A Sheik Beyond God and Muhammad

Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

An old secret has recently started coming out of the closet with the rise of ‘Hakika’ ideology of the Tijjaniya sect. Many scholars from other sects have questioned the actual meaning of the ideology while some clerics of the Tijjaniya sect maintained that their belief is correct only that their overzealous supporters demonstration of the practices disproportionately is going beyond the boundary of the value of the sect, and therefore are regarded miscreant.

The charges are that Tijjaniya has given ultimate relevance and regards to their Sheik above the prophet (PBUH) and to a larger extent, they elevate the Sheik to God’s position and sometimes even beyond. Against public chastisements, some clerics of the sect began pillorying the charges while others remained mute. For those who talk, whether they mean what they are saying  or not, we Muslims have all believed that it’s a grave blasphemy to compare prophet with ordinary human being in terms of character and divine miracles and endowments, relevance, regards and esteem. What we are seeing on the daily basis is that whenever a rank and file of the sect commits such sacrilege to say Sheik Inyass is more than prophet, or God or that he can forgive sin of his followers, some hierarchies of the group come publicly to condemn the blasphemy. but the public condemnation is many at times just an act, the group might in some subterranean ways be supportive and adherent of the Hakika ideology. For those who kept silent, we can detect their meaning in some ways while others who have spoken might just remain apologists.

Few among those who can go public to decry such acts is one Isyaka Rabi’u, a wealthy Tijjaniya Sheik in Kano. Before his death, Aliyu Harazimi had been accused of complicity to offer a hideout for the members who blasphemed to evade facing trial. Supposedly, he and other powers behind the sect had clandestinely masterminded the release of one evil singer named Taka. The religious singer in question, known for his profane songs against the prophet and God, was banned from singing publicly in Kano by the Hisbah Board. Some community organizations were formed to control the monster. But even after the ban, Taka had continued to perform his blasphemous songs unperturbed knowing that he has the weights and supports of some clerics behind him.

In his songs he reveals the core and essential values of the ideology which some peripheral and apologist members who might be uninformed naively rejected, on the ground that a Muslim of any sect could not say this. Unbelievable! When first I heard about the Hakika ideology, I thought it was just a framing by other opposing sects to paint the Tijjaniya and their Sheiks black, until recently when some untamed and overzealous followers felt that it has been high times for everyone to know about the essential beliefs of the Dariqa. After all this is what they have been indoctrinated by their Sheiks,  and as devoted believers, why still hiding it? Aren’t they right? They might feel. Some followers might naively suspect some leaders of cowardice who might prevent them from disclosing the ideology to the larger society especially to non-members, for some reasons the top Sheiks believe would definitely  generate public detestation and bitter intellectual polemics and castigation against the sect, reason which might earlier on have prevented   the hierarchy from bluntly informing their followers the true values of the movement. Fears of being faced with public outrage and disrepute, the leaders have been keeping secret from the all and sundry.

Fed with misinformation and somewhat misleading, with the accrued naivety of being right and the genuine devotion, headlong people like Taka who have seen no wrong in their belief started popularizing it which at first people were very shocked and aghast before they all learnt that of course this is the core values and true motive  of Hakika, documented in the books of Ibrahim Inyass, the spirit of the movement who transmitted his belief to the hierarchy and their supporters. For anybody who doesn’t believe in it, he is actually uninformed.

In this movement, followers must commit sins, adultery, skipping of salats: nothing is something for without sins how would one be forgiven? This is why some of the middle Sheiks who are running Dala’ilu schools lure young girls into bonking. During the day of Judgement, they are misled to believe that their Sheik, Inyass, would come with a spacious  pocket to carry his followers across the paradise. Other beliefs are that everything is God: dog, donkey and ball, just everything! Inyass is God and the followers must believe that they worship the Sheik not Allah and even if they worship Allah it is not for reward or punishment. What is the use of paradise or the fear fro the hell since they have the Sheik to salvage them? They attribute God’s exquisite qualities to the Sheik: Inyass is the giver of life, of wealth, the all-knowing who knows the knowing even before knowledge existed! The Gaus and Giyas.  If asked to explain how, they reply that one just can’t understand. It is a knowledge intuitively revealed to a person who has attained certain spiritual position and has sheer devotion and strong conviction. It is knowledge not all heads, unexplainable. All they want to mean is their  knowledge is built literally beyond normal human comprehension!

I never give a hoot to such gathering storm. Islamic clerics have issued fatwah renouncing this as shirk and for anybody with half brain cannot buy this idea. 

Anyway,  much as they could not  convince me with concrete proof from Qur’an and Hadith or using commonsense and reasoning, I still won’t criticize the belief, i know where I place them, they are entitled of their freedom of thoughts and expression. Only that I always wonder how such unsubstantiated assertions and dogmatic beliefs have made it to this age of knowledge. In this world where new discovery is always found and by a minute it will be rendered thing of the past by new development in the science world, the idea of incomprehensive knowledge should not exist. Anybody saying that there is knowledge incomprehensible is by self-definition evidently an incomprehensible ignorant. If you cannot explain the reason and logic of the depth of the literariness of your Sheik, then your shoddy claim for exceptional knowledge has collapsed. You should be ashamed of yourself to tell claim a theory you cannot explain. Sheik is everything, everything is God and upon asked for explanation you give reason that not all heads could understand. You are regurgitating around one point. Dogmaticality is dinosaur.

The wind of Hakaik ideology has swept many of the youths. Some of them have honestly joined  onboard very faithful to the movement, deceived by the top leadership without knowledge of its true motives, hoping that in the hereafter they would cultivate a huge reward. While some are just fun-seekers who are very willing to join every trendy in the society to enjoy the offer of laxity and re-laxation given by the movement, and some are trouble-makers who enjoy having upsetting others. I don’t care which is one’s motives  or door or window one gets through the Dariqa, for to me and many right-thinking Muslims, such beliefs contradict the fundamental values of Islam, upholding respect for the Prophet.

I was having a talk with some guy who believed in Hakika ideology telling me that he himself was a God and everything was also God. I got  composed, suspecting that he could be one to be a deliberate upsetter, and did not approach him in a combative way, or with any intention of  disputing him in the same baseless way he presented his beliefs. I pointed to a car that came to pass-by and asked him if the car too was a God. He answered yes. Then I asked him if the ball he kicked in the soccer field was also a God. He felt dumbstruck, temporarily speechless, tittering on the brink of indecision while processing the question in his mind. I read from his countenance that certainly he believed that anything was God but skeptical whether ball was also God because it was too much downgrading and insulting!

Belief in anything is a freedom that individual has and must enjoy. But forcing it on others is an encroachment on their  rights. Believers in Tijjaniya find comforts in disturbing others by chanting their incantation loudly through the mic from their mosque or turning their speakers to the maximum volume anytime they are holding event. Quite encroaching and disturbing is how the blasphemous verse would keep flying recklessly through the air to the ears of others who constitute the majority and don’t share similar beliefs. Words that are blasphemous, destructive and damaging to the dignity of Allah and His prophet. Actually, this could endanger the peace among the citizens as the provocation could easily rouse the ire of some local residents. This encroachment is of course constitutionally wrong, and is a violation to the serenity of the peaceful atmosphere as the songs causes irritating noise in the environment. Islamically it is offence to disturb another person’s tranquility especially during night time when they much need quietness.

A day to the Eid Fitr during one of the gatherings of the Hakika, the local followers organized a song event to welcome the upcoming Sallah festival. They  openly set loose their blaring speakers out of proportion and inconsiderately spewing out such venom of the sacrilegious songs. It’s been quite exasperating to the peace of the atmosphere and provoking to others who held contrary views.

A neighbor who was not buying the idea came out to stop the ongoing occasion. He just could not tolerate hearing such evil verses razing through his ears against the sanctity and dignity of Allah. First, the songs were very damaging and abusive, and second they were disturbing his family. They were performing right close to his home. He did not ambush them or rudely approach them. In a civil     way, he informed the police about it for such abusive songs might cause trouble for publicly insulting the holiest icon of Islam.

He asked them to stop it but they refused.  In the meantime, some of them had attempted to assault him. He politely reported them to the police who came for the public good and dispersed the gathering and took way the speakers and other equipments, since it was illegal playing such songs issued by the security agencies in the state, because not everyone could tolerate such abusive words against their scared beliefs. He came out ranting and steaming against the Sheik since it was the Sheik the cause of abuse against the prophet.  To me, Ibrahim Inyass a Senegalese with flattened nose who could not show any book as his intellectual contribution to Islam is just like any Tom, Dick and Harry.

The organizers regrouped after the police left to lynch Malam Yusuf  who was only saved by his neighbours. Malam Yusuf returned to his family to begin preparation ahead of the the Eid celebration the following morning.  Minutes later, a wagon of police came and whisked him away. Somebody among the organizers had contacted the daughter of the Sheik to report that somebody had insulted her father who later called Isyaka Rabi’u to tell him about it. Those who control Naira control direction. As a wealthy man and influential figure, Isyaka had ordered the arrest of Malam Yusuf who was detained extra-judiciously in prison cell to celebrate his Sallah in company of lice and mosquitoes and more worst, the police torture!

We now understand that Mr. Rabi’u’s public pronouncement against the ideology is just a cover-up. Everyone gets to know that there are some Muslims who prefer a Sheik to prophet, who cannot wince but shrug at the hearing of insults directed against the prophet. Those Muslims who order the arrest of anybody who tries to protect the dignity of Allah and His prophet have strong believed in this ideology that claim Sheik is God. Here we have a Sheik beyond God and Muhammad!

Truth has no substitute! You cannot play double life for long. The discreet and true belief of Isyaka Rabi’u is coming out of the closet. Unthinking act of him, interfering of the Sheik to arrest Malam Yusuf is an embarrassment of the old guy!

03/10/2014