Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how religious poetics in Tijāniyya Sufi performances, using both traditional and social media, ignited public debate and controversy in Kano, Nigeria, and how the performers reimagined the Creator. It uses Netnography in analyzing the public reactions to their performances.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how Hausa religious poetics in Tijāniyya Sufi lyrical performances ignited public debate and controversy in the city of Kano, northern Nigeria. First was when conventional Tijāniyya Sufi brotherhood adherents (referred to as Fayda) started using modernized musical instruments in their performances. This was sparked off by the cassette release of ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’ (My God, My God) performed by Baba in early 2000s. Baba, a Tijāniyya Sufi order adherent, used ‘modern’ music instruments to perform the song, instead of the usual Islamically approved bandir. This caused outrage as members of the Sufi brotherhood believed that the sacredness of the song which praises Allah, has been profaned by the music used. This opened the floodgates to debates in the use of poetics and secular music in Hausa Sufi religious performances.

Secondly, when social media platforms particularly TikTok, Facebook Reels and YouTube became commodified, a faction of the Tijāniyya brotherhood, locally referred to as Tijāniyya Haƙiƙa, used the availability of the media to entrench a gradual process of deification of Sheikh Ibrahim Inyass. In a process I refer to as ‘blasphemy from below’ – for blasphemous cultural expressions were embedded within sacred Islamic religious performances – the Haƙiƙa adherents re-imagined Niasse as a deity, indeed, in some of the performances, even higher than God, devolving Niasse into perpetual existence. This paper analyses the lyrics of both conventional Tijjaniyya as well as Haƙiƙa poetic performances and how they reimagined the Creator, using Netnographic analysis of the public reactions to their performances.