Nana Asma'u, Female Teacher, Poet and Islamic Leader

[Fabregas]

Quote:Nana Asma'u was the daughter of Shehu Usman 'dan Fodio, a Fulbe scholar. After escaping an assassination attempt by the non-Muslim Hausa chief of Gobir, the Shehu launched a jihad in which the Muslim women were full participants. In 1808 the chief of Gobir and his Tuareg allies were defeated, and the Shehu founded the Sokoto caliphate, whose influence is still felt today. His daughter dedicated her life to disseminating Islam and upholding the caliphate. She set up an educational system for Muslim women, acted as a colleague and adviser to her brother and her husband, and managed the practical demands of implementing a new government.

 

Nana Asma'u also wrote a large collection of poetry in Fulfulde, intended for the Fulbe aristocracy, and in Hausa, intended for the majority population composed of nominal Muslims and non-Muslims. Her writings fall into several traditional Arabic genres. Many of the Fulfulde poems are elegies for people who played a significant role in her father's jihad. The Hausa works are mnemonic devices that have been handed down through the generations.

 

Quote:The story of the Sokoto Jihad is fairly well known to warrant recounting here. It however must be said that its contribution in the revival of the position that Islam has conferred on women is singularly remarkable and unprecedented. Shehu from the onset of the movement was seriously concerned over the ignorance and decadence of the society but particularly the deplorable condition of women. He attacked the Hausa society in the way they turned women into chattels and criticise the scholars for ignoring the education of women. He deified the conventions of his time and devoted a lot of his time and energy in this direction, literally urging women to come out to learn and to rebel against the prevailing injustices. " O Muslim women", the Shehu often addressed them, "do not listen to the words of those misguided men who tell you about the duty of obedience to your husbands but they do not tell you anything about obedience to God and his messenger." [8] His brother Abdullahi similarly urged women to go out to search for knowledge with or with out the permission of their husbands.[9] By putting education over and above marriage Abdullahi not only restored the correct Islamic position which actually led to the emergence of women scholars in earlier generations but he revolutionarised gender relationship in Hausaland. The Sokoto community had among its rank scholars, like the famous Nana Asmau, who not only taught but participated from her matrimonial home in the running of the state.

 

 

http://www.yantaru.org/pdfs/EssentialNana.pdf#search=

 

 

This is a short pdf about the life of Nan Asmau

[hodman]

^^^ that is a good story