Boko Haram by Thurston Alexander
Author:Thurston, Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2017-12-26T16:00:00+00:00
Boko Haram’s Worldview under Abubakar Shekau
There has been intensive speculation about the internal dynamics of Boko Haram following Muhammad Yusuf’s death, but reliable evidence is thin. Much speculation has focused on reported leadership struggles between two former companions of Yusuf, Abubakar Shekau (b. ca. 1969)94 and Muhammad “Mamman” Nur (b. ca. 1976).95 One account holds that these two men were Yusuf’s chief deputies and were respectively his second- and third-in-command during the uprising of 2009.96 Both men can be seen preaching in Boko Haram videos that likely date from the 2008–9 period.
Whatever happened between Shekau and Nur after Yusuf’s death, the face of the reconstituted Boko Haram was Shekau. Throughout his time in the public eye, Shekau has been a figure of mystery; even the most basic facts of his biography are disputed. As chapter 2 discussed, Shekau was one of the hardliners around Yusuf and may have been one of the leaders at Kanamma. He was Boko Haram’s second-in-command by the late 2000s and likely influenced Yusuf’s move toward open jihadism. As one former Nigerian government official told me, media depictions of Shekau have been “wooden [and] one-sided,” giving the impression of a psychopath—but logic dictates that “he cannot be a madman,” given the fighting prowess and adaptability Boko Haram has shown under his leadership. At the same time, the former official says that those who knew Shekau have described him as “erratic” and “dogmatic,” adding that he “tried to wrestle for control of the group even when Muhammad Yusuf was alive.”97
In a video from before the 2009 uprising, Shekau can be seen echoing Yusuf’s core teachings against Western-style education and democracy. Shekau’s animated, harshly condemnatory, and wryly mocking style was already formed by this time. He preached that Western-style education corrupted young Muslim minds. In one sequence, he contrasted the language of Nigeria’s pledge of allegiance with passages in the Qur’an, arguing that reciting the pledge was equivalent to worshipping the Nigerian state. Shekau presented democracy as shirk or polytheism, which is considered a profound sin in Islamic theology. Like Yusuf, Shekau invoked global Salafi authorities in an attempt to bolster this position, sitting with a pile of books and referencing specific passages for effect. Among others, Shekau cited the Saudi Arabian shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymin to support the claim that democracy was “the school of unbelievers [madhhab al-kuffar],” and that whoever refused to condemn unbelief was himself an unbeliever.98 Shekau would reiterate that message in later years: In one 2014 video, Shekau returned to his argument that the national pledge recited in government schools was tantamount to unbelief:“You are worshipping the nation,” he told listeners.99
As Yusuf’s successor, Shekau continued to invoke the dead leader’s core doctrines, such as al-wala’ wa-l-bara’ (loyalty toward Islam and disavowal of Islam’s enemies). If anything changed in Boko Haram’s post-2009 messages, it was that Shekau intensified two themes: the sect’s conviction that the state systematically victimized Nigerian Muslims, and the sect’s demand that other Muslims choose sides in Boko Haram’s war with the state.
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