Abstract
To sufficiently understand the interplay of Christianity, Islam, and British colonial authorities in colonial northern Nigeria, it is necessary to appreciate the undercurrents guiding that relationship. As Andrew E. Barnes correctly pointed out, the British colonial administration, established under the stewardship of Sir Frederick Lugard, operated in the north with the false assumption that Islam is by default the religion of the people, albeit the presence of traditionalists was evident. In the opinion of British administrators, the non-Muslim indigenous people would become Muslims eventually.1 Therefore, based on the stratagem to sustain this assumption, Lugard pledged to the Sultan of Sokoto the commitment of the British administrators to protect the Muslims of the north from Christian proselytization. Invariably, Lugard and subsequent colonial administrators ensured the protection of this pledge, which by implication suggested that Christian mission and activities of missionaries were not required in northern Nigeria. Moreover, as Barnes explained, the British administrators wished to avert the repeat of producing “denationalized Africans”2 and promote a truly African-styled civilization already underway through Islamization in the region.
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Notes
Andrew E. Barnes, “‘The Great Prohibition’: The Expansion of Christianity in Colonial Northern Nigeria,” History Compass 8, no. 6 (2010): 441.
Jan Harm Boer, Missionary Messengers of Liberation in a Colonial Context: A Case Study of the Sudan United Mission (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi N.V., 1979), 205ff.
Also see E. A. Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis (London: Longmans, 1966), 117–152.
For a more comprehensive analysis of the exploration of these two German explorers in the Muri Mountains, see Jörg Adelberger, “Eduard Vogel and Eduard Robert Flegel: The Experiences of Two Nineteenth-Century German Explorers in Africa,” History in Africa 27 (2000):1–29.
See Bunza, Christian Missions Among Muslims: Sokoto Province, Nigeria 1935–1990 (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2007), 13–16.
E. A. Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis (London: Longmans, 1966), 117ff.
See O’Connor, From the Niger to the Sahara: The Story of the Archdiocese of Kaduna (Ibadan, Nigeria: Intec Printers Limited, 2009), 11–12.
For more information about this category of Christians in the north see E.P.T. Crampton, Christianity in Northern Nigeria (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1979), 137–144.
John B. Grimley and Gordon E. Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1966), 43.
See Bunza, Christian Missions Among Muslims: Sokoto Province, Nigeria 1935–1990 (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2007).
Ibid., 240. Mukhtar Umar Bunza in his Christian Missions Among Muslims: Sokoto Province, Nigeria 1935–1990 (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2007), 41–46, corroborates this information. He specifically stated that majority of the Muslim population in northern Nigeria avoided all forms of Western education, whether government or missionary sponsored, as it was seen as a bait toward Christian proselytization.
Ibid., 149f and Boer, Missionary Messengers of Liberation in a Colonial Context: A Case Study of the Sudan United Mission (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi N.V., 1979), 72–73.
For more details on these, see Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria (1966);
Crowder, A Short History of Nigeria (1966);
Margery Perham, Lugard: The Years of Authority 1898–1945 (London and Glasgow, Great Britain: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1960);
John B. Grimley and Gordon E. Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1966).
Harry A. Gailey, Lugard and the Abeokuta Uprising — The Demise of Egba Independence (London, England; Totowa, New Jersey: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1982), 44.
See Carland, The Colonial Office and Nigeria, 1898–1914 (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1985), 118–14.
See Harry A. Gailey, Lugard and the Abeokuta Uprising — The Demise of Egba Independence (London; Totowa, NJ: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1982), 48f.
Hatch, Nigeria: A History (London: Martin Secker & Warburg Limited, 1971), 156–157.
Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Nigeria (London, Lagos, and New York: Longman Inc., 1983), 401ff.
See Boer, Missionary Messengers of Liberation in a Colonial Context: A Case Study of the Sudan United Mission (Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Rodopi N.V., 1979).
See Andrew E. Barnes, “‘The Great Prohibition’: The Expansion of Christianity in Colonial Northern Nigeria,” History Compass 8, no. 6 (2010): 444.
The origin, activities, and development of these local churches and their nondenominational features are substantially covered in the works of Edgar H. Smith, Nigerian Harvest (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1972);
Niels Kastfelt, Religion and Politics in Nigeria: A Study in Middle Belt Christianity (New York and London: British Academic Press, 1994);
Grimley and Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1966).
Muhammad S. Umar, Islam and Colonialism: Intellectual Responses of Muslims of Northern Nigeria to British Colonial Rule (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006), 8.
These two authors in particular have held in their different works that the British colonial administration significantly undermined the Muslim leadership of northern Nigeria as well as enhanced the spread of Christianity among Muslim communities. For details about their line of argument and thoughts, see Mukhtar Umar Bunza, Christian missions among Muslims: Sokoto Province, Nigeria 1935–1990 (Trenton, NJ: Africa World; London: Turnaround [distributor], 2007)
Muhammad S. Umar, Islam and Colonialism: Intellectual Responses of Muslims of Northern Nigeria to British Colonial Rule (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006).
Umar, “Islam in Nigeria: Its Conceptm Manifestations and Role in Nation-Building,” in Nigeria since Independence: The First 25 Years, Vol. IX — Religion, eds. Atanda, J. A., Garba Ashiwaju, and Yaya Abubakar (Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1989), 76.
See Trimingham, The Influence of Islam Upon Africa (New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1968).
For more information, see Balogun, S. A. “Islam in Nigeria: Its Historical Development” in Nigeria since Independence: The First 25 Years, Vol. IX — Religion, eds. Atanda, J. A., Garba Ashiwaju, and Yaya Abubakar (Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1989), 56
See J. Spencer Trimingham, The Influence of Islam Upon Africa (New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1968), 80f.
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© 2013 Marinus C. Iwuchukwu
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Iwuchukwu, M.C. (2013). Colonial Northern Nigeria and the Politics of Muslim-Christian Relations. In: Muslim-Christian Dialogue in Post-Colonial Northern Nigeria. Palgrave Macmillan’s Christianities of the World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137122575_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137122575_2
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