Islam and Colonial Rule in Lagos

Abstract

Introduction This essay provides an explanation of the dynamics of the interaction between Islam and politics by placing emphasis on the role played by Muslims in the collision of traditionalism and British rule as colonialism took root in Lagos. The focus is on the development of a political schism within the nascent Muslim community of metropolitan Lagos at the start of the twentieth century up until the end of the 1940s. It highlights the role of Islam in an emerging urban settlement experiencing rapid transformation from a purely rural and traditional center into a colonial urban center. The essay is located within the broader issues of urban change and transition in twentieth-century tropical Africa. Three major developments (viz: the central mosque crisis, the Eleko affair, and the Oluwa land case) are used as the vehicles through which the objectives of the essay are achieved. The introduction of Islam into Lagos has been studied by T. G. O. Gbadamosi as part of the history of Islam in southwestern Nigeria. This epic study does not pay specific attention to Lagos, devoted as it is to the growth of Islam in a far-flung territory like the whole of modem southwestern Nigeria. His contribution to a collection of essays on the history of Lagos curiously leaves out Islam’s phenomenal impact on Lagosian politics during the first half of the twentieth century. In an attempt to fill this gap, Hakeem Danmole’s essay also stops short of appreciating the fundamental link between the process of urbanization, symbolized in this case by colonial rule, and the vanguard role played by Muslims in the inevitable clash of tradition and colonial rule in Lagos between 1900 and 1950.