The Mujamma‘ Aṣḥāb al-Kahf wa’l-Raqīm of Shaykh Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara : an anti-Salafi mass movement in contemporary Northern Nigeria

Abstract

Over the centuries, Kano has acquired the status of being the most cosmopolitan Hausa city, by accommodating diverse migrant elements in its social fabric. Most of the migrants were attracted by Kano’s commerce and industries. Coupled with these economic factors, the introduction of Islam and Islamic literature by Wangarawa missionaries in the fourteenth century, and the coming of Shaykh Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Maghīlī (1425-1504) played a central role in the development of Islam and Islamic scholarship in Kano. It is because of its volume of trade, industry and scholarship, that Kano came to be referred to as “the emporium of the caliphate.”