Dear Sheikh Shekau

Also published in Daily Trust

            Abubakar Shekau

 

I suppose that you are in the right spiritual mindset and perhaps in the right mood to go through this letter having recently observed Ramadan fasting. I also hope you would bear with me for writing you in English instead of Arabic or Hausa, because the medium through which I can reach out to you is obviously English –speaking.

I need not to make any further reference to the circumstances that inspired writing you this letter, for they are pretty obvious; being our daily and quite devastating experience. Likewise, I don’t want go into the intricate question of who is to blame, for it would unnecessarily stir up a debate that would simply distract us from addressing the core issues.

However, I do understand your obvious lack of confidence in Nigerian ruling elites, which I believe is the reason behind your rejection to dialogue with them in order to find a lasting solution to this quagmire. After all, they hardly if at all enjoy the confidence of average Nigerians.

I therefore humbly wish to appeal to your piety and firm belief in Allah the Almighty to shed all the grudges you may be nursing against any individual(s), and I implore you to please invoke and live your most sincere moments to contemplate and reason about the justifiability or otherwise of your led-struggle in the sight of Allah the Almighty.

Even if you and your followers have been wronged by the government worse than what you have often lamented; I implore you in the name of Allah the Almighty to simply weigh your reaction or retaliation in the light of the wider Islamic perspective and the overall objectives of Islamic Shari’a as contained in noble Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah according to the perception of the pious predecessors.

I suppose you realize that, whatever circumstance Muslims find themselves in at any given time and place it has its corresponding circumstance during the lifetime of the apostle of Allah the almighty and the pious predecessors who succeeded him. Hence, whatever they were reported to have done or whatever policy they were reported to have adopted in response to any particular circumstance at any particular time and place, that action or policy is supposed to constitute a guiding and indeed a binding precedent for Muslims to emulate in any similar situation they may find themselves.

I also presume that you are aware of the jurisprudential technicalities and principles governing the invocation, application and indeed the applicability of such precedents. As I also assume that you realize the imperative of upholding such method by all Muslims particularly those who seek to adopt, revive and promote the concept of Salafism, which by the way represents the core Islamic philosophy on the basis of which the justifiability or otherwise of anything said to be Islamic is determined.

According to that philosophy, quoting or invoking the Qur’anic verses or Hadiths out of context is counterproductive and will definitely cause confusion. For instance, one can’t challenge a Muslim community wallowing in intellectual backwardness, socio-political and economic irrelevance to –in spite of that- implement some strategic religious policies that are ordinarily expected from substantive and strong Islamic governments or empires.

This is particularly relevant in the modern age because the demographical, cultural and socio-political dynamics are too intricately interwoven to allow for outright determination of many things without looking into their details. This therefore informs the need for a collective approach to issues by highly qualified Islamic scholars of various specializations, who, in addition to their vast knowledge of Islamic precepts and jurisprudence, possess acknowledged analytical skills and dynamic reasoning talents.

Anyway, even if your targets, which you often list and vow to eliminate and which of course include top government functionaries, security agents, Christians and also Muslims who “collaborate” with them, are actually legitimate targets to attack, I believe that, a one percent possibility of killing or hurting a single innocent person in the process of your operation automatically invalidates any excuse to launch any attack in the first place.

In any case, it is obvious that such purported targets are not legitimate targets at all under these circumstances. This is in addition to the fact that the majority of the people killed or maimed in the process of your operations, or actually gets killed in reprisal attacks are ordinary Muslims, who are innocent even in your own judgment.

Common sense, which incidentally goes hand-in-hand with Islamic philosophy, requires that you put your house in order before you seek to put others’ in order. This is even more appropriate in Islamic philosophy, which relies on the method of inspiring and convincing instead of coercing and dictating.

In Nigerian situation for instance, it is obvious that Muslims need to put their house in order before they expect to inspire others.  And it is obvious that, at this particular stage, and even though Islam has been in the country for over seven hundred years, I believe Muslim scholars and activists should draw inspiration from the Meccan period of the da’awah during the lifetime of the apostle of Allah, when he focused heavily on raising sincere, pious, disciplined and productive elements, and he and his followers endured the worst form of systematic oppression and victimization, yet he never put up any armed resistance, for he was sure that such reaction would distract him and drag his mission into a premature showdown with his detractors.

Interestingly enough, the success of such method began to emerge immediately when he and his followers migrated to Medinah, where the first Islamic state was established and from where Islam spread all over the world.

Therefore, I believe your led-organization should instead focus on addressing Muslim individuals’ shortcomings in –for instance- the very Islamic creed they profess, their attitudes and behaviours, until they clearly and substantially reflect the Islamic precepts of sincerity of purpose, discipline, honesty and hard work as individuals and communities.

I am sure that, once this policy is sincerely and diligently sustained, their outstanding impacts in different intellectual fields and other productive endeavours will automatically and inevitably constitute an inspiring influence that would attract others into the religion to eventually transform the society into an exemplary society, where social justices reigns supreme as envisaged by Islam.

After all, Islam maintains clear precepts in all aspects of life on the bases of which it seeks to establish a universal system of justice amongst communities, while ensuring individuals’ fundamental human rights including the right to profess any religion an individual prefers. Moreover, it also maintains appropriate method to achieve this, which was practically exemplified by the apostle of Allah and the pious predecessors who succeeded him.