Dawn for Islam in Eastern Nigeria

The story of the emergence of Islam in Nigerian Igboland is taken simultaneously with the examination of the social reconfigurations that occurred in Igboland deriving from the introduction of Islam into this part of the country. In this respect, this book chronicles social change in a postcolonial era and builds on the rationale that widespread conversions are responsible for multifarious changes leaving in their wake consequences beyond the imagination of the contemporaneous society. This unique quality makes their occurrence worthy of scholarly attention because they need to be examined, understood, and chronicled for a better understanding of the world we live in. An important outcome of this study is the information it provides on the nature, depth, and success of the advance of Islam in recent times using as a site of discussion Eastern Nigeria and the Igbo society in particular where long-held frictions had existed with the (Muslim) Hausa ethnic community whose members considered themselves the original worshippers of Allah in the Western Sudan. The book further reflects on how this recent advance both resembles and contrasts with what had occurred in other places and in different centuries. Regarding the kind of Islam favored in the study area, one half of the Igbo Muslim population are sympathetic to the conservative views of the Yan Izala found in Hausaland that has shown some strong connection with Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Islam. The other half are less swayed by the Wahhabi sentiments and favors a middle-ground approach to Islam akin to the traditional Sufi orders common in West Africa in earlier centuries. A distinguishing feature of the book is the provision of academic material for understanding Islamic revolutions and for contextualizing the postcolonial advance of Islam in Africa. The monograph considerably widens our knowledge of different patterns of Islamic religious development in recent times and helps us gauge the degree of social developments that can result from religious advancement.