On The Question Of Women Leadership in Islam

The online world was awash with news from Taraba State over the argument about the legality of women in Islam taking up top leadership position.

I sometimes come into conflict with some interpretations put forth by some scholars. 

We have an Islamic school for adults, organized to hold once in a week. The Sheik is a prominent Sunni scholar. Some of us often have conflict with some of his interpretations. 

You may ask: Are you Sunni and yet you have problems with Hadiths from Sahih Bukhari. Isn’t it contradiction? True Sunni adherent will always submit his flawed thinking and intellect wholeheartedly and unconditionally in the face of Qur’an or Hadith.  

I can understand where you are coming from. I am strongly believer in Kutibus Sitta as authentic and genuine. But many a scripture is revealed metaphorically. If you dismiss this fact, you will only have a troubling literal meaning.

I never challenge the authenticity of, nor feel that some, Sahaba have questionable characters and all they reported is doomed to be false like some “fringe of Muslims believe.” The Sahaba are not wholly, are not infallible. They are human like everyone and therefore can err out of imperfection. Yet, as a bulwark against any possible folly thinking and unnecessary allegation, God Almighty, weighing their good deeds against their mistakes, has forgiven their shortcomings.

Remember, I may also have different reality with you. That’s why I have to disagree with some certain views. 

I could remember one incident that stands vividly in my head over family planning debate.

Our Sheik was quoting verse and Hadiths and we were quoting defense proof from reason and logic, shaped by our reality.

I asked the Sheik:

Mallam what about hundreds of starving children roaming our street?

What about the almajiris created by over-population?

What about millions of children out of school?

Our roads and streets are contaminated with human squalor and excreta. What do you have to say about that?

The Sheik does not want to add to the already existing mass human problem. At about 30+, he is unmarried, a reality which is not unconnected with harshly living condition, legacy of modernity.

The religious injunctions are still intact and unassailable. Women are not as strong as men, are emotional and have a lot of family responsibilities. Yeah, really, this brings out the compassion and consideration Islam has for female.

Now, we have to agree that the compassion and consideration of Islam is in view of physical structure, with female having less sturdy physique, and also in respect of the harsh climate condition of the Arab of the then, the shackles and hardship of primitive war, trekking scorching deserts to engage the enemy face-to-face with swords and spears.

In our times, wars are fought through virtual means. With bank of presses and buttons, irrespective of who is inside the control room, a whole empire can be destroyed. 

Top leadership can only use their skills and talent to get things done through a chain of hierarchy.  This is why we have a college course called Public Administration, teaching organizational, coordination and management skills.

Technology has made a world made of glass. In running modern governments and state, physical strengths matter very little, brain not brawny matter. 

Because of the passage of time, the Hadith must not be taken too literal and therefore can be subjected to what is called asbabun-nuzur, reasons, background and contexts of revelation. Although any religion is rooted on dogma, yet dogmatism is beyond reason, logic and science which are still incapable of understanding certain things, beginning from the earliest time of western philosophy through contemporary post humanism.

The reason we ask question is because of what we call public disputation. You must depend what you said. So, when someone says something, we have to examine his utterances to correct some inconsistencies and contradictions. It is not blasphemy against, contempt for or disbelief in the scriptures. It is openness since Islam is not a cult or mafia organization.

If you interpret it this way, that nations whose heads are female will not prosper.” Can you offer explanation for the reason holding back Nigeria, a nation that God blessed with greatest men of gods hovering around the area of pastor-politicians deeply involved in illegal arms dealings? What do you have to say about nations that have female leadership and continue to prosper?

Somebody can say “Duniya kurkun muminini ce.” God doesn’t mean that. This is laziness and an escape to despair and defeatism and inferiority complex. God is not discriminatory. You can’t say some countries prosper despite women leadership on the basis of the test of faith. I can only accept the narrative that blames our backwardness characteristically on political leadership.

This is what I would call grand contradiction, and according to the 13^th century Platonist and theologian, Ibn Rushd, Jews Rabbi and thinker, Solomon Ben Yahoda Ibn Gabirol and early church fathers such as St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, when a crisis arises between religion and logic, it is as a result of the interpreter’s inaccurate use of logic or incorrect use of reason. When pragmatism is understood, things would always balance out.

Smartphone, Digerati, Smart Mob: Home Work For DSP Magaji Musa Majiya

Smartphone, Digerati, Smart Mob: Home Work For DSP Magaji Musa Majiya

When a man sets on the path to infamy, you can only bid him may his road be smooth. If he pauses in the sane community to define the people as birds of the same feather, it’s duty-bound for those who can see through him to beat some senses into his head. If he wants to take them in as a collective fools, it is equally a fundamental responsibility to check his excess and shame him.

On October 23, 2015, a police officer ran over an old woman while driving on hard drug. The officer was on anti-Daba squad, a special team set up to check narcotics and thug activities around Kano metropolis.

Bystanders and the officer came to lift her off for hospital.  At the foot of the vehicle, overpowered by drugs, the officer let her limp body fall down. On the way, before reaching the hospital, the woman died.

Dead certain he is dealing with helpless citizens, police spokesperson at Bompai Headquarters,  DSP Magaji Musa Majiya, appeared on the media to debunk eyewitness account claiming that the officer was not speeding on hard drugs. “Only medical doctors can explain whether he was on narcotics or not,” he said.

Majiya, have you said this? Sure, there is some sense in your argument, never minding that it is a lie. Of all the daily experiences and encounters, common sense dictates that people will be able to distinguish a drunken when they see one. It isn’t brain surgery.

Since you have left your brain somewhere, the following questions await you:

When your boys go out on operation, do they take people they arrested first to the hospital for medical examination before charging them of illegal drug use? Why changing the rule at the middle of the game?

It isn’t a shame for Majiya, the supposedly custodian of law, to give cover to murderers. 

He goes to the media any time there is a cloud hovering over his boys’ heads to defend them. In July last year, he came out publicly and defended officers who chased a man, fell down off his vehicle and died as a result. This creates doubts whether officers with criminal charges will ever be prosecuted.

What DSP Majiya has said about the murder of the old woman is simply an attempt to suppress the truth. To claim this, he is simply bragging the level of impunity at which he operates. Only a man with primordial mind can blissfully ignore the power of smartphone and attempt to deny a crime perpetrated publicly.  This betrays the pace at which Majiya is descending into retrogression and darkness. But Majiya risked himself and emerged as a winner. Nobody captured the incident.

One can as well be baffled. What Majiya meant when he said only medical doctors can confirm if the officer used narcotics?

His hope was that relying solely on words from medical doctors would automatically give him a room to influence the outcome of their findings. This would defeat any claim put forth by the public.

Majiya is also investing in people’s misery to think that there will be no sophisticated equipment in hospitals. But without medical examination, it is no-brainer to tell apart a clear-headed from inebriated, except for a blockhead like himself.

He is also certain nobody would follow up the case even if the said officer was to be found guilty. Later, I heard that the victim’s family had given up and blamed everything to God.

These disturbing developments show that we really need to have a more vibrant online community and smart mob in place to smoke the Lilliputian dunce from his cave so that he won’t keep trying to fool us again and again. There is as well a daunting task of making our people understand that speeding on hard drug that claims human life is not destiny. It is negligence and disregard for human life and evidence of great contempt for the country’s law by the custodian of the law themselves. Since the crime is perpetrated by the law enforcers, the punishment must be harsher and stricter in return.

I am a strong believer in mysticism, so I have to believe that minds connect. A lot of people doubt whether Majiya has the basic ability of comprehending simple logic, especially when he is so allergic to taking his ass a bit on a journey to basic reason underlined by the insolence such as what he did.

Upon chancing up such encounters, one always feels compelled to call into question the psychological wiring and qualification of these idiots. But I must concede that Majiya had attended school before he joined the service. Only that he dropped out at the beginning of the sanity lane. It is not assumption; it is concrete evidence because every so often I can hear him struggle with press release on radio. What I am not sure about is the invisible man who keeps him under rigorous training and rehearsal before he comes public to embarrass himself.

Since you insist you are ignorant, as a man who likes teaching absolute beginners, one must take heart and assist his fellow countryman. And one must do this in spirit of brotherhood. 

Me:  Are you aware we are in information age?

DSP: What does that mean?

Me: How many books have you read?

DSP: Five

Me: Pardon? (Cringing in shock)

DSP:  I said five. Baba da Inna, Buri, Labarin Zuciya, Sugar Girl, Rai Dangin Goro and Amina the Pampered Girl.

Me: Now you are going to translate these words into Hausa: Cup, aero-plane, orange.

DSP: Kofi

Me: Ehen

DSP: Jirgin sama

Me: Ehen

DSP: Lemo

Clap for yourself, I wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it over to DSP and asked him to pronounce it.  

“Dìgə raatee” DSP said confidently. “What does it mean?”

Me:  Let’s finish with the pronunciation first before we come to that. Look at the transcription, [dìjjə ratee].

 

There are a lot of roforofo learning centers in town. You can enroll in one to improve your reading skills. If you are so lucky, you can be like Wole Soyinka or Ibrahim Bello-Kano in just four months. But for the meaning of the word, I leave that as your home work.

There is additional book I want you to read: Smart Mob: The Next Social Revolution.

I won’t talk to you again until 2019. Make sure you do the assignment before we meet.

The Wearer Knows Best Where The Shoe Pinches

 

What do you think of a woman who seeks divorce from her husband because he would make her stupid and she won’t tolerate it?

I was in an eatery with my employer when a conversation broke between him and a woman. She was telling him how she separated from her husband. She stopped him when he wanted to make her stupid as an educated woman.

Because women are always expected to be submissive, someone can say where this woman would find peace outside of her husband’s room? One can say she is arrogant.

Then I ponder alone in my mind that women are also humans like everyone. They can be sad, happy and can have taste, like and dislike. There is nothing wrong when a woman goes in pursuit of her happiness.

There are men who divorce their wives on account of being sad in their relationship. Then, do we think women are robots and have no feelings?  

I asked my friend one day if he could live with a woman whom he realized snored the first night of their marriage. He firmly answered in negative, he could not, even if she would be the only woman on earth.

For a woman, getting out of marriage on account of a snoring husband would attract harsh criticisms. But if she would be accorded basic human status, she would go for a choice that would make her happy and fulfilled. If only she could find her peace outside the marriage, she should be assisted in achieving her aspiration.

But a lot of people choose to subject women to untold agony.

It is injustice to view a person negatively for trudging a path that will bring them peace. We should not see this woman from the negative angle when she chose to get out of marriage she felt the husband was making her stupid. The woman was honest and sincere. If she clung to the marriage, she could have ended up depressed.

Depressed people are those who have a tad of miserable life that can result into debilitating mood disorder. Dismissing the concerns of this woman and many others like her is injustice.  The fact that living in sad condition or mental illness doesn’t receive the same sympathy as physical illness, makes her the only person as sufferer who can feel the real pain. It cannot be shown to another person or where surgery will be applied. It is a disease even the doctor could not understand.

Imagine living with a boring partner? Imagine living with such person as your wife. How would you feel at all? So if depression doesn’t spare men why should it spare women? 

One of the problems of the mental instability is that it prevents one from thinking and behaving normally. The sufferer’s thinking is quite different from the non-sufferer’s. They feel their self-worthy is low, miserable and bleak that they feel getting out of such situation is the only solution. And because the non-sufferer is watching from a safe distance, it is easy to accuse such women when they seek divorce. Sometimes if they continue in such marriage it results into odious; suicide or mariticide.

From commonsensical prism, insisting such woman should stay in the marriage, from the sufferer’s point of view, gripped by sadness, is like insisting a man with broken leg to walk normally. I heard the woman later in the discussion say the most regrettable thing she had ever made in her life was marrying the man.

Sincerely, it is a good idea she walked out of the relationship.

Confession

Confession

I have a confession. But please, don’t tell anybody. If you feel troubled, ease your conscience. I beg you to tell the person you are revealing this secret to that they should not tell it to another person all over again. If they should do, warn them to tell the person not further blabber it out. 

Here is my story.

My name is Feisal and my wife’s name is Zinaria. Our names are given to us with the hopes that we would bear their glory.

Before I got married, I walked around the streets of my area in shorts and singlet. Thirty years after, with age and children, there are many things I could not do now. I’ve gone bald and the remaining patches of hair in my head have already turned grey. Whisker, beard, goatee and moustache have grown all over my face. My grandchildren called me buzuzu!

Thank God. In spite of age, there are many who nothing has changed.

Long time ago I met Zinaria. She bore the glory of her name, cute, immaculate and spotless. Her cornrows were neatly plaited and tucked, sprawling down her nape. Her nails impeccably manicured and her toes pedicured, eyelashes carefully decorated. Throughout the years of our courtship, I had never seen a stain in her.

Zinaria was an angel. Her cuteness beat me. Whatever she touched felt wonderful on my tongue. She once gave me water and it was like honey.

I was always sweet and immaculate as well. She had never seen me repeat clothings. I wore new ones on every Friday I was to visit her. Because she was living at Kofar Nassarwa, I never risked going around Gwale in an outfit I visited her the previous day. I carried myself with extra-care and behaved very meticulously. Always on my guard, never did anything embarrassing.

We never let ourselves find faults in ourselves. Cleanliness and spotlessness were our watchwords and natural endowments and the promises we’d keep when we got married. Anytime we met, I told her that she smelt better than me.

First weeks of our marriage, she cooked delicious food and brought it in a small china dish the size I used to eat from when I was visiting her. I went hungry for some days. Later, I told her to increase my fill.

She was baffled.

One month into our marriage, I abandoned the habit of wearing new clothes already. I could wear anything now.  It was a rude shock for her to see me in untidy apparel.

From her part, things were equally opening up gradually. The only thing that stayed a bit longer was waking up early from bed. I had never seen her in a crumpled shape. Until one day, she was too late in bed. Since then, she no longer felt shy or embarrassed.

As time went by, the notion of her perfection was rapidly dispelled. She was just ordinary person like everyone. When I began to shout order at her, it was unbelievable. Me? I had never imagined shouting at my little angel that I was doing everything to please.

This was the girl I was hiding almost everything from and she was concealing her true self from me.

Both of us no longer bothered to appear meticulously neat and to impress each other. Familiarity brought out the reality in us and made us see our nakedness.

The promise of daily cuteness was never kept.

We were not inherently filthy.

It was too cumbersome.

The everydayness of life.