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Islam And The British Administration In Northern Nigeria, Peggy Blumberg

Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science

This paper offers a case study in acculturation, the process by which one culture adopts traits of another after prolonged contact. This study seeks to show how the British administration in Northern Nigeria inadvertently hastened the process of conversion of the pagans to Islam. Much of the area was already nominally Muslim when conquered by the Muslim Fulani early in the 19th century. The suzerainty of Islamic rulers encouraged further conversion. By strengthening these rulers and their Islamic courts, the British system of indirect rule established in 1900 gave the pagans positive incentives to convert. Many of the pre-Fulani Muslims …