6 - The Canon in Politics

Summary

A famous ḥadīth, often cited by Salafis in Nigeria and elsewhere, relates that the Prophet Muḥammad said, “Islam began as a stranger and will return as a stranger as it began, so blessed are the strangers.” Shaykh Jaʿfar Maḥmūd Ādam, building a lecture around this text, applied it to religious life in contemporary Nigeria:

So in this place Muslims of the original kind have become strangers: strangers in their creed, for the creed is the unity of Allah, worshipping Him alone, amid people who worship idols. Then too, strangers in terms of attitude, traits, and their characters, because they live amid people that have evil characters. Strangers in terms of ethics because they live amid people who exist in blasphemy.

The ḥadīth, and Ādam's commentary on it, imply that in the final days of the world, the community of true Muslims will be small. Heretics, hypocrites, and enemies will surround it. The ḥadīth could be understood as a call for the faithful to close ranks, yet Salafis worldwide have often seen it as a call to activism. In his lecture, Ādam recounted other versions of the report in which the Prophet's Companions asked him for clarifications about the identity of the strangers he mentioned. Alternate versions include definitions such as “those who pursue reform when people have become corrupt” and “those who reform what people have corrupted of my tradition (sunnatī).” These texts suggest that the role of the small community of true Muslims is to both embody purity and correct a fallen world.

As Chapter 4 discussed, Salafi preachers in northern Nigeria use multiple registers as they present Salafi ideals and teachings to their audiences. This pattern is not unusual among Salafis worldwide – Ibn Bāz and other Salafi canonical figures often used a stripped-down, scripture-based form of argumentation in their legal opinions (fatāwā) and other pronouncements intended for a broad audience. Similarly, in their political commentary, Nigerian Salafi preachers tend to emphasize Qurʾanic verses and ḥadīth reports but downplay the broader set of canonical references. One reason for the Medina graduates' success in growing their followership in Kano from the 1990s to the present has been their ability to discuss politics in a highly accessible, scripture-heavy discursive style.