Nana Asma'u

‘No history can be a faithful mirror. If it were, it would be as long and as dull as life itself. It must be a selection, and, being a selection, must inevitably be biased.’ – T. E. Hulme

Hulme said, quite eloquently, what few of us consider to be significant when it comes to learning about our histories, and fewer still consider at all. History is written by the victorious, the educated, those among us who have the necessary opportunities and background to do so.

It is under this narrative that we can examine the vast amounts of African history, preceding the trans-Atlantic slave trade, that is otherwise lost in the seas of time. It is also under this narrative that we can begin to chip away at the layers of misinformation and prejudice that insinuate that anything before colonisation in Africa was mere savagery. This could not be further from the truth. As early as 650 CE, there were many complex societies consisting of jurists, military leaders, academic scholars and students and various ministers of the state. In 859 CE, the University of al-Qarawiyyin was established and is cited by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) to be the oldest university or continually operating higher learning institution in the world.

One figure in the continent’s rich past that stood out to me was a woman known as Nana Asma’u bint Usman ‘dan Fodio (1793 – 1864 CE). She was the daughter of Shehu Usman ‘dan Fodio, the leader and founder of the powerful Sokoto Caliphate based in northern Nigeria. Thus she was educated in religious studies and placed a high value upon universal education, especially the education of women. She was also a Fulani poetess, speaking Fula, Hausa, Tamacheq Tuareg and Arabic fluently, and played a major literary and political role in guiding her brother in the ruling of the state as an adviser. Over the course of 40 years, she wrote many great literary and poetic works, of which 60 survived till date.

Without a doubt Asma’u was an extraordinary woman, who was held in great esteem at the time and continues to be respected to this day for her role as a political figure, but the thing that inspired and moved me deeply was her constant pursuits in education for women. She created the ‘Yan Taru program (The Sisterhood), which was established for the purpose of educating rural women using Asma’u’s various poems and manuscripts that were passed on through a cadre of women teachers known as jajis. Each jaji was given a malfa (a hat and traditional ceremonial symbol office of the Bori priestess) tied with a red turban, allowing them to be identified easily and belong to a larger community of women striving for a single cause. This idea of woman-uplifting-woman and supporting each other in bettering herself both as an individual and member of society via education bears a striking resemblance to modern-day feminism. In fact, the cause was a common subject of Asma’u’s literature and poetry, and so the observation can be made that Asma’u was also a critical figure in defining the values of the Sokoto state.

I think this narrative of not only a Black individual, but a Black woman who was a massive social reformer struck something in me. The purpose of her cause and its effect in lifting the position of women in society in a way that made them stand side by side with men, not as the same but as two distinct but equivalent entities, makes my heart burn with pride and admiration. It angers yet reassures me that there were hundreds more like her, who perhaps did not make it into our history books but who’s strength and struggle have seeped through the pages of history in the form of various movements, cultural norms and reformative ideas. As the historians Beverly B. Mack and Jean Boyd said,

‘Asma’u was a pearl on a string of women’s scholarship that extended throughout the Muslim world. This chain of women scholars originated long before Asma’u’s lifetime and stretched over a wide geographic region from the Middle East to West Africa. The network of women’s scholarship contemporaneous to Asma’u is but the tip of the iceberg.’

In this politically turbulent time we live in, I believe people need to look back at history, at these innovators and creators of the societies we reside in currently and appreciate and take inspiration from them. We must acknowledge and celebrate that these individuals came in all colours, shapes, genders and times, and that undoubtedly without their contributions the world we know now may not have existed as such.