Islamic Renewal, Radio, and the Surface of Things

Abstract

In 1992 when the Nigerian cleric Sheikh Abubakar Gumi died he left behind him the Salafi inspired group, Izala,¹ one of the most dynamic and influential religious movements in West Africa. Scholarly analyses of Gumi, Izala’s intellectual leader, have portrayed him as a quintessentially modern religious figure.² Colonially educated, cosmopolitan, the first major Muslim cleric to use new media technologies, Gumi redefined religious practice in Nigeria, not just for his own adherents but for his Sufi and Christian opponents. The modernity of religious renewal movements often refers to a sense of rupture from previous traditions a rupture that is asserted by those movements to define their difference and distinction. In this chapter I wish to inquire into what exactly it is that is modern about Gumi and why this is claimed by both his adherents and detractors. How might we understand the causes of this phenomenon and the forces that drive it? What does this tell us about religious movements more generally?