January 21, 2007
Aisha B. Lemu is British and a renowned Islamic scholar, writer, and activist. She has propagated Islam for over four decades. In this interview with Maryam Garba Hassan, she comments on her conversion to Islam, the bill to fix the marriage age of girls at 18 years, and the state of our public schools. Excerpts:
“Our parents were scared of what we were about do, but there was no discouragement from either side. My parents are very open-minded. They knew that I had long been interested in learning about other religions and cultures, but when they realized that it was working for us they were happy. We never had the usual problems that people have who marry across national boundaries.”
Could you please introduce yourself?
My name is Aisha B. Lemu. I was born in England in 1940 and had my education there. I was thirteen years old when I realized that I did not really believe in the faith in which I was brought up and began reading about other religions. I found truth in all of them, but could not accept them completely.
At the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London, I became interested in Chinese culture, history and language. I then became aware that I didn't have a religion, but never thought of Islam until I met Muslims at the university who enlightened me about Islam and gave me Islamic books to read. I found Islamic literature interesting. Two months after I began reading an English translation of the Holy Qur'an, I concluded that no one could ever sit down to write such a book, much less an illiterate.
I accepted Islam in 1961, in my first year at university.
What happened next?
On completing my degree course, I enrolled for a one-year post-graduate course on teaching English as a foreign language. It was then that I met my husband-to-be, Sheikh Ahmad Lemu. He was in a different college, but we got to know each other through the university's Islamic activities. He finished his course two years before me.
Sheik Ahmad and I soon realized that we got along very well in spite of the differences in our cultural backgrounds.
I came to Nigeria two years later to teach at the School for Arabic Studies in Kano, where I spent one and half years before my transfer to Sokoto at the age of 27 as the principal of Government Girls College. By then, I had gained enough knowledge of Nigeria and the culture of the man I was to marry, and we got married in 1968. Our marriage is blessed with two children, a boy and a girl.
You married across racial and cultural barriers. There must have been problems.
Of course there was anxiety on both sides, which is natural. Our parents were scared of what we were about do, but there was no discouragement from either side. My parents are very open-minded. They knew that I had long been interested in learning about other religions and cultures, but when they realized that it was working for us they were happy. We never had the usual problems like the people who marry across national boundaries.
How did such a young woman combine professional responsibility with raising a family?
When I became a college principal in Sokoto, I knew nothing about running a boarding school. My husband gave me all the support I needed however because he was also a school principal. He guided me all through and even edited my work when I started writing.
He supported us immensely when we established FOMWAN because he champions the education of women to make them more useful to the society. That is why I have always described ours as a marriage of compatibility.
My husband is very traditional in some ways, but also very modern. He has a way of encouraging women to strive to achieve whatever they want in life.
We moved to Niger state when it was created in 1976 and I became principal of the Women Teachers College, Minna for another two years before I left government service to run the Islamic Education Trust, an organization we established in Sokoto in 1969. I have worked there fulltime since 1978 and I am now the director general.
You started your da'awah barely two months into your conversion to Islam. How did that come about?
When I became a Muslim, there were quite a number of Muslims in the university as well as the college where I worked. We established the Islamic society at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London University to bring Muslims of different nationalities together. We organized lectures and discussions to learn from one another. That was the beginning of what you call my da'awah.
Nigeria: 'Education Should Be Priority of All Muslim Women'
Aisha Lemu
You have written a number of Islamic books, many of which are used as textbooks in Nigerian schools. How did you squeeze your tight schedule to write those books?
I usually wake up very early, between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. every day. I am therefore able to do some writing before the day breaks. That is a gift from Allah.
I was a fulltime house wife for a year when I wanted to write on the methodology of primary Islamic studies.
How many books do you have to your credit? Which is your favourite, and why?
I have written fifteen books and my favourites are the junior Islamic studies series in three volumes which are well illustrated. Another one is my critical look at the theory of evolution. Then there is my book on laxity, moderation and extremism in Islam.
Some of these books were actually developed from public lectures on popular request.
As the first national president of the Federation of Muslim Women's Associations of Nigeria (FOMWAN), how would you assess its performance to date?
FOMWAN has achieved more than some other associations founded before her, particularly Muslim men's organizations, and that places us above them!
FOMWAN is not attached to any particular individual because it has many high calibre women as members - highly educated and respected women who know how to run an organization and keep everyone on board without stepping on their toes.
FOMWAN has grown from strength to strength. The work it now does differs in many ways from what we did at the beginning. I could not do what the present executive members are doing when I was president.
A bill was recently passed in the House of Assembly to prohibit the marriage of girls under the age of 18. As an Islamic scholar, what is your view on that?
To be realistic, I think that it is too big a jump to fix the marriage age of girls at eighteen years. What will the girls do if they are not in school? The fear is that they may end up getting pregnant. If they had fixed the minimum marriage at sixteen, for example, more people would go along with them. I know a number of women who got married at fifteen and have grown up with their husbands to have successful marriages.
Islam has not prescribed any minimum or maximum age for marriage, and I am not aware that any other religion has done so. Therefore, marriage aged has traditionally differed in many cultures. It has never been considered the business of the state to regulate it.
The age of marriage is closely related to the culture of the people of course, including their economic situation, level of education, and social development.
Islam places great emphasis on the education of both males and females, and education in our times generally means schooling at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. For those that have access to primary and secondary education, it is definitely important to stay unmarried and focus attention on education. Those that proceed to higher education may choose to get married at any convenient time during or after their studies.
The prophet (saw) arranged the marriage of his beloved daughter Fatima al-Zahra (P) to Ali ibn Abi Talib (P) when she was eighteen. If the prophet himself (saw) married out his beloved daughter at eighteen, Islam is certainly comfortable with that age. The reality in Nigeria today however is that large numbers of children do not go to school or drop out of it for various reasons related to poverty or the inaccessibility of schools. Under these circumstances, particularly in the rural areas, it would be very difficult for parents to appreciate why their children should not get married when they become physically mature. Rather than criminalize them, the government should take two steps:
One is to take education more seriously by improving the quality and number of schools so that every child has access. The government must also take measures to reduce dropout rates. Secondly, the government must disseminate information and use advocacy to enlighten the parents about some of the hazards of marriage before a girl matures sufficiently, physically and mentally, to become a mother.
That would be a more rational approach, in my opinion, than suddenly imposing a minimum age for marriage and possibly facing problems of unmarried motherhood and fatherless children. It took the developed countries several centuries to provide for compulsory education for children up to the age of 16.
Once there is universal compulsory primary and secondary education, the problems of early marriage will, insha Allah, be taken care of. Otherwise we may be putting the cart before the horse.
How has your work impacted on your life?
Islam has made me appreciate the need to unify the head and the heart. I see Islam as a very rational religion and believing in what I am doing has helped me. It has given my life a good pattern.
You run a number of Islamic NGOs. Can you briefly tell us about them?
I am still a member of FOMWAN. I am in fact the chairman of its board of trustees. The NGO that currently engages most of my energy is the Islamic Education Trust, which focuses on education, da'awah, and human development. It renders assistance to widows, orphans, and the like but it is also engaged in publishing.
Under da'awah we organize training. We have developed courses in da'awah training, particularly in those areas where Islam has become controversial or where even some Muslims misunderstand its teachings. We have done it in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, and even different parts of the world such as USA and Australia. These are the main programmes of the Islamic Education Trust.
Secondly, there is the Nigerian Association of Model Islamic Schools (NAMIS) where Islamically oriented schools like ours meet to devise ways of raising our standards. We organize competitions between students of different Islamic schools.
I am a member of steering committee of the International Board for Education Research and Resources (IBERR). The Yusuf Islam Organization for Muslim Schools is part of that organization. We meet several times a year to develop materials which we forward to Muslim schools worldwide.
As a successful Islamic scholar, how do you think the lot of Nigerian women and children could be improved?
The most important thing for a Muslim is broadening education to gain knowledge and linking what is learnt with the teachings of the religion in facing the challenges of life. I consider that as the top priority for all Muslim women.
Back in the 60's there were but a few educated Muslim women. And when people are not educated, they can't organize themselves to work productively. The more women are educated on a higher level, however, the more useful they could be to their society.
A research on the lives of Nigerian Muslim women in the 70s showed that educated women were more successful than the uneducated and had a lower incidence of divorce in there marriage. Gone are the days when people thought that education makes Muslim women immoral.
Islam advocates education of all human beings. A hadith (narration) actually describes the search for knowledge as the compulsory duty for every Muslim, male or female. Another one enjoins Muslims to seek for knowledge from their cradle to the grave.
What are your hobbies?
Reading. I always have several books on the bedside at the same time. I also love gardening and traveling to other places to engage myself in Islamic activities. That has been the most wonderful opportunity of my life. I have been to very many places and love strange places.
As someone that is neck deep in the educational sector, how would you assess the general condition of the Nigerian educational system?
It is sad to see what is happening in our public schools. I remember the 60s and 70s when the government schools were really good and produced most if not all of the leaders we had in the country. Today however the schools have declined so badly that the poor find it difficult to get the best education in overcrowded classes. There is a general collapse of values and examination malpractice is rampant.
If we are getting a new government next year, I hope they will make education their number one priority and really invest resources to rescue the younger generation from what is happening because the world is very competitive today and there are countries that invest twenty six percent of their budget in education. We lag behind in that respect, and we really can't afford that. If we want to excel in future we have to invest resources in developing human talent. There are lots of talented people in this country, but we don't know that because we neglect the education sector.
Having lived this long in Nigeria, what do like about the country?
The spirit of the people is what I like most about the country. It is a funny country where all sorts of things happen, strange things, amazing things, funny things, annoying things, and frustrating things that make you think that you can't stand them. But that kind of seduces one.
The people must come together to change things by resisting some of the things that happen in the political domain, by speaking out and standing by what they say. Still Nigeria is a nice place to live in.
What is your most cherished achievement?
My two children, Maryam and Nuruddeen. They are young, but they are doing wonderful things and people see them as worthy of emulation, which makes me proud. Nuruddeen is developing courses for training the trainers in da'awah and dialogue, which involves organizing research into controversial areas of Islam to improve understanding of the true teaching on important issues. He has been all over Nigeria, West Africa, Australia, the Philippines and USA.
Maryam has developed a number of personal courses on development and public speech, as well as marriage counselling.
My second achievement was when I became a Member of the Order of Niger (MON) in 2000. I was highly honoured because I did not know that what I was doing was recognized and appreciated by other people.
Another achievement is the Islamic-oriented school I set up, particularly the New Horizon College where we developed a curriculum that combines the best of the modern education with Islamic studies.
We invented and developed a subject called Islamic Perspectives, which is different from Islamic studies. When you study it, you'd know what I mean. The course enables students to look at the way they live and all things in the modern world from the Islamic perspective.
What advice do you have for the younger generation?
They should find out what they are good at and what they love doing, and do it to the best of their ability and the benefit of society. They should not listen to what people say or think of them once they have put their trust in Allah.
