Sai Hankuri

The 98%

What does it mean to be a Muslim? Is it a self-proclaimed title? Is it acting in accordance with Koranic laws? Is it praying five times a day? Is it cultural? For a woman, is it being married to a Muslim man, or having a Muslim father, or wearing a veil? How do you refute someone’s religious convictions?

Here, there is a battle raging. In a country where around 98% of the population is Muslim, and where to the south (Nigeria) and the west (Mali) wars are fought in the name of religion, internal divisions appear to be growing – widening until differences become more salient than similarities. Where “s/he’s not a Muslim” rolls off people’s tongues – a harsh accusation.

I didn’t give much thought to the meaning of such a slight. It was so common, I dismissed it. And yet, as I hear it more and more, charged with increasing scorn and vitriol, aimed at members of Boko Haram, or al-Queda of the Islamic Maghreb, or the local religious leaders who began encouraging violent resistance to secular laws, I’ve begun to take it more seriously – to understand it as a profound battle for identity.

Yesterday, I visited a well-traveled and rather cosmopolitan Nigerien friend at her office. As we walked to lunch, we came upon two women dressed in black abayas and total face veils. She looked disapprovingly at the women – “That’s not Muslim. That’s not Nigerien.” She shook her head, grumbling “These women import the styles from the Arab states. They don’t belong here. They are ruining Islam.”

Is this backlash against a religious wave which encourages limited personal freedoms, violence, and harsh treatment of non-believers and rule-breakers? Is it backlash against a trend which usurps national identity, favoring a pan-Islamic identity without a local narrative, without local interpretation?

While sectarian conflicts have plagued many Islamic states for years (think Shia versus Sunnis), it is relatively new to Niger. For now there is no violence, only resentment. But how long before the grumbled slight morphs into an irate and unforgiving scream?

98% Muslim.

On the face of it, it appears that such homogeneity would dissuade religious strife. Yet, how long before Niger is torn apart by the same battle for righteousness that has raged on in so many other states before? For the moment, women who cover their whole faces, men who preach violence, families that support more fundamentalized interpretations of Islam are in the minority. For the moment, there is some consensus about what it means to be a Muslim.

But how long can it last?