. Bayt Allah literally means “house of God.” Pilgrims used to be praised by bayt Allah to show that they have visited the house of God in Mecca; thus it was another way to call someone an al-hajj, only that this was considered a special accolade. 157. Literally, “to your chest,” as in someone holding something tight to his chest. 158. This is a long robe worn by Arabs and Muslims around the world. 159. This is in reference to a practice where people passing by the chief’s or nobility’s house must remove their shoes, as a sign of respect and reverence. Any violation would have been met with an attack on the person. 160. Kings and noble people who are portrayed negatively in the Qur’an and history. 161. He means the Pharaoh during Moses’s era; thus Pharaoh Ramses II, who is mentioned numerous times in the Qur’an 2: 49; 7: 103, 104, 109, 123; 10: 75; 20: 78. 162. Or Sheddad (Son of ʻA¯d) was the king of an Arabian city of Iram of the pillars, mentioned in the (Qur’an 89: 7–8), to which people God sent Prophet Hu¯d. 163. Afa Ajura used his Arabic name, “Bukhtanasr.” He reigned c. 605–c. 562 b.c.e. 164. The father of Nebuchadnezzar II was Nabopolassar who made himself the king of Babylon. 165. Korah or Korach. Qur’an 28: 76–79. 166. Prophets of God in the Qur’an. 167. It is not clear who Afa Ajura specifically meant with this. However, Afa Ajura himself was known to be suffering from asthma, at least in the late 1970s until his death. He would always ask those wearing strong perfumes to stay away from him in order to avoid triggering his asthma attack. He also kept an inhaler handy all the time, which can be seen in some of his pictures. 168. This is a figure of speech that those who are preoccupied with the worldly concerns shall soon fail and be disappointed.

210

Notes to Pages 126–129

169. Moshi tribe. 170. Naa NyaƔsi reigned 1416–32. 171. Reigned from 1432 to 1442. 172. Other sources called him “Naa Biergudeera.” He reigned from 1442 to 1454. 173. Reigned from 1454 to 1469. Other sources called him “Naa Dargudeera.” 174. Reigned from 1469 to 1486. 175. Reigned from 1486 to 1506. 176. Reigned from 1506 to 1514. 177. Reigned from 1514 to 1527. 178. Reigned from 1527 to 1543. 179. Reigned from 1543 to 1554. 180. Reigned from 1554 to 1570. 181. Reigned from 1570 to 1589. 182. From 1589 to 1605. 183. From 1609 to 1627. 184. From 1627 to 1648. 185. From 1648 to 1677. 186. From 1677 to 1687. 187. From 1697 to 1700. 188. From 1700 to 1720. 189. Nephew of Naa Garba, r. 1720 to 1735. 190. Sunsu¯ni means “middle.” Son of Naa Garba, r. 1735 to 1740. 191. He might also have been known as “Jangbarga” (r. 1760 to 1778?). 192. Son of Naa Ziblim. 193. Naa Ziblim. 194. Naa Simani Zoli. 195. Reigned from 1799 to 1839. 196. From 1839 to 1858. 197. From 1858 to 1896. 198. From 1899 to 1917. 199. From 1917 to 1938. 200. Naasikai was a queen mother. Naa Mahama II (kpema); from 1938 to 1948. 201. From 1948 to 1953. Knowing that this Yaa Naa died in 1953 and that he was the last to die before this poem was completed, we can be certain that Afa Ajura composed this poem in 1953, or shortly thereafter. 202. A tribe or battle name. 203. A tribe. 204. Also known as Araboo, this was a tragic war for Dagombas when they tried to fight the white colonizers. 205. Tribe or battle name. 206. A battlefield. 207. A battlefield. 208. A battlefield; a village near Yendi. 209. Literally, “God’s son.” But it is a name of a powerful Dagomba deity.

Notes to Pages 129–133

211

210. Literally, “twins.” But it is a name for a particular powerful Dagomba deity. 211. Qur’an 51: 56. 212. Qur’an 24: 55; 19: 61; 43: 68. 213. Qur’an 74: 11. 214. Plough the land for the Lord is metaphorical here, but culturally realistic for some fathers, masters, or bosses. 215. Afa Ajura is equating such a person to the animals in the wild. 216. Qur’an 36: 66. It is considered to be a bridge over the hellfire to paradise, which every person must be made to cross, Qur’an 19: 71. 217. Qur’an 3: 185; 4: 77; 9: 38. 218. Qur’an 40: 39; 87: 17; 4: 77. 219. Qur’an 50: 18. 220. Before some traditional sacrifices were performed, the person or his representative would have to continually declare their intentions verbally or say certain incantations in the process of tying the talismans. Afa Ajura is simply referring to any specific sacrifice that has to be prepared by tying it before it is offered to the deity. 221. During naming ceremonies, raffia saucers (straw plates) would be placed in front of the clerics, so that the parent and the participants would throw in money in exchange for more prayers from the clerics. 222. This is in reference to Dagban tradition where, during the seventh month (Arabic, rajab; Dagbani, kpini), people used to pluck guineafowls and then whip them as punishment for betraying Prophet Muhammad before they slaughter them for meals. That is why the month is called kpini (guineafowls; singular kpaŋ). 223. This was another practice during the lunar eclipse, where people would come out in droves singing, drumming and appealing to the sun to “to fear God and salalana and release the moon from captivity”; lest the world will be doomed. Salalana in this context was thought to be referring to God. However, it could have been a corrupted version of, and a misconstrued concept of, selenelion (it occurs when the sun and the eclipsed moon can be seen at once). Afa Ajura seemed to be echoing Prophet Muhammad in considering the practice un-Islamic; for coming together of the sun and the moon is not only practically impossible (Qur’an 36: 40), but also the eclipse does not occur for social or religious reasons. 224. This verse seems to be part of a previous cluster of verses that is missing. So it may not make sense being alone. 225. Qur’an 2: 185; 2: 233; 6: 152; 94: 5–6. 226. During funerals. 227. Money used to be offered to the local clerics for additional supplication. 228. Sometimes, “shouting” in Dagbani means angrily speaking, and not necessarily yelling loudly. 229. Qur’an 50: 18. 230. The third day of one’s death, people gather for prayers (syncretism of local tradition and Islam) which may not seem to have the same atmosphere of sorrow as the first day. 231. To help do any chore in the house.

212

Notes to Pages 134–137

232. This is a call to either seclusion or chastity of women. 233. The one who snoops to know people’s secrets. 234. He means a man who gives in to his wife’s unrealistic whims and demands. 235. Qur’an 36: 69; 26: 224–27. This and the preceding verse are repeated whenever the recitation of any poem comes to an end. 236. Qur’an 7: 200; 41: 36. 237. Qur’an 12: 5; 17: 53. 238. Qur’an 28: 15; 35: 6. 239. Qur’an 6: 142; 36: 60. 240. Qur’an 20: 117; 20: 123. 241. “‘Al-Atı¯q”: Abu¯bakr al-S.iddı¯q, the first caliph. 242. “Al-Fa¯ru¯q.” 243. The last two verses were recited in chorus not only each time this poem is concluded, but anytime recitation of any poem comes to an end. This was Afa Ajura’s way of admitting that he composed all his poems and made his followers recite them out of necessity.

po e m 3: d o l ya t idu¯ m a n a¯ w un i ŋ un n a m t i ŋ o (o u r l or d god, t h e so l e cr e a t o r , y o u m us t o b e y ) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Qur’an 3: 32; 3: 132; 4: 58; 5: 92; and more. Qur’an 72: 23; 33: 36; 4: 13; and more. Qur’an 50: 19–22. Qur’an 25: 27–29. Qur’an 59: 7; 47: 33; 3: 32; and more. Qur’an 22: 78; 24: 56; 4: 103; 6: 72; 2: 183; and more. Qur’an 112: 1–4; 28: 88. Qur’an 2: 21; 2: 189; 3: 130; 5: 100; and more. Qur’an 2: 2–5. Qur’an 4: 135. Known as the S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, this is a compilation of the sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad. According to the Sunnis, it is the most authentic book after the Qur’an and one of the six trusted books by Sunnis. Its recent editions include: Muhammad ibn Isma¯ʻı¯l al-Bukha¯rı¯ (d. 870), S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯ (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab alʻArabi, 2006). 12. As a book of law and H . adith, Al-Muwat.t.a’ of Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) was very popular among scholars of West Africa, as they universally, until recently, belonged to the Maliki school of law. The recent editions of this book include: Malik ibn Anas, Al-Muwat.t.a’ (al-Kuwayt: Markaz al-Buh.uth wa-al-Dirasat al-Kuwaytiyyah, 1997). 13. Another popular book for West African scholars by a scholar named al-Sanʻa¯nı¯ (d. 1768). It is a commentary on Bulu¯gh al-Mara¯m, a book on legal rulings compiled by a famous H . adith scholar called Ibn H . ajar al-ʻAsqala¯nı¯ (d. 1448). The complete reference is, Muh.ammad Ibn Isma¯ʻı¯l al-Sanʻa¯nı¯, Subul al-sala¯m: sharh. bulu¯gh al-mara¯m min jamʻ

Notes to Pages 137–139

14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

213

adillat al-ah.ka¯m, ed. li-Shiha¯b al-Dı¯n Abı¯ al-Fad.l Ah.mad ibn ʻAlı¯ ibn Muh.ammad ibn H . ajar al-Kana¯nı¯ al-ʻAsqala¯nı¯ (Cairo: Mus.t.afá al-Ba¯bı¯ al-H . alabı¯, 1950). One of the six trusted H adith books for Sunnis. Muh ammad ibn Yazı¯d Ibn Ma¯jah . . (d. 887), S.ah.ı¯h. sunan Ibn Ma¯jah (al-Riya¯d.: Maktab al-Tarbiyah al-ʻArabı¯ li-Duwal al-Khalı¯j, 1988). One of the six trusted H . adith books for Sunnis. Muh.ammad ibn ʻI¯sá al-Tirmidhı¯ (d. 892), Ja¯miʻ al-s.ah.¯ıh. or Sunan al-Tirmidhı¯ (Delhi: Kutub Kha¯nah Rashı¯dı¯yah, 1965 or 1966). One of the six trusted H . adith books for Sunnis. Ah.mad ibn Shuʻayb al-Nasa¯ʼı¯ (d. 915), Kita¯b al-sunan al-Kubra¯ (Bombay: al-Da¯r al-Qayyimah, 1972). One of the six trusted H . adith books for Sunnis. Muslim ibn al-H . ajja¯j (d. 875), S.ah.ı¯h. Muslim (Beirut: Da¯r al-Kutub al-ʻIlmı¯yah, 2001). It is considered next to al-Bukha¯rı¯ among the six sources. One of the six trusted H . adith books for Sunnis. Abu¯ Da¯ʼu¯d Sulayma¯n ibn al-Ashʻath al-Sijista¯nı¯ (d. 889), Sunan Abı¯ Da¯ʼu¯d (Beirut: Da¯r al-Kutub al-ʻIlmı¯yah, 1996). Yah.yá ibn Sharaf al-Nawawı¯ (d. 1277), Riya¯d. al-s.a¯lih.ı¯n min kala¯m sayyid al-mursalı¯n (Cairo: ʻI¯sá al-Ba¯bı¯ al-H . alabı¯, 1956). Mans.u¯r ʻAlı¯ Na¯s.if, Al-Ta¯j al-ja¯miʻ lil-us.u¯l: Fı¯ aha¯dı¯th al-rasu¯l (Cairo: Dar Ihya alKutub al-Arabiyyah, 1969). Qur’an 40: 60. Bidʻ ah. Al-Bukhari, H . adith 2697; Muslim, H . adith 4492, 4493; Abu Da’ud, H . adith 4606; Ibn Majah, H adith 14. . Qur’an 6: 103. Qur’an 7: 143. Literally, “an old liar.” The context of this verse has to do with the alleged claim of some West African Sufis that they can “see” or “connect” with God through “annihilation,” as they embark on some specific Sufi recitations and practices, such as wird or dhikr (remembrance). Qur’an 4: 60. Qur’an 58: 19; 35: 6. Abu Bakr was the first caliph to succeed the Prophet after his death. His reign lasted for two years (632–34 c.e.). Also he was the father-in-law of the Prophet. ʻUmar succeeded Abu Bakr as the caliph (r. 634–44 c.e.). He was also the father-inlaw of the Prophet. ʻUthman was the third caliph (r. 644–56 c.e.), and a son-in-law of the Prophet. ʻAli was the fourth caliph (r. 656–61 c.e.), the first Imam for the Shiʻa, a cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. This was a sarcastic way he chose to describe some Sufi leaders in West Africa. Here he is probably referring to Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, whose base was Kaolack. He accused them of playing “God” and allegedly claiming to possess powers to bestow blessings upon their followers. Kaolack is a city in Senegal, considered a capital for the West African Ibrahimiyyah branch of the Tijaniyyah Sufi order. It is also a major commercial center in Senegal.

214

36. 37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

Notes to Pages 139–142 Sufis from other West African countries, like Ghana, travel to Kaolack to study and, upon return, improve their status among their home branch of the order. Others make pilgrimage to Kaolack with the sense of urgency and pride rivaling that of pilgrimage to Mecca. This is a reference to the busy itinerary of the Sufi leaders journeying from city to city preaching and blessing their followers. “Baɣayuya (sing. baɣayuli) refers to both the dead and addresses [or appeals] to them.” Wyatt MacGaffey, Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-Singers: History, Politics, and Land Ownership in Northern Ghana (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013), 186. Baɣayuli is also used to refer to anything that must be carried out as a way of obligatory; something that failure of doing it may carry negative consequence. This and the preceding four verses were mainly directed to the traditional believe that one’s fate and fortunes may be tampered through some rituals to the ancestral spirits. He was impressing upon them the orthodox position that only God can affect any change. Qur’an 85: 22. Muslims believe it to be the mother of all sources and events which God keeps with him. Al-Bukhari, H . adith 6581. Qur’an 4: 36; 31: 18; 57: 23. These two verses set the stage contextually for a popular Qur’anic story about Moses’ encounter with a servant of God (known as Khidr) who would later demonstrate to Moses that he possessed divine knowledge that Moses did not. Qur’an 18: 60–82. This is what people actually did in the olden days if they wanted to drink water from a river. Meaning “abundance,” Kawthar is used in, and as the name of, chapter 108 of the Qur’an. Verse 1, as used in this poem, is commonly interpreted as being a reference to a river in paradise. Al-Bukhari, H . adith 6583. Qur’an 55: 56; 70–74; Qur’an 56: 22–24; 36–37. Qur’an 47: 15; Qur’an 56: 21. Culturally, it is significant to note that the Qur’an highlights all sorts of enjoyments in paradise, and due to scarcity in Arabia, more verses emphasize the abundance of rivers, streams, shades, fruits, and vegetables (Qur’an 55: 46–52; 62–68; 76: 12–21; 77: 41–43) in order to attract Prophet’s immediate audience who would appreciate these privileges more. Equally significant culturally is Afa Ajura’s neglect of the aforementioned and his emphasis on other scarce and more appreciable delicacies for most West Africans such as fried meat, milk, and honey, mimicking the Qur’an in his attempt to attract his audience. Qur’an 56: 21; 47: 15. Qur’an 20: 108. Qur’an 25:25. Qur’an 40: 16. This is believed to be the highest class in paradise (Qur’an 18: 107; Qur’an 23: 11). Qur’an 17: 72; 20: 124–26. Qur’an 37: 22–23.

Notes to Page 144

215

poe m 4: afa za¯ ŋ u npaɣ n yu b uɣl i (a n y p e r s o n w h o allow s h is w if e t o d r ink t h e p o t i o n f o r e x o r ci s m ) 1. Literally, afa (cleric). But it is also used for any man as a way of respect, or if one does not know his name. 2. Qur’an, 4: 92; 58: 4. This verdict presents Afa Ajura as exercising ijtihad (juristic exertion) using what is called “analogy” (qiya¯s) in Islamic legal system. Analogy is one of the four sources of Islamic legal system that is used when there is no direct legal ruling for a particular issue, and scholars have to rely on rulings on other issues to come to a verdict due to some similarity in both issues. So since there is no ruling for drinking exorcist potion in the Qur’an or hadith, Afa Ajura had to use his individual judgment based on other Qur’anic verses. The interesting thing here is that as he made these verdicts, Afa Ajura somehow flipped the rulings in the Qur’an. There are two places where fasting two months is prescribed as expiation. One is Qur’an 4: 92 with regards to the accidental killing of a Muslim; the other is Qur’an 58: 4 when one illegally divorces his wife in pre-Islamic Arab style called z.iha¯r. Thus by declaring that the wife’s body (backside) is like the husband’s mother’s. Which puts the wife in limbo of not being clearly divorced, and yet has no matrimonial relationship with the husband. Being the main reason chapter 58 was revealed, this practice was outlawed by the Qur’an and three steps of expiation were prescribed for those who do it. In the accidental killing of a Muslim, a two-month fast came as the last option. But in z.iha¯r divorce, two-month fasting came as the second option. This is why I suggested that Afa Ajura flipped the ruling. Again, the best way to explain his verdict is to follow Qur’anic prescription as well. Scholars believe that the Qur’an prescribes the expiation steps to balance between punishment and real situations of people involved, by providing options that they can implement. In the case of accidental killing of a Muslim, the perpetrator must, (1) free a slave Muslim woman and pay blood money (with other variations on whether he is a Muslim or not); or if he cannot afford that, (2) fast two months. However, in the case of z.iha¯r, Qur’an’s prescriptions were, (1) free a captive (no sex is stated), (2) fast two month consecutively, and (3) feed sixty poor people. Now, why did Afa Ajura place fasting as the first option? The best answer would be the reality of the options. Fasting of two months is the most easily applicable one, as there were no slaves to free in the first place. He also placed feeding of sixty poor people next before freeing a slave. From this perspective, he was truly applying “ijtihad.” Significantly, through analogy, Afa Ajura added another fourth option: 100 lashes. This option is punishment in Qur’an 24: 2, for fornication. Afa Ajura brought it in case the other three were not possible. 3. Qur’an 4: 92; 58: 4. 4. Qur’an 4: 92; 58: 3. 5. Qur’an 24: 2. 6. Nana was the name of the lead Ashanti exorcist who originally started hunting witches and exorcizing them. But nana was later used to refer to any witch-hunter who joined her group, or the entire camp where people used to visit, or the exorcist potion that people go to drink or are made to drink.

216

Notes to Pages 145–154

7. That is “God.” 8. Corata is a corrupt version of “collector.” It refers to the transportation agent at vehicle stations, due to his job of “collecting” the passengers’ fares and luggage. Since passengers do not have to know his name, he is simply called, uncle corata; a designation that would usually become his name outside his job. 9. Here is the first time he refers to the Qur’an; the verses are already cited above. 10. Culturally, paternal aunts are commonly accused of being witches by their nephews and nieces. 11. The Yaa Naa and overlord of Dagbon, during 1416–32, conquered more lands for Dagbon. As he was successful in these campaigns, Afa Ajura might have conflated his true expansionist wars and any perceived religious wars. Dagbon was not converted to Islam during his reign. 12. Qur’an 53: 19–20. These were two pre-Islamic Arabian goddesses. 13. Hubal, a pre-Islamic Arab deity, is not mentioned in the Qur’an. Mana¯t another Arabian Goddess, is mentioned in the Qur’an 53: 20. 14. Deities during the time of Noah, Qur’an 71: 23. 15. Ibid. 16. One of the two angels in the grave. 17. He literally means the geographic location. 18. Your father’s. 19. The other angel in the grave. 20. This sentiment is repeated in verse 187, below. These verses disabuse people from the notion that Afa Ajura somehow reveled in attacking his opponents. 21. He might have used infected to show the resemblance between their lies and those diseases that can be contracted. 22. As a source of livelihood. 23. Literally it is “whoever hits the sand . . . ” The Muslim clerics who foretell issues usually do so by spreading some sand in front of them, making some lines and numbers with their palms, and then announcing their predictions. Afa Ajura asserts that they are like the traditional non-Muslim soothsayers and diviners who also manipulate certain items to make their divinations. 24. BuƔu is funeral headdress made of bark cloth and worn by the deceased’s firstborn son or daughter. Muslim clerics would write inscriptions on it to protect the wearer and to ward off any sorcery and evil. 25. Literally, doo means a room. But here he means “paradise.” 26. Literally, “to see.” 27. This same sentiment is displayed in verse 126, above. 28. S.ira¯t. literally is “path,” but also used for the bridge over hell fire to paradise; Qur’an 37: 23.

po e m 5: fa k h u dh u¯ ( a n d y o u m us t ta k e ) 1. Apart from “Hashimite,” the rest are descriptions taken directly from the Qur’an: “Bearer of glad tidings/warner” (Qur’an 2: 119; 34: 28; 35: 24; 41: 4); “wrapped in cloak” (Qur’an 74: 1).

Notes to Pages 154–157

217

2. Also rendered as “deniers” munkiru¯n/munkirı¯n (singular: munkir) started out as a derogatory description and is still used to identify Afa Ajura and his followers. But its genesis, as explained earlier, goes back to Senegal, where it was used to refer to those who denied Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse and his followers’ claim that he was the legitimate leader of the Tija¯niyyah in Senegal or the bona fide heir to Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯. 3. Short form of “Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama‘ah.” This is also the root of the majority Sunni branch of Islam. 4. Ijma¯ʻ (the consensus among Muslims) is one of the four sources of Islamic Jurisprudence. The others are the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and Qiya¯s (analogy). 5. The Rightly Guided Caliphs are the four successors of Prophet Muhammad: Abu Bakr (r. 632–34), Umar (r. 634–44), Uthman (r. 644–56), and Ali (r. 656–61). 6. This verse may also be read: “Take hold of the sword of the innovators, and about them you should inquire.” 7. This expression was adapted from the Qur’an: “Their forces will be vanquished and they will turn tail and flee” (Qur’an 54: 45), a verse that Prophet Muhammad reportedly repeated at the Battle of Badr in 623. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, 351. 8. The Prophet Muhammad. 9. Thus: “with the Sunnah we silenced and outdebated our opponents.” 10. The Qur’an, the H . adith, and their own books. 11. He used the name of hellfire as it appears in the Qur’an: saqar (54: 48; 74: 26, 27, 42). 12. Murı¯d, literally, “seeker,” is a novice or a trainee who sought a Sufi master for guidance. It is used to contrast a “shaykh.” 13. This perhaps refers to a piece of white cloth being spread out and around which the Tijanis sit during their recitation of litanies. The charge against them is that they claim to see the Prophet, who sometimes joins them. 14. This may also be rendered as “sainthood.” 15. In this context, a “red person” refers strictly to a fair-complexioned African. 16. Qur’an 5:3. 17. It seems Afa Ajura convinced himself that he defeated the Tija¯niyyah leaders in Ghana. Other stories claim that he might have meant the overall leader of Tija¯niyyah, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. They have never debated. But the story goes that Afa Ajura sent him several letters for a one-on-one debate while both were in Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage, without any response. So for that reason, Afa Ajura might have concluded that he “vanquished” him. 18. Here, Afa Ajura quoted from the latter part of Qur’an 54:45. Note that he quoted the first part of the same verse above, 6b (note 7). The translation is adopted from Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, 351. 19. This is a direct quotation from Qur’an 86: 9. 20. Qur’an 7: 179. 21. The Prophet Muhammad. With these prophetic invocations, Afa Ajura wanted to highlight what Prophet Muhammad taught and prescribed, in contradistinction to the litanies that the Tija¯niyyah Sufism teaches. 22. Saying subh.a¯nalla¯h, as in H . adith. 23. Saying alh.amdu lilla¯h. 24. Saying alla¯hu akbar.

218

Notes to Pages 157–160

25. Al-Bukhari, Book of al-A¯dha¯n, H . adith 843; Muslim, Book of al-Masa¯jid, H . adith 1347. 26. As a single finger represents three phalanges (distal, middle, proximal), three invocations may be done through one finger. So to glorify God subh.a¯nalla¯h thirty-three times, one only needs eleven fingers and does not necessarily need to use rosary. Afa Ajura counseled his followers to use their finger phalanges for the invocations taught by the Prophet, in sharp contrast to the Tija¯nis’ use of rosary for their major litanies. The rosary became one of the Tija¯niyyah signature marks. Ultimately, Afa Ajura was perceived by his Tija¯ni opponents to be against the use of rosaries for whatever reason. 27. Al-Bukhari, Book of al-A¯dha¯n, H . adith 843; Muslim, Book of al-Masa¯jid, H . adith 1347. 28. Literally, “as you see.” 29. God. 30. Qur’an 75: 23 31. Qur’an 7: 143. 32. Abu Bakr was the first caliph (r. 632–34); Abu Hafs refers to ‘Umar the second caliph (r. 634–44). Both of them were fathers-in-law of the Prophet. 33. The third (r. 644–56) and fourth (656–61) caliphs. 34. The Prophet Muhammad.

poe m 6 : k u t il ga ( you s h a l l n o t b e s av e d ) 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

The Prophet Muhammad. Bidʻ ah: innovations in religion. A person who performed the pilgrimage to Mecca. Local clerics used to write on wooden slates a combination of special names of God, angels and or certain formulas, which they believed had the potential of bringing good fortune or warding off evil. Then they would wash off the writings as a potion for drinking or bathing for their clients. Afa Ajura, who himself engaged in such practice as a young cleric, reportedly renounced it, burned all his copies, and attacked those who continued to engage in such activities. During funerals, Dagomba people would prepare a lot of food as a hospitality to the guests, who are expected to come from every nook and cranny of the region. Certainly, the food always included pounded yams, the surplus of which is thrown away as a waste. Afa Ajura was admonishing them to desist from such practices. Participating in funerals, especially by sons-in-law in grand manner, was considered a source of pride. People would outdo each other publicly as a way of showing off. It is likely that a verse is missing after this. Fard is a legal term that stands for all of Islam’s obligatory actions and practices. These must be done before any act of worship can be considered proper and acceptable. Sunnah is any deed or tradition attributed to the Prophet. In worship, it is considered a highly recommended but optional deed. Those who perform it are rewarded; those who do not are not punished. These optional actions complement the obligatory actions. Mustahabb is also recommended, but is less than a Sunnah.

Notes to Pages 161–163

219

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Prophet Muhammad. Or, “your fasting shall not save you.” Or, “Even if your deeds are complete, in the hereafter that shall not save you.” Or, “In the hereafter, being a prince shall not save you.” Janabah is a ritual cleansing that must be performed after a sexual encounter or having a wet dream. 16. During marriage ceremonies, these experts (alwanka) tutored a new bride about ritual purification by practically bathing her in public, almost half-naked. There were also special experts (kasiƔriba) for death baths, usually old and endowed with magical powers, who were called to bathe the corpse before it was taken for burial. Afa Ajura opposed this practice of inviting the so-called experts, not the practice of washing the corpse. 17. The pieces of clothes which the bride wore earlier were usually given to the alwanka. The clothes in which the deceased died were donated to the kasiƔriba as compensation. 18. Al-Bukha¯rı¯, Kita¯b al-Mard.a¯, H . adith 5673; al-Nasa¯’ı¯, 1818.

poem 7: nsab n sab l iŋ o ( i c om p o s e t h i s w r i t i n g o f m i n e ) 1. During the independence celebrations. 2. The first prime minister and president of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. 3. A wealthy and very important figure in Tamale, Alhaji Yahya Iddi lived at Aboaboo. Although politically his participation portrayed him as being allied with Afa Ajura at the time of this composition, during the 1970s to 1990 both men supported opposing parties, politically, religiously, and in local chieftaincy matters. Thus they were both among the few important personalities detained during the 1980s for months by Jerry John Rawlings’s military PNDC government and accused of masterminding civil and political unrest in Dagbon. 4. Alhaji Mumuni Iddi (Mumun DC). 5. This is Alhaj Mahmudu Zero. 6. He means the governor in Nigeria. 7. Near Lagos. 8. Yoruba, a tribe in southwestern and north-central Nigeria. 9. Igbo, a tribe in southern Nigeria. 10. Hausa, a tribe in northern Nigeria. 11. Jukun, a tribe in northern Nigeria. 12. Baribari or “Beriberi,” one of the tribes and languages of Maiduguri. 13. Also known as Imoro/Imoru Egala (1914–April 2, 1981), this prominent foreign minister during Ghana’s first republic is believed to be one of the founding members of the People’s National Party in 1979. It captured power in Ghana’s third republic under the leadership of President Hilla Limann. 14. Kojo Botsio (February 21, 1916–February 5, 2001) was a diplomat and a politician during Ghana’s first republic, and once, the education minister. 15. Sir Ahmadu Bello (d. January 15, 1966) was a great politician and first premier of the Northern Nigerian Region (1954–66).

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Notes to Pages 163–166

16. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (d. January 15, 1966) was Nigeria’s first and only postindependence prime minister. 17. Chief Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe (d. May 11, 1996) was the first president of the Independent Republic of Nigeria (1963–66). 18. Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo (d. May 9, 1987) was a Yoruba chief and remarkable politician who played significant roles in Nigeria’s independence struggle and its aftermath. 19. Mallam Aminu Kano (d. April 17, 1983) was a Muslim politician, member of parliament, and health minister in Nigeria’s first republic. 20. City in northern Nigeria. 21. City in Nigeria. 22. A Muslim-majority city in northern Nigeria and home to the famous Ahmadu Bello University.

po e m 8 : d o l ya t idu¯ m a k a d o l i a n a b ŋo ( f ol l ow o u r l or d a n d t h i s p r o p h e t ) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Qur’an 4: 23. The founder of the Tijaniyya Sufi order: Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯. A town in Senegal. Arabic for “savior.” Arabic for “essence.” That is a corruption of “Niasse.” Hausa for “light.” Arabic for “pole.” Arabic for “caliph/viceroy” of Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯. In northern Nigeria. In northern Nigeria. However, there is evidence that he has a lot of following in Kano, then and now. The membership cards. Perhaps in reference to Shaykh Aamadu Bàmba Mbàkke, commonly known as “Cheikh Amadou Bamba” (1853–1927). He founded the city of Touba in central Senegal. It may also be a reference to Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse. As it was widely speculated, Afa Ajura was accusing the Tija¯niyya members of saving the water with which the shaykh bathed or performed ablution, claiming that it was turned into a blessed water with spiritual value. TandoƔu literally means “quarry for swish or gravel.” This means “avoid it.” The water with which the shaykh allegedly took bath. By “writings,” Afa Ajura specifically means writings for healing and potions, not books. Afa Ajura’s hometown and the capital of the Northern Region in Ghana. Literally, “the one who turns her ladle.”

Notes to Pages 166–170

221

21. Traditionally, during a naming ceremony, as people sat around to name the newborn child, one cleric would have written a few names in small pieces of papers and tossed them into a raffia pan which is placed in front of the clerics. One cleric or the father of the child or his representative would pick one of the names in a random fashion and read aloud as the child’s name. This is what Afa Ajura is referring to. 22. The cleric who wrote your name during or before the ceremony. 23. When told about somebody’s death, traditional Dagombas, especially the women, burst into crying and sorrowful songs, called “funeral songs.”

po e m 9 : afa n im z a¯ s a n i n b i n ya ( al l c l e r ic s h av e not s e e n : a g a i n s t wird ) 1. In the Qur’an and H . adith or any authentic sources of Islam. 2. This is spiritual training that came to characterize the wird of Ibra¯himiyyah Sufi branch in West Africa. 3. This is performance of litanies taught by Shaykh Ah.mad al-Tija¯ni. Detailed explanation is found in the long introduction above. 4. In all of these countries there are huge numbers of Tija¯niyyah followers. But Afa Ajura is claiming that he cannot find any scholar who can prove the source of the wird from authentic books. 5. A city in Senegal. 6. With the books of Tija¯niyyah such as Jawa¯hir al-maʻ a¯nı¯. 7. This refers to a group of people at a particularly respectable rank among the Tijani Sufis. 8. The Tija¯niyyah are known for making contributions to their shaykhs, whether they are indigenous or visitors. So Afa Ajura is referring to how one is free of contribution once he abandons the group.

po e m 1 0 : b u k ar i m aw l a (a e ul o g y ) 1. After each complete verse, the reciter and the audience (if available) would follow up in a chorus with: “Here I am, here I am, O rightly guided Shaykh Bukari Mawla.” These initial words (labbayka, labbayka) are reminiscent of what pilgrims recite during the hajj. 2. Sokodé is the second largest city in Togo and seat of the Tchaoudjo and Centrale Region in the center of the country, 339 kilometers (211 mi) north of Lomé. The city is located between the Mo and Mono rivers. It is also a commercial center for the surrounding agricultural areas. It is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious city, even though it is dominated by Islam. Retrieved on May 30, 2020 (www.britannica.com/ place/Sokode). 3. The Tijanis; tarbiya is their spiritual training through which every novice must go. 4. A city in Ghana’s Eastern Region, in the West Akim Municipal District. “Asamankese is a town in south Ghana and is the capital of West Akim Municipal District, a district

222

Notes to Pages 170–174

in the Eastern Region of south Ghana. Asamankese has a 2013 settlement population of approximately 39,435 people. Asamankese is on the main highway to Kumasi and Accra in the interior.” Retrieved on February 26, 2015 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Asamankese). 5. Kaolack (Kawlax in Wolof) is a town on the north side of the Saloum River in Senegal. It is the capital of the Kaolack Region, and has borders with The Gambia to the south. Kaolack is also an important regional market town and is Senegal’s main peanut trading and processing center. As the center of Ibrahimiyya branch of the Tijaniyyah Sufi order founded by Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, it is also an important center for Islamic studies. Retrieved on May 30, 2020 (www.britannica.com/place/Kaolack). 6. Meaning “abundance,” Kawthar is the name of chapter 108 in the Qur’an. Verse 1, as used in this poem, is commonly interpreted as referring to a river in paradise.

poe m 1 1 : nin sal k ut o n ya t i d u¯ m a ( a h u m an b e in g c an n o t s e e o ur l o r d ) 1. They may see Him in the hereafter, according to some Qur’an exegetes (Qur’an 75: 23). 2. Qur’an 7: 143. 3. Qur’an 6: 103. 4. Literally, “bringing up,” “training,” “raise.” For Sufis: dhikr, initiating in wird training.

poe m 1 2: s. al l i s. al a¯ tan (s e n d b l e s s i n g s up o n ) 1. On the margin of the original copy, a note states, “That is the Qur’an.” 2. “That is the H . adith” is also written on the margin as a note. 3. On the margins, a note reads: Jawa¯hir al-Maʻ a¯nı¯. This is the title of the most important Tija¯ni book attributed to Shaykh Ah.mad ibn Muh.ammad al-Tija¯ni’s (1737/381815), even though it was authored by his student, Shaykh ʻAlı¯ H . ara¯zim. 4. “Fath. al-Rabba¯nı¯” was written on the margin as a note. It was written by Shaikh Abd al-Qa¯dir al-Jı¯la¯nı¯ (d. 1166). Some recent editions include Al-Fath. al-rabba¯nı¯ wa-al-fayd. al-rah.ma¯nı¯ (Cairo: Mus.t.afá al-Ba¯bı¯ al-H . alabı¯, [1960]); Al-Fath al-rabbani: unveiling the divine values, 62 Sermons (Karachi: World Federation of Islamic Missions, 2000). 5. The note repeats “That is the Glorious Qur’an.” 6. Afa Ajura’s clarification of this verse on the margin reads: “That is sending down of ‘S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih.’ on al-Bakrı¯.” This note probably refers to the following story: “A man named Sayyidi Bekri went into khalwa for forty years, asking Alla¯h to give him the best Salatu-ala Nabiyy. It was written on the wall in light, and he was told not to give it to others until its owner appeared.” Retrieved on February 6, 2015 (www.deenislam. co.uk/dua/fatih.htm). 7. The note specifies “S.ala¯t Ibra¯hı¯miyya.” 8. Qutb (pole) is one of Shaykh Tija¯ni’s titles. Another note explains that what he “said” was S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih..

Notes to Pages 174–179 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

223

The Prophet Muhammad. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Afa Ajura remarks on the margin: “All this after God has stated in the Qur’an that ‘the faith of your forefather Abraham; He has called you Muslims, both in the past and in this [message]’ ” (Qur’an 22: 78). Afa Ajura cites, as an example, “Subh.a¯na-Alla¯h; wal-h.amdu lilla¯h; wa la¯ ila¯ha illa¯ Alla¯h; walla¯hu akbar.” These are believed to be deities worshiped by the pre-Islamic Arabs in Arabia (Qur’an 53: 19–20). These are deities believed to be worshiped during Prophet Noah’s time (Qur’an 71: 23). Another one of the deities during Noah’s time (Qur’an 71: 23). The expression is borrowed from the Qur’an 49: 11.

poem 1 3: t ipaɣr i t id u¯ m a na¯ wun i (w e t h a n k o ur l o r d ) 1. Here this means the spiritual leader of the Tijaniyya Sufi groups. In Arabic and Muslim societies, it is variously used for a scholar, a leader of a tribe or clan, an elderly person, or simply for respect. 2. Afa Ajura’s use of shaykh from here onward is very simplistic and metaphorical. 3. Children used to begin their education by using wooden slates (tablets), on which the teacher would write the daily lessons (usually some Arabic letters or short Qur’anic verses). The pupil would move on only after he had memorized that lesson. He would then wash clean the slate and wait for the next lesson to be written. 4. During naming ceremonies, raffia saucers (straw plates) would be placed in front of the clerics so that they could write and place the newborn’s name in it. They would then pick it out and read it loudly while performing the ceremony. 5. “Ti (or: n) la¯ la¯ la¯ nda¯n tarma.” Usually, one adds, “nmin nabı¯ bi tor woli” (I don’t play woli with a prince); thus: I don’t get involved with a prince. 6. This was a debate about how to properly perform the daily prayers. The issue was whether people should hold their hands up to their chests or let them retain their normal position during the prayer.

poe m 1 5: n ah. n u ju n u¯ d u h. a b ı¯ b i n a¯ ( w e ar e t h e ar m y o f o ur b e l o v e d ) 1. This is Afa Ajura. 2. Formally the Anbariyya Islamic School, it is currently known as the Anbariyya Islamic Institute. The community is known as Anbariya Sunni Community (www.anbariya. com).

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Notes to Pages 181–184

poe m 1 6 : afan i m t o l a ay i r m o ( t h e c l e r ic s h av e g o n e w i l d ) 1. A town north of the Northern Region’s capital Tamale and home to the Mamprusi tribe. 2. A village north of Tamale. 3. A village located northeast of Tamale, where Alhaj Muntaqa reportedly died. 4. A town in Ghana’s Upper East Region, located northeast of the regional capital Bolgatanga. 5. Literally, he said “Seer of God,” thereby referring to the Tijanis’ alleged claim that they see God during their tarbiya. 6. This is perhaps a reference to his debate between him and Mallam Maikano. 7. A sarcastic way to refer to a scholar who repeats what he heard from others. 8. A special prayer for Prophet Muhammad recited by the Tija¯niyyah Sufis and allegedly believed to be the best one and infused with special blessings for the reciters. 9. One of the Tija¯niyyah litanies. 10. A popular tribe in Nigeria.

IND EX

Abalsi, Mba, 33 Abdul Qa¯dir al-Jı¯lanı¯, 86 Abdulai Iddrisu, 4, 5, 19, 21, 48, 64 ʿAbdul-ʿAziz ʿUmar, 30, 193n108 Abdul-Muqtadir Abdul-Baqi, 24–25 Abdul-Ra¯ziq Muhammad ʿAta¯, 27–28 Abrakwa, A.W., 199n241 Abu Bakr, 62, 213n30, 218n32 Acheampong (General), 94 Adama, B.K., 21 Afa Abdul Aziz (ward K), 15, 18 Afa Abdul Salam, 17 Afa Abdul-Hannan, 30 Afa Abdul-Rauf Ismaʿil, 28, 30, 192n102 Afa Abdul-Razzaq Umar, 15, 18 Afa Abla Kasuli, 15 Afa Abubakar Iddris (Afa Abu), 15, 18, 29–30 Afa Abukari, 10, 13 Afa Adjei (S.a¯lih.), 3 Afa Adussalam, 192n105 Afa Ajura (Alhaj Yu¯suf S.a¯lı¯h. Ajura): addressing Ibra¯hmiyya Sufism, 55, 57–63, 75, 78–80, 85–87; addressing Islamic divination, 50–54; addressing the litany of Tija¯niyyah, 54–63; addressing witchcraft and exorcism, 46–50, 76–78; analogy of the walking stick,

33; birth year, 3–4, 186n9; debate with Mallam Maikano, 63–71; dispute with Tija¯niyyah followers, 28–29, 35–36; as drummer, 10; early activities (Islamic divination and trading), 8–11; early commercial activity, 10–11, 188–89n49; early life, 3–5; education, 5–8; foster children, 12–14, 189n60, 192–93n106; innovation in funeral rites, 40–46; innovation in marriages and weddings, 36–40; legends associated with birth of, 4–5; marriages, 13–16, 189–90n63; patrons and clients of, 9–10; political engagement of, 2, 23–24, 81–82, 93–94; preaching against syncretism, 36; preaching and reforming, 31–36, 63, 72, 75, 93–94, 193n110; proficiency in Arabic, 64, 79–80, 85, 190–91n81, 197n209; as reformer, ix–xi, 1; teaching and educating, 11–14; trip to Accra, 82–83, 87; as a Wahhabi, 185n2, 193n121. See also Anbariyya Islamic school Afa Ajura’s poetry, 1, 3; “Afa Nim Za¯sa Nin Binya” (All Clerics Have Not Seen: Against Wird), 83–84, 168–69; “Afa Za¯ ŊunpaƔ Nyu BuƔli” (Any Person Who Allows His Wife to Drink the Potion for Exorcism), 4, 49, 76–78, 144–53;

225

226

Index

Afa Ajura’s poetry (continued) “Afanim Tola Ayirmo” (The Clerics Have Gone Wild), 90–93, 181–84; “Ansari Ma¯na” (He Who Mocks), 78–90, 178; audio and video recordings of, 92; “Bukari Mawla” (A Eulogy), 7, 79, 84–85, 170–71; “Damba Digoli” (Damba Month), 31–32, 71–72, 91, 97–98; “Dolya Tidu¯ma Ka Doli Anabŋo” (Follow Our Lord and This Prophet), 82–83;, 164–67 “Dolya Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni Ŋun Namtiŋo” (Our Lord God, The Sole Creator, You Must Obey), 75–76, 137–43; “Dunya BinshaƔkam Dina¯ra” (Everything in This World Shall Perish), 4, 5, 32, 35, 38, 39, 52–53, 72–75, 99–136; “Fa Khudhu¯” (And You Must Take), 43, 70–71, 78–80, 154–58; “Kutilga” (You Shall Not Be Saved), 80–81, 159–61; “Nah.nu Junu¯du H . abı¯bina¯” (We Are the Army of Our Beloved), 90, 179–80; “Ninsal Kutonya Tidu¯ma” (A Human Being Cannot See Our Lord), 85–87, 172–73; “Nsab Nsabliŋo” (I Compose This Writing of Mine), 81–82, 162–63; “S.alli S.ala¯tan” (Send Blessings Upon), 87–88, 174–75; “TipaƔri Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni” (We Thank Our Lord), 88–89, 176–77 Afa Aliru Sabali (Khalid/Ali), 5 Afa Baba, 192n105 Afa Halawayhi, 15, 17 Afa Harun, 18 Afa Husayn Saʿı¯d Jarjaa, 30 Afa Iddris (Mba Iddi), 11 Afa Iddris Abdul-Hamid (Afa Iddrisu Bila), 15, 18, 30 Afa Iddrisu Zei (Sayyiduna Ali), 11 Afa Issah, 18 Afa Mahamma (Ŋampir-kurli), 15 Afa Muhammad Awwal ʿUthman, 30 Afa Muhammad Mukhtar Ahmad (Afa Muktar), 18, 29–30 Afa Muhammad Sabri, 17

“Afa Nim Za¯sa Nin Binya” (All Clerics Have Not Seen: Against Wird), 83–84, 168–69 Afa Saʿid. See Afa Seidu (Shaykh Saʿid Abubakr Zakariyya Ibrahim) Afa Salih Iddris, 30 Afa Salisu, 15, 18 Afa Seidu (Shaykh Saʿid Abubakr Zakariyya Ibrahim), x–xi, 4, 13–14, 15, 17, 18, 28, 29, 34, 35, 69, 70, 79, 102n102, 192n105 Afa Sibawayh, 15, 18 Afa Sulayman Abdul-Rahman Nabila, 18, 30, 193n107 Afa Sulayman Mahmud (Afa Sul-bila), 15, 18 Afa Tanko, 29 Afa Umar, 15 Afa Usman (Afa Asim-nyinbuŋa), 11 Afa ʿUthman ʿAbdul-Karim, 30 Afa Yahya Abdul-Rahman (Shafiq), 30 Afa Yahya Muhammad Hafiz, 30 Afa Yakubu Kaʾlikaʾli, 33–34 Afa Yusuf Iddris (Afa ToƔma), 30 Afa Zakraiyya ʿUmar, 30 “Afa Za¯ ŊunpaƔ Nyu BuƔli” (Any Person Who Allows His Wife to Drink the Potion for Exorcism), 4, 49, 76–78, 144–53 “Afanim Tola Ayirmo” (The Clerics Have Gone Wild), 90–93 Afro-Islam, 2, 63 Ahmad Ali Mubarak, 29 Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯, 55–57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 68, 83, 87, 89 Ahmad Muhammad, 27 Ahmadu Bello, 219n15 Ah.za¯b wa awra¯d (Groups and Litanies), 55 Aʾisha Adam (MpaƔa Ashetu), 3 Ajuraism (Ajura¯wiyyah), ix–x, 1–2, 11, 31, 88. See also Munchirism Ajuraists/Munchiri, 2, 39, 54, 63, 70, 86, 90, 92 Alhaj Haruna Iddrisu, 24, 191n90

Index Alhaj Mikaila, 11 Alhaj Muhammad Kobilnabli, 193–94n125 Alhaj Mumuni Iddi DC, 33, 81 Alhaj Muntaqa, 90–93, 198n231 Alhaj Mustapha Ali, 23–24 Alhaj ʿUmar, 29 Alhaj Umar of Kete-Krachi (al-Salgawi), 5–6, 32, 55, 84, 187n26 Alhaj Umar WarboƔu, 15 Alhaj Yahya Iddi, 81, 219n3 ʿAli al-H . ara¯zim, 59, 61 Al-Ifa¯d.a al-ah.madiyya (Statements from Ah.mad), 56 al-Jı¯la¯ni, Abdul Qa¯dir, ix alwanka lady, 37–38, 206n112 Amiru, Mba, 11 analogy, 215n2 Anbariyya Islamic Institute, 2, 23, 223n2 (poem 15). See also Anbariyya Islamic School Anbariyya Islamic School, 223n2 (poem 15); beginning and expansion, 14–19; construction of, 23–24; curriculum, 18, 26–27, 190–91n81; Middle Eastern teachers, new campus, and scholarships, 19–31; Nyanshegu campus, 21; scholarships to Islamic University, 29–30. See also Anbariyya Islamic Institute Anbariyya Sunni Community, 223n2 (poem 15) ancestral spirits, x, 2, 81, 214n38 “Ansari Ma¯na” (He Who Mocks), 78–90, 178 Asma¯ Muhammad, 27 awara¯d. See wird (awara¯d) Awolowo, Jeremiah Oyeniyi, 220n18 Azande people, 46 Azikiwe, Benjamin Nnamdi, 230n17 backbiting, 207nn125–26 Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa, 220n16 Buhjilli, Mba, 15 Bukari Mawla, ix, 7, 84–85

227

“Bukari Mawla” (A Eulogy), 7, 79, 84–85 Bulsa (Builsa) tribe, 204n80 “Catapilla,” 91–92 Catholic church, 42 charms (talismans) and amulets, 9, 36, 51 children: education for, 12, 14, 223n3; fostering/adopting, 12–14, 189n54, 189n60 ChoƔnaa Mahama, 9–10 Convention People’s Party, 82 Dagati tribe, 204n78 Dagomba tribe, x, 1, 2, 3, 73; approach to witchcraft, 46; historiography of, 3; wedding practices of, 36 “Damba Digoli” (Damba Month), 31–32, 71–72, 91, 97–98 dancing, in wedding practices, 37, 40 Day of Judgment, 41–42 divination, x, 1 Divine Flood, 56 divorce, 77–78 “Dolya Tidu¯ma Ka Doli Anabŋo” (Follow Our Lord and This Prophet), 82–83, 164–67 “Dolya Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni Ŋun Namtiŋo” (Our Lord God, The Sole Creator, You Must Obey), 75–76, 137–43 “Dunya BinshaƔkam Dina¯ra” (Everything in This World Shall Perish), 4, 5, 32, 35, 38, 39, 52–53, 72–75, 99–136 education: for adults, 12; in Arabic languages, 17, 18, 20, 24–25; for children, 12, 14, 223n3; in English, 21–22; Islamic University (Medina), 28, 29–30; Manhaliyya Islamic School, 18–19; Nahdah Islamic School, 192n105; Nuriyya Islamic School, 18, 22, 27; in Qurʾanic schools, 16–17; Qurʾanic study, 7–8, 188n39; in Saudi Arabia, 29–30, 192n105. See also Anbariyya Islamic Institute; Anbariyya Islamic School

228

Index

enlightenment, 57 esotericism, 69, 86, 198n217 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 46 exorcisms, 36, 47–48, 50, 76–77, 186–87n16 “Fa Khudhu¯” (And You Must Take), 43, 70–71, 78–80, 154–58 Fatima, 62 Foreman, Mba, 33, 34 fornication, 78 fostering/adopting, 12–14, 189n54, 189n60 Frafra tribe, 204n78 Fuʾa¯d Alfı¯, 29 funeral practices, x, 1–2, 36, 80–81, 88, 211n230, 216n24, 218nn5–6; collection of money by clerics, 44; contributions of gifts and money by family, 45–46; funeral crying and singing, 206n121, 221n23; innovation in, 40–48; preparing body for burial, 44; procession to cemetery, 43; recitation from the Qur’an, 41–44; recitation of Dala¯ʾil al-Khayra¯t (The Index of Good Things), 43; role of Muslim clerics, 40–42 Fus.u¯s. al-h.ikam (Bezels of Wisdom), 68 Futu¯h.a¯t al-makkiyyah (Meccan Revelations), 68 Gautama Buddha, 57 Ghana Education Service (GES), 21–22, 199n241 Ghana Education Trust Fund (GET Fund), 23, 191n89 God: forgiveness and promise of Paradise from, 69; glorification of, 218n26; obedience to, 33–34, 44, 81, 83; as Omnipotent, 9, 75; seeking mercy of, 81; Tija¯niyyah claim to “see,” 85–86 Gukpenaa Alasani, 64, 66 Gumdilana, Mba, 33, 34 Hadith: influence on Afa Ajura’s poetry, 72–73, 87; litanies not found in, 84;

obedience to, 83; quoting from, 61–62; strict adherence to, 2; trusted books, 213nn14–18; used by Afa Ajura in debate, 64–65 Hajia Hajara, 194n129 Hajia Naziha, 193n107 Hamdalah, Mma (Mbe Anda), 15–16 Hanan Muhammad, 20 H . anbali Islam, 2 Ha¯nı¯ Abdul-Baqi, 25 heresy, 58, 194n139 Ibn al-ʿArabı¯, 68, 86 Ibn Taymiyyah, 32 Ibrahim Abdullah Niasse, ix, 31, 55–59, 60, 70, 71, 78–79, 83–84, 88, 89, 93–94, 213n34, 127n17 Ibrahim Mahama, 4 Ibra¯hı¯miyyah Sufism, ix, 55, 71 idol worship, 3, 78 illumination, 59 Imoro/Imoru Egala, 219n13 innovations: in funeral practices, 40–48; in Islam 32; Islamic divination as, 52; religious, 3; in wedding practices, 36–40 Islam: five pillars of, 73, 87; in Ghana, ix–xi, 2, 8, 28, 70, 88; “innovation” in, 32; in Senegal, ix; Shiʿa, 52; Sunni, 52, 217n3. See also Tija¯niyyah Sufism Islamic African Center (Khartoum), 26 Islamic divination (tibbu), x, 1–2, 50–54, 73, 78, 80, 196n165, 205n107, 216n23, 218n4; Afa Ajura’s opposition to, 51–54; as innovation, 52; practiced by Afa Ajura, 8–11, 13, 50–51 Islamic University (Medina), 28, 29–30 Issah Iddris (Afa Issah Moro), 15 Jagbo Doo, 11 Jama¯ʿat al-fayd.a (Community of the Divine Flood), 55

Index Jawa¯hir al-Maʿa¯nı¯ (Gems of Indications), 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 63 Jawzau Mma, 15 Karnaa Ziblim, 13 Kobo, Ousman M., 7 Kojo Botsio, 219n14 Kufuor, John Agyekum, 23 “Kutilga” (You Shall Not Be Saved), 80–81 Limam Tahiriu (Imam Tahir), 5 litanies, 58, 83, 83–84, 87, 221n3; in Jawa¯hir al-Maʿa¯nı¯, 57; obligatory and nonobligatory, 58–59; revelation of, 62; S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih., 59–60; special, 59; of spiritual training, 59 Luther, Martin, 42 Madrasat al-ʿAnbariyyah al-Isla¯miyyah. See Anbariyya Islamic School Ma¯lik ibn Anas, 75 Mallam Abdullai Maikano, 28, 63–71 Mallam Adam Baba, 6 Mallam Alhassan Salaga, 5–6 Mallam al-Shingiti, 17 Mallam Aminu Kano, 220n19 Mallam Basha. See Mallam Ibrahim Basha (Duktur Bayan) Mallam Fari (Abdul-Rahman), 9, 10–11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 91–92 Mallam Gadal, 6 Mallam Ibrahim Basha (Duktur Bayan), 17–18, 22, 27, 28, 29, 90, 199n241 Mallam Iddris, 17 Mallam Mahmu¯d, 29 Mallam Mufti, 192n105 Mallam Muhammad Dan Jı¯gala, 6 Mallam Rashad Muhammad, 193–94n125 Mallam Sahmuddı¯n, 6, 7 Mallam Sa¯ni, 91 Mallam Sodanji, 7–8 Mallam Sulayman (Dr. Sulayman), 192n105

229

Manhaliyya Islamic School, 18–19 Mawlid celebrations, 8, 31, 201n22 migration, 73–74 Mohammad Saani Ibrahim, 90–92 Moshi tribe, 204n79 Muhammad (Prophet): birth of, 199n3; blessings upon, 59, 65; companions and family of, 62; genealogy of, 71–72, 199n5, 200n7, 200nn14–16; Ah.mad al-Tija¯nı¯’s claim of visitation by, 56–57, 60–61, 65–66, 79, 83; obedience to, 33–34, 81, 83; prayer for, 58; supplication for, 90 Muhammad Ahmad al-T.awı¯l, 25–26 Muhammad al-Ghazali, 68 Muhammad Awwal Issah, 193n109 Muhammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab, 32 Muh.ammad Isma¯ʿı¯l al-Bukha¯rı¯, 65 Muhammad Khalifa, 56 Muhyiddin Ibn al-ʿArabı¯, 68 Mumuni, Mba, 11 Muna¯ Muhammad, 27 Munchiri. See Ajuraists/Munchiri Munchirism, x, 1–2. See also Ajuraism (Ajura¯wiyyah) Musa, Mba, 17 music and drumming, in wedding practices, 37, 40 Naa Ziblim (Karnaa Ziblim), 9 Naawuni nyarba, 39, 55, 63, 85 Nahdah Islamic School, 192n105 “Nah.nu Junu¯du H . abı¯bina¯” (We Are the Army of Our Beloved), 90, 179–80 Nana business, 47–50, 76–78, 196–97n16 National Democratic Congress (NDC), 24 New Patriotic Party (NPP), 23–24 Niasse, Ibrahim. See Ibrahim Abdullah Niasse Nigerian independence, 81–82 “Ninsal Kutonya Tidu¯ma” (A Human Being Cannot See Our Lord), 85–87 Nkrumah, Kwame, 2, 81–82, 93, 199n240

230

Index

“Nsab Nsabliŋo” (I Compose This Writing of Mine), 81–82, 162–63 Nuriyya Islamic School, 18, 22, 27, 192n105 Oppong, Christine, 12, 16 polytheism, 52 prayer: afternoon, 58, 203nn43–44; benefits of, 54–55; daily, 223n6; at dawn, 58, 203n47; nightly, 203n46; ritual, 65; at sundown, 203n45 Protestant Reformation, 42 Qa¯diriyyah Sufism, ix, 55 Qurʾan: esoteric wisdom in, 50–51, 67, 86; influence on Afa Ajura’s poetry, 72–73, 77–78, 87; litanies not found in, 84; obligatory practices described in, 60; quoting from, 33, 61–62, 86; recitation of, 26–27, 35, 41, 43–44, 50, 52; strict adherence to, 2; teaching of, 16, 24; used by Afa Ajura in debate, 64–65; used by Mallam Maikano in debate, 66 Qurʾanic schools, 16–17; Manhaliyya Islamic School, 18–19; Nuriyya Islamic School, 18, 22, 27. See also Anbariyya Islamic Institute; Anbariyya Islamic school Rawlings, Jerry John, 2, 81 Ray, Benjamin, 20 rites of passage, 3 sacrifices, 211n220 al-Sadat, Anwar, 27 S.ah.ı¯h. al-Bukha¯rı¯, 212n11 S.ala¯t al-fa¯tih., 62, 64, 65–68, 187n28, 193n119; translation, 197n193 S.ala¯t Ibra¯hı¯miyya, 64, 65 Salima, Mma, 16 “S.alli S.ala¯tan” (Send Blessings Upon), 87–88, 174–75 Samir, Shaykh, 28

Samwini, Nathan, 36, 40 Seesemann, Rudiger, 56, 57 Shaykh Muhammad, 20–21, 24, 27 Shiʿa Islam, 52 Siddiq Muhammad Siddiq, 25, 27, 30 Staniland, Martin, 4 Sualihu (Major), 94 Subaihata, Mma, 16 Sudanese delegation, 26 Sulaiman Mohammed, 26, 191–92n25 Sunnah, 2, 33; litanies not found in, 84; obligatory practices described in, 60. See also Hadith; Qurʾan Sunni Islam, 52, 217n3 syncretism, x, 1, 2, 3, 36 Tamim Abubakar, 193n108 tarbiya, 55, 58, 59, 83, 88 Tariq Muhammad, 20–21 tibbu. See Islamic divination (tibbu) Tija¯niyyah Sufism, ix–x, 1, 3, 55, 70; Afa Ajura’s dispute with, 6, 28–29, 35–36, 63; Afa Ajura’s teachers as adherents of, 6–7; dominant position of, 63; Ibra¯hı¯miyya (Niasse) branch, 55, 71; practicing Islamic divination, 52; wird (litany) of, 54–63. See also litanies “TipaƔri Tidu¯ma Na¯wuni” (We Thank Our Lord), 88–89, 176–77 Ustadh Abdul-Rahman, 18, 19 Ustadh Issah Bello, 18–19, 90, 190n74 Ustadh Usman Rashid, 17 Wahhabism, 2, 29, 36, 185n2, 193n121 wedding and marriage practices, x, 1–2, 73, 81, 88, 89–90; Afa Ajura’s success in eradicating, 39–40; alwanka lady’s instructions, 37–38, 206n112; ama¯na, marriage, 14; of the Dagombas, 37–38; drumming and dancing, 37; hiding by bride and attendants, 36–37, 206n113; innovation in, 36–40; marriage consum-

Index mation and ascertaining of virginity, 38–39, 205–6n111 wird (awara¯d), 54–63, 73, 79, 83–84, 89, 94, 187n28, 221n2, 221n4 witch hunters, 47–48 witchcraft, 46–50, 76–78; Afa Ajura’s response to, 48–50, 186–87n16, 195n158; handling suspicions of, 46–47 woli games, 207n127 women: accused of witchcraft, 46–50, 76–77, 186–87n16, 194n136, 195–96n162; Afa Ajura’s criticism of, 73; moral conduct of, 2; performing songs at wed-

231 dings, 89; seclusion of, 20, 25, 191n85, 212n232; separate classrooms for, 21 See also wedding and marriage practices

Yaa Naa Alhassan, 4 Yakubu, B.A., 28, 67 Yakubu Kobe, Mba, 47–48 Yakubu Savelugu, Mbe, 15 Yoruba tribe, 18 Yunus, Shaykh, 28 Zaynab Muhammad, 27 Z.iha¯r divorce, 77–78