ABU BAKR GUMI (1922–1992)

Abu Bakr Gumi, born in Gumi/Sokoto province, northern Nigeria, was a leading personality in the development of the Nigerian Islamic reform movement and author of a number of influential works, such as Al-˓aqida as-sahiha bi-muwafaqat ash-shari˓a (The sound faith according to the prescriptions of the shari˓a) and Radd al-adhhan fi ma˓ani al-qur˒an (Reconsidering the meaning of the holy Qur˒an).

Gumi was one of the first northern Nigerians to experience a dual education in the Islamic sciences as well as in the British colonial education system. After completing his Qur˒anic as well as primary school education, Gumi attended the Sokoto Middle School from where he went to the Kano Law School to be trained as a qadi (Muslim judge) from 1942 to 1947. After graduation he worked briefly as scribe to Alkali Attahiru in Sokoto. In 1947 he became a teacher at the Kano Law School and was transferred to Maru, Sokoto Province, in 1949, where he had a confrontation with a local imam as well as the sultan of Sokoto over the question of tayammum, the ritual ablution with sand. In the context of this confrontation with the established authorities Gumi was supported by Ahmadu Bello, the future prime minister of northern Nigeria, who in 1955 called upon Gumi to act as his advisor in religious affairs and in 1956 appointed him deputy grand kadi of northern Nigeria. In this position, and later (from 1962) as grand kadi, Gumi was able to carry out a number of reforms in the judicial system of northern Nigeria and to fight effectively against the influence of the Sufi brotherhoods, especially the Qadiriyya and the Tijaniyya. After Bello's assassination in 1966, Gumi lost his institutional backing and started to develop a network of followers that became, in the 1970s, northern Nigeria's first reformist Muslim organization, the Jama˓at izalat al-bid˓a wa-iqamat as-sunna (Association for the removal of innovation and for the establishment of the sunna, 1978). Gumi remained influential in Nigerian religious politics in the 1980s when he acted as advisor to presidents Shehu Shagari (1979–1983) and Ibrahim Babangida (1985–1993). From 1962, Gumi was also a member of the Rabitat al-˓alam al-Islami (Muslim World League), where he sat in the Legal Committee, and a member of the World Supreme Council for the Affairs of Mosques.

See alsoModern Thought ; Political Islam ; Wahhabiyya .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Loimeier, Roman. Islamic Reform and Political Change inNorthern Nigeria. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1997.

Tsiga, Ismaila A. Sheikh Abubakar Gumi: Where I Stand. Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books Ltd., 1992.

Roman Loimeier