Dr. Usman Bugaje's efforts of containing the Sharia are also worth mentioning in this paper. He is doing an excellent job for his masters who want to suppress the Sharia. The government used Bugaje's organization AMIN (Assembly of Muslims in Nigeria) to invite Sadiq al-Mahdi who was expected to convince Nigerian Muslims that the Sharia is not feasible[x]. Al-Mahdi failed and Bugaje's intellectual distortions did not succeed despite its widespread publicity sponsored by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Bugaje's case is not a repetition of history but an irony. When Shehu Usman Danfodio the man Bugaje has so much pretended to admire[xi] launched his jihad El-Kanemi attempted to internationalize it by stating that there was no jihad in Egypt, Syria and other parts of the Muslim world that were infested by corruption. Shehu Usman responded as was vividly explained by His Highness the Emir of Kano in London:

The issue of international model for the application of the Shari'ah was also discussed with all seriousness two hundred years ago and there was divergence of opinion that may interest this conference.  Shaykh Muhammad Al Amin Al Kanemi, in a letter written to Muhammad Bello and recorded in the book Infaq al - Maysur found the Shari'ah model in Egypt and Syria worthy of consideration, while Shaykh `Uthman, in his poem, Accana'en (Leave Us Alone), rejected out rightly any notion of the adoption of foreign models. A reformer, the Shaykh insisted, must be guided only by the Koran (Al-Qur'an), the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) and by the circumstances of his time and place. The Shaykh reiterated in his book, Tanbih al Ikhwan that the decision of reformers, however, "may not necessarily be the same in every age because judgment emanates from the circumstances underlying it"[xii].

Islam as understood by Shehu Usman Danfodio "has ever remained a message for the oppressed and the vulnerable against the oppressor and the delinquent.

The content of the tradition is radical and dynamic.

But its strength lies in its claim to independent initiative and intellectual insulation as in Shaykh Uthman`s doctrine of Accana'en or leave us alone". But it was not an insulation that could disturb the universal revolutionary-cum-reformist rhythm of the Muslim Umma"[xiii]. But here is Bugaje inviting Sadiq al-Mahdi who is not familiar with Nigeria to convince Nigerian Muslims that Sharia is not feasible based on Sudanese experience. History will judge him and his co-travelers who are now having an easy ride because of government patronage and widespread media publicity[xiv].

SANUSI: "THE INTELLECTUAL" Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has written extensively on the Sharia but he is the only person who has referred to himself as an "intellectual" and he is also the most controversial and arrogant modernist. Despite his own limitations he uses the word ignorant to describe those he wants to condemn. He first wrote in support of the Sharia but his most recent paper has even accepted orientalist allegations against the Qur'an[xv]. Intellectuals like Mallam Bashir Aliyu, Magaji Galadima, Drs. Kabir Banu-Azzubair and Ahmad Gumi sometimes intervened and responded to Sanusi's pedestal scholarship[xvi].

Sanusi has brilliantly condemned those who disagreed with his views as the intellectual props of the dominant establishment. He has distorted history and scholarship in advancing his modernist thought. For anyone to understand Sanusi he must survey most of his writings after which his correct picture will emerge.

Sanusi had eloquently labored to portray himself as a progressive and the "fundamentalists" as those who lack any intellectual rigor and they are according him conservative fellows and supporters of the oppressors he wrote: "Fundamentalist groups are able to conceal internal injustices, inequities, corruption and despotism by portraying themselves as the sole and undisputed interpreters of the Divine Law and defenders of Islam's pristine purity"[xix]. And in order to condemn the fundamentalists he has written that: "It seems the brand of fundamentalist Islam being put in place in Nigeria is strikingly similar to petro-Islamism in operation in corrupt and conservative Arab states". He presented his disparagement for the "fundamentalists" elsewhere: "Fundamentalists, far from representing a correct Islamic perspective, are guilty of engaging in a quasi-science called metaphysical discourse. The seemingly unassailable nature of their position lies in the fact that there is literally no intellectual effort on their part, just quotes from the Qur'an arranged to form a sterile utopia depriving the Word of God of historical content and its revolutionary social and political character"[xx]. He was also very hard on those he labeled self-styled puritans: "The only reason I respond to this essay is because Yola speaks not for himself alone but for a vocal minority of self-styled puritans who pretend that their lack of intellectual rigour and their political naivete are really reflective of a complete and superior loyalty to the sacred texts. In this, they imply that those who formulate pragmatic, progressive ideologies that take full cognizance of the objective reality we seek to impact have somehow compromised Islam and its ideals"[xxi].

Sanusi's condemnation of those he branded "fundamentalists" is deliberate. This is because he wants to bring the attention of the anti-Islamic forces against his Muslim brothers so that they could be target of persecution as the case in most Muslim countries and Sanusi knows this very well. Sometimes he will support the traditional Ulama and he will say his adversaries are the Muslim activists simply because he wants to prop up support[xxii]. He will falsely allege that those against him were benefiting from the Sharia governors. At other times he takes on the traditional Ulama because they resist ijtihad.

Sanusi's condemnation of "fundamentalists" and "neo-fundamentalists" is nothing but self-serving and seeking for notice exercise. He is a convoluted fellow at one point he will claim that as an "intellectual" his task is to bring out true interpretations that will bring about social justice for the masses who are suffering as a result of elites domination. This is "political Islamic fundamentalism" according to Olivier Roy[xxiii], one of whose works was quoted by Sanusi in his last paper[xxiv]. Sanusi is resorting to this "political Islamic fundamentalism" to shower up support of the gullible masses. He then quickly turns and condemns "fundamentalism" and "neo-fundamentalism" to seek for the notice of conservative western audience who have equated Islamic fundamentalism with terrorism[xxv]. Sanusi is indeed a clever Marxist- to him the end justifies the means no principles are needed.

It should be noted however that it is not only Sanusi and his Marxists colleagues who have been analytical of the process of Sharia implementation and with calls for improvement and caution. The approaches adopted by most Muslim intellectuals and commentators are different from those of Marxists, who condemned the Sharia governors as manipulators of religion and this is also Sanusi's position. Ibrahim Sulaiman[xxvi], Aliyu Tilde and others have called for ijtihad.

SANUSI'S CRITIQUE OF THE SAHABA AND THE ULAMA'S INTERPRETATIONS

Sanusi has tried to show that his own interpretation of Islamic law represents the "true interpretation".

Obviously in his view other interpretation are not "true". If from his own description, fundamentalism, is dogmatic insistence on one's own position as being the only "true interpretation" of issues pray what is he?  His attitude is extremely different from that of the Ulama who are custodians of Islamic ethics of scholarship. The rightly guided Ulama regarded disagreement[xxvii] not as a contest between true interpretation and others but simply as a reflection of the humanity[xxviii] of the interpreters and "the need for the flexibility of Islamic Law"[xxix].

Sanusi wrote in one of his papers that:

"It seems to me that somewhere along the line, Islamic ethics in the area of public policy lost its essential contact with Divine Reality. The Ulama, deliberately or by accident, gave prominence to certain hadiths, which were interpreted in a manner that made it incumbent on people to accept lack of probity and accountability. This was particularly true of Sunni Islam"[xxx].

He further added at another point that:

I will show that what is described above is not Shariah, but its interpretation by society at different points in time in a manner consistent with the dominant world-view of the leaders and ulama in that society. It is not the eternal law revealed by Allah but its interpretation and crystallization in time and space[xxxi].

Elsewhere in the same paper he made this assertion:

The greatest tragedy in Sunni thought is its hatred of philosophy and philosophers and its enthronement of the legalistic rulings of jurists over all facets of our life. The priorities and constraints of the environment in which the jurists lived often conditioned these rulings. It is a point I have repeatedly made. The refusal of this Ummah to break away from the constriction of "blind copying" will only lead to a perpetuation of the social structures, priorities and value systems of the environments in which the rulings were made. Even the authenticity of hadiths must be established after accounting for the impact of the environment on the narrators and interpreters[xxxii].

It could be concluded from this essay quoted above and his other writings that according to this "intellectual" it was only during the period of the leadership of our beloved Prophet (SAW), Abu Bakr, Umar and Ali and the brief Caliphate of Umar bn Abd Al-Aziz that the administration of the classical Islamic polity was corruption free and accountable.

All others including the administration of Uthman bn Affan did not pass his test[xxxiii]. According to him the Ulama supported these corrupt administrations and the "Shariah" they deduced from Qur'an and Sunnah condoned corruption and only the poor and weak were left to bear the brunt of punishments. Therefore the "Shariah" from these earlier "corrupt" administrators and Ulama is not the "true "Shariah". So the task of the "Muslim intellectual" is to expose manipulators and bring out the "true" Shari'ah.

Sanusi made his bold claims based on his understanding of history and his self-acclaimed status of possessing "true" interpretation of the sources of Shari'ah. This is far from the truth. May Allah guide us.

From the sources available to me and to most other students and teachers of Islamic history that I have come across, all the Ulama from whom the majority Sunni Muslims derived their fiqh (understanding of the sources of Islamic Law) never shared the same worldview of corruption with the so-called "corrupt" rulers. Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik and Imam Ahmad all suffered in the hands of different political leaders.

Do we have any greater Ulama of Sunni fiqh? Imam Malik refused to allow al-Muwatta his book of fiqh to be used as the only book of Islamic Law even when the Abbasid Caliph of his time requested. He could have accepted this flattering offer but the Imam never had any pretensions of being the only possessor of "true" interpretation. He categorically stated that the companions of our beloved Prophet (SAW) lived in various parts of the Muslim World therefore it would be unfair to take interpretation based on the teachings of companions who lived in Madina as the only source book of interpretation of Islamic Law[xxxiv].

It is a fact that from the time of Ma'mun (198-218 AH/8133-833 CE)[xxxv] until al-Mutawakkil (232-247 AH/847-861 CE)[xxxvi] all the Abbasid Caliphs were Mutazilites. Ma'mun had ordered that all those who did not subscribe to the Mutazilite doctrine should not be allowed to give any fatwa and they should also be prevented form transmitting Hadith[xxxvii]. It was during this period of great persecution that Imam of Ahl-al Sunnah Ahmad Ibn Hanbal flourished. He refused to subscribe to Mutazilite doctrine. The two most famous Hadith Scholars Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim whose Hadith collections have remained the most authentic were his students[xxxviii]. Despite Mamun's persecution Imam Ahmad refused to budge and he battled to preserve the Sunnah. To avoid any form of suffering he could have uttered some few sentences, but he said if he did later generations will be misled and he never did, thus paying dearly for it[xxxix]. Imam Ahmad and his students never shared the same worldview with the tyrant Mamun who was both a Shiite and a Mutazilite.

Mamun tried as much as possible to force the majority Sunni Ulama and others to subscribe to his deviant doctrines but he failed. One writer made this observation:

"The inquisition of al-Mamun had been an invasion of privacy and individual conscience in a massive scale.

Those caught in its net were forced to undergo an interrogation which determined not only their chances for life and livelihood but also their very standing as members of the umma. The inquisition failed, but its lasting effect in classical Islam was that no group of mainstream Ulama would ever again think of using the state to enforce belief. It was an enduring lesson of the dangers of prying into private life"[xl].

The struggle for "ultimate authority in matters of law and legislation" between the Ulama and the Caliphs was settled in favor of the Ulama. This was largely because the Ulama maintained their impeccable integrity by not dining with immoral rulers. Mamun wanted to change this settled issue because among other reasons he realized when "it was too late, that the caliphal state would not survive without unquestioned supreme authority over all matters religious as well as worldly"[xli]. Most Muslims regarded as "impious and heretical" Mamun's alternative vision therefore the vision of the Sunni Ulama prevailed despite his material power[xlii].

It is indeed a great disservice to Islamic history to associate pious Sunni Ulama who developed the discipline of fiqh with immoral rulers. Even in the pre-colonial Sudanic Africa, the later generations of pious Takrur Ulama were very close to the common men and were never comfortable in the company of kings and governors. A good example was our famous Sayyid Ahmad Baba[xliii].

One of the most damaging statements of this "intellectual" was this: "Even the authenticity of hadiths must be established after accounting for the impact of the environment on the narrators and interpreters". If this is read along with where he stated that the Shari'ah derived from the interpretations of earlier generations was not Shari'ah but its interpretation by the society in line with "the worldview of the leaders and Ulama in that society" and that the Shari'ah they presented was not "true" Shari'ah because according to him it condoned corruption, his position will be properly understood.

His aim from this statement is very clear, it is to demolish the integrity of the earlier generation, so as to provide his own "true" interpretation. Under normal circumstances there will have been no need to respond to a person who made such a grievous allegation against the Hadith scholars. For over 1200 years the ahl-Sunnah have upheld the integrity of the Hadith scholars but here is someone in Nigeria writing: "Even the authenticity of hadiths must be established after accounting for the impact of the environment on the narrators and interpreters". This issue is settled only the fasiqun, orientalists and diviant sects have questioned authenticity of authentic Hadiths upon which fiqh is deduced all these years. And anybody who does has a hidden agenda.

The discipline of Hadith studies is one of the greatest achievements of the Muslim Ummah. The classical Hadith scholars were the most capable custodians of the Sunnah; once their integrity is demolished the authenticity of the Sunnah is also demolished. Every student of Islamic studies is aware of the thoroughness of the scholarship of Hadith scholars[xliv]. Many of them rejected hadiths reported by their close relatives, rulers and others because the character of such people was questionable. One could state without any fear of contradiction that the environment never had any negative impact on the narrators of authentic hadiths and the interpreters were men of unquestionable integrity and were not influenced by any corrupt rulers and in fact they always avoided such corrupt rulers.

In his attempt to provide "true" interpretations of Shari'ah he wrote that: "The first person known to adopt an approach to meaning based on a "discursive horizon" beyond linguistic definitions was the second Caliph, Umar Ibn al-Khattab"[xlv]. He went on to give examples of Umar's interpretation of Qur'anic texts.

Several scholars have explained Umar's interpretations a good example is Dr. Muhammad Sayid Ramadan al-Buty[xlvi]. There have been thorough studies on Umar's interpretations by ahl-Sunnah such scholars as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taimiyyah and al-Hafiz al-Shawkani the author of Sublu Salam[xlvii], which were not influenced by the west unlike those written by modernists and kuffar. Umar's interpretations cannot be the only "true" interpretations. The opinion or interpretation of any companion if reported in an authentic tradition is only a secondary source of Sharia[xlviii]. Therefore jurists are free to choose any other interpretation making Islamic Law flexible.

SANUSI: THE SECULARIST REFORMER

It is important to examine the motive of those who quote Umar's actions. Let us reflect on one of the sources of our "intellectual" which he quoted in his paper. That source is Abdallah An-Naim and the title of his work is Toward an Islamic Reformation pages 28, 131-132 and 185 of which were quoted by our "intellectual" where he wrote about Umar's judgments.

Abdallah An-Naim made this statement at a seminar in USA:

According to Ustadh Mahmoud, Islam consists of two overlapping messages, an eternal and universal one of complete justice and equality for all human beings without distinction as to race, creed, or gender, and a transitional message of relative justice among believers in terms of quality of their belief. He argued that the public law of Sharia is the transitional message, which by now has served its purpose; it must be superseded by the eternal and universal message, the practical of which has, thus far, been precluded by the realities of human existence. Whereas the public law of Sharia was appropriate for the previous stages of human society, it is no longer appropriate and must make way for another version of the public law of Islam[1][xlix].

The motive of those quoting Umar's interpretations to serve as an agenda for reformation similar to the Pauline abrogation of the Jewish Law[l] in Christianity should be understood from Mahmud Taha's perspective above. There is an evidence to show that Sanusi supports Mahmud Taha's deviation as "reform", because he cited this modernist without condemning his deviation but as an evidence to build up his case for Islamic personal law "reform" in Nigeria. This was what he wrote:

"Sudanese Republicans led by Muhammad Mahmud Taha further narrowed eternally binding sources to the revelation before the Hijra (migration) of the Prophet to Madina. Revelations after the Hijra were historicised and considered a specific application of law in a particular context. Taha's thesis is that the law in its Madinan stage represented God's response through the Prophet to the specific needs of the Muslim community in time and space, pointing as evidence to the differences in temper of the two revelations (pre and post-hijra). Daniel Madigan seems to endorse this position through his hermeneutic examination of the Qur'an's own references to itself as a kitab. He argues that contrary to the general belief that the Qur'an considers itself as a completed book, the term kitab in fact means it considers itself an on going process of Divine "writing" and "rewriting" as God's authoritative response to actual people and circumstances"[li].

Sanusi did not condemn the deviance of Mahmud Taha or his Kafir supporter Madigan, therefore it means that he is in agreement with them. It is an insult on the intelligence of the Muslims to equate Umar's ijtihad with the actions of people like Abdullah an-Naim who publicly declared in the USA that he is a secularist.

Umar (RA) witnessed the revelation and he even preceded Usul al-Fiqh[lii], but here is Sanusi who is deeply immersed in usury, approving and monitoring usurious credit to breweries, casinos and brothels equating himself with Umar (RA) without any humility[liii]. One day Nigerian Muslims will wake up to find Sanusi legalizing usury and breweries based on his analysis of Sudanese Republicans. In his facile adulteress dairy[liv] he questioned rajam (stoning for adultery), which is based on authentic Sunnah that was unanimously reported[lv]. Here he rejected Umar's position, which was that the punishment for adultery was revealed, its recitation was abrogated but injunction remained[lvi]. Using sophistry he claimed that even Umar observed in his time that some people doubted hence he made the statement he was reported to have made. Of course there were hypocrites even during the time of Prophet (SAW) who doubted everything.

Sanusi is so much carried away by newspaper publicity and as such he could write using kafir philosophers such as Madigan, kawarij and secularists such as an-Naim as his sources and conviently condemn Nigerian Ulama as gardawa (those who memorized the Qur'an only) because they lack sophist style. His condemnation of those who disagree with him is a self-defensive strategy so that whenever any one opposes his bend of scholarship he would easily be branded as a self-styled puritan.

Having condemned previous scholars as people influenced by corruption and therefore their fiqh is deficient he went on to condemn those who insist that the earlier scholars must be followed as those trying to elevate the scholars to status of Man as in European philosophy. This is far from the truth.

Islamic jurisprudence has never been like that but the opposite. Imam Malik disagreed with the ahl-R'ay and from him the ahl-Hadith emerged[lvii]. Imam Shafi'I found some of Malik's judgments as objectionable[lviii] he eventually formulated the science of Usul al-Fiqh[lix]. This trend continued throughout Islamic history, although at a point in time some people declared that there is no more ijtihad but Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taimiyyah was a notable of example of someone who exercised ijtihad after that period. The problem is that Sanusi and the modernists before him wanted to change the rules so that Islam will be totally reformed as Christianity leading to complete secularization and the abolishing of Islam just as Christianity was abolished[lx] this is very clear from the writings of Mahmud Taha and his followers.

Another striking difference between the early scholars who exercised ijtihad and the modernists is the issue of character. Once this is brought to public discourse people like Sanusi will say the issue is personalized but how could Muslims allow themselves to be misled by people who are half-educated[lxi] or are deeply involved in riba (usury)[lxii] or are close to the colonial establishment[lxiii]. It is a fact that Afghani and Abduh were closely linked with the colonial establishment[lxiv]. Why is it that Sanusi did not spend time to critique the lives of the modernists as he did for the early scholars and companions claiming that they were influenced by their environment and social milieu? He never assessed that the colonial establishment negatively influenced his so-called modernists reformers. In this case he is not fair and he is guilty of bending scholarship.

The essence of the entire modernist project, which Sanusi wants to promote in Nigeria, is not new as he has confirmed in his paper and it has been going on in the Muslim world since the time of Afghani. It has succeeded in bringing about civilization without culture in those Muslim countries[lxv]. Turkey has in fact become a torn since the time of Mustapha Kemal[lxvi]. It has been observed that:

"But rather than bringing an Islamic reform, Abduh's critique of traditional thinking strengthened the forces of secularization in Egypt. This is due mainly to the fact that the work of Abduh helped reveal the flaws of the traditionalist models without offering an alternative. His students and followers, including Sa'd Zaghlul and Mustapha Kamil, substituted western models for the traditional"[lxvii].

And despite Sanusi's eulogy of the personal law reform in the Muslim countries of Middle East and Asia imposed by secularists, life in those countries is not rosy. According to him Northern Nigeria is poor and infested with illiteracy, people do not even know about the law reforms in other Muslim countries. He deliberately refused to state how those laws were reformed but by implication he was showing that the reform was an intellectual development compared to the gardi dominated northern Nigeria. But how is life in these countries the people are not living in paradise either as clearly indicated by Safi:

"The model of modernization qua weternization was carried out vigorously by almost all Muslim secular regimes, which dominated Muslim societies since the middle of this century. The result has been a very slow pace of material development. Surely, for all appearances, life in most Muslim capitals seems to be as modern as it is in western capitals. But beneath the façade of modernity lies an eerie of emptiness.

For as soon as one delves deeply to examine modern practices, one finds that Muslim elites have acquired only western taste, but not Western industriousness and creativity. That is to say, Muslim elites' interest in modernity lies for most part in consuming modern goods and imitating western lifestyles. Even when one encounters modern institutions and technologies in Muslim societies, one finds them lifeless and dysfunctional....Similarly factories may produce goods similar to those manufactured in developed societies, but the technologies and innovative ideas behind them are made abroad".

SANUSI AND HISTORY

Sanusi has indicated that Shehu Usman Danfodio was a reformer and that there were reformers after him.

Among them he mentioned Isa Wali whom he called an "intellectual", while he condemns those who disagree with him as "gardawa". It must be clarified that while Shehu Usman Danfodio was a reformer he was motivated by the teachings of Islam and not alien ideology. Isa Wali is a product of colonial education and he was even semi-educated having acquired only secondary education at the School for Arabic Studies (SAS), which is the thanawi (secondary school) level even in Arab countries but Sanusi has turned him into an intellectual simply because they share the same views.

Isa Wali did what he was expected do by those who taught him at SAS. The system in SAS reflected "the social and cultural values of its designers as well as their spiritual beliefs and political ideologies"[lxviii]. One writer has summarized the purpose of establishing SAS and the expected behavior of its products:

In order to stablise their so-called indirect rule system in Northern Nigeria, the British ensured that the intake of the law school were children of alkalai and imams throughout the North. In this way the old order was perpetuated and there was little, if not significant resistance to the continuous erosion of the domain of the Sharia by the British[lxix].

Since Sanusi is full of disdain he even refused to explore history. The colonialists or the secularists forced all the so-called reforms in those Muslim countries. They were never as a result of internal intellectual development. Those Muslim countries that opted for Kemalism have failed because it is a failed ideology[lxx] and they have become torn countries and this is precisely the reason for their failure in their conflicts with Israel. Napoleon invaded Egypt before the jihad of Shehu Usman Danfodio and that was the beginning of Egyptian modernization. So how does Sanusi expect the Muslims of northern Nigeria to be at the same pace phase in this pestilence with the Egyptians or other Asians who were colonized earlier.

Traditional Islam still flourishes in northern Nigeria because of the remoteness of the jihad period. And contrary to Sanusi's insinuations the bulk of the Muslims are highly informed about the happenings in the Muslim world. They are aware that most of those reforms were either imposed by the colonialists or by despotic secularist[lxxi]. This is very evident in the overwhelming support given by the northern Muslims to all Muslims who are oppressed in other countries.

In order to support his claim that the Shehu was a reformer like his group made up of people like Aisha Imam and the Zaria Marxists Sanusi insinuated that Bello who became the Amir al-Muminin instead of Abdullahi was authoritarian hence the reversion to Hausa system which was oppressive and patriarchal. He referred to Mahmud Tukur's comparative study to support his position[lxxii]. But this is contrary to practical life of Bello that was reported after his death. Despite his successes he was a humble man in victory as he was on his deathbed before meeting his Lord. Although El-Kanemi claimed to be liberal[lxxiii] but "a comparison of Denham's account of life in Kuka and Clapperton's account of life in Sokoto suggests that El-Kanemi's rule was stricter, and his punishments more severe, than Bello's"[lxxiv]. This was because Bello avoided bigotry[lxxv].  Bello was incorruptible and uncomplicated. The person who succeeded him was so strict that he put to death a drummer who had lived through out Bello's reign who never had any flare for music but regarded it as a secondary issue. Although Sanusi erroneously termed Bello authoritarian Johnston summarized his character below:

"Bello, though devout, had none of Sheu's mysticism and never experienced Abdullahi's revulsion from the world and its ways. On the contrary, he obviously had a taste for power and enjoyed wielding it.

Nevertheless, he never allowed it to cloud his vision or tarnish his standards. That for twenty years he was the most powerful man in the whole Sudan, and yet remained completely uncorrupted, must be counted among the greatest of all his achievements"[lxxvi].

Bello was a successful leader as far as the implementation of the Sharia was concerned this was reported by Clapperton:

"The laws of the Qur'an were in his (Bello`s) time so strictly put in force... that the whole country when not in a state of war, was so well-regulated that it is common saying that a woman might travel with a casket of gold upon her head from one end of the Fellata dominions to the other"[lxxvii].

In one of his papers our "intellectual" reinforces his idea of history and philosophy, where he wrote:

Any attempt to reform Islam and revert to the "origin" or the "source" which does not question the unequal relations that emerged sequel to the point of "rupture" will only end up in disaster for the vast majority of the Ummah. It is precisely the failure to recognize this reality that is at the bottom of my disagreement with neo-fundamentalist politics.

Nigerian Muslim revival takes the form of a robust return to the purity of worship ('Ibadah) and the uncompromising application of Shari'ah Law. These twin foundations find expression in a struggle against bid'ah (innovation) and an obsession with the hudud or fixed punishment in the Islamic code. However, this commitment to the origin is not accompanied by a progressive political ideology aimed at liberating Muslim people from the poverty and illiteracy which has been their lot under our new-breed leaders...Muslims are a subset of the Nigerian Political Economy who share the same traumas and deprivations as other sub-sets and that progress lies in addressing this reality rather than chasing shadows[lxxviii].

This essay must be analyzed in the context of his writings which have more or less been consistently based on his Marxist philosophical outlook that the most important thing in human life is material well-being all other relations are secondary. It is also based on his idea of history. Our "intellectual" believes all Muslims want to "revert to the origin or source" based on the interpretation of one of his philosophers Foucault. Both our "intellectual" and Foucault are not offering any thing new or original.

The only difference between our "intellectual" and other Muslims is that he thinks Muslims want to revert without consideration of time and space. He has already condemned all Muslim leaderships apart from the Prophet (SAW)'s and those of Abubakar, Umar and Ali. Therefore to him all other Muslims have never succeeded in emulating the rightly guided leadership of the Prophet (SAW) and these three of his successors.

Muslim scholars and students believe that the examples set by the Prophet and his rightly guided successors were the best and Muslims are expected to strive according to their ability emulate those examples.

Certainly the Ummah cannot replicate all the good actions of such people because of constraint of time and space. Contemporary Muslim thinkers such as Al-Attas have commented on the possibility of this development within a time-and-space context:

According to Al-Attas, the Islamic understanding of change has some definite direction and an ultimate destination, unlike the secular perspective. The Muslim Ummah has before it a perfect model established by the Prophet Muhammad. Hence, the community having moved from this model, has an obligation and responsibility to change its present condition and to return to the original model. This change is not slippery in nature....This does not mean that Islam is essential static, but rather implies that the model possessed by Islam is dynamic enough to direct the generation of each succeeding time in history. This dynamism lies in ijtihad. In secular theory , change is, in contrast, indefinite and a continuous process, for modernization has no final and ultimate goal..Modernization as a process, continues even after reaching a higher level of modernity[lxxix].

According to Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taimiyyah, the scholar, who gave classical theory of Islamic government its fullest treatment, "caliphal government" is "a practical reality, not a doctrinal issue". He was against blind taqlid (imitation of legal precedents) but he "did not deny authoritative judgments - determined on the basis of consensus - by eponyms of the four schools of Sunni law". According to "him careful scrutiny of the cumulative tradition of Islamic law was essential to the life of the Muslim community. But the fact that an opinion may have been suitable at a given time and place was no guarantee that it would be suitable in another time and place"[lxxx]. But Ibn Taimiyyah was certainly different from many contemporary Muslim thinkers some of whom believe in reformation of Islam by abrogating the hudud (punishments) or modifying them.

At different times in the history of the Muslim Ummah some people rose and restored justice in their societies according to their abilities. The polities established by such movements were outstanding in their times. In this case we shall give two examples: the Osmania Empire and the Sokoto Caliphate. Osmania Empire was described like this: "Look at Topkapi! A village running an empire! A great, the greatest state in history.The caliphate of Osmania ran itself. Tiny administration - around 3000 - order affairs. Local autonomy was the principle of government, Amirs obedient to the caliph and his call for jihad"[lxxxi].

This state lasted for almost six hundred years and it was the world power for almost three hundred years during which it dominated the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It lost its world supremacy primarily because of the discovery of alternative trade route to Asia by Europeans who for centuries were forced by the Christian clergy to accept the dogma that the world was flat. Since the discovery of this route the Europeans accumulated capital and improved their military, which they used in enslaving Africans and others. And later they imposed the colonial rule as a guarantee for exploitation of the resources of others.

The Osmania Empire was still moving without any involvement in this new trend. When it woke up in the twentieth century it was too late. Attaturk and others thought that secularism was the solution to the slump but it was not and Turkey their new state will never regain the lost status in world affairs.

Sanusi believes that it is impossible to revert to the origin without recognizing the rupture that has occurred. But he was unlike Shehu Usman Danfodio not because of the intellectual disparity of which there is no doubt but because of their different worldviews.

First, the Shehu and most of his students were ideologically not part of the establishment that they sought to reform. Our "intellectual" has boasted that his outlook sets him "in an adversarial role with northern political leaders and their intellectual props"[lxxxii]. Muslims cannot be tricked by this self-applause. Where does he earn his living? Who are his close associates? He has advocated for Nigerian unity at whatever cost and whose interest does this serve? This led him to make some sweeping statements about the values that Nigerians share, without adequately defining those values. But from his writings one will understand him as somebody with Marxist orientation, belonging to the primary group of the society he is committed to imposing the values, role expectations and norms of that group whose core value is the favoring of material considerations over any other consideration.

Nigerians do not share core values but the dominant elites are struggling to entrench their values hence the current political turbulence. "Values can be defined as conception of the desirable", while those values relating to our expectations regarding performance are referred to as norms. A norm could be defined as "a standard of conduct in a particular group; it enables a person to determine in advance how his actions will be judged by other persons with criteria for approval and disapproval". It is further explained that: "only the most primitive society possesses a single and consistent set of values".

Nigeria is a modern society so there is no single set of values but the people do share some values. In every modern society the primary group or the dominant elite "seeks to impose its values, its role expectation, its norms upon the individual"[lxxxiii].

In Nigeria the most desirable thing to the dominant elite is the survival of the country as a political entity and the placing of material well being above any other consideration. To the dominant elite this could be achieved from either the liberal route or the Marxist route or the merger of both as clearly stated by our intellectual: "The latest tendency in the left wing political thought is therefore one that seeks to combine the political freedoms of democracy with the egalitarian economics of socialism. In this, it is very close to the social, political and economic justice espoused by Sayyid Qutb in his magnum opus"[lxxxiv]. If anybody shares any of these ideological inclinations he cannot say that he does not belong to the establishment. Muslims believe in material well being but it is not their most important consideration and it is not above Faith (Iman), so no matter how a non-Muslim will ensure material well-being, the Muslims will never accept him because he does not believe in La illaha ila Allah Muhammad Rasul Allah. So because Muslims share the idea of material well being with non-Muslims the task of the Muslim representatives of the dominant elite likes our "intellectual" has always been to manipulate Islam by showing that material consideration is the most important consideration. And to a great extent he has succeeded in the craftiest manner.

The task of Marxist orientated ideologues, who are representatives of the Nigerian establishment like our "intellectual" is to find common ground by quoting selected verses from the Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet (SAW). Hence his insistence that: "the poor farmer in Maiduguri has more in common with the poor farmer in Ogoniland than with his northern elite"[6].

He has acknowledged that to the Arab socialist the Prophet replaces Marx as the founder of socialism so it is possible for Marxist, socialists and other western oriented Muslims to manipulate Islam for their ideological benefits as he has done. The various nationalities that make up Nigeria have not yet accepted the supremacy of the Nigerian nationhood over their various "nationhoods". The primary group or the dominant elite that believes in the supremacy of the Nigerian nationhood wants all nationalities and sub-nationalities to abandon their identities and assume the Nigerian identity. But this is not possible without creating a history around the empirical emergence of Nigeria even without the colonial intervention.

The end justifies the means for modernists like Sanusi. He condemned the early Ulama by alleging that their interpretation of Sharia promotes corruption but he commended Yar'Adua the person who was very instrumental in promoting money politics and the "buying" of politicians. Yar'Adua's style promoted corruption in Nigerian politics but Sanusi turned a blind eye to it because Yar'Adua did what he wanted.

Sanusi wrote:

"In this fulfillment of this dream is akin to its fulfillment in the campaign of late Shehu Yar'Adua, M.

D. Yusuf's colleague and relation from Katsina. It did not matter that he never became president. He succeeded in building that bridge across the Niger and in leading a political movement with a definite and responsible ideological coloration, concrete enough to be considered a threat to the powers-that-be. Even his death at the hands of his persecutors represented, ironically, the ultimate fulfillment of that dream, by graphically bringing to the forefront the cruelty and inhumanity of the system he was committed to supplanting"[lxxxv].

The quotation above clearly shows Sanusi's worldview.

Here is a person who condemned the Ulama and the Sahabah including Sayyiduna Uthman (RA) but he is commending Yar'Adu'a, a doyen of corruption who used his ill-gotten wealth in his desperate attempt to snatch power for selfish ends. May God save us from Sanusi's manipulation of the pen in search of relevance.

Sanusi by posing as a reformer and having condemned the early scholars he pretends to be doing ijtihad. He takes different positions and comes out with his conclusions to deceive the innocent yan boko who read nothing but newspapers. His project is nothing new but the one begun by Afghani and Abduh, which is the enthronement of reason over revelation hence the flaunting of his knowledge of western philosophy, which is the subject of the next section.

SANUSI AND PHILOSOPHY

Sanusi made this indiscriminate statement: "The greatest tragedy in Sunni thought is its hatred of philosophy and philosophers and its enthronement of the legalistic rulings of jurists over all facets of our life". This will lead us to proper comprehension of his worldview and we shall link him to the West, which he admires. This far-reaching expression is disputable even though our "intellectual" flaunts his knowledge of philosophy to daunt his readers without any humility. First of all he has not even stated what type of philosophy he meant? We shall briefly attempt to explore the diversity of Sunni position on philosophy.

Ibn Rushd who is known as Averros in the West refuted Imam Ghazali's refutation of philosophy. He was a great Maliki jurist who wrote one of the best books of Sunni fiqh Bidayat al-Mujtahid, which falls within what Sanusi may term "legalistic" fiqh. He was indeed another capable Sunni scholar who equally challenged Imam Ghazali whose esteemed position in the Sunni world is well known. This is a manifestation of the broadness of Islamic scholarship.

One of the negative aspects of Western interpretation of Greek philosophy was the idea of the 'philosopher king' cherished by the most conservative westerners.

Ziaudeen Sardar made a very analytical commentary of this philosophy in one of his writings:

"Bloom's ideal student is one who is brought up on the spirit of Socrates, on the works of Plato and Homer (Iliad and Odyssey were the bibles of the Greek), who uses reason and nature as his yardstick for Good and bad, a philosopher who devotes his time to the pursuit of truth and preparation for rule. His end product resembles the generation of colonialist administrators, brought up on Plato and Hegel, who left Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden, Sorbonne, to rule the colonies as 'philosopher kings' and who treated their subjects as Socrates treated the common man - with contempt and a sense of superiority. His philosophy which looks at nature as the source of ethics is in the mainstream of history of nature-philosophies which gave validity to oligarchy (Plato), slavery (Aristotle), hierarchy (Aquinas), necessity (Spinoza) and domination (Marx). Bloom tells us that 'writings of men like Plato, Cicero, Farabi and Maimonides appear very different, while their inner teachings may be to all intents and purposes the same.' It is precisely the inner teachings of Plato and Farabi which perverted reason and ushered in authoritarianism and which have corroded the foundations of Western and Muslim civilizations"[lxxxvi][1].

Our "intellectual" is critical of Sunni position on philosophy perhaps he shares the same philosophy with the Shiites such as al-Farabi. Here again we may have to quote Sardar's criticism of Shiite and Western philosophies:

"Why does al-Farabi have such an unquestioning faith in Greek philosophy, despite its pagan content, and its clear stance against the teachings of the Qur'an? Like Socrates, the truth al-Farabi sought was not totally unbiased. Al-Farabi was a Shi'a and Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus provided him with a philosophical system which fitted perfectly with his authoritarian metaphysics. As Walzer states, 'the fundamental ideas of The Perfect State agree fully and precisely with the Imami interpretation of the Shi'a; the description of the philosopher-king-prophet and the different groups of successors until the Imam of the day goes into hiding, the stress on Wahi (emanation) which is supposed to continue after the time of Prophet Muhammad, and the philosophical definition of his relation to the higher world as the highest degree which intuitive metaphysical reasoning can reach'. Indeed, the parallel between Shi'a thought and Platonic utopia is terrifying.

Thus, al-Farabi's philosopher-king turns out to be the Imam: 'this is the sovereign over no other human being..(p.247)'. For al-Farabi then the Perfect State is a theocratic oligarchy - it is, in fact, Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran ruled by a Wilayat-e-Faqih, with all the horrific apparatus of Plato's Republic. The link between al-Farabi (including his predecessor's al-Kindi and Zakariya al-Razi) and Ayatollah Khomeini is via Ibn Sina, Ibn Bajah, Ibn Tufail, Ibn Rushd, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and Ikhwan al-Safa. Most exponents of falsafa basically lived in two worlds: their minds moved in the world of Greek philosophical theology, while their bodies existed in the Muslim civilization"[lxxxvii].

From the description of their philosophy one could observe the striking similarities between the history of Western Christendom and contemporary Shiite Iran.

Khomeini led the revolution that established the Islamic Republic of Iran, a state led by the clergy.

And now after his departure the people are saying no to clerical domination and Khatami, a cleric is forced to initiate a "reformation". The steps are almost the same as those employed in Europe to get rid of clerical domination. In Sunni Islam there is no clergy and therefore "in the sense of a state ruled by the Church or by priests, Islam was not and could not be a theocracy. Classical Islam had no priesthood, no prelates who might rule or even decisively influence those who did"[lxxxviii].

Authoritarianism in Greek philosophy that breeds exploitation was what Muslim philosophers were opposed to and one of the best such examples was Iqbal as reported by Sardar and without hesitation I will quote him again:

"Iqbal realized, the authoritarianism so common in Muslim thought and so prevalent in Muslim history is a direct result of almost total replacement of the Qura'nic ideals by Greek pagan philosophy. Whereas the Qur'an unequivocally declares all men to be equal, Muslim philosophers and Sufis sought to impose a caste system; whereas the Qur'an asks for government by participatory consensus (shura and ijma), followers of Greek pagan theology forced the rule of select few; whereas Qur'an wants Muslim society to be a learning society, the Qura'nic concept of ilm being distributive knowledge available to all, the adherents of Greek philosophy made knowledge a preserve of the select few; whereas the Qur'an declares that happiness can be attained by all, here in this world and the Hereafter, the Greek cultists made happiness the sole privilege of the philosophers and members of secret mystical societies. What we know as Islamic philosophy is not just anti-Islamic it is also anti-Muslim society.

All this is hardly surprising as racism, hatred of the common man and a sense of innate superiority is basic to Greek philosophy. Socrates, the patron saint of philosophy, was a nasty piece of work. Plato was an archetypal conservative: he feared change and his philosophy sought for a way to escape it. Aristotle justified racism by arguing for natural superiority of certain classes of individuals and by claiming a Hellenic superiority based on geographical situation of Greece. The really surprising thing is how such a theology became integral part of Muslim thought and how it has managed to survive to this day. The sanity of Western civilization and survival of Muslim thought depends on burying the cult of Socrates and authoritarianism of Plato where it belongs-deep below the ruins of Pantheon"[lxxxix].

The prominent Sunni Muslims scholars while synthesizing knowledge ignored the negative aspects of Greek philosophy. This was the observation of a Muslim scholar:

"The great jurist al-Shaf'I (d. 820) taught the subjects of discussion and disputation as a regular part of his curriculum, which also included the Qur'anic and hadith sciences. As Makdisi notes, orthodox Muslim scholars had to rely upon dialectics in their confrontation with the Mu'tazilite theologians, who had adopted this method from the Greeks. In order to counter the heterodox camp effectively, traditionalists employed the very weapon that the Mutazilites were welding to defeat them. By the time the defeat of the Mu'tazilites had been assured, the art of dialectical disputation was part of the orthodox Islamic tradition. In Makdisi's words, "while the traditionalists triumphed, traditionalism did not escape being influenced by its adversaries, the rationalists. The weapons of dialectics were gradually absorbed into law. For excellence in law was achieved through disputation built on expertise in two essential fields: khilaf, disputed questions, and jadal, dialectics"[xc].

The Muslims benefited from Greek discursive[xci] method but their scientific achievement was not because of their interaction with the Greeks. The Greek philosophers were hostile to science. Basing his arguments on earlier ones by Shorey[xcii], Koshul has shown beyond reasonable doubt that: "it is practically impossible to imagine how an epistemology based on experimental science can be constructed without first demolishing one based on Plutonic philosophy"[xciii].

Muslim thinkers and western thinkers parted ways when the west adopted enlightenment philosophy and elevated man to the status of Man as a result of Renaissance the movement that triggered the enlightenment [xciv].

Western double standards of good for themselves based on exploitation of others, rooted in their philosophy (of philosopher king-Plutonic philosophy) are what the Sunni Muslims detest and that is what Sanusi admires.

Western Christian colonialists unleashed one of the worst forms of inhumanity on Africans in the name of colonialism, because of the type of education of the colonial agents[xcv]. Africans are yet to recover from that inhumanity which has dislodged their psyche. Our "intellectual" admired the "Modern Welfare States like Britain, which Muslims disdainfully dismiss as nations of Kuffar (unbelievers) even though they are the ones implementing Islamic principles of economic justice"[xcvi][1]. These modern welfare states rely on the exploitation of other countries for the benefit of their citizens. As a response to our "intellectual" we shall briefly survey how these nations of "Kuffar (unbelievers)" exploit the resources of others to maintain their welfare systems, which he regards as the implementation of "Islamic principles of economic justice".

The reasons for these contradictions in the West must be found if we are to understand the Western society and its nature of domination. A Muslim intellectual has provided us with a lucid explanation:

"Imperialism is but one manifestation of the secular western ethical and epistemological paradigm.

Secularism is the underlying theory, and imperialism is its most important practice. Indeed, imperialism is the greater mechanism through which secularism is internationalized. The close correlation between secularism and imperialism could be seen in such brutal actions as the genocide of millions of people in Asia and Africa, which in our view, does not constitute a deviation from the course of western civilization. On the basis of the materialistic, utilitarian, and rational view that the world is purely matter that could be utilized, oppressed and transported, it was decided that millions of people should be transferred from Europe to the United States and from Africa to the United State in order to increase their usefulness and augment their productivity"[xcvii].

For such an imperialist operation to be carried out in the USA, "millions of useless people had to be annihilated". This was what happened to American Indians who were exterminated and at the same time "they were hunting for blacks in Africa and transferring them to the land whose inhabitants had been driven away". This could only be understood within "the context of utilization and maximization of production". It was easier to exploit black Africans because of "their muscular strength" and since they have been uprooted from the native homes they were culturally disintegrated and "without human rights".

The American Indians on the other hand "constitute an integrated cultural bloc with its own historical rights, and,.....it was very difficult to absorb them in the new order. And in that lay their total destruction". The Nazi genocide was "a sophisticated application of the imperialist vision". They assessed worth of human beings in terms of material benefit, those classified were gypsies, children, handicapped and elderly people, German soldiers wounded in action, Jews, and Slavs, they were categorized "into useful elements to be utilized and useless elements, whose fate was to be no better than that of the American Indians"[xcviii].

It will be worthwhile to compare two Western imperialists from different ideological perspectives.

They are Hitler and Balfour. Both of them have the same view of minorities, which is to dispose of them this is "in essence an application of the principle of material benefit" because they are surplus. Hitler exported the Jews to Poland, which rejected them and therefore he had to apply unconventional means of dispensing them in the form of extermination. Balfour exported his surplus to Palestine. "What actually changed were the imperialist practices, given historical and geographical complexities. Hitler was but another Balfour, albeit one that had no Asian or African colonies to which he could send his human surplus"[xcix].

Al-Masseri further explains:

"To be sure, western democracy itself and Western welfare state are indeed inseparable from western imperialism. This democracy originated under an imperialist umbrella by which western democracies, via imperialist solution, could export their respective social problem, overcome the uneven distribution of wealth, and, at the same time, deal with their minorities. Western democracies could also accumulate capital and establish a huge infrastructure that, by stripping the Third World of its natural and human resources, could achieve social welfare for their respective citizens"[c].

The greatest tragedy in this essay is that Sanusi condemned Nigerian Muslims as mostly ignorant after flaunting his knowledge of philosophy yet he could not decipher western imperialist epistemological vision hence he praised the western welfare state. This welfare state is closely linked with the exploitation of other peoples' resources especially Africans. If Sanusi is not ignorant then he is guilty of manipulating scholarship because by praising the welfare state he has separated it from its root, which is brutal imperialist exploitation of other peoples.

Over two million Congolese have been killed in a civil war triggered and maintained by western companies[ci] who contribute to the maintenance of the welfare system admired by Sanusi who condemns others as oppressors using sophistry

SANUSI AND THE NGOs

Our "intellectual" has suggested ways in which the dominant group could achieve its goal. According to him: "This we can only do through active participation in civil society - the press, the universities, professional associations and NGO's"[10]. Our intellectual and those who share his views have enjoyed maximum patronage of the press which, is dominated in Nigeria by those with western worldview, everything that he writes is published by all the papers he sends to, without any censor. He is also very much patronized by the NGO's hence his defense of one of them that pretends to promote the rights of Muslim women on the pages of newspapers. Most of the grass root NGOs working for the emancipation of oppressed women in Kano especially in the prisons never came in contact with Baobab, the organization admired and promoted by Sanusi. The leader of Baobab is from Kano and she is claiming to work for women in Muslim areas. Why is it that her organization was not visible in the prisons of Kano before the Sharia? Kano certainly deserved their attention because it is the largest Muslim area in Nigeria. Very soon they will be present in Kano because of the recent call for the restoration and proper implementation of the Sharia.

They may now be present to "monitor" the Shari'ah but they never did for the penal code. Our "intellectual" dislikes the idea of criticizing these NGOs but even in the countries of their sponsors, critics have begun to ask questions about them like this one:

"The burgeoning NGO sectors in such countries are often dominated by elite run groups that only tenuous ties to the citizens on whose behalf they claim to act, and they depend on international funders for budgets they cannot nourish from domestic sources"[1].

Muslims have every right to be vigilant about these NGOs they tried as much as possible find fault on the Sharia implementation in Zamfara, they had no option than to report the position of the labor unions who are most active segment of the civil society in the state[cii]. Thisday has reported that some people who may belong to so-called human rights groups have been plotting to get the man whose hand was amputated to sue Zamfara State:

Isah appealed to the Zamfara State Government to provide security for him, saying that his life was in danger as many people had been trooping to Gummi, his home town, "to solicit my assistance in order to sue the State Government in Abuja".

According to him, "some people even drugged me with the intention to convey me to Abuja in order to sue the State Government".

"my life is in serious danger, as no week passes without different people coming to invite me to Abuja and when I refuse, they turn hostile  to me", he said.

"The Governor should help me and provide security for me, as I am now a born-again Muslim, and I need peace in order to conduct my trading business", he added.

The amputee said that he had been reformed and had even enrolled in an Islamic school to acquire spiritual knowledge.

The first victim of Sharia amputation in Zamfara State, Jangedi was convicted last year for stealing cattle.

Like Isah, there was pressure on Jangedi to sue the government for amputating his right wrist. He declined, saying he was satisfied with his conviction and that he had no right to challenge the Sharia[ciii][12].

The prominent Muslim women NGOs such as Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN) and Muslim Sisters Organization (MSO) are committed to the ideals of Islam and not western values as promoted by Babaob led by a Marxist Aisha Imam. Sanusi has sympathy for Aisha Imam and her co-travellers but none for FOMWAN and MSO. He has condemned most Nigerian Muslim activists as ignorant and fundamentalists. But Aisha and most of her co-travelers are ignorant of Islam, this is not even debatable, Sanusi knows this very well. How can people who are ignorant of Islam liberate Muslim women? Aisha's personal life speaks volumes, although our intellectual always dodges that.

One may not have evidence of their connivance with the Western imperialists? But whose interest are they serving? Who are their sponsors? Why is it that no Islamically educated Muslim women activists are associated with the Aisha group? Why is that the Aisha group is only interested in high profile cases that receive the attention of the European Union and not cases of oppressed Muslim women who suffered deprivation based on common law precepts before the current Sharia reforms?

CONCLUSION

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a writer on Islamic issues who draws his motivation from Western intellectual tradition and not from the Islamic tradition. He cites Islamic sources because of his knowledge of Arabic to support his modernist ideas hence he is admired by yan boko (western educated elites) who lack basic knowledge of Islam. From his writings he believes in "reformation" as started by Afghani and Abduh and continued by such people as Taha Hussain and Mohammed Mahmud Taha.

He has done very well for his constituency by replying those whom he termed as "neo-fundamentalists" on their own turf because of his use of Arabic sources.

Contrary to his claim he has nothing in common with Danfodio who was motivated by Islamic Salafi intellectual tradition. If Sanusi's project is pursued it will lead to the secularist disaster which has befallen the Muslim societies that implemented modernist projects which is nothing but humiliation and cultural neurosis.

If writers like Sanusi are allowed to get their way, Islam will be eliminated gradually from the lives of the Muslims that: is the aim of the modernization project in Muslim countries of Asia and Middle East.

Even the devil could misuse the Qur'an in the name of evidence to deceive Muslims. After all some Christians even misuse the Qur'an to justify their blasphemy, Sanusi's Arabic should therefore not deceive the Muslims. Abduh was even tagged "Imam"[civ] because of his position in Azhar, yet he was a friend of Cromer who scripted the project for him. Rida pretended to be Salafi and he was learned in Arabic, yet he deceived many Muslims by propagating the distorted ideas of Afghani and Abduh. Another modernist Mazrui even though ignorant of Islam tried in a clever way to deceive Muslims against marrying up to four wives, his attempt[cv] like that of Sanusi is an example of misuse of scholarship.

Sanusi cannot be accepted as offering an appraisal of the madhahib (schools of Islamic law) this is because he does not follow the Islamic tradition of scholarship. What he wrote on the Ulama was baseless and unfounded this is because none of them has ever called any one to regard them as infallible and this is well documented by Ibn Taimiyya in his book Raf al-Malam fi Aima al-A'lam. In fact those Sanusi condemned as "gardawa" because they condemned his misuse of scholarship in their khutbah (Friday sermon) are always engaged in the critique of the madhahib but with decorum based on salafi tradition unlike Sanusi who draws his motivation from Focoult, Madigan, Coulson, the Kawaraji and the Zahiris. Their critique covers all aspects of Islamic law not only rituals as erroneously claimed by Sanusi in his continuous propaganda against the Sharia.

Contrary to Sanusi's suggestion Afghani, Abduh and their followers were not salaf but aqlaniyun (rationalists). They wanted to abolish Islam by elevating man to Man as the enlightenment philosophers of the West did. This was the vision of Kant one of the foremost of the enlightenment philosophers who wrote:

Enlightenment is the emergence of man from his self-imposed infancy. Infancy is the inability to use one's reason without the guidance of another. It is self-imposed, when it depends on a deficiency, not of reason, but of resolve and courage to use it without external guidance. Thus the watchword of enlightenment is: Sapre aude! Have the courage to use one's own reason!"[cvi]

The modernist project was similar to what Renan did to the reminder of Christianity, hence "their attraction" to him[cvii]. They were not reformers in the league of Shehu Usman Danfodio they were actually deformers in the services of the West. Sanusi deliberately avoided the undisputed linkage of all these modernists and the West. They were mostly not part of the traditional scholars whom they always detest. They never served Islam because they were apologists who responded to the West from the point of weakness and inferiority complex. Because of their western background they did not offer any concrete reason for the current domination of the Muslims by the West, which was based on the destruction of the traditional system[cviii].

Lastly Muslim readers cannot accept Sanusi's views uncritically because of his close association with usury the foundation of Western economic domination of Muslims and the fact that he eulogized western lifestyle, which depends on the exploitation of others. This is clearly based on his own critique because he alleged that the early Ulama were influenced by corrupt rulers hence they interpreted Sharia in such a way that it continues to condone corruption.