Introduction

This chapter follows the same pattern as the last one: I will first of all present the general context of reform, and then briefly discuss the different Sufi-oriented reform movements, before focusing on the emergence of Salafioriented movements of reform in the 1970s. In contrast to Senegal (and Mali) as well as Niger, Nigeria is not an overwhelmingly Muslim country, and even in northern Nigeria, Christians have come to form a sizeable minority. This is especially so in the so-called Middle Belt regions, that is, the historical slave hunting grounds of the Sokoto Caliphate and its emirates, including Katsina, Kano, Zaria and Bauchi. Muslim–Christian conflicts have played a major role in the political development of northern Nigeria in the twentieth century, and continue to inform Nigerian politics to this day, for instance in the context of northern Nigeria's sharīʿa debates. Since the late 1970s, Muslims in northern Nigeria have also been confronted with the development of a plethora of different reform-oriented movements. Their struggle for popular support has acquired a violent character at times, as seen in the development of the Boko Haram movement since the early 2000s. Interestingly enough, neighbouring Niger has so far escaped most of northern Nigeria's problems and this chapter will thus ask why Niger's development has been so markedly different, despite the fact that Niger's Salafi-oriented movement of reform is close to the Salafi-oriented movement of reform in northern Nigeria.

In northern Nigeria, Salafi-oriented movements were initially split into two different orientations, namely the (politically) conservative jamāʿat izālat al-bidʿa wa-iqāmat al-sunna (Hausa: 'Yan Izala), established in 1978 by Abubakar Gumi and Ismaila Idris, and a group of politically radical but smaller groups, such as the ikhwān led by Ibrāhīm al-Zakzakī. Whereas the politically radical groups stressed the struggle against the Nigerian state that was portrayed as being dominated by Western-oriented Christians, the 'Yan Izala focused almost entirely on the struggle against the Sufi orders, at least until the early 1990s.