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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Rumours of Maitatsine: A Note on Political Culture in Northern Nigeria
Author:Kastfelt, NielsISNI
Year:1989
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:88
Issue:350
Period:January
Pages:83-90
Language:English
Geographic terms:Northern Nigeria
Nigeria
Subjects:Islam
rebellions
1980-1989
Politics and Government
Ethnic and Race Relations
Religion and Witchcraft
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/722600
Abstract:During the first half of the 1980s the 'Maitatsine' movement was an explosive factor in Nigerian society. During the 1960s and 1970s the founder of the movement, the Camerounian Muhammadu Marwa, alias Maitatsine, established himself as an unorthodox Koranic teacher in Kano. He gradually built up a closely knit local community of followers, who later became engaged in violent attacks upon other Muslims. A multitude of rumours about the Maitatsine movement put it at the centre of many daily conversations and discussions. What is interesting about these rumours is that, besides conveying widely held views of the Maitatsine movement as such, they were concrete expressions of an underlying political universe which indicates that the very notion of 'Maitatsine' acquired a more general conceptual status in relation to political thinking in northern Nigeria. It developed into a symbolic category which was instrumental in associating otherwise apparently disparate phenomena related to power and ideology. Notes, ref.
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