Politics and sufism in Nigeria: the Salgawa and the political history of Kano State, northern Nigeria 1950-2011

Abstract

This study provides the first detailed discussion of the Salgawa’s role in the political history of Kano State stretching over more than a century, from the first half of the twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. The Salgawa are an influential network of Tijani scholars based in Kano, but extending through the country as well as beyond its borders. Previous research on the political role of Sufi orders in Africa such as the Tijaniyya and Qadiriyya in Nigeria, or the Khatmiyya in Sudan, has neglected the importance of the activities of competing networks within a particular Sufi order. The goal of this study is to correct that tendency by highlighting the role of the Salgawa network as a distinct movement within the wider Tijaniyya order in the politics of Kano State.