Introduction

Since 2010, the news from northern Nigeria has been dominated by Boko Haram, the radical sect that has been terrorizing the north-east in particular. But notwithstanding all the people they have killed and the other kinds of damage they have caused, Boko Haram comprises only a tiny fraction of northern Muslims. They are discussed in this chapter; but the more important aim is to describe the full spectrum of Muslims in Nigeria's north, in all their diversity of religious belief and practice. Ethnic diversity also comes in, because of its links to sectarian difference. There is a history of sectarian conflict, as new groups enter and compete for followers, but also what appears to be increasing Muslim tolerance of religious diversity among themselves. The richness of civil society among the Muslims is illustrated with circumstantial details of some of the groups they form and the programmes of da'wah and good works they undertake. Government is an important factor, both as a system of mostly non-Islamic institutions to which Muslim attitudes may differ, and as a sometimes-heavy-handed regulator of religious practice, including preaching and proselytization. Other aspects of the complex scene are sketched ad hoc.

Northern Nigeria

The term ‘Northern Nigeria’ formerly designated one of the country's principal administrative units, along with Eastern Nigeria and Western Nigeria. In 1954, when Nigeria became a federation, the Northern, Eastern and Western Regions were the federating partners, and they remained so at Independence in 1960. But beginning in 1967 the regions were subdivided into states: 12 in 1967, now 36 plus the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja (FCT). One can only now speak, more vaguely, of ‘northern Nigeria’, with the adjective un-capitalized. Sometimes this is used to mean all of the 19 states (plus FCT) that have been carved out of the old Northern Region. Sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean ‘the far north’, comprising today's 12 ‘Sharia states’ (Ostien 2007; Ostien & Dekker 2010). Map 2.1 clarifies these distinctions. This chapter discusses the Muslim population of northern Nigeria in the broader sense.

Ethnic difference in the north

The seven more southerly states of the ex-Northern Region – Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa, Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Adamawa – resisted the Sharia implementation impulse that swept the farther north in the early 2000s, enacting none of the relevant legislation.