Yoruba Muslims’ demand for Sharia Law implementation dates back to 1894 – Prof Timehin

By KEMI KASUMU

He wondered that some people would call themselves chief imams of Yoruba Land and, because a particular non-Muslim traditional ruler stood against implementation of Sharia arbitration panel in Ekiti State, they would come publicly and condemn the compulsory legal system and guiding principle of the Islamic faith which imamship they claim.

Lagos State University don, Professor Saheed Olurotimi Timehin, says Muslims in Yoruba Land need to save themselves of the evil of disunity and speak with one voice to be able to get what belongs to them as members of the human community living in the Nigeria’s South West region.

The erudite scholar spoke as chief guest lecturer at the Annual Ramadan Lecture of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), Lagos State Chapter, held in the Nigerian Railways Central Mosque, Ebute Metta, Lagos on Saturday Ramadan 8, 1446AH equivalent to March 8, 2025.

The LASU professor, who started by eulogizing the effort of founder and Executive Director of MURIC worldwide, Professor Ishaq Lakin Akintola, acknowledged that while people can disagree and question the Islamic propagation and rights advocacy methodology of the retired professor of eschatology but that nobody can fault the validity of his message.

“If what you carry on your hands is falsehood, you would have been tired,” Professor Saheed Timehin addressed Professor Ishaq Akintola, who was chief host and keynote speaker at the event, adding that, “People can disagree with you, they can question your methodology but nobody can question the validity of your message.”

Treating the main topic of the day, “Implementation of Shariah in a Multi-Religious Society: Examining the Rights of Muslims and Non-Muslims”, Professor Timehin, an indigenous Lagos producer of defunct Deen-ul-Haq programme on Radio Nigeria, called on all Muslim organisations and individuals in Yoruba Land and by extension Nigeria, who believe that Islam is their religion and that Allah is their Lord and creator, to see the implementation of Sharia in the land as a must-do regardless of whether those who have done it in the North do it appropriately or not.

He wondered that some people would call themselves chief imams of Yoruba Land and, because a particular non-Muslim traditional ruler stood against implementation of Sharia arbitration panel in Ekiti State, they would come publicly and condemn the compulsory legal system and guiding principle of the Islamic faith which imamship they claim.

“As I speak here today, some people may not agree with me, it is natural. But what all of us must agree with is whether it is necessary or not. We must agree that it is necessary to live in accordance with the dictate of Allah. Can anybody fault that?

“This is because so many Alfas in Yoruba Land scare me the way they attack advocates of Sharia in Yoruba Land. Alfas in Yoruba Land have been advocating for Sharia since 1894 during the colonial rules. They were not happy that laws that were not in agreement with their beliefs were used over them as Muslims,” he said.

According to the guest speaker, “When we talk about using our own laws to rule our lives, non-Muslims are the first to scream against it. To them, it is correct to use non-Islamic laws on Muslims but it is not right to use Islamic laws for Muslims. Can we blame them when we don’t have one voice over whether it is necessary to have Sharia law for Muslims of Yoruba Land or not? Is it our rights? Yes.”

He said in a multi-religious society, “it is hypocrisy if we don’t allow multiplicity of laws.”

Timehin seized the occasion of the MURICLagos annual Ramadan lecture to reply the Yoruba antagonists of Muslim unity in Nigeria. He said those non-Muslims, who jubilated when some Yoruba Muslims sat and said they wanted to sight their own new moon of Ramadan this year, are unserious because, according to him, it is not of their business. As Allah would have it, he revealed, the day they picked based on their own arrangement fell along with the Sultanate Council’s moon sighting report and declaration by Leader of Muslim Ummah of Nigeria, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar.

He was not happy that, because of deepening level of deliberately self-afflicted ignorance or arrogance among Alfas in Yoruba Land, cases of members of the Muslim Ummah in the region are linked with ritual killings such as the killers including that of Hafsah in Ilorin and those other ones in Ibadan and Abeokuta. He, however, refused to accept that their evils were because of their religion but because of their own self volition.

“Killer of Hafsah in Ilorin is Ramoni not AbdulRahman. We cannot say he is not part of us but he does not follow what (Islam that) we do.”

Timehin told why some Islamic organisations invited to partake in the all-important MURICLagos’ Ramadan lecture would not honour invitation to participate but sought another avenue to bring all Islamic scholars to discuss and talk nothing more than Sharia in his own way to underscore the veracity and importance of the Islamic guiding principle.

He urged Muslims, who attended, to go and understand that Sharia law establishment in Yoruba Land is their rights.

“Those who call Nigeria secular state are hypocrites. What Nigeria is, by status, is a multi-religious state. Even American society today has moved from being addressed as a secular state to a multi-religious society.

“Giving us Sharia law is our rights and it is not wrong for us to ask for that right. But it is more complex when we have some people among the Muslim Ummah who are saying no to Sharia.

“Why you cannot go to customary court as Muslims is because you cannot share inheritance according to IDI IGI (children per wife) but according to each child. If one wife has one child and another wife has five children, and you give to woman of one child inheritance that is equal to share of a woman with five children, that is against Islamic Sharia law of inheritance and it is injustice.”

He was worried that Muslim personalities of Yoruba Land do not write autobiography and blamed that for why many children of today lack the means to reading about the rise and fall of Islamic personalities in history so as to learn from happenings of the past to know how to behave themselves in the present in order to be able to shape their future for the better.

He said Prof. Akintola’s autobiography is not enough in circulation and therefore called on him to do more so many upcoming leaders who are Muslims would have something to read and become better human beings for themselves, for their respective families, for Islam and the Muslim Ummah as well for the nation of Nigeria. He then seized the lecture disagree with the MURIC’s founder and executive director to rescind his decision not to take political appointment, saying he must take political appointment and let Nigerians see how more Muslims, put together, can shape things for better in the country like, he said, Professor Is-haq Oloyede has done and is still doing as Registrar/Chief Executive of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in the country.

Earlier in his welcome address, Chairman of Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) in Lagos State, Dr. Jamiu Muhammad Busari, while eulogizing Professor Ishaq Akintola for leading the course of Islamic propagation and Muslim rights advocacy and defence in Nigeria, said his effort is great much more as, according to him, South West Nigeria is an environment where Islamic rights of Muslims are denied at will by non-Muslims in political powers.

Alhaji Disu Kamor, before giving an outlook of the conflicts in Palestine, noted and expressed dismay in his own contribution to necessity of Muslim unity in Nigeria that, much work as MURIC did for Muslim students in South West Nigeria, MSSN was not seen to flood its annual public lecture this year. He said one problem that had negatively affected Muslims in Yoruba Land was their non-involvement in political power arena and cited the example of how there is no single Muslim governor in the South West currently.

The MPAC leader, who clarified that the issue in Palestine particularly Gaza is not basically Islam only, added that non-Muslims in Nigeria who hate the Middle-East people do so because of their hatred for Islam but warned that such attitude must change. He called on Muslims globally never to trust anyone but themselves in finding means of solution to their own problems.

The event, which started with an opening prayer following a recitation Qur’an chapter 2 verse 183-187, was graced by dignitaries including Dr. Kamaldeen Isa, a medical practitioner on the Lagos Island, Alhaji Disu Kamor, Chairman Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC), Wife of the Founder/Executive Director of MURIC, Alhaji Abdullahi Yakubu, Chairman, Nigerian Railways Muslim Community, Lagos, Alhaja Ishaq Akintola, Mrs Balqis Olugbode, Hajiah Fatimah Abdul-Ahdi, Hajiah Khadijah Adisa, Alhaja Sikirat Yusuf and Alhaja Jimoh Faari.

Islamic organisations present at the event included The Muslim Congress (TMC), Al-Mu’minaat, Al-Fatih-il Quareeb Society of Nigeria and Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN).