(C/NF) NIGERIA: AL-AZHAR PREACHERS DEPLOYED TO

S E C R E T ABUJA 000701

SIPDIS

SIPDIS
NOFORN

DEPT FOR INR/AA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/14/2033
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KISL SOCI KIRF NI EG
SUBJECT: (C/NF) NIGERIA: AL-AZHAR PREACHERS DEPLOYED TO
SOUTH

REF: 07 ABUJA 2632

Classified By: PolCouns Walter Pflaumer, reasons 1.4 (b, c, & d).


1. (C//NF) Egyptian Embassy First Secretary told PolOff April
7 that the Government of Egypt (GOE) has recently begun
deploying preachers from Cairo,s renowned Islamic seminary
al-Azhar University to serve as instructors in private
Islamic secondary schools throughout central and southern
Nigeria, including Ilorin, Ibadan, Lagos, and Port Harcourt.
The GOE is funding an estimated sixty preachers to remain in
Nigeria for a period of four years, providing food, lodging,
and a monthly stipend. The Egyptian Ambassador told PolOff
April 1 that the GOE had previously funded exchange programs
between al-Azhar scholars and African Islamic scholars in
various sub-Saharan African countries.


2. (C//NF) Nigeria has witnessed an explosion in private
Islamic secondary institutions since the late 1970s. Arabic
and Islamic Studies departments have been a fixture of
several universities, including the University of Ibadan.
However, the burgeoning interest in Arabic and Islamic
education for primary and secondary school students is more
recent, and borne out of increased exposure and travel to the
Muslim world and the mounting desire of Nigerian Muslims (and
their children) to connect with other Muslims in the Arab
world through religion. Concomitantly, as Nigerian Muslims
have become more aware of their connection to the Arab world
(and Islamic community worldwide),political grievances such
as the Palestinian conflict and the Iraq War have earned
greater currency in Nigeria. While Arabic is not spoken
generally among Nigerian Muslims, whether from the South-West
or the North, those imams or Islamic leaders who are
conversant in the language are perceived as having greater
legitimacy and authority to articulate Islamic issues.


3. (C//NF) COMMENT: As one of the oldest and most prominent
Islamic seminaries in the Muslim world, al-Azhar exercises
considerable influence. Salafism, which eschews cultural
syncretism and proffers a modernist approach to Islam, has
been a principal intellectual current at al-Azhar alongside
more traditional interpretations of Islamic doctrine.
Egypt's ties to what is now Nigeria date back several
centuries, when itinerant Islamic scholars from Cairo first
came to this region through the Kanem Empire (in present day
Borno state). In modern times, regular flights between Kano
and Cairo via Egypt Air have facilitated travel for imams and
other Islamic scholars from northern Nigeria to al-Azhar.
Several imams with whom PolOff has spoken in Kano, Katsina,
and Maiduguri claim to have been educated at al-Azhar.


4. (S//NF) COMMENT CONT,D: Moreover, with increased
political and economic contact between Nigeria and the Arab
world, Nigeria has also come within Saudi Arabia and Egypt's
ambits of religious influence. Saudi Arabia's rising Wahabbi
influence has helped erode northern Nigeria's strong
tradition of Sufism, which had a moderating impact on Islamic
practice historically. Egypt's interest in extending its
influence to southern Nigeria may relate to its desire to
"compete" with or counter Saudi Arabia,s Wahabbi influence.
In addition, southern Nigerian Muslims (particularly of
Yoruba extraction) may welcome Egyptian religious influence
as a way to challenge claims that Hausa-Fulani culture (which
has stronger ties to Saudi Arabian Wahabbi thought) is
somehow more authentic. (Pakistan's Tablighi Jamaat and
Ahmadiyya Movement are also present in Nigeria, though on a
much smaller scale. Post will report septel an analysis of
foreign influences on Islam in Nigeria.) Importantly, while
the intent of the preachers ostensibly is to teach Islam,
Christian communities in southern Nigeria may view the
preachers and the potential growth of Islamic schools in
traditionally Christian areas with trepidation or hostility,
in much the same way that Christian encroachment in erstwhile
Muslim areas of the North has led to unease and violence.
END COMMENT.
SANDERS