Draft:Islam among the Igbo

The Igbo people predominantly found in the Southeastern states of Nigeria — Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo are commonly identified for their business spirits, decentralized political structure and indigenous traditional religion/values. While predominantly in the south east, the Igbos can also be found as minor settlers in other parts of the country and their population according to a 1992 census is estimated at about 19 million^[1].

When the question as to exactly when Islam first appeared in Igboland is being posed, this often turn to a debate as most scholars have different standing on the topic. Some would point to the eighteenth century encounter where Hausa elephant hunters and traders began building settlements in the Nsukka area in the north of Igboland, and also the Igala conquest of parts of Ibagwa brought in a Muslim chief, Okpoto-Igala of Ankpa, into local authority ^[3][1]. Others would bring a different argument that these early contacts produced no recorded conversions to Islam, and that Islam only came into practice as religion in Igbo land in the twentieth century ^[2]. Despite this various standings, what is not disputed among these authors is the point of entry which all accept to be the old Nsukka Division seated at the Northern part of Igboland and sharing borders with the predominantly Muslim Middle Belt.

As the sociologist Simon Ottenberg^[4] noted, the unspoken assumption in Nigerian public life has long been: "If the north will be Islamic, Igbo country will be Christian"^[2]: 64. That assumption can be explained by geography. The thick rainforest belt east of the Niger Valley physically blocked the southward expansion of Hausa and Fulani Muslim traders and warriors for centuries. When European colonial officers arrived in the late nineteenth century, they found the area still governed by Igbo traditional religion known as Odinani/Omenala, and Christian missionaries moved in quickly to fill the space ^[5]

The first Igbo Muslim documented is Garba Oheme who is from Enugu Ezike in Nsukka Division, and he is said to have converted to Islam at the age of 29 in 1937 while in Calabar. Muslim leaders across Igboland are unanimous in agreeing on this point ^[2]. It is worth noting also that some had regarded a Nupe trader whose name is Ibrahim Aduku as the first Muslim and not Oheme. Aduku had settled in Enugu Ezike as early as 1918 and was eventually granted full community citizenship there. Rufai^[1] resolves the confusion cleanly by stating that Aduku is originally non-Igbo, and this makes Oheme rightly the first indigenous Igbo to convert to Islam.

Oheme's conversion came through contact with Muslim migrants from the north and west of Nigeria who had been settling in Nsukka area since the 1920s. Most village elders in Enugu Ezike recalled in interviews that Islam was the very first foreign religion they were exposed to, arriving before Christian missionaries reached them.^[2]

One of the persisting challenges facing Igbo Muslims has been the assumption held by the vast majority of Igbo people, including some of their own members, that converting to Islam means becoming Hausa. Early converts had little choices but to absorb Hausa cultures alongside the new faith, because their primary teachers and mentors were mainly Hausa and Nupe traders who also doubled as Islamic scholars. This process, which has been described as hausanization, shaped everything from dress to naming practices down to basic Islamic vocabulary^[2]. An Igbo convert who showed up at a Friday prayer in a flowing babariga gown and a tall cap is not seen to be simply expressing religious commitment, rather he was, in the eyes of his community, declaring himself Hausa. The statement onye Hausa ("Hausa person") became the standard collective reaction to conversion^{[2] [6]}

This conflation of Islam with Hausa identity was, as Afikpo et al.^[5] argue, a misconception that has been sustained by contempt and reinforced by a lack of accurate information about Islam as a world religion distinct from any particular ethnic culture. The earliest Igbo converts absorbed Hausa cultures not because Islam required them, but because of what Afikpo et al. describe as a patron-client system in which a convert was held under sway by the sponsor who introduced him to Islam. He integrated into the family of his sponsor as if a true kinship tie existed between them ^[5]: 120. Once Igbo born scholars trained in Islamic universities began returning and taking leadership, this dependence diminished.

The single most consequential figure in the early history of Igbo Islam was Sheikh Ibrahim Nwagui, an indigenous Igbo Muslim who returned from travels to the Islamic world in 1957. What made Nwagui remarkable was his method: he preached and taught Islam in the Igbo language, not in Arabic or Hausa, making the faith accessible to ordinary Igbo people for the first time^[5][4]. He built mosques and Islamic schools, toured towns across the eastern region, and established Nnofia near Afikpo as his base. Two schools deserve particular mention: the Jam'at Nazral School, founded in Enugu and later relocated to Afikpo, which combined secular subjects with Arabic and Islamic studies for nearly 1,000 students; and the Al-Hudah Muslim School in Enugu, founded by Igbo Muslims in 1990 and state approved, which enrolled approximately 500 students under both Muslim and Christian teachers ^[1].

Today, Islam is described as the second largest religion in Igboland after Christianity.^[5]. Nnorom^[7] observed that "Igbo Imams, Sheikhs, Alhajis, Alhajas and mosques, once few and exotic, are now a common sight in one of the most homogeneous Christian regions in Africa"^: 3, as cited in ^[5]. Igbo Muslim organisations now hold Igbo Muslim cultural days, publish in both Igbo and English, and contest political positions. Some Igbo Muslims serve as chiefs and community rulers ^[5]

This growth has been consolidated to a great extent by Foreign Islamic organisation. The Muslim World League, known among Igbo Muslims as "Rabita" from its Arabic name Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami, funded educational scholarships that took Igbo Muslims to universities in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan. Its subsidiary body, the International Islamic Relief Organisation locally known as "Ighatha" focused on propagation and social welfare. The World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the Islamic Propagation Centre International, headed by the South African scholar Ahmed Deedat, contributed to publishing and public outreach ^[5]. These organisations trained what has become the first generation of Igbo born Islamic scholars, who gradually replaced Egyptian, Pakistani, and northern Nigerian imams as the primary religious leaders of Igbo Muslim communities.

Despite the ongoing spread of Islam among the Igbo, challenges remain significant. The introduction of Sharia law across twelve northern states from 2000 onward, and the violence that followed, deepened the association in Igbo popular consciousness between Islam and violence. As one Igbo imam told Uchendu^[2], many parents now fear that a child who converts to Islam will end up "participating in the many crises for which Hausa Muslims were famous" ^: 82. Yet Anthony^[8] identified what he called "a realignment of ethnicity and religion" among Igbo converts — an active effort by Muslims to challenge the widespread Nigerian assumption that being Igbo and being Muslim are mutually exclusive identities^: 422. That challenge is still underway.

As Rufai^[1] concludes, it may no longer be appropriate to regard Islam as a foreign faith in Igboland. The more accurate description is that Islam has become as indigenous to the region as Christianity considering that both had arrived from outside, and are now inseparable from how millions of southeastern Nigerians understand themselves.