Celebrating Prof. Sani Zahradeen

– the event was an international conference, a Festschrift, to celebrate our teacher, leader, father, mentor and Grand Imam of Kano, Professor Muhammad Sani Zahradeen, OFR, former Vice Chancellor (VC) of the University. The well-attended four-day conference held in the Grand Imam’s honour was organised by the university’s Department of Islamic Studies and Shariah in […]

– the event was an international conference, a Festschrift, to celebrate our teacher, leader, father, mentor and Grand Imam of Kano, Professor Muhammad Sani Zahradeen, OFR, former Vice Chancellor (VC) of the University. The well-attended four-day conference held in the Grand Imam’s honour was organised by the university’s Department of Islamic Studies and Shariah in collaboration with the Centre of Qur’anic Studies. It had the theme ”Islam and the Challenges of Development in the 21st Century”, a subject that resonated with scholars, students and the general public alike, and which made the occasion memorable and crowd-pulling in this age of Boko Haram, ISIL/ISIS and the Mediterranean Crossings.
The occasion was a celebration of everything academic at our university, with the presence of four VCs of yesterday and today – Prof. Ibrahim Umar (who delivered the keynote), Ambassador Prof. Dandatti Abdulkadir, Prof. Muhammad Sani Zahradeen (the honoree) and Prof. Abubakar Adamu Rasheed (the sitting VC). Nigeria’s indisputable Master Orator, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Sule, Dan Masanin Kano, gave the goodwill message while the honour to declare the conference open fell on the honoree’s own teacher and mentor, former VC Sokoto Ambassador Prof. Shehu Galadanci. This was the classic “gaba da gabanta”, as the Hausa would say; (the term incidentally is BUK’s slogan – “wa fauqa kulli zi ilmin alim” i.e. “…and above every possessor of knowledge there is one more learned”, culled from the Qur’an). The conference closing ceremony was graced by His Highness the Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sunusi II.
After exhaustive deliberations, the Conference observed, among other issues, that the widening rate of disunity among Muslims, especially the Sunni/Shiite divide and secularist/Islamist confrontations, has led to unfortunate trends and developments in the Muslim World; that the firm grip of Western Imperialism upon the territories of Islam with impunity and arrogance has created and aggravated misunderstanding and mistrust between Islam and the West; that there is an unfortunate escalation of poverty, ignorance, disease, squalor and wretchedness among the Muslims in the world; and that secularization and globalization have created a dependence syndrome in the Muslim countries and eroded the pristine values of Islamic civilization.
The Conference therefore recommended that Muslims should wake up from their slumber and participate actively in economic, political and educational activities in order to respond appropriately to the challenges of the 21st century; that Muslim scholars and research centres should step up in-depth researches on issues and problems of the Muslim world with a view to developing detailed Agenda and Action Plan for the development of the Muslims; that Muslims should strive to unify their ranks and utilize the event of Hajj for the political and economic benefits of Islam and Muslims, using Hajj as an Assembly of the Muslim World to take decisions on politics, economics and education for application in all the Muslim World; and that Muslims should positively engage the media and effectively utilize ICT in order to project the correct values and teachings of Islam and defend Muslims against negative media onslaught.
The Conference is a well-deserved honour for Professor Zahradeen who, it must be said, has reached the pinnacle of “Town and Gown”, a university characteristic which demands that academics (Gown) should not be seen to be distinct and separated (or ‘Ivory Towered’) from the Community (Town). For ‘Gown’, at the university here, there is no position Professor Zahradeen has not held – Head of Department, Dean of Faculty, Deputy Vice Chancellor and, ultimately, Vice Chancellor. He even later became Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the University of Benin. And now BUK has honoured him with Professor Emeritus.
And when it comes to ‘Town’, or Community work, that’s where Kano’s Grand Imam excelled: he was Kano State Commissioner of Education back in 1978; Chairman State Pilgrims Welfare Board in 1984; Chairman State Civil Service Commission in 1995; Chairman Zakat Commission in 2003; Chairman Shari’ah Commission in 2007 and became Grand Imam of Kano (Limamin Kano) in June 2011. For a Professor of Islamic Studies, there is no more exalted position as Imam of a city such as Kano – and even though his forbears had been Imams of Kano, his was not only just an inheritance, it was a well-deserved appointment. The Imam is at least tri-lingual – Hausa mother tongue, Queen’s English and Azhar-level Arabic. And had he been raised in a “ruga”, he would have added Fulfulde, our long-lost father tongue.
Seventy-five year old Professor (Imam) Zahradeen is a 1966 First Class graduate of Arabic and Islamic Studies of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Kano Campus (then known as Abdullahi Bayero College) and had gone on to obtain an MA from the University of Khartoum, Sudan, in 1970 and a Doctorate from McGill University, Montreal, Canada in 1976. The Grand Imam has been decorated with awards from Nigeria, Pakistan, Libya and Saudi Arabia. In his distinwguished academic sojourn, he has produced over 20 PhDs, including the lead organisers of the conference, Professor Abubakar Mustapha (The Contributions of Sayfawa Ulama to the Study of Islam) and Dr. Muhammad Babangida Muhammad (A Critique of Early Muslim Historiography by ibn Arabi).
Apart from being a leading scholar of the Sokoto Caliphate, producing many articles and conference papers and books on the subject, the Kano Imam is also a generalist – a “cikakken dan-boko” (Boko Halal, not Haram). Having once been hijacked while on an international flight, he later came to narrate his traumatic experience by delivering a paper, “An Account of My Ordeal in the Hijacked Pakistani Plane” at an international seminar on airports security first in Port Harcourt, Nigeria and later at another international workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, both in 1981.
Three things personally endeared me to the Grand Imam of Kano: he it was who first saw the potential academic in me that, when I graduated from BUK a quarter of a century ago (when he was then already a Professor for a decade and a VC to boot), he advised me to become an ‘academic journalist’ and take up appointment as a Graduate Assistant. He also did something remarkable – lowly though my station was (as a Private would be to a General) he invited me, among others, to advise him on how best to run his VC Administration. And finally, one fateful day as I opened my office door at the university, I found a letter slotted thereunder; that the VC had nominated me for a Graduate Study Fellowship at the American University in Cairo. I didn’t know about this Fellowship so I couldn’t have lobbied for it. So I went to Cairo, and the rest is history. And Islamic Studies. And Mass Communications! And Weekly Trust! Alhamdu lilLah.
We thank Allah for the life of Imam of Kano Professor Zahradeen, for he was leading the Juma’a Prayers on November 28 last year when the Kano Grand Mosque was attacked and a massacre ensued. We await from the Imam another “An Account of My Ordeal in the Mosque Attack”.
And as this Column will not appear until AFTER the Buhari Inauguration next Friday in sha Allah, let us invoke for President Muhammadu Buhari and his team our usual HasbunalLahu wa ni’imal Wakeel! (God is Sufficient for us and He is the Best Disposer of affairs). Hasbuhum Allah! Allah is sufficient for them! May Allah, God, protect them and guide them to success, amin, amen.