My Early Times In The Northern Nigeria And The Tale Of Blood-Thirsty, Ignorant Jihadist Islamists

By Al-Hafiz Yunus Omotayo

Saturday, July 16th, 2006, was the day I was graduated from Jamia Ahmadiyya Nigeria – the prestigious Islamic Missionary Seminary situated in Ilaro, Ogun State, Nigeria. Following my official induction into the Missionary profession, I was posted to Sokoto State, Northwest Nigeria. Haven completed necessary arrangements towards my movement, I set out, in the month of August, from Ahmadiyya Headquarters at Ojokoro, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, and headed to my service destination.

Here, it wouldn’t be out of place to briefly recall those emotions, thoughts and calculations that dominated the state of my mind and inspired the array of intra-personal communications I had during the over 20-hour journey; for, they were what later helped fix my mindset and  determination and define the operational direction I was to adopt in responding to my Missionary callings. 
I was indeed locked in mixed feelings. It was my 23rd month of August on earth, and now, for the first time in my life, I was going to live alone in the far north. Prior to this, Abuja- the Capital of Nigeria- had been the farthest northern place I had ever lived in; and, even, that was with my siblings. Concurrently, however, the nostalgic feeling about where I was leaving behind was quickly overshadowed and subsumed by my contemplation about where I was heading to. Justifiably or unjustifiably, an average southerner who has never stepped outside the hinterlands of the South would, perhaps, often view life amidst the northerners in the north with some reservations. And so, from this feeling, the thought of how I would fare in the discharge of my Missionary duties became the subject of my intra-personal communication. Would my preaching to, integration into and dealing with the larger society be characterized by peaceful experiences or by violent reaction, interaction and transaction? It was a big question arising from a deep thought!

The deeper I immersed into the expanse of the thought, however, the more the missionary spirit in me began to assure and reassure me of the success of my mission, if I could effectively apply all the trainings I had acquired as a student in the seminary. As a Missionary of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, I had been taught to uphold the principle of ‘preach peace peacefully’. 
I had been trained to always embody the Ahmadiyya motto christened by the Third Supreme Worldwide Head of Ahmadiyya, Hadhrat Al-Hafiz Nasir Ahmad (rta) as: “love for all; hatred for none”. More so, I had been taught by the Fourth Supreme Worldwide Head of Ahmadiyya, Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad (rta), that, while preaching, I should always appreciate the golden understanding that “swords can win territories but not hearts; and force can bend heads but not minds”. And so on. With this consciousness, and coupled with an outreach strategy taught to us that, as spiritual-cum-social workers, we should ever appreciate the primacy of studying the culture, the language and other peculiarities of the concerned society, I felt I had gotten the starting-point of my operational direction: peacefully mix with and study the people.

Hence, no sooner did I reached and settled down in my station than I began to operate the set strategy. Now, among the approaches I adopted in studying the people and society was to identify some individuals within and outside Ahmadiyya community who could describe and explain things to me. One of such was Mr. Ishaq – a manager of a booming company and an Ahmadi Muslim of Edo extraction of the Southern Nigeria who had lived and still living the larger part of his decades in the three zones of the north: North-West, Central and East. 
Here, I must express my compliment to him. For, among the lessons I noted from our various conversations is the understanding that, just as in every other tribe, there are in the north a substantial number of good-natured, honest and peaceful Muslims, in particular, and others, in general. And, conversely, like every other part of the country and the world beyond, there is always the existence of some few elements that are bad-natured, uncivilized and violent. And he was not economical with truth as he shared with me a narrative of an instance of the latter type of people among Northern Nigerian Muslims, as we engage in an informal class of social studies or sociology, to use the nomenclature of our tertiary institution level.

According to his narration, few years ago, there broke out a religious riot in one of the Northern States of Nigeria, in the course of which there was a case of two Muslims who embarked on a Jihad expedition with a mission to murder any non-Muslims they might encounter.

In the course of their bloody adventure, they met a Nigerian who was actually a Christian. Having got hold of him, they felt they should, firstly, interrogate him to ascertain if he was a non-Muslim. So, they asked him: ‘are you a Muslim?’ Preempting that such an unusual quizzing to reveal his religious identity might, purposely, be to persecute him, the man answered, ‘Yes, I am.’ However, this disguising response could not convince the duo. So, they felt the need to quiz further. 
Now, one of them threw a question he had thought would easily render their prey defenseless. He retorted: ‘ok, if truly you are a Muslim, tell me, then, what the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad’s [saw] mother is?’ Again, with a further surprise, the man responded, ‘Aminah.’

Now, the most appalling part of the scene surfaced when the blood-thirsty Jihadist-questioner revealed his stark ignorance of even elementary Islamic religious knowledge as he stylishly whispered into the ear of his cohort, asking him whether the answer the man had given was correct. Having confirmed its correctness, the poor Christian was luckily released, giving him another opportunity of life to celebrate his narrow escape of death! What an appalling murderous adventure of bigoted elements who had near-zero knowledge about the same religion in defense of which they had set out to shed blood of innocent citizens!

True, Islam is a religion of peace that recognizes freedom of religion and conscience and appreciates religious tolerance. Be that as it may, one cannot but admit that the latter obnoxious narrative suggests that Islam has only been ‘hijacked’ and ‘radicalized’ by a few elements who cannot demonstrate intellectual grasp of the teachings of Islam rather than religious bigotry. Notwithstanding, however, non-Muslims must appreciate to not judge the general peaceful teachings of Islam by the act of violence by an extremely few ignorant radical jihadist islamists.

In fact, as this writer once observed in a previous piece (www.nigeriamuslimwriters.org/jihad-in-islam-in-the-contemporary-world/),  almost 1,400 years before the promulgation of the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which recognizes freedom of religion and conscience as a fundamental right of our human species, the Holy Quran has, via the first Madinite chapter al-Baqarah, promulgated its clearest verdict on the issue, declaring that: “There should be no compulsion in religion. Surely, right has become distinct from wrong..” [Quran, 2:257]. Again, according to this thought, as Hadrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad (rta) maintains, the “Surah Al-kafirun, revealed in the early period of the Prophet’s [saw] ministry, is a direct statement of policy on the subject of freedom of conscience. The Prophet [saw] was asked to tell unbelievers there was absolutely no meeting-point between their way of life and his. As they were in complete disagreement, not only with regard to the basic concepts of religion, but also with regard to its details and other aspects, there could not possibly be any compromise between them. 
Hence, ‘For you, your religion, for me, my religion,’ [Quran, 109:7]. Similarly, the Quran commanded that: “And say, ‘It is the truth from your Lord; wherefore let him who will, believe, and let him who will, disbelieve,’ [Quran, 18:30]. 
These most civilized and peaceful Quranic teachings do not only very clearly enshrine and grant mankind the right to freedom of religion and conscience, but also condemn and prohibit every Muslim individual, group and government from engaging in coercive conversion of mankind to Islam.
Importantly, the few radical jihadists must appreciate the Qur’anic declaration that whosoever extra-judicially killed a person, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and whoso gave life to one, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind [Q. 5:33]. And, expediently, they must begin their learning the A,B,C of Islam from the level of such appreciation.

About the writer:
Al-Hafiz Yunus Omotayo is a Missionary of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat Nigeria, the National Secretary of the Muslim Writers’ Guild of Nigeria, and a News Correspondent of the Truth Newspaper Nigeria.