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Former Articles: Ahmadiyya in the United States; Ahmadiyya in Ghana

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Ahmadiyya is an Islamic religious movement in Nigeria under the spiritual leadership of the caliph in London. First found a foothold during the early period of the Second Calipahte, in 1916, with the conversion of 21 pioneers in South-West Nigeria, today, with an estimated 2.8 million Ahmadi Muslims, Nigeria is home to one of the largest population centres of Ahmadi Muslims in the world.

1914–1922: Establishment

1914–1921: Early pioneers

There are multiple accounts, dating to the early 1910s, which are among the earliest instances of communication with the Ahmadiyya movement, then headquartered in Qadian, India. In 1913, roughly a year prior to the unification of the British Nigerian protectorates into one Colonial Nigeria, a Muslim school teacher, simply identified as Hamid, came across an Ahmadiyya periodical Review of Religions, containing the address of the headquarters of the movement. Along with a number of his learned acquaintances, Hamid is said to have made contact with the movement in India. A different account, provided by one of the early converts, Alhaji Imran Adewuyi Onibudo, claims that he first stumbled across the Review of Religions in 1914 with another convert, Alhaji Junauid Yusuf Onitesubaa. Onibudo is said to have communicated his conversion in the same year.

The most-well documented account , also beginning in 1914, occurred through a less expected avenue. Oguntola Odunmbaku, a medical doctor of Christian background visited England in 1914 as part of his medical training. Whilst in England, he confronted Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, a missionary, who under the instruction of the caliph, was stationed in England's first mosque, the Woking Mosque. Having learnt of this through Odumbaku, Alhaji Muhammad Lawal Basil Agusto, a prominent member of the Muslim Literary Society, based in Nigeria, wrote to Kamal-ud-Din requesting a qualified Muslim teacher for a school being developed under Agusto's supervision. Unable to help himself, Kamal-ud-Din published this request in 1915, in his monthly periodical, the Islamic Review. In the meantime, the small Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement, of which Kamal-ud-Din became a leading member, had already split from the main Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The main movement, still based in Qadian, promised to send a qualified teacher via Mauritania, provided that the teacher was permitted to preach in out-of-school hours. Further, the headquarters sent out various publications of the Community to Agusto which were then forwarded to members of the Muslim Literary Society. In 1916, convinced of the Ahmadiyya teachings and the claims of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, 21 people, primarily members of the society, signed a form declaring their conversion to the Ahmadiyya faith. For the most part, the Muslim Literary Society essentially reconstructed itself into the Nigerian chapter of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam, which unlike earlier pioneers, laid the foundation for the development of Ahmadiyya teachings in Nigeria. In the same year, members of the Muslim Juvenile Society came forward and joined the Ahmadiyya movement. The early pioneers of the Ahmadiyya movement in Nigeria were largely a diverse influential mix, consisting of lawyers, scholars and visionaries, among them Jibril Martin, who rose to lead the Nigerian Youth Movement, and Musendiku Buraimoh Adeniji Adele, who later became the King of Lagos. It has been postulated that the converts before 1916, though inclined towards Ahmadiyya teachings independently, were later absorbed by the latter group.

1921: Arrival of Nayyar

The first president of the Ahmadiyya movement in Nigeria was Alfa Adam Idowu Yakub. Following his death in 1919, Alhaji Muhammad Lawal Basil Agusto was accepted as the movement's president. However, a year later, in 1920 he sailed for England to read Law, leaving behind Jibril Martin as the movement's president. It was in 1921, that the caliph sent Al-Hajj Abdul Rahim Nayyar who sailed from London to Freetown, in Sierra Leone. After a short stay he arrived in March 1921 to Saltpond, Ghana. Having established the Ahmadiyya movement in Ghana, Nayyar left within a month for Lagos, Nigeria. Arriving on April 8, 1921, Nayyar was accommodated for at Martin's home. Nayyar's first lecture, entitled "The essence of loyalty to the British Government and Islam" was delivered two days after he set foot in Lagos, at the Shitta Bey Mosque, which at that time belonged to the most dominant sect in Lagos, simply called the "Jamat". While the Jamat was inclined towards Nayyar's modern expression of Islam, they were less disposed towards the reigning government. As a consequence, Nayyar turned his attention towards the prominent, yet declining Quranic movement. Following a lecture at a mosque in Aroloya, Lagos, a congregant recalled a prophecy of one of their forefathers, Alfa Ayanmo. As reported by one missionary, Nur Muhammad Nasim Saifi, in a vision, the Mahdi promised Ayanmo that

...though he will not personally visit this country but a great follower of his will come and reform, guide, elevate and make stronger the position of the people and that whosoever will hearken to his voice with the Holy Quran in hand will prosper but whosoever will not hearken to him will perish.

On June 6, 1921, two days prior to the Eid festival, forty representatives led by Imam Dabiri of the Quranic mosque took the oath of allegiance at the hands of Nayyar, leading to the conversion of thousands of Quranists to Ahmadiyya. Nayyar reported that 10,000 people had become Ahmadi Muslims on that day, though according to Fisher, the actual figure may be at most 2,500. Nayyar set up two administrative bodies: the Executive Committee and the Council of Elders. While the former chiefly consisted of the founding members, the latter was composed of the Quranist converts.

1922: Okepopo incident

In the fall of 1921, Nayyar left for the Gold Coast, in modern-day Ghana. Following Nayyar's departure a number of objections began to surface among the former Quranists, ranging from theology, such as the finality of prophethood, the concept of miracles, to a number of practices, such as the participation of women in mosques. Furthermore, a number of prominent members frowned upon Dabiri's role in leading the Quranists to Ahmadiyya. On May 13, 1922, during the month of Ramadhan, a meeting was held by a number of converts from the Quranist faction, at the Okepopo mosque, one of the three Quranist mosques in the neighbourhood; the other being the Atini mosque and the Aroloya mosque where Nayyar had originally brought the Quranists to Ahmadiyya. The meeting concluded with the dismissal of Dabiri as the Imam, and mosque's formal dissociation with the Ahmadiyya movement. Regardless, Dabiri refused to step down and continued as a devoted Ahmadi Muslim.

1922–1934: The interregnum

Nayyar returned to Lagos, Nigeria in the summer of 1922. However he spent much of his time travelling and preaching in the northern cities of Kano and Zaria. After spending a few months, Nayyar left Nigeria indefinitely, never to return again. With this began, for the most part, a twelve year isolation of the Nigerian branch of the Ahmadiyya movement with that of the headquarters.

1922–1932: Early efforts

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Some of the locations of notable Ahmadi Muslim missionary activities up until the mid 1930s. Lagos, the founding city is marked in green.

As early as 1922 preaching efforts were in progress in towns and villages across Nigeria, particularly among those towns and villages lying immediately outside Lagos. Agidingbi, a suburb in Lagos State capital, Ikeja, was perhaps among the earliest locations to have found a foothold outside Lagos. Alhaji Imam Abu Bakar Yusuf, a local from Agidingbi, was among the earliest converts who became an Ahmadi Muslim through the efforts of Nayyar in 1922. The first Ahmadiyya mosque built outside Lagos may also have been in Agidingbi. Epe, a coastal town in Lagos State, was an early center of Ahmadiyya religious activity. Under the initiative of an early convert, Alhaji Akodu, Nayyar was provided with a number of opportunities to deliver lectures and debates across the town in 1922. Whilst the Ahmadiyya message was largely rejected, a number of converts came forward, partly in response to the antagonistic attitude adopted by some of their cohorts. Following Nayyar's absence, Imam Ope would usually represent him in Epe. The Epe community was later instrumental in introducing Ahmadiyya teachings in neighbouring towns and villages, among them, Iwopin Omu Ode-Omi, Ise, Ibjeu, Orimedu, Iji and Ijebu-Ode.

Zaria, a major city in Kaduna State, was the first northern city to have found Ahmadi Muslim converts. The mission, thought to be established by Nayyar in 1922, found prominence among the Yoruba workers in Zaria associated with the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Early on, the workers established a mosque in the Sabon Gari suburb of the city. Among the converts was Imam Al-Hassan Dankoli and Alhaji Aminu, an Arabic teacher who organized Arabic classes for the young converts. Kano, was the second of the of the two major cities trekked by Nayyar in northern Nigeria. Unlike the pioneers of Zaria, the few converts Nayyar attracted, deserted soon after he left the country indefinitely.

Ahmadiyya was introduced in Ibadan city in 1923 under Alabi, an employee working under the District Officer’s Office. How the Ahmadiyya teachings found a footing in Ibadan is unclear. Those who converted later dispersed the Community. It was not until 1951 that the city saw an aggressive missionary activity. Relentless effort by missionaries led to the rapid expansion of the Community. Starting from a temporary mosque built with wooden planks at a land donated by the first Imam, A.R. Ola Oke, the rate of expansion of the Community led to 26 mosques and 13 Islamic schools by 1980. The city had to be itself divided into 22 administrative zones.

Ahmadiyya entered Ijede, a small town in Lagos State, in the year 1924. The early converts were largely fishermen, who faced some level of persecution from a number of orthodox Muslims and as well as their close relatives. The first missionary to arrive in Ijede was Alfa Alimi Buari Danmola, a scholar of the Arabic language, from Lagos. Today, there are ten Ahmadi mosques in the town, and an estimated 30 percent of the Muslim population is said to be Ahmadi..

Ahmadiyya was established in Otta, Ogun State, due to the efforts of an Ahmadi Muslim bricklayer, Alfa B.O. Salihu, from Lagos. In 1926, Salihu migrated to Otta and established Islamic learning sessions, and preached to his fellow students. Over the years, he brought a number of converts before any missionaries arrived from the headquarters, in Lagos. It took almost two decades for the Community to build a mosque and a mission house, largely due to objections and petitions sent to the Oba, against the construction of a separate Ahmadi mosque.

Ahmadiyya was brought to Ondo by Alfa S.B. Ope, a settler from Lagos, and a building contractor by profession. Converting four pioneers in 1932, Alfa Ipaye, Lijadu, Idowu and Alfa Sanni Adedeji Agbegiworoko, Ope became the local Imam, congregating for prayers under a tree for a period of time, before moving into a makeshift mosque. Later, the Community built a central mosque.

In 1931, Alfa Sadiq Bigman, a local trader from Omu-Ijebu, arranged for a lecture to be delivered in his town. The lecture, given by an Ahmadi Muslim, Alfa Yekini Abaniwonnda, from Epe, Lagos State brought a number of converts. In the early period, the Ahmadis performed their mandatory prayers at one side of the town's Central Mosque. However, opposition from a number of locals led them to seek a separate place of worship.

In a totally different scenario, Pa Gbadamosi Opaleye was a local from Ado-Odo who desired his son to enter a Christian School. Since he was a Muslim, the school adminstration rejection his admission. As a consequence Opaleye's was admitted into the Talimul Islam school in Lagos. In gratitude to this, he became an Ahmadi Muslim in 1932.

1934: Aroloya incident

In February 1924, Agusto returned to his country, having become disillusioned with the movement in Nigeria. In history, his direction thereafter is unclear. Theories abound from him having joined the small Lahore Ahmadiyya movement to that of having left Ahmadiyya altogether. Regardless, he is know to have founded the "Islamic Society of Nigeria" and gathered a small, but diminishing following.

Following Dabiri's death in 1928, Jinadu, a prominent follower of his, entered the Council of Elders and became Imam of the Aroloya mosque. The Executive Committee kept a close watch of Jinadu's activity. As a recent convert from Quranism, Jinadu disapproved of the attempt of the Ahmadis to introduce the Hadith as an integral part of the service at the Aroloya mosque. As a consequence, Jinadu was deposed by the Executive Committee in 1932 and was replaced by Ajose, the original Imam who had given up his seat to Dabiri. Disappointed, Jinadu returned to his original faith and attendance at the Aroloya mosque soon began to drop, as Jinadu's followers started attending other Quranist mosques. Jinadu took his dismissal to the court in April 1934. Donald Kingdon, the judge presiding the proceedings found that Jinadu's dismissal was valid. Finally, Jinadu went to the West African Court of Appeal in the Gold Coast which passed the judgement in his favor in November 1934, citing that the Aroloya mosque originally belonged to the Quranists.

Thus, the Okepopo and the Aroloya incidents, for the most part, reversed the conversion of the thousands of Quranists to Ahmadiyya, leaving an estimated 500 Ahmadi Muslims in Lagos.

1934–1940: Crisis and rebirth

In 1929 , the caliph sent Al Hajj Fadl-ur Rahman Hakim to Nigeria for a period of a few weeks. Arriving in July of that year, Hakim made a number of short trips to a number of towns and cities, attempting to open Ahmadiyya missions across the country. These included Epe, Ijede, Agbado, Ibadan and Zaria. Following several years of Isolation, the Nigerian Ahmadi Muslims requested Hakim for a permanent Indian missionary to Nigeria. Several years later, the caliph sent Hakim back to Nigeria, from the Gold Coast, in modern-day Ghana, where he was serving as a missionary. Hakim arrived in the country in 1935 and continued serving as a missionary until his retirement in 1947. Soon after his arrival, Hakim held a historical eight-hour meeting on the differences of opinion among the Nigerian Ahmadis that were evolving as a consequence of the twelve-year detachment from the headquarters. One party, the "Loyalists", advocated the sovereignty of the caliph over the Nigerian branch of the movement, whereas the other party, the "Independents", supported local autonomy for all the national branches of the movement. While Imam Ajose led the former group, the Executive Committee , with which Hakim was identified, conceded with the latter. At this point, the division was in its preliminary stages. However, it was heightened following a long dispute over who should lead as the Imam for the congregational Eid and Friday prayers. Another point of contention was that, as the representative of the caliph of the time, Hakim disapproved of the Executive Committee's lack of compliance in some matters. In the fall of 1935, with the Executive Committee's approval, Hakim replaced the Committee's constitution with the one approved by the headquarters. However, the opposing party managed to successfully reverse the change following a court decision.

As a consequence of the continual heightening of disputes between the two parties, the caliph seceded the Nigerian branch of the movement on December 29, 1939, and instructed Hakim to formally disassociate himself with all the Ahmadis of Nigeria. The caliph instructed Hakim to personally take an oath of allegiance from each and every individual who desied to be counted within the fold of the broader Ahmadiyya movement. As such, those loyal to the caliph adopted the name Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Nigeria and registered themselves as the Nigerian branch of the Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya, Qadian. The inauguration ceremony was held on January 7, 1940. Those of the opposing party, who were at that time the majority and owned most of the Ahmadiyya properties, retained its name as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Movement, Nigeria. Whilst most Nigerian Ahmadis declined to renew their oath, the caliph advised those who were loyal to keep the sanctity of their faith above their properties.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Movement, Nigeria, completely dissolved its ties with the Ahmadiyya movement altogether on May 12, 1974 and adopted the name Anwarul Islam.

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Fisher, Humphrey (1963). Ahmadiyyah: A study in Contemporary Islam on the West African Coast. Oxford University Press.
• Ameen, Muhammad (2015). The History of the Ahmadiyya Jam'at in Nigeria. Ahmadiyya Muslim Jam'at, Nigeria.
• Loimeier, Roman (1997). Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria. Northwestern University Press.
• Begalee, Sufi (1943). "The First Ahmadiyya Mosque in Lagos, West Africa" (PDF). The Muslim Sunrise. No. 1. p. 29-31.
• Begalee, Sufi (1945). "Ahmadiyya Mission House in Lagos, West Africa" (PDF). The Muslim Sunrise. No. 4. p. 24-25.