Recent Court Rulings on Muslim Women's Headscarves

and the Secularism Debate in Nigeria

In societies where the cultural and philosophical legacies of Euro-American imperial colonialism triumphed
to become the underlying organising premises of public institutions, too many Muslims – particularly Muslim
women – have been required to make an unfair choice in their social life. To have to choose between Faith
and Freedom, but not both, is not only an arbitrary obligation to demand of any human person; it is immoral,
unjust and untenable in today’s world. It is incompatible with the narrowest understandings of individual and
collective freedoms.

In a development that mirrored the plight of many Muslim women seeking modern education in places as
far-flung as France, Secular Turkey, Germany and Singapore, the Lagos National Institute of Health and
Technology had banned hijaab-wearing Muslim students from entering classrooms. Those Muslim students
who saw the hijaab as one of the requirements of their faith were faced with an untenable choice between
asserting their fundamental human right to education and asserting their right to religious freedom. Instead,
they chose to assert both and headed to court. On Thursday, November 18 2004, an Ikeja High Court in
Lagos ruled against the Lagos National Institute of Health and Technology and its proprietor, the Lagos
State Government, and affirmed the right of Muslim Students to wear the Islamic headscarf (commonly
known as the hijaab).

No public institution, official, party or person can force Muslim ladies to take off their headscarves, Justice
Joseph Olubunmi Oyewole of the High Court ruled. This was not only a victory for Fatima Abidemi Razak,
Titilayo Sanni, Idiat Asabi Ayinde and Sunbo Bada who had sued their Institute to court. It was also a victory
for all Nigerian Muslim women - whether they used the hijaab or not - more especially so for Muslim women
in Southwestern Nigeria where Muslims make probably half the population; where at least a quarter, and
possibly up to 30% of Nigeria's Muslims live; and where nonetheless, Muslims face a wide range of
institutional constraints that name the defence of faith-values as being a threat to liberty rather than being
part of how Liberty is construed. This courageous decision may well have far-reaching consequences
beyond. The Institute, in seeking to exclude its hijaab-wearing students had used the same arguments
deployed around the world by forces that seek to deny to Muslim women the right to cultural identity and
religious freedom. Two prominent arguments in this case were that the Muslim students involved had signed
documents upon their admission that pledged them to abide by school regulations, and, that the hijaab could
spark a religious conflict.

When the students pledged themselves to obey school rules and regulations upon admission, they were not
waiving personal freedoms granted them by the Nigerian Constitution, Justice Oyewole ruled. No school has
a right to make regulations that denied constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms to citizens. A publicly-funded
institution could not deny personal freedoms and cultural liberty to citizens of Nigeria. As to claims that
headscarves would spark a religious conflict, the Court ruled that the Institute had failed to show how this
could actually happen. Not that the Institute could have succeeded anyway: it stood to common sense after
all that the denial of fundamental rights would be more likely a cause of conflict than the simple recognition
that those rights do in fact exist. If however the powerful could actually choose conflict because the weak
were granted their rights, grave questions may be raised about the levels of bigotry and hatred amongst the
majority of those who claim to be enlightened.

More recently, on Wednesday 2nd March 2005, an England and Wales Court of Appeal ruled against
Denbigh High School and its Governors in Luton for excluding then 15-year old Shabina Begum from
classroom for wearing Islamic dress. Miss Begum had been denied reprieve at the High Court, but had gone
on to seek redress before winning her victory at the Court of Appeal. Shabina, now 16, had to go to another
school that allowed her to wear Islamic dress in order to prepare for her GCE. Shabina won on appeal but
did not seek to be readmitted at Denbigh High School. Unlike most others in her shoes, she also did not
claim any damages after the court victory, recognising that the large cash award she might have received
could ruin the School Council budget and eventually hurt her former schoolmates who remained at Denbigh.
The judgment was instantly recognized as having far-reaching implications for schools across Britain. The
judgement also has a potential impact on ongoing debates about the right of Muslim women to wear Islamic
dress in dozens of jurisdictions around the world that rely on legal frameworks based on British Common
Law, including Nigeria.

The Qur'an, which more than a fifth of humanity believes to be the revealed by God, devotes seven of over
six-and-half thousand verses to dressing. Two of these verses are familiar in all parts of the world where
Muslims are found. 24:31 reads "And tell the believing women ... not to show off their beauty except only
that which is ordinarily apparent... and to draw their cloth over their bosoms, and not to show their beauty (to
males) except their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husband's sons, their
brothers or their brother's sons, or their sister's sons, or other Muslim women, or to slaves they own, or old
male servants who lack vigour, or small children who have no sense of sex". 33:59 reads "...Tell your wives,
daughters and all believing women (when outdoors) to cast their jilbab (loose outer garments) over their
persons...so that they may be known as such and so that they may not be harassed...".

Many Muslim women have interpreted the first verse to mean that a certain dress-code is required of them
when they go out of their homes where they may be seen by adult males to whom they are unrelated. Yet, it
is more often the second verse, taken together with certain groups of hadith (non-Qur'anic teachings of the
Prophet of Islam) that many Muslim women interpret as requiring them to cover head and neck, wear long
sleeves and long skirts, leaving only the face and the hands uncovered. Many hijaab-wearing women
concede that less extensive covering in the form of dresses used by women in their various local cultures
are modest enough to fulfill the requirements of the first-quoted verse that they not flaunt their feminine
features before unrelated adult males. But they go on to cite the second verse as the basis for not simply
using ordinary dresses that other modest women wear. The clause "so that they may be known as such" has
been interpreted by many as an endorsement of a distinct cultural identity for Muslim women, while the
clause "so that they may not be harassed" has been interpreted by many as putting forward the hijaab as a
physical-spiritual means of protecting users from unsolicited attention or assault from rude or dangerous
males. Of course there are many Muslim women (and men) who do not necessarily accept these popular
interpretations of the two verses.

79% of students in Denbigh High School in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, are Muslims, and the school, like
many others, had allowed the use of a "shalwar kameez" by Muslim students as part of the school uniform.
The "shalwar kameez" is common amongst Pakistani and Indian Muslim women as a "modest dress".
Denbigh High had argued that the school uniform policy, by allowing the shalwar, already took into account
cultural and religious sensitivities, and that Shabina, upon her admission, had pledged obedience to school
regulations. Shabina, who sees herself as a "strict Muslim", told the court that the "jilbab" was an Islamic
dress whereas the "shalwar kameez" was a Pakistani/Indian dress. The shalwar is not found in the Qur'an,
she insisted. Speaking to assembled journalists in front of the court, Shabina said her exclusion at Denbigh
could not be viewed merely as a local decision taken in isolation. "Rather it was a consequence of an
atmosphere that has been created in Western societies post 9/11, an atmosphere in which Islam has been
made a target for vilification in the name of the 'war on terror'." Shabina refused to use a shalwar after
completing puberty, and instead chose to wear a "jilbab" (a loose gown), which she told the court was
specifically mentioned in the Qur'an at 33:59, and which she believes became a requirement for her upon
maturity. "It is amazing that in the so-called Free World, I have to fight to wear this attire", said the relieved
British teenager after over one year of legal struggle. Shabina, an outstanding student who has lost both
parents was defended in court by Carolyn Hamilton, Eleni Mitrophanous, Alason Carter, and Cherie Booth-
Blair QC, the wife of the British Prime Minister.

While accepting that schools have a right to adopt school uniforms, the judges disagreed that students
waived their rights to personal freedoms upon admission and were bound to obey any school uniform policy.
People do not sign off their fundamental rights when they pledge to obey school rules, the court declared.
Interference in personal freedoms "in a democratic society" must have a "legitimate aim" and had to be
either "prescribed by law" or "based on necessity". Denbigh High had failed to show that any of these was
the case. The onus fell on the school to show it had a right to interfere with the religious freedom of students.
It did not fall on students to show that they had such rights. The Court ruled that schools must start from the
premise that a student has a human right to "manifest" his or her religious beliefs, rather than start from the
premise that a school uniform policy is there simply to be obeyed without question. The Lord Justice Brooke
faulted Denbigh High, saying "Instead, it started from the premise that its uniform policy was there to be
obeyed: if the claimant did not like it, she could go to a different school." Shabina had been "unlawfully
excluded"; her right to "manifest" her religion had been "unlawfully denied"; and she had been "denied
access to suitable and appropriate education", ruled the Lord Justice Brooke. He called for the government
to provide better guidance to schools on complying with Human Rights. Policies on school uniforms in public
schools ought to be drawn only after wide consultation with students, parents, school boards and other
stakeholders. Lord Justices Mummery and Scott Baker concurred with the lead judgement.

There are of course many Muslim women who, regardless of whether they interpret the Qur'an as
demanding a specific dress code or not, go about their public life with their hair or much else uncovered. The
personal freedoms of these Muslim women in Nigeria must continue to be protected. It is important to
continue to defend the right of women to claim Islam or any other Faith for themselves without having to
"show proof", whether in the form of an outer garment or in any other way. With respect to Islam, no living
Muslim anywhere has the right, doctrinally, to declare as non-Muslim someone who says, "I am a Muslim",
regardless of the lifestyle they choose. Except in the Shiia doctrinal school found mainly in Iran, Islam has
no priesthood and there is neither hierarchical Church nor infallible Pope. According to Qur'anic teachings,
individual Muslim believers have the same spiritual access to God as their religious leaders and scholars.
Individuals who choose to believe in God should be free to seek to understand God's wishes on their own.
The religious visions, interpretations and understandings of others should never be imposed on any
individual in a Free Society. This is especially important to emphasize now that authoritarian religious actors
who see themselves as having a right to impose an Islamic lifestyle on other Muslims are increasingly
gaining visibility.

Currently existing laws and institutional frameworks protect those Muslim women who exercise their
constitutional right and choose not to wear the hijaab.
Yet, many, perhaps most Muslim women living today believe that there is an Islamic dress-code for Muslim
women in the public sphere and these women interpret the Qur'an to command at least some form of
minimal adherence depending on circumstance and context. For these millions of citizens, the experience of
affirming that faith value has been painful. They have faced and continue to face untold discrimination in
schools and workplaces. Too many get called 'fanatics', 'extremists', 'zealots' or even 'terrorists' for choosing
to wear a headscarf and long skirts. Unlike women in very short skirts, or blouses with very low necklines, or
very tight-fitting trousers, they have to live permanently on the moral defensive, under a sort of mental siege
where they must constantly show that they are "moderate", not "extreme" or even bin Ladinesque.

Very often, patronising comments are made by supposedly enlightened individuals as to whether these
Muslim women actually choose the hijaab or are simply acting under social pressures (supposedly from
husbands, or where unmarried, as is increasingly the case, from fathers and families). We live in a world
where anorexic-looking young women endure ankle-spraining high-heeled shoes, miniskirts and navel-
revealing blouses in freezing weather - where their non-rational dress choices are never blamed on the
brutal realities created by consumerist advertisements put out by fashion moguls on the mind-bending
media; where their choices to take medically unsafe decisions to 'diet' and deny themselves of nutrients are
never blamed on beauty pageant shows that portray women as beautiful only when they are cadaverously
thin. Yet, in such a world, there is an astounding level of hypocrisy that allows otherwise intelligent people to
suggest that adult Muslim women, unlike other women, lack agency and are incapable of making informed
choices. Well-educated bigots routinely suggest in public that Muslim women, unlike other women, cannot
possibly claim the decisions that they make as theirs and theirs alone.

The Human Rights community in Nigeria has been almost unanimous in shunning this concern. Even those
organisations that traditionally work on Muslim women's issues have mostly ignored the need to address an
issue that so many Muslim women identify as a concern. This may not be surprising, since the majority of
these organisations lack a constituency within the communities they supposedly serve. On the whole
therefore, the issue that so many young Muslim women in educational institutions (especially in Southern
Nigeria) feel so strongly about, has rarely been taken up by women's human rights groups. At a time when
the hijaab issue is one of the biggest political and human rights issue in places as far-flung as France,
Turkey and Thailand, women's human rights agendas and priorities in Nigeria totally exclude discussions
about the hijaab - and about what Muslim women themselves, rather than their supposedly oppressive and
chauvinistic menfolk, think about the hijaab.

The male-dominated Nigerian Bar and Bench, extremely conservative, rigid about codes, enamoured to 20th
century English fashions, and largely oblivious of the historical context of structural violence and colonial
usurpation under which many of the current rules and mindsets were crafted, has often constituted an
obstacle to social justice in this case as well. At a time when questions are being raised in England by both
Bar and Bench about the necessity for relics such as the wig; at a time when Law Lords are about permitting
lawyers in the temperate climate of Britain to do away with the "inconvenience of wearing robes on hot
afternoons"; Nigeria's old British-trained lawyers insist that wearing three-piece suits, itchy wigs and thick
black robes on top - in the sweltering hot-and-humid tropical heat of Nigeria - is necessary to the efficient
practice of law. Hijaab-wearing Muslim women lawyers are stuck with practicing "paper law". They may not
litigate in court. The very few who have so far ventured to stand in court as counsel, wearing the full lawyer's
dress-code while adding a small unobtrusive headscarf under their wigs have been sent out by judges who
demand "proper" dressing. "Lawyers must be formally dressed as learned men and women", an angry judge
once thundered. To be 'formal', 'proper' and 'learned', these African Muslim women must dress exactly as
white English women dressed in mid-20th-century formal settings. They may neither subtract nor add
anything else – certainly not a scarf, however small, even if they think it a necessity of their faith.

While other professions have long embraced dynamism, the legal profession in Nigeria remains
considerably ossified. All too often, old men with grey hair in black robes and bleached wigs –
septuagenarians educated in the 1950s and 1960s at British law schools – demonstrate profound ignorance
not only about Nigeria's culture and history but also about changes that have ensued in Britain itself during
the last decade or two. The custodians of law in Nigeria continue to insist on conformity with ancient codes
whose continued survival is questionable. Wearing the wrong shade of grey guarantees dismissal from
classes at the Nigerian Law School. Only black and white (in specified styles) is tolerated at Law Dinners.
Up till this day, the Council of Legal Education issues to new initiates into the legal profession special books
that contain amusingly long and tedious instructions on old-and-silly English manners and rituals ranging
from how to hold forks to how to take soups and eat bread at Law Dinners. Old lawyers insist that these
amusing bonding rituals are necessary to the making of fine lawyers. With the custodians of law and
legislation in Nigeria still insisting on table manners that many Brits no longer care about, many people in
Britain today would be embarrassed to find out how their parents and grandparents so thoroughly conquered
the cultures, minds and imaginations of entire peoples in the “former” colonies. Former indeed.

Yet, even Britain has demonstrated time and time again a clear decision that the principles of
multiculturalism and democratic pluralism must trump rigid secularism whenever there is a clash. Larry
Shiner's enduring classic on secularism names five key imperatives, one of which is the imperative to see "a
privatisation and individualization of religion that apart from making religion more insular, removes the
capacity of religion to influence either aggregate societal action or institutions". Fundamentalist secularist
ideologies, first introduced in Nigeria by colonial officers, now form the bedrock of an ethos which has
become deeply entrenched in public life, especially in Southern Nigeria - notions that continue to seek the
elimination of all symbols of religious faith from the public sphere and secure the privatisation and
individualization of religion. Strangely, these ideologies often do so on weak appeals to human rights and
religious freedom. For Muslims, Freedom of Religion is more frequently understood as Freedom from
Religion. Religious freedom for Muslim women has thus meant that they have a right to be free from religion.
Rarely is it also understood as concurrently guaranteeing them the right to affirm and practice religious faith
without any disincentives.

Muslims have often come under more severe assaults from secular fundamentalists than adherents of other
faith traditions because Islam demands of them that they allow their faith values to influence not only their
innermost thoughts, actions and private behaviours, but also their public conduct as well. Unfortunately,
most Nigerian Christians do not often show awareness of the sense of cultural siege under which so many
of their fellow citizens have had to subsist. This is no doubt a reflection of the enduring cultural and political
implications of the historical fusion between the Church and the Colonial State, a reality which made and
makes Muslims the cultural losers when imperial colonialism triumphed and the Nigerian State became the
legal and legitimate successor of the Colonial State that was crafted under the British Crown - a State whose
"common law" legislations derives directly from ancient Christian tradition. Rarely addressed is the question
of democratic pluralism, so essential in a multi-ethnic and multireligious country whose peoples consciously
founded their constitution "under God". While the privatisation of religion and it's exclusion from the public
sphere may be a common good in Secular France, it is historically immoral and culturally inaccurate to
demand that public life in Nigeria follow exactly the same model.

It is certainly no oversight that while the constitutions of avowedly Secular States affirm secularism, the word
does not even exist in the Nigerian constitution. A constitution that validates the existence of religious courts
at all levels short of the Supreme Court could not possibly call itself secular anyway. While the constitutions
of avowedly Secular States name the 'People' as custodians, our constitution is for the People, yet written
for a "Sovereign Nation under God". It is not simply that public functions from the nation's legislative
chambers, to the halls at the Presidency, all the way to the local government halls, almost always begin with
prayers; it is not simply that large amounts of public funds are constantly spent on religious pilgrimages to
Makkah and Jerusalem; it is so much more that relates deeply to the fundamental question of how Nigerians
see themselves as a people. It is clear that today, many, perhaps most Nigerians, self-identify more on the
basis of their faith tradition than on the basis of their ethnicity. To ignore this as inconsequential is to be
thoroughly mistaken about the nature of this country and its citizenry. Survey after survey continue to show
that a large majority of Nigerians believe religious faith should shape private action as well as public
conduct. Regardless of the many moral ills and corruptions that affect this nation, it is clear that Nigeria is
not France: most Nigerians, whatever their faith tradition, are considerably religious.

Yet Nigerians time and time again want to be free to exercise liberty in matters of Faith. They do not want a
Theocracy: for while a Secular State places the power of the government at the service of efforts to exclude
religion from the public sphere and contain it within the private domain, a Theocratic State places the power
of the government at the service of efforts to impose religion on the public sphere. Thus the constitution is
clear that Nigeria shall adopt no religion as the State Religion (as do the Iranian, Saudi and Vatican States
for example).
As a Multireligious State that is neither a Secular State nor a Theocratic State, Nigeria has chosen to affirm
democratic pluralism and a healthy multiculturalism. The tenets of multiculturalism and democratic pluralism
are not simply necessary or desirable; they are inevitable if Nigeria is to have chances for peace and
development. There is surely a huge difference between a Multireligious State that tolerates the various
religions of the citizenry and a Secular State that seeks to exclude all religions and the values they spurn
from public life and contain them within the private domain.

When the French State decided to ban the hijaab from all public institutions in France in 2004, the ban was
condemned around the World as an assault on human freedoms. Both Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch condemned the new French laws. While the laws are no doubt an assault on millions of
French Muslims, growing numbers of whom are choosing to wear the hijaab, France could at least claim to
be acting in line with its constitution which is avowedly secular: religion shall be confined entirely to the
private domain. French leaders insisted that France was only seeking to defend its secular constitution. The
laws could also be understood (if not justified) by looking at the processes that shaped French history: the
French State consciously chose secularism as the triumphant outcome of centuries of struggle against the
hegemony of the historic Church. No French citizen, regardless of faith, may dress in public institutions
including schools and hospitals in such a way that his or her religious affiliation would be immediately
publicly discernible, the French President explained to a differing world. Nigeria's history and culture is
different. A similar pronouncement in Nigeria would not only be illegal, it would be illegitimate to the extent of
its nullity and inconsistency with our lived reality.

The British State, even though lacking a written constitution, could never have, and never did claim to be an
avowedly Secular State as France is. The British Head of State is a Monarch who by law, is head of the
Anglican Church - meaning, apart from a thousand other things, that the monarch may not convert to
another Faith, as other citizens have a right to (or s/he must then cease to be Head of State of Britain, if he
or she were to convert, say to Islam or Catholicism). 26 Bishops of the Anglican Church are automatic
members of Britain's upper legislative chamber, known as the House of Lords. These powerful Bishops are
the "Lords Spiritual", more powerful than their non-clerical colleagues, the “Lords Temporal”. There are
countless other artefacts of public religion in the UK. Multicultural Britain - like Multicultural Canada and
Multicultural Australia, and unlike Secular France - has always sensibly tolerated religion in the public
sphere (under clear rules and strict guarantees of freedom). British courts have steadily confirmed the status
of Britain as a religiously plural Multicultural State (even while realizing that the State historically favours
Anglican Christianity). Since 1979 when the UK consciously made the choice to evolve into a Multicultural
State, British courts have affirmed multiculturalism and democratic pluralism over secularism. One of the
highest courts has once again shown - in the case of Shabina Begum and her "jilbab" - that Britain shuns the
secular fundamentalism common throughout French-speaking Europe and in former French colonies
throughout the world.

On religion in the public sphere, most Nigerians on the one hand do not want the exclusion espoused by
secularism (e.g. as found in France where Muslim headscarves, Jewish skull-caps, Sikh turbans and
Christian crucifixes are banned, or in Turkey, where although 98% of the population is Muslim and millions
of well-educated women wear headscarves on the streets; the secular fundamentalist government forces
them to remove their headscarves and bare their hair as they step into public institutions – an exclusion
which that government believes is necessary to make Turkey “modern”, in the image of a fantasised
European nation). On the other hand, most Nigerians also do not want the imposition of religious
fundamentalism (e.g. as found in Iran and Saudi Arabia where the hijaab is forced on all women, including
those who clearly do not want to wear it). It is immoral, illegitimate and impossible for multi-ethinic,
multireligious Nigeria to adopt either model. Our culture and history is different.

For example, while Muslim British policewomen freely wear their hijaab as part of the police uniform, under
the helmet, Merve Kavakci, an elected Turkish parliamentarian was not only barred from parliament, her
elective mandate was revoked, and worse, the President annulled her Turkish citizenship. Ms Kavakci, a
consciously practicing Muslim computer engineer who memorised the Qur’an, was elected into parliament in
a country that is 98% Muslim, but was forced into exile in the United States (where even after 9/11, Muslims
still enjoy more freedom than they would under the secular fundamentalist government of Turkey). Ms
Kavakci’s crime has been likened to blasphemy: she dared to walk into the chambers of the Turkish
parliament with her hair covered with a small scarf! The then 31-year old dared to bring a symbol of religion,
which supposedly should stay in the private domain, into the public sphere, and thereby tarnished the
hallowed secular atmosphere of that chamber! She lost her citizenship and almost everything else.
The overwhelming majority of educated Muslims repudiate such tyranny. I have found in Turkey a desire for
democracy and freedom and a disdain for the tyranny of secularism, among most people – including many
professors. Yet, Muslim societies are being told everyday that Turkey is the country to emulate; even when
so many Turkish citizens have constantly rejected secularism at the elections and voted for practicing
Muslim politicians, but are kept subject by an extremely powerful NATO-supported military that will defend
the secular constitution “at all costs”. If Muslims must forfeit freedom in order to be “modern”, a clear majority
of them would rather remain “pre-modern”, it seems to me.
Both secular fundamentalists and religious fundamentalists are equally dangerous, to the liberty of Muslims
everywhere – not to mention others who choose to believe (or not to believe) in any religion. Most Nigerians
do not want to become Europeans. Nigerians don’t want to emulate France or Turkey – nor Iran nor the
Vatican, one should add. Instead, we elect, as Canada, Australia and Britain have already formally done, for
multiculturalism and democratic pluralism: a healthy tolerance of diversity – cultural as well as religious.

Far from being trivial issues, cultural identity and cultural liberty are probably the central issues of this
decade. The most important UN document of 2004, the 300-page Human Development Report, is
deservedly devoted to these very issues and is titled "Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World". HDR 2004
declares authoritatively that human development is "first and foremost about allowing people to lead the kind
of life they choose - and providing them with the tools and opportunities to make those choices".
As South African Supreme Court Justice Albie Sachs puts it, "human rights are as much about the right to
be different as they are about the right to be the same". This maxim is only further magnified in importance
for multi-ethnic, multiracial and multi-religious societies. Everyone has a right to be treated the same with
others and not discriminated against. Yet, persons also have a right to preserve what is distinct about them
at a personal or collective level. People have a right to be different from others in their thinking or their
lifestyles. It should be noted that another key ideological feature of secularism is the search for a "worldly
conformity"..."that sees society deriving its inspiration from the present, not the past or the transcendent-
supernatural". Secular fundamentalists therefore devote effort and resources to opposing Muslim women's
right to Islamic dress and are always prepared to impose sanctions in achieving their vision of "worldly
conformity" for society. They feel threatened by difference. By insisting without any legal, legitimate or moral
basis that Muslim women conform and "dissolve into the pool" before they can be allowed to claim their
fundamental human rights, these secular fundamentalists contribute to religious extremism – a regular tool
in the hands of any people who are unfairly marginalized by powerful actors; any people who suffer social,
political, economic or cultural exclusion.

"If the world is to reach the Millennium Development Goals and ultimately eradicate poverty" the HDR 2004
warns, "it must first successfully confront the challenge of how to build inclusive, culturally diverse societies.
Not just because doing so successfully is a precondition for countries to focus properly on other priorities of
economic growth, health and education for all citizens. But because allowing people full cultural expression
is an important development end in itself". It is a message that Nigerian policy makers need to take more
seriously. The fact that tertiary educational institutions still exist in Nigeria - and in Lagos, of all places - that
would in a nation where Muslims are half the population consider banning Muslim headscarves, is an
indication of the low level of political sophistication with which important issues of religious freedom and
cultural liberty are still handled in Nigeria.

Muslims in Northern Nigeria are mostly free of discrimination from the polity – which they are in fact blamed,
with some reason, for controlling to the disadvantage of others. Muslims in the South however face a
peculiar plight. They are more hit from day to day by the enduring legacies of the inextricable linkage
between the Colonial State and the Church. In Nigeria as elsewhere, the colonial Church-State acted
through missionaries who so totally controlled and set the rules and structures of the two most important
social services in any human community: education and health. Muslims were either excluded or chose self-
exclusion rather than submit to conversion. The half who embraced "education" under the colonial order
were mostly converted from Islam. This history has consequences that endure still. Universities in
Southwestern Nigeria, a part of the country where Muslims are close to half the population usually have 1 to
5% of their professors being Muslim. Sometimes, one-third or more of the other Professors are Yoruba
Christians who were Muslim in their youth, but attended missionary schools that systematically and
assiduously sought and obtained their conversion as a pre-requisite for "Western" education. At international
fora, observant Egyptians, Pakistanis, Indonesians and others often consider it curious that more than 900
of the 1000 most internationally recognized Nigerian scholars are Christians (a significant number of whom
concede they were Muslim children).

A similarly skewed pattern is found in the national electronic and print media. For example, only three of the
twenty most influential newspapers and magazines in Nigeria have up to 40% of their editors being Muslim.
Given the power of the media in the contemporary world, the implications of such realities are incalculable –
especially in the ways that Islam is presented and represented to the citizenry. While such facts are curious
for a country such as Nigeria, they are an altogether understandable consequence of our painful colonial
legacy – painful if one happens to be Muslim. The same pattern is reproduced in almost all professional and
learned circles in Nigeria. From medicine to law to the financial professions, Muslims remain a small
minority; largely the consequence of the way "education" was introduced. The fact that "power at the top"
has been tilted in favour of Muslims in the post-colonial period has done little to conceal the reality that
whereas the tiny upper-class of Nigeria is equally Muslim-Christian if not even more Muslim than Christian;
while the economically and politically important Nigerian middle-class is overwhelmingly Christian – and, as
all Nigerians know, the numerically huge lower economic class is disproportionately and overwhelmingly
Muslim. Many Muslims in the South of the country are as aware as they are quietly bitter about this infamous
and enduring legacy.

With calls for the "return" of public schools to Churches increasingly strident in Southwestern Nigeria, and
with many Governors secretly committed to confirm this policy once they win re-election, Muslims in
Southern Nigeria are reminded again of the many ways in which the historic hegemony of the Church over
them, rather than diminishing, is being re-enacted. For example, countless public schools in Ibadan that
have over 70% of their students being Muslim, will soon belong to Churches, if these plans go ahead. More
than eight in ten private primary and secondary schools in Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo States
are Christian owned. In places like Oyo State, poor Muslims who make do with lower quality public schooling
may eventually choose Church-owned schools since only the middle class can afford private schools. It is
not surprising that Muslims have a greater need for public education, will fight more spiritedly to defend
public education, and will suffer colossally if and when they lose this fight. That they will lose the fight seems
likely. And sadly so. Those who imagine that such outcomes as this are good for civil peace and
development are ignorant or duplicitous, if not worse. That NGOs and development workers so totally ignore
the looming tragedies says much about the problems of communal agency in the setting of socially
consequential development priorities and agendas – from the local to the global.

It is within historical and political contexts such as the one painted above that debates over the hijaab take
place. The passions involved in the matter of hijaab - on all sides - should not be dismissed, nor should their
deeper meanings be trivialised. Most Muslims are not happy when they notice for example that there is only
1 Muslim female student for every 10 Christian female students in most Southwestern Nigerian universities.
They know what "catching up", if at all such a miracle were to be ever possible, would demand of them.
Many know they must work harder at their studies than others to have a chance - or for the next generation
to be a little better off. Many know that for their dressing, they will not be called back after job interviews in
the future - regardless of the quality of their degrees. If almost half of the female Muslim students in some
higher institutions now wear some form of headscarf or the other and face negative consequences and
threats of expulsion, it should be no surprise to rational minds there is considerable anger from Muslim
communities about the threatened exclusion of the few "representatives" they have in a powerful "system"
that is so massively arrayed against them.
Court rulings such as those by the Lord Justices in England, as well as Justice Oyewole in Lagos are thus
seen by many Muslims against a much larger background: small sparks of light in an otherwise dark tunnel.

While Justice Joseph Oyewole's legal ruling may not reflect the opinions of many on the still-deeply
conservative Nigerian Bench, the decision should be commended for its courage and for its insistent
defence of constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms. The ruling also contributes to ongoing debates about the
proper place of religion in Nigeria - a matter that is by no means settled. More broadly, the ruling chooses
one of the sides of a larger global debate about the place of Religion in the Modern World - ultimately the
winning side in my opinion.
As younger generations of Muslim women and men increasingly refuse to choose between Faith and
Freedom, between having successful careers and identifying as Muslims, between having a higher
education and consciously living Islam; those that insist that they make untenable choices will find
themselves increasingly marginalized - not only by the "common opinions of mankind", but also by the
unstoppable march of Liberty.

Hameed Agberemi
2005 Fellow, International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World
Leiden, The Netherlands
2003/2004 Fellow of Islam and Human Rights, Emory University Law School
Atlanta, U S A
hagberemi@yahoo.com