Religion and Political Culture in Kano

By John N. Paden

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1973.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520337138

John N. Paden

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Religion and Political Culture in Kano

Religion and Political Culture in Kano

John N. Paden

University of California Press

Berkeley / Los Angeles / London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

Copyright © 1973, by The Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520-01738-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-153548 Printed in the United States of America Designed by Eileen Lavelle

This book is dedicated to the mallams of Kano and to their sons

Contents 1

Contents 1

Introduction: Political Culture and the Kano Case Study

THE CONCEPT OF POLITICAL CULTURE

THE KANO CASE STUDY

FULANI AND HAUSA ORIENTATIONS TOWARD AUTHORITY AND COMMUNITY

Part I Patterns of Religious Authority and Community

1 Religious Identity and Structure

2 The Transition from Traditional to Reformed Tijaniyya

3 The Consolidation of Reformed Tijaniyya

4 Qadiriyya, Mahdiyya, and Usmaniyya

5 Comparative Orientations Toward Authority and Community

Part II Patterns of Political Authority and Community

6 Emirate Authority and Community

7 The Ideological Basis of Early Emirate Reform

8 The Transition to Kano State

9 Authority and Community in Kano State

10 Comparative Orientations Toward Authority and Community

Conclusion: Religion and Political Culture in Kano

Appendix 1 Bakin Ruwa Ward (Kano City) Religious Survey, 1965

Appendix 2 Succession to Selected Clan and District Headships in Kano Emirate

Appendix 3 Electoral Succession in Kano

Appendix 4 Kano State Movement Debates

Appendix 5 Authority Structures in Kano State, 1969-70

Glossary 1 Hausa Terms Used in Text (with Arabic and English Equivalents)

Glossary 2 Hausa Muslim Names Mentioned in Text (with Arabic Equivalents)

Glossary 3 Kano Emirate Titles Mentioned in Text

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

Introduction: Political Culture and the Kano Case Study

This introductory chapter will consider the concept of political culture (including the idea of culture and society, the dimensions of political culture, and the relationship of religion to political culture); the Kano case-study context (including the socioeconomic factors of urbanization, ethnicity, class, and connectivity); and Fulani and Hausa orientations toward authority and community.

THE CONCEPT OF POLITICAL CULTURE

In the comparative study of government, attempts are often made to identify the underlying values, symbols, and premises of society that influence political behavior. Such values may include the entire cultural experience of a society. Yet certain cultural dimensions are particularly relevant to the processes of political life: for example, the nature of authority and the way in which decisions are made; the criteria used to distinguish communities; the manner in which conflicts or disputes are resolved or managed; and orientations toward history or toward innovation. Such dimensions may be regarded as part of the political culture of a society, as distinct from the general culture.1

The orientations toward such dimensions within a society are in most cases not distinctive to any single sector of society but tend to be found in all sectors (military, economic, social, religious, political). Changes in orientation within any one sector, which may occur for a variety of reasons, may produce similar changes in other sectors. Thus, the political culture of a society is not static. In certain situations, change in political culture is brought about through revolution.2 In most cases, it is brought about incrementally. The question of how such incremental change occurs is of major importance. In this respect, several of the terms and theoretical assumptions of the present study should be briefly elaborated.

Culture (excluding material items) is a combination of beliefs and values. Beliefs refer to propositions that are regarded as true, as distinct from false, and values refer to things that are preferred, either of a specific or general nature.3 The term moral values distinguishes values that refer to the quality of human relationships from values that may be aesthetic or spiritual. The term ideology may be used in a variety of ways, but like culture refers essentially to a combination of values and beliefs; unlike culture, the notion of ideology may contain an explicit imperative to a course of action that would change existing values and patterns of behavior. Ideology may be manifest, as in the writings of individuals, or latent, in the sense of inarticulated orientations.4 The term doctrine refers to explicit statements of values or beliefs by those who are in positions of authority within a community.

Culture and ideology are often expressed in symbolic terms. Symbols represent a range of meanings that goes well beyond the intrinsic qualities of the symbol itself. Words as well as objects and behavioral patterns may be regarded as symbols. Symbols become socially and politically relevant when they gain widespread usage and are fitted into a cognitive framework that allows for experiences to be shared and communicated by members of a society. Much of the power of symbols, however, is in their ambiguity and in the fact that individuals can interpret symbols in terms of their specific experiences.5

The notion of society essentially implies an interactional system of persons who share certain core values. In a plural society, interaction may be limited to the economic sector, and the core values may be limited to matters of reciprocity and conflict management. In an integrated society the interaction extends to political structures, and the core values must include some agreement on how and where political decisions should be made. In a homogeneous society there is interaction in all spheres (including religious and social), and the people share a common culture; in most cases they also share a common identity.

In the study of societies, the concept of differentiation is central. The interactional patterns that define society may be regarded as role relationships (or structures) which are organized around particular functions. A role may be defined as a set of norms and expectations applied to the incumbent of a particular position. 6 Differentiation may be defined as the processes whereby roles change and become more specialized or more autonomous or whereby new types of roles are established or new structures and subsystems emerge or are created.7 The process of differentiation implies change. In some societies the internalized expectations of persons or the gap between ideal behavior and actual behavior may be modified to the point where the structures of a society are completely reoriented. Such change, however, does not need to occur in linear progression from a diffuse, pre-differentiated situation to a highly differentiated pattern. A particular system may differentiate in response to particular situations and may then de-differentiate. The concept of differentiation is relevant to the study of political culture in several respects: in the initial inquiry into the existence of separate structures in the performance of social, economic, political, and religious functions; in the examination of specific political roles in terms of their broader social functions; and in the assessment

of the development of a political culture zone over time as such a zone may be a residue from the processes of differentiation.

The selection of functions that are the basis of identifying roles may be analytical or phenomenological, the latter being perceptions which are selfanchored within the particular system. Anthropologists frequently suggest the following analytical categories which may be identified in all societies: religion, politics, economics, and recreation.8 Within most societies, however, even at the subsistence level, there is some perception of functional differentiation, and in most societies there is a corresponding division of labor (or role differentiation or specialization) which reflects such perceptions of function. The term sectors with regard to society refers to the broad analytical categories of function. In cases of societies with low differentiation, the political, economic, and religious sectors may all be parts of a single structure. In cases of high differentiation, independent roles are performed in the different sectors.

In all societies the relationship between sectors is highly interactive. The political sector, however, because of its centrality in determining basic power distribution in society, is in most cases intimately linked with the military, economic, and religious sectors. At the same time, the translation of power into authority by the political sector (which is necessary to some extent in all but the most coercive systems) requires some process of legitimation which usually involves a much broader segment of society than those who are actively involved in the political sector.

The concept of legitimation, or justification and approval, is fundamental to all the dimensions of political culture. Authority must be legitimated; community boundaries must be legitimated; decision-making and conflict-resolving processes must be legitimated. A withdrawal of legitimacy may result in revolutionary action by those who feel they should assume power or may result in rebellion by those who wish to secure greater autonomy or even separation from the community.

According to Talcott Parsons, legitimation is the appraisal of action in terms of shared or common values in the context of the involvement of the action in the social system. Parsons further suggests that the process of legitimation is the bridge by which values are joined to the differentiated subsystems of action. Karl Deutsch writes that legitimacy is the assurance of the compatibility of a value pursuing course of action with other key values. According to T. Shibutani and K. M. Kwan, Unless power is justified by linking it to accepted values, the governed are less willing to obey and question the right of others to hold power. 9 In short, legitimation is the process by which actions (and structures) are justified in society. The manipulation of this process is clearly in the interests of those with power but is equally important to those who are trying to reform the power structure or oppose those in power.

In this study the discussion of legitimation will be directed to the values utilized in the justification of authority and community and the patterns of behavior that characterize the application of such values. Insofar as a particular stratum or class within society (such as the religious leadership) has a special role in influencing legitimation, attention will be directed to the manner in which such a class communicates its value judgments to other groups or classes in society and the manner in which such a class legitimizes its own right to this function.

A second aspect of legitimation considered here is the degree to which the agents of legitimation and the society at large apply to the process of social and political change established criteria for judging social and political situations—the ways, that is, in which traditional roles are used to assess the legitimacy of institutions, processes, or collectivities that result from the process of social change and differentiation.

While the process of legitimation is an underlying concern in the study of political culture, it is necessary to focus on the application of legitimacy to particular dimensions. The selection of dimensions within political culture may be done on analytical grounds, or it may be done by examining a particular society and trying to determine which dimensions are of most relevance.10

In this volume, two broad dimensions of political culture will be examined:

authority (including succession to and protest of authority) and community formation (including formation and consolidation of community identities and boundaries). These dimensions were selected partly because they represent at an analytical level the essential or core requirements for a political community to sustain itself, and partly because these have been the issues of primary concern to the people within the case-study context. The influence of religious ideas and behavior on the development of these dimensions will be assessed. It will be argued that changes in religious culture have produced changes in political culture.

The study of authority requires attention to the locus and procedure of decision making, whether within the particular sectors, within the component segments in a plural society, or within the polity as a whole. It also requires attention to the process of succession (or recruitment) to leadership. The process of legitimation in the establishment of authority may be assessed in terms of the types of justification invoked and in terms of the procedure by which individuals seeking legitimation are accorded or denied such status. A distinction will be drawn here between charismatic authority and bureaucratic authority. Charismatic authority is based on personal powers that are perceived to be of an extraordinary nature. Bureaucratic authority is based on the functioning of an administrative cadre whose powers derive from an institutional base rather than from the characteristics of any individual. The notion of traditional authority will be used sparingly in this study, since dynastic rule in practice tends to be either charismatic or bureaucratic.

Succession to authority means the processes by which candidates are selected or validated and the manner in which a final choice is made. The distinction between succession based on ascribed criteria as opposed to achieved criteria will be used in this volume,11 although in most cases, succession is based on a combination of such criteria.

The reverse of succession—that is, deposition—is also important to an understanding of authority. There are usually explicit attitudes toward the justifications for removal from office and the status of individuals who have been removed from office.

The concepts of reform, protest, and dissent are closely related to the idea of authority. The acceptability of those who hold opinions different from those in authority varies considerably in different cultures. In a theocratic state differences of opinion may not only constitute treason but also heresy. Reformist types of protest frequently attempt to manipulate or redefine the existing symbols of legitimacy. Attitudes toward the exercise of coercion or violence by authority are relevant in those cases where governmental force is used against protest and dissent.

The second broad dimension, community formation, refers to orientations toward maintenance, expansion, or contraction of system boundaries and to the criteria used to define such boundaries.12 A major factor in the formation of a community is its relationship with nonmembers of the community, that is, the way in which the external environment defines it. The integration of communities may be regarded analytically as spectrum that includes cooperative interaction, structural interdependence (including interlocking authority systems), value congruence, and identity congruence.

In this study the three major types of communities under consideration will be ethnic, religious, and political. The development of rationales to accommodate multiple membership (or identity) will be of special interest. An ethnic community may be defined analytically as one in which the quality of internal relationships is diffuse rather than specific. An ethnic community is based on kinship, or kinship-like, relationships in which there is a common core of cultural values and in which there are particularistic symbols of group identity. In most cases these include an assertion of common ancestry, a common language, and some degree of geographic proximity. Ethnic identity is invariably based on social definitions, however, and the criteria of ethnic inclusion become an empirical question.

Ethnic pluralism refers to a situation in which two or more ethnic groups occupy a particular environment and are interactive in the economic sphere but not in the social, political, or religious spheres. This was a common occurrence in the colonial world where the colonial power acted as arbitrator or political broker between different ethnic groups. The consolidation of an ethnically pluralistic society into a more fully interactive community usually occurs through the linkage of particular sectors. Such linkage may initially develop through structural interdependence and value congruence but may later emerge into identity congruence. The religious sector is particularly important in this process because religious integration usually precedes social integration. Furthermore, the transformation of ethnic identity has frequently been a transition to the formation of broader political communities. (Although in some situations, political integration may precede religious integration.) The linkage of religious sectors may result in a sharing of values which may contribute to the formation of a general political-culture zone (as distinct from political-culture dimensions, which crosscut the various sectors) and hence facilitate the linkage of political sectors.

The conceptual relationship of ethnicity to nationality is largely a matter of definition. A nationality is a people who exhibit the characteristics of community cohesiveness, but is usually of significant size. Nationalism refers to the demands for political autonomy by such a people. Nationalism may be based on ethnicity, religion, or various combinations of political criteria. In this study the end result of ethnic and religious integration has been a type of city-state nationalism which eventually was accommodated through separate statehood within a national federation.

The emergence of political culture patterns at the local level within a national context is clearly related to the process of national integration. This is the case with regard to both national mass-elite integration and national interethnic integration. James S. Coleman and Carl G. Rosberg write, In the new states, the politically relevant cultures are … those of the hundreds of heterogeneous ethnic communities and tribal societies arbitrarily bunched together within the artificial boundaries imposed during the colonial period. Conversely, according to Claude Ake, The essence of the problem of political integration is one of developing a political culture and inducing commitment to it. The process of linkage of communities within a national context may be illuminated by examining this process at a local level. The relationship of religion to political culture has been referred to at various points above. The argument is put in its basic form by Parsons: The justification factor of legitimation is most prominent … where commitment to the relevant values is directly linked with highly explicit transcendental religious beliefs. 13 The logic of the relationship between religion and political culture will be examined below.

Religion may be defined as beliefs, values, and action based on ultimate concern. The concept of ultimate concern, as developed by Paul Tillich and by Robert Bellah, has two aspects: meaning and power—meaning in the sense of the ultimate meaning of the central values of a society or sub-group of it, and power, in the sense of ultimate, sacred, or supernatural power which stands behind those values.14 In this broad sense, religion might be regarded as the basis of both ideological and cultural values. In its social manifestations (as distinct from personal or theological manifestations) religion usually posits a division of behavior and meaning into two categories: sacred and profane.

The boundaries between the sacred and profane in any society may be partly reflected in structural differentiation. According to Parsons, It is well known that in primitive societies … no clear cut structural distinction could be made between religion and secular aspects of the organization of society; there has been no ‘church’ as a differentiated organizational entity.15 Some scholars have regarded the scope of religion as the major empirical indicator distinguishing between types of societies. Other scholars have suggested that religion is the major component in the value and identity cohesion of society. Georg Simmel asserts that co-existence and sharing of human interests is not possible with people who do not share one’s faith. Colin M. Turnbull defines ethnicity primarily in religious terms. Friedrich Engels equates tribal and national religions with particularistic communities in the pre-bourgeois era.16

The close conceptual relationship between ethnicity and religion has resulted in the typological distinction of religions as universalistic and particularistic. A universalistic religion may be joined by anyone, regardless of ethnicity. A particularistic religion is ascriptive in that only persons of the ethnic group can participate in the religion. Ethnic religions (such as the Yoruba, Nupe, or Ashanti religions) are restricted to ethnic members. Transethnic religions (such as Christianity or Islam) are not restricted in membership. In certain cases, however, both Christianity and Islam may be regarded as particularistic religions. Historically, certain clans regarded Islamic identity as coterminous with their ethnic identity. Certain Christian sects have likewise been associated with ethnic groups and are essentially closed rather than open groupings.

The structural differentiation of church and state did not necessarily occur with the introduction of universalistic religions. Within the Christian empires, the idea of political secularity and separation of church and state developed only in the late Middle Ages.17 In the Islamic areas, the notion of political

secularity did not develop significantly until the twentieth century.18 The idea of separation of church and state was more evident in the multinational centralized empires prior to the rise of empires based on universalistic religions.19 The modern concept of secularism developed in Europe as structural differentiation began to occur, primarily in the Protestant countries after the Reformation.20

The direct influence of religion on politics varies partly with the degree of differentiation in society. In highly differentiated societies, religious actors may or may not participate in the political sector.21 In a pre-differentiated society the political actors and the religious actors may be one and the same. This study will be less concerned with the direct involvement of religious personnel in political life than with their indirect influence on political values and forms of organization. Transferences of values from the religious sphere to the political sphere and the extent to which the particular dimensions of political culture are affected by religious values, beliefs, and actions will be assessed.

This study is also concerned with theocracy. This type of political system posits a transcendental source as the repository of political values. The term political religion refers to the transfer of the sacred qualities associated with religious collectivities and the incorporation of ritual, sacred objects, procedures of excommunication, value orientations, and charismatic authority patterns into the political sphere.22

Yet the degree of structural differentiation in society between the religious and political sectors is not necessarily a guide to the religious basis of authority and community within the polity. In some states a structural linkage between church and state has remained long after religion ceased to be the basis of authority and community. In other states there has been structural differentiation, but religion continues to be a definitional element in community membership. In still other states there is an official state religion that is apparently intended to indicate the source of values (as distinct from identities) within the state.

The relationship of religion to the two selected dimensions of political culture—authority and community—is fundamental. The concept of charismatic authority is etymologically derived from religious phenomena;23 Bellah suggests that any existent system of authority is based to some extent on charisma (another word for the sacred power mentioned as one aspect of ultimate control) of a more or less routinized form. 24 25 Even bureaucratic authority may entail a direct or symbiotic relationship with the explicitly religious elements in society. Thus Weber discusses the rejection of irrational religion by the bureaucratic classes, yet stresses their recognition of the usefulness of this type of religion as a device for controlling people. 25 The religious patterns of ruling elites are frequently different from those of the masses, yet mass-elite integration may be achieved to some extent through the manipulation of common religious symbols. Conversely, religion may be used by a ruling class to explain class differences. According to Shibutani and Kwan, whenever conspicuous differences of rank lead to embarrassing questions, ideologies emerge to explain the gradation. One of the most effective ways of justifying the status quo is by religion. 26 There is a considerable body of literature on religious protest and authority. The disinherited have frequently been attracted to certain types of religious movements, especially messianic cults.27

Religion may be related to concepts of community formation in two ways that are relevant to this study (apart from ethnic situations in which religion may be coterminous with community): the establishment of urban-rural linkages and interurban linkages, and the reinforcement of nationalism.

With regard to urban integration, the migration of diverse persons from rural areas to urban areas presents special problems of community formation. Religious organization has often been developed or utilized to accommodate the scale-expanding process which urbanization represents. Weber suggests that Christianity developed in Europe as an urban religion: it was the city which, in earlier times, was regarded as the site of piety. Actually, early Christianity was an urban religion. … In the Middle Ages too, fidelity to the church, as well as sectarian movements in religion, characteristically developed in the cities. It is highly unlikely that an organized congregational religion, such as early Christianity became, could have developed as it did apart from the community life of the city. Weber further suggests that this phenomenon may have developed in response to the need for a network of social cohesion larger than the family unit: the congregational type of religion has been intimately connected with the urban middle classes of both the upper and lower levels. This was a natural consequence of the relative recession in the importance of blood groupings, particularly of the clan within the occidental city. 28

With regard to interurban linkage, it is clear that urban centers are nodes in a larger system of interactions. Transportation and communication patterns exist between cities, and ideas and information are exchanged between cities. Strangers and migrants reside in cities. This produces pressure for a universalistic form of religion in urban centers, as distinct from a particularistic form. Where interurban trade is important, religion may be used in establishing trust or confidence between trading partners and may facilitate interurban marriages which are frequently used to consolidate business relations. In the above processes, community integration may occur within the urban site as well as between urban sites.

With regard to nationalistic community formation, religion may be influential in three ways: by forming the basis of separatism, by forming the basis of merger, and by consolidating a nationalist movement not involving merger or separatism. Separatist movements are seldom purely religious, although religion may be a surrogate factor for other types of cultural or economic grievances. In situations where a universalist religion does not recognize the legitimacy of religious pluralism, a separatist movement may develop. Mergers, by contrast, may result either through the positive or negative influence of religion. In some nations, religion has been a force that has helped link geographical areas. In other situations, it has been the absence of religion or the secularization of political institutions that has allowed for merger.29

The relationship of religion to nationalist movements is usually complex and is affected to a large measure by the degree of secularization in a society at the time. Emerson and Kohn have suggested that the rise of nationalism … is likely to be preceded by a revival and reformulation of basic religious principles and outlooks. Emerson also calls attention to the appearance of religious sects of protest and politico-religious movements of a messianic variety where the time is not yet ripe for full-blown nationalism, or where political activity is barred by the colonial authorities. 30 In the case of the Islamic world, there have been frequent attempts to link nationalist movements with an Islamic ideology. In several cases, nation-states have emerged that have represented particular orientations or sects within Islam. Similarly, after the Reformation in Europe, nation-states emerged that were clearly associated with particular orientations within Christianity.

In any study of the relationship of religion to political culture, it is necessary to identify those in society who have explicitly religious roles. Even in relatively diffuse societies, at an early stage a class of persons tends to develop that undertakes primary responsibility for managing the organization and ritual of religion. In the particularistic as well as universalistic religions, elements of a clerical class (imams, shamans, priests, rabbis, ministers) usually exist, whether officially recognized as such or not. In some cases a clerical class will act as an intermediary between a ruling class and the common people. This intermediary function is strengthened if differentiation has occurred between religious and political functions, that is, if political leaders have residual religious authority and if religious leaders have residual political authority. Of central importance to the assessment of political culture, however, are the patterns of relations within the religious sector. Simmel writes, the relationship between believers and priests involves representation and leadership, control and cooperation, veneration and provision of material sustenance. 31 It is precisely such patterns which may, in varying degrees, influence comparable patterns within the political sector.

Several hypotheses may be suggested at this point. First, a belief system

must have at least three characteristics if it is to survive and facilitate interethnic community formation: a credible universality, some internal justification for adaptation to new circumstances, and some criteria for identifying those persons qualified to render value decisions. Second, the processes of interethnic community formation may be facilitated by example, if a major nonpolitical group in society (for example, a religious group) integrates its authority structures. Third, the occupational category of cleric, with its primary function of teaching and providing access to ultimate values, has a role in the process of political-culture formation that is inherently more salient than those of other major occupations (farmers, craftsmen, traders, or administrators).

THE KANO CASE STUDY

The selection of Kano State (formerly Province) as a case-study unit is partly due to the importance of Kano City as an urban center in West Africa and partly due to the religio-political significance of Kano Emirate. Kano Province was a major component in the former Northern Region system, and as one of the twelve new states of Nigeria (the only one with a homogeneous Hausa- Fulani population) Kano may be influential in the future course of national integration. During the period of the postindependence Nigerian civilian regime (1960-1966), Kano reflected many of the problems of the federation as a whole: establishing a broadly acceptable central authority; handling succession and deposition crises; balancing ethnic, urban, regional, and national loyalties; judging the appropriate limits of dissent. During this period Kano served as the predominant center of political reformism and social change in the north.

Kano also has become perhaps the major center of Islamic learning and reformism in Nigeria. Islam has been the basis of transethnic political communities in northern Nigeria and the Western-Central Sudan for several centuries. The Sokoto Empire, for example, was preserved by the colonial policy of indirect rule in northern Nigeria and formed the basis for much of the Northern Region. The Kano case study may provide some insight into traditional political culture in the Muslim areas of northern Nigeria. It may also indicate the manner in which political culture itself is modified over time, under the impact of socioeconomic change and urbanization, and how such modification relates to the larger processes of national integration. At this point, four aspects of the socioeconomic structure in Kano will be examined: urbanization, ethnicity, class, and connectivity.

Kano State is situated in the central part of northern Nigeria and is bordered by Bornu on the northeast, Bauchi on the southeast, Zaria on the southwest, and Katsina on the west. To the north, a common frontier exists with Niger

Republic (see Map 1). In 1963 Kano Province had an official population of 5,775,000 persons. Kano Emirate constituted about 85 percent of Kano Province, that is, about 4.9 million persons. Three other emirates—Kazaure, Gumel, Hadejia—constituted the remainder.

Kano City has been the predominant urban site in the Western-Central Sudan since the early nineteenth century.32 Within Hausaland, Katsina City, a rival to Kano in size and importance until the early nineteenth century diminished

considerably after the Jihad and the establishment of the Hausa successor state in Maradi.33 Sokoto, which was founded at the time of the Fulani Jihad, has never been large. With the establishment of colonial rule in 1902-3, Kano was not only the largest city in northern Nigeria but increased in size at a higher rate than any other urban center. By the time of the 1952 census, Kano was almost three times larger than any other northern city. Between 1952 and 1962, migration into Kano increased to the point where the urban area nearly doubled in population. By 1963-64 the Kano urban area had an estimated population of 260,687 and a population density of 40,000 per square mile,34 the highest in Africa south of the Sahara.

During the latter part of the colonial era, there were three distinct districts within the Kano urban area (see Map 2). These included (1) Kano City (165,455), the traditional walled city, which was predominantly Muslim Hausa- Fulani; (2) Waje (83,584)—the new town—which consisted of Fagge, originally a camping site for Niger caravans in the nineteenth century but later a modern Hausa district and commercial center, Sabon Gari (consisting mainly of Ibo and Yoruba immigrants and including a large market), and Tudun Wada and Gwagwarwa, both recently settled areas of northern (Muslim) immigrants; (3) Township (9,246), formerly the Government Residential Area and later populated by Nigerian civil servants and expatriate commercial residents.

The mean annual rates of growth from 1958 to 1962 for the sectoral components in the Kano urban area were as follows: Kano City, 11.5 percent; Fagge, 14.5 percent; Sabon Gari, 5.6 percent; Tudun Wada, 28.9 percent; Gwagwarwa, 33.0 percent; Township, 11.5 percent. The areas of highest growth were Tudun Wada and Gwagwarwa, both essentially northern Muslim communi ties; but the rate for Kano City (11.5 percent) is extremely high when weighted for population base. The Sabon Gari community grew at the lowest rate in this period. Northern Muslim migrants expanded the urbanization figures rather than southern Christians. Much of this northern Muslim increase was drawn from rural areas within Kano Province, but part of it represented immigration from other northern provinces.35

In short, Kano has evidenced an extremely high rate of urban migration in the twentieth century. On the basis of census figures over a fifty-year period (1911-62), the Kano urban area has increased in size by 650 percent. Furthermore, this increase was from a significant starting point, for Kano City was clearly the largest urban center in Sudanic West Africa in the nineteenth century.

Within Kano City there are administrative areas, or wards, each of which has a clear social base. In the nineteenth century, Kano City was not formally subdivided into wards, although there were sections of the town that consisted of particular ethnic, clan, or occupational groups. At the turn of the century there were ten sections in Kano City: Zango, Gwauron Dama, Madabo, Chediya, Jingau, Sheshe, Darma, Makama, Shetima, and Chigari. Within these broad sections were subsections with distinctive characteristics (which, to a large extent, became the wards of the twentieth century). Thus the Madabo area included Hausa clans and groups such as the Zaitawa, Dukurawa, and Sankawa which had migrated to Kano before the Jihad from Wangara. Chediya included the important Hausa area of Bakin Ruwa, a triangle stretching west from the market toward Gwauron Dutse and containing descendants of some of the original peoples of Kano. Chediya also contained most of the Arab quarter, and especially those Arabs who had left Katsina for Kano after the Fulani Jihad. Sheshe was identified with a pre-Jihad migrant group from Birnin Shem, reputedly of Arab origin. Darma included several of the Fulani clans (such as Kurawa and Yolawa) as well as the Sharifai area containing the descendants of the North African al-Maghili. This area also contained migrant groups of Nupe (Nufawa section) and Tuareg (Agadasawa section). The areas of Makama, Shetima, and Chigari were principally the Fulani quarters.

In the course of the twentieth century, the ten sections were subdivided into 126 wards. These wards constitute four districts (juso\i)- South (Kudu), East (Gabas), North (Arewa), and West (Yamma). Within these four districts, the Hausa ethnic groups are primarily settled in the West and North, and the Fulani groups in the South. Thus, Kano South (52,098) is the main area of Fulani clan settlement (with the exception of the Dambazawa who are in Kano East) and is the seat of emirate government. Kano East (40,596) is the location of the central market and is inhabited by laborers and traders; Kano North (32,060), while containing some of the oldest Hausa areas (such as Madabo and Dala), is characterized by fields formerly used for cattle grazing. Much of this unoccupied land was given by Kano emirs to the new class of Hausa businessmen in the past fifty years. Kano West (40,383), a center of the original Hausa settlement (especially the Bakin Ruwa area) is inhabited by craftsmen and traders. (See Map 3.)

The major ethnic groups in precolonial Kano City were the Hausa, Fulani, Beriberi (including Kanuri), Tuareg (including Buzaye), Arab, and Nupe. All these groups were predominantly Muslim, and each spoke a distinct language. The only available census figures for ethnic distribution in Kano City were for 1931, when approximately 77 percent of the people were Hausa, 12 percent Fulani, and 7 percent Beriberi. In recent times, however, most people in Kano City have come to use Hausa as a first language and have accepted Hausa as an ethnic identification.

Outside of Kano City, mainly in the Sabon Gari area, there have been southern Nigerian migrants, including Ibo, Ibibio, Edo, Yoruba, and a variety of groups from the Middle Belt. This latter cluster of minority peoples (including Idoma, Tiv, Bachama, and Igala) have come to be known in some quarters as the thin tribe or minority tribe (tsirarin \abilu). (The growth of the Sabon Gari will be discussed in chapter 8.)

Ethnic distribution in the rural districts of Kano Emirate varies significantly but averages about one-third Fulani and two-thirds Hausa. In 1952 the Fulani population ranged from 49.5 percent in Ungogo district to 15.3 percent in Tudun Wada. The Hausa population in the rural districts ranged from 45.6 percent in Ungogo to 79.9 percent in Kura.

In recent times it has become possible to speak of the Hausa-Fulani as a single ethnic group, representing an amalgamation of Fulani and Hausa peoples. In the past there was often conflict between the Hausa and Fulani, and their distinctiveness is still apparent in many contemporary situations. The Fulani conquest of Hausaland in the early nineteenth century was a critical juncture in the relations between these two groups. The major Fulani clans participating in the Jihad in Kano included the Sullubawa, Mundubawa, Jo- bawa, and Dambazawa. Other clans, such as the Jahunawa, did not participate in the Jihad and were on relatively good terms with the Hausa community. Throughout the nineteenth century, relations between the Hausa and the Fulani were influenced by the fact that the Fulani were not a unified community. Within Kano City, the Hausa were an overwhelming majority of the population and in many respects were treated with special consideration by the Fulani rulers.

In the rural areas the precolonial patterns of Hausa and Fulani relations were perhaps more indicative of the general pattern of pluralism. In a sample of seven rural districts representing a full range of demographic balances, several patterns of ethnic relations emerge.36 At the time of the Fulani Jihad,

three of the seven districts evidenced severe Hausa-Fulani fighting. A fourth district revolted at the time of the succession of the first Fulani emir. Only one of the districts attempted any further revolt. In four districts, however, the Hausa and Fulani populations actively cooperated in withstanding external threat (mainly Ningi). On issues of local leadership succession and in reaction to the British conquest, there was little involvement by the Hausa in Fulani affairs. Hence, four of the districts (Birnin Kudu, Gabasawa, Rano, and Tudun Wada) evidenced direct Hausa-Fulani conflict. In the other three districts (Gaya, Dutse, Jahun) there seems to have been an overall neutrality on the part of the Hausa with regard to social and political matters.

In summary, the two major ethnic groups in Kano (Hausa and Fulani) experienced a conquest relationship that was transformed during the nineteenth century into a pluralistic relationship based on division of labor and mutual economic interdependence.

Ethnic groups in Kano have been associated with a stratification (or class) structure that is essentially based on an ethnic division of labor. Within Kano City there is a long history of specialization in both trades and crafts. Traditionally, families specialized in occupations (sanaa); and although it was unusual for all the sons of a particular family to follow the father’s trade or craft, equivalent socioeconomic occupations were available to younger sons. A guild (jamiyya), or union, was equivalent to a combination of welfare society, labor union, and family council. These guilds regulated recruitment of membership and managed the affairs of the occupational groups. Many of the occupations were ethnically based, and many of the guilds were based in particular clans. Hausa families, for example, tended to dominate weaving and dyeing; a Fulani would rarely be found in such an occupation. Since clan groups tended to live in the same ward area, it was possible to determine the ethnic identification of an occupational category by the location of its guild in the city.

Division-of-labor patterns in the precolonial period are difficult to calculate with precision. During the early colonial period, however, a system of taxation was established in which assessment was based on occupational categories. A full survey of urban occupations was undertaken in 1921, and a more refined assessment was made in 1926. According to the 1926 assessment, the 11,431 taxpayers in Kano City were divided into forty-five occupations (see Table 1). The occupations with the most people were, predictably, those that could accommodate rural immigration (most of which was Hausa): cap makers, mallams, tailors, petty traders, and laborers.

In 1926 the occupation of administration probably engaged about 200 persons at all levels in Kano City. Emirate administrative bureaucracy tended to

TABLE 1

ESTIMATED INCOME (PER ANNUM) BY TRADITIONAL OCCUPATION, 1926

♦ Excluding wealthy traders, the average income was £14 per annum. SOURCE: 1926 Assessment, Kano.

TABLE 2

INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN KANO CITY BY RELATIVE DEPRIVATION RATIO, 1926

be identified with particular Fulani families or clans. Division of labor within the bureaucracy followed functional lines, which will be discussed in chapter 6.

Since traditional occupations tended to follow ethnic or clan patterns, the distribution of income by occupational group is an important indicator of ethnic stratification. In order to establish some standard of upper income level within the emirate system, a per annum salary average of top-level administrators in 1926 has been calculated: emir, 18,500; waziri, L1,200; madaki, £1,200; galadima, L1,000; ma’aji, 1720; chief alkali, 1720. The average salary for these six offices was 2,270. Other occupational incomes are calculated as a percentage of this amount in Table 2.

The translation of occupational specialization and income distribution into categories of social class may be done analytically or according to social perceptions. Since social perceptions are of more interest in the study of political culture, some assessment of social class by these criteria seems necessary. In the early colonial period, Resident C. L. Temple wrote of Kano City: The native community may be divided into four classes: the aristocracy, the upper middle class (traders and moneyed men), the lower middle class, and the poverty stricken. Forty years later, Aminu Kano was to write: These people may be divided into four distinct social classes, namely, the aristocracy and the merchants, the mallams or doctors of divinity, the traders and the artisans, and the labourers and peasants. 37

During the postindependence era there were many interpretations of social class in Kano. Most of them, however, could be reduced to five categories: (1) ruling class Fulani (sara\una, or masu sarautd)\ (2) wealthy Hausa mer chants (tajirai, or masu arzikt) with incomes over L 10,000; (3) educated senior-service personnel (siniya sabis) with incomes over /720 (the majority of whom were Fulani); (4) middle class Hausa traders Qyan \asuwd), who might have incomes ranging from 1,000 to 10,000; (5) common people (talaka) with incomes under 1500 (predominantly Hausa). The latter category is generally regarded as including five subcategories: farmers (manoma)\ petty traders Qyan tebur); craft workers (masu aify da hannu), including blacksmiths (makera), factory workers (masu aify a gidajen sanaa), and construction workers (magina)) laborers (leburori), including truck pushers and those who dig dirt for buildings; and beggars (musakai). The position of the mallam class will be discussed later, but significantly, it crosscuts all five major categories mentioned above.

As another approach to ethnic distribution of income, an examination of the tax receipts in 1925 by ward indicates that the Hausa wards in Kano City West had a lower average per capita income than the Fulani and Arab parts of the city. In subsequent years, however, some Hausa merchants have expanded increasingly into the area of agricultural produce export and have developed a considerable base of wealth. Within Kano State as a whole the primary occupation is agriculture. In 1952 the primary male occupations in Kano Province were as follows: (1) agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting— 80.12 percent; (2) craftsmen, skilled and semiskilled workers—9.98 percent; (3) trading and clerical—3.75 percent; (4) administrative, professional, technical—2.01 percent; (5) other—4.12 percent.38

During the twentieth century there has been a rapidly expanding modern sector in Kano. During the 1930s, Lebanese businessmen came to Kano, settled in Fagge, and engaged in light industry and wholesale merchandising. Despite the worldwide depression, the Kano Native Authority extended itself in all departments, from public works to printing. During World War II, many new industries were initiated in Kano. By the end of the war, Kano had the largest modern sector in northern Nigeria, the manpower for which was drawn largely from non-Muslim southern Nigerian immigrants who settled in the Sabon Gari. In 1946 systematic plans were drawn up for development in Kano. In 1949 a Kano Native Authority Five-Year Plan was introduced. In 1950 it was transformed into a Kano Ten-Year Plan. Colonial policy makers had selected Kano as the main urban area in northern Nigeria for economic modernization. From 1954 to 1962, more industries were established in Kano. An examination of the Kano Labor Exchange reports reveals that toward the end of the 1950s the overwhelming majority of those looking for

work in the modern sector were northern Muslims (mainly Hausa) rather than southern migrants.

The types of light industries that had been established in the Kano urban area had several effects in terms of ethnic division of labor: nonindigenous ethnic groups (from southern Nigeria) dominated skilled positions in the modern sector; indigenous ethnic groups increasingly came into competition with southerners in the semiskilled occupations; the Fulani administrative class in Kano came to hold advisory positions in the management structures of the new industries; and northern Muslim ethnic groups came to dominate the unskilled occupations in the modern sector.

During the late colonial period the economic locus of the Kano urban area began to shift away from the city market to a commercial zone located between the four emergent ethnic groups with the most economic significance: Europeans, Lebanese (Syrians), southern Nigerians, and Kano City Hausa-Fulani. This commercial zone was essentially barren of residential units and was the center of the major modern-sector economic transactions.

In recent years the Kano economic structure has expanded on both the national and international levels. Groundnuts (peanuts), hides and skins, and livestock have been exchanged for foodstuffs (kola and gari), textiles, and consumer goods. Agricultural exports, especially groundnuts, came to be the major source of wealth in Kano. Groundnuts were grown in Kano during World War I at the initiative of Hausa farmers. (The colonial regime tried to encourage cotton growing.)39 Since World War I, groundnuts have revolutionized urban-rural relations in Kano. In addition to the effect of the infusion of a cash economy into the rural areas, many farmers require financial credit in order to get through the preplanting lean period and this credit may come from urban sources, especially licensed buying agents (LBA). The same LBA are necessary to arrange for the transmission of produce from the farmer to the point of export. Both of these arrangements require trust and confidence as well as financial and legal assurances.

Initially, however, it was the Lebanese trader who served the middleman function. According to the 1926 Kano provincial report, The groundnut crop was fair. The average price was about 10-10-0 [per ton]. More and more the Syrian trader is becoming the middleman between the native and the European firms, a situation as displeasing to the firms as it is detrimental to the true interests of the native trader.⁴⁰ The major European firms subse-

quently established their own trading plots in rural towns. In the 1950s, however, the export of groundnuts was centralized through a northern marketing board. The number of indigenous licensed buying agents was limited to those few wealthy Hausa traders who had the capital necessary for the financing of preseason planting—Alhassan Dantata, for example, who emerged as one of the wealthiest men in Nigeria. In the late 1950s preseason financing became available from the government to other Hausa businessmen, and the Hausa licensed buying agents nearly eclipsed all others. Licenses also became a political matter and were used by the governing party to control or entice individuals. In the meantime, groundnuts had become one of Nigeria’s chief exports, and Nigeria had become one of the major groundnut producers in the world. Kano Province was producing almost half of all Nigerian groundnuts. In short, the predominance of groundnuts as a source of both urban and rural wealth considerably strengthened links between the urban and rural areas in terms of personal contact, interdependence, and mutual interest.

Another consequence of these economic developments was the realignment in the system of spatial connectivity. The three most important modes of transportation connecting Kano to other urban centers have been rail, air, and road. The development patterns of these transportation systems are important to understanding social communication networks in Kano, which have fundamentally reoriented the concept of community scale.

The Kano-Lagos railway was authorized in 1907 and completed in 1911. Kano served as the primary northern railhead and hence as a distribution center for goods intended for Katsina, Zinder, and other points north. Until the completion of the Maiduguri extension in 1965, Kano also served as the railhead for points to the east. The major function of the railway became the transport of groundnuts, not only from Kano but from the entire north and much of Niger Republic. The spur route from Kano City to Nguru, which passed through the central portion of Kano Province, meant that many Kano rural areas came into direct rail contact with Kano City. New towns developed out of isolated villages along the rail route within the Kano rural districts. Because these towns lacked a strong traditional authority structure, they often came under the influence of the emirate authorities in Kano City.

The airport in Kano was opened in 1935, and a weekly service connected Kano with Khartoum, which, at that time, was on the main route from London to South Africa. During World War II the Kano airport became a major staging post for the United States to the Middle East and Far East. In the postwar period Kano became the major airport in Nigeria, surpassing in air traffic the airport in Lagos in the pre-independence era. By 1950 about 55,000 passengers a year passed through the Kano airport (of which about 75 percent were in transit).40 This development had two major effects on religious communication patterns in Kano: it established Kano as the Nigerian point of departure for pilgrimage flights to Saudi Arabia, and it became a stopover point for other Muslims in West Africa, especially Senegal, who were on pilgrimage. The increasing use of air transportation for the pilgrimage was made possible by the infusion of wealth from the groundnut trade, and it meant that religious personalities with some basis of wealth were coming into contact with each other for the first time on such a scale. Eleven hundred pilgrims departed from the Kano airport in 1955. By 1961 this figure had almost doubled, to 2,043. In 1969 nearly 25,000 Nigerians went on pilgrimage and most left from Kano (including those who flew in from Lagos).41

The major mode of transportation for the common people, however, has been roads. By about 1930 road connections had been established between Kano City and most of the rural district headquarters. Yet, with the development of the groundnut industry, the major problem remained the establishment of a feeder road system between the villages and the towns. Much of the incentive for the Kano Development Plan of 1949 seems to have been the need for efficient groundnut evacuation. According to the Kano resident, Unless an early and concentrated attack on the problem of these feeder roads is launched, produce evacuation will next season, in certain places, come to a standstill. 42 During the 1950s these feeder roads were constructed, and many of the Kano rural areas were exposed for the first time to easy access with the urban center (see Map 4).

The main road artery connecting Kano with the seaport of Lagos went through Zaria, Kaduna, Kontagora, Ilorin, and Ibadan. Although a rail link was established from Kafanchan to Port Harcourt (Eastern Region), the road links with the Eastern Region were never developed (see Map 5). The international caravan system passing through Kano was reoriented from a north-south axis (Kano-Tripoli) to an east-west axis (Dakar-Khartoum), partly as a result of French colonial policy. The east-west road patterns in French West Africa were well established by 1930: Dakar-Bamako-Ougadou-

gou-Niamey-Maradi (also, Bamako-Mopti-Gao-Niamey). In the 1880s a trip from Kano to Sokoto took twelve days. By 1929 a person could motor from Dakar to Lake Chad in twelve days. This pattern was reinforced during World War II, when east-west travelers could not use North African coastal routes because of war zone restrictions. With regard to the eastern route from Kano to Khartoum, the major factors in the opening up of the transportation network were the political effects of colonial rule, especially the defeat of the sultan of Darfur by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916, which allowed for free transit.

At the same time, the Arab trading communities in Kano began to reorient themselves from north to east. In 1916, according to H. R. Palmer, acting resident of Kano:

Map 5. Nigeria: Selected Inter-Urban Linkage, 1961

At the present time the dominant factor, as far as trade is concerned, is that Kano is the distributing centre for Manchester goods and native cloths; north, as far as Agades, east, as far as Wadai; and southeast to the region of Kuti and Darsilla and almost to the Ubangi.

The Kano Arabs and native traders, consequent on the death of the Tripoli trade, have to a large extent turned their attention to Bornu and the Chad basin and Wadai. With the opening of Darfur to commerce there will soon result a great increase in the direct transcontinental traffic, which has hitherto been stifled by the attitude of the late Sultan of Darfur, Ali Dinar.43

Although Palmer hoped to revive the Kano contacts with North Africa and even suggested the importation of Qur’anic teachers from Fez, the routes north were not competitive economically with the boat route from Lagos to Dakar to Casablanca. Yet one of the political effects of the east-west transportation pattern was the increased salience of the Kano-Sokoto relationship, for both were now on the same major route. In the postindependence era, an excellent road was constructed from Kaduna to Sokoto. Had this road been extended to Niamey, Kano might have been eclipsed as the commercial entrepot for the trade in the western portion of the Sudanic interior. (See Map 6.)

In summary, the major economic mode of transportation was the rail link between Kano and Lagos in the south. Yet road and air facilities put Kano in a nodal position for linking centers in the Sudanic belt from Senegal to the Republic of Sudan.

FULANI AND HAUSA ORIENTATIONS TOWARD AUTHORITY AND COMMUNITY

There are three analytical categories of Fulani in Kano State, reflecting different life styles and hence different cultural patterns on matters such as authority and community. The first group is the pastoral nomads (sometimes called bororro and sometimes called Fulanin daji). The second group is the rural settled Fulani who mix farming with animal husbandry (called both Fulanin \auye and Fulanin gida). The third group is the urban Fulani, particularly those who have dominated the administrative structures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (called Fulanin soro, or Fulanin birni, or Fulanin gida).44

In pastoral Fulani society, authority is vested in