Nana Asmau

Nana Asmau (1793-1864) was a female teacher and healer during and after the Fulani Jihad (1804–08) which established the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa. In her day, she was known as “Mother of All” for her guidance of the Islamic community, and for her empowerment of women through education.

One of forty(!) siblings born to Shehu Usman dan Fodio, she was forced to leave her village of Degel (in modern-day Nigeria) with her father and his hundreds of devoted followers. Her father was a charismatic and learned leader who preached that Muslims in Africa had strayed from the true way of the Prophet, who he emphasised had been a humble and flawless man. He was a typical Sufi, combining excellent scholarly knowledge of the Quran with spiritual energy. He condemned slavery and advocated charity. This angered the ruler of the time, who saw Usman as a threat to his rule. He banished Usman, causing an uprising amongst his followers, and triggering the Fulhani War in which thousands of men, women, and children suffered. The young Nana Asmau was fundamentally shaped by her experiences in this war. She witnessed execution first hand and wandered in the desert with other women and children on the brink of starvation and fearing from their lives from enemy men as well as animal attack. Her father eventually won the war, becoming Caliph. Subsequently, Asmau’s brother, nephew, and grandnephew all served in the caliphate.

Nana Asmau knew the urgency of healing the wounds of war within her community .Thousands of women and children had been left desolate as their husbands/fathers had fallen in battle. She feared they would end up as nothing more than slaves or concubines. She had been raised by her father to remiember the Quranic obligation to protect widows and orphans and treat the defeated enemy with honour – her father had frequently condemned the poor treatment of women in society. She saw education as the best way to liberate them from their fate. She came from a long lie of literate and educated women, and believed women had an important role in society beyond the traditional one of housekeeping and child=bearing.

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When her brother succeded the father, she was able to influence policy owing to the special status of the caliph’s sister in Hausa-land tradition. She focussed her education of women on teaching them the Quran and the teaching of the Prophet, emphasisng his exemplary treatment of women. She believed that the restoration of a true and pure Islam necessitated the empowerment of women in society, as Muhammad himself had done through his wives and daughters. She blamed previous Islamic scholars for implementing degrading and oppressive patriarchal practices which had no foundation in the Islamic tradition. She did not call for women to cast aside their veils or mix with men. Rather, she wanted them to learn for themselves the teachcing of Islam and the prophet. Beyond this, she also taught them how to read, sing, and write. Her education also covered important issues like hygiene, law, nutrition, and healing – all of which freed women from ignorance and allowed them to participate more fully in society.

Nana Asmau wrote and taught in four languages which allowed her to reach out to multiple communities. (Sadly I couldn’t find any English translations online or in my uni library so I couldn’t find any direct quotes from her).  She also wrote poetry which quoted from the Quran and included moral instruction on how to fear God, maintain piety, and act according to Islamic tradition. One work, entitled Sufi Women, named several other contemporary women that Asmau hailed as exemplary role models for her students – showing that she was not alone in her status as a powerful and respected female leader. It was noted that she exuded baraka (spiritual potency) and it was even said that she had saved her brother’s life during the war.

She sought to lead people away from traditional religious practices by composing a manual – drawing greatly from the Quran – which instructed women on how to cure illness, treat wounds, and avoid “the evil eye”. Owing to high rates of illiteracy amongst women in the area, she designed prose which could be easily remembered and recited in the home or in the fields thus developing a strong oral tradition amongst the women too. However, she also worked as a scribe for the elite of the Caliphate too, showing her respected position amongst the men as well. Both genders regarded her as a ‘malama’ – a female teacher, healer, and leader.

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Her reputation as a malama soon spread beyond her locality, and women travelled from nearby villages and beyond to hear her lessons. The literate among them recorded her words. Groups of these women were trained to take these lessons back to their respective villages – with military protection from the caliph – and spread her teaching further. She also had contacts as far afield as Morocco. However, when the British invaded her homeland and abolished the caliphate in 1903, the work that Asmau had undertaken to rise the status of women in society was undone (somewhat disputing the Britain = Good/protectors, Islam = bad/oppressors narrative of Farage and his cronies).

Today she is remembered across Africa as a hero of female empowerment. Her grave is still a popular place of pilgrimage and many female education centres bear her name. Her songs and poems remain popular oral traditions among African women. I’ll end by quoting from Kamalay here, because he makes an important point: ‘Whereas in 2016 Boko Haram terrorized communities in the name of Islam, kidnapping schoolgirls and forcing women into slavery, back in the nineteenth century the Sokoto caliphate empowered women through education. Boko Haram in West Africa and similar organisations across the globe falsify the Islamic past at every turn.’