Islam and the Language of Human Rights in Nigeria: “Rights Talk” and Religion in Domestic Politics

Abstract

How do Islamic political actors engage with international human rights discourse in new Muslim-majority democracies? While most scholarly research focuses on the role of transnational actors in shaping the local adoption of rights norms, this article focuses on how even incomplete democratization can empower religious actors to engage in meaningful local debates over how to define the relationship between religious values, democratic meanings, and rights. The article presents a case study of Nigeria, where Muslim activists have used “rights talk” to advance the implementation of Islamic law (sharia) under the post-1999 democratic regime. It also explores how these activists’ use of rights language to pursue sharia policies that conflict significantly with international rights norms challenges human and women's rights groups in Nigeria, who must walk a careful line between appeals to universal norms and religiously grounded arguments in their own advocacy.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Ohio University's African Studies program and Political Science department for funding and logistical assistance in completing this research, and Jaimie Bleck, Alice Kang, the editors of the journal, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments.

Notes

1. Throughout the text, when using the terms “northern” and “southern,” I am referring to the informal cultural and political divisions that most Nigerians recognize as existing between the separate territories first amalgamated into a single unit under British rule in 1914. The term “Northern Nigeria” refers to a specific colonial/First Republic political unit that went out of existence in 1967, but which once encompassed both the 12 sharia states (sometimes referred to as the “core north”), and the 7 culturally and religiously heterogeneous states now recognized informally as Nigeria's “Middle Belt.”

2. See New Nigerian (“Sharia: True Test of Federalism” 1999: 5). I have not found other examples of this language, but its use does fit within the broader Muslim narrative of constitutionally based “religious rights” in Nigeria.

3. Zina, which is usually translated as adultery, also carries the additional meaning of any consensual sex outside marriage. In most schools of fiqh, proving zina requires four adult witnesses for a conviction. But under a rule of Maliki law (the school of jurisprudence that dominates in Nigeria), a pregnancy out of wedlock is taken to be de facto evidence of zina—and all three women were pregnant and unmarried.

4. Gunnar Weimann (2010: 175–178) has identified 18 cases of zina brought before sharia courts between 2000 and 2004. All the sentences of stoning (five in total) were lifted following acquittal on appeal.

5. On BAOBAB's efforts to stop the international petition drive to stop Amina Lawal's zina prosecution, see BAOBAB (n.d.).

6. This claim was made to me by leadership members of several Nigerian human rights organizations involved in monitoring court proceedings and assisting women pursuing court cases. Field Notes, September 28 and October 5, 2012.

7. Field Notes, September 28, 2012.