Settlements concentrated around hills and later around trade routes including becoming the southern

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• Settlements concentrated around hills and later
  around trade routes including becoming the
  southern ends of the trans-Saharan caravan trade.
  Through this trade Islam came to the savannah in
  the 8th century. It was adopted in the Borno
  Kingdom and then the Hausa states as the official
  religion between the 11th-15th centuries,
  gradually spreading from rulers to ruled.
  Especially in the countryside people continued to
  practice indigenous religions alongside it the
  Maguzawa are still non-Muslim Hausa.
• In the early 20th century northern Nigeria was
  conquered by the British and controlled by the
  policy of Indirect Rule through approved Emirs.
  Nigeria gained independence in 1960.

In the 19 states of northern Nigeria, while some
are around 95 Muslim, two are 75 non-Muslim,
and Benue is 95 non-Muslim. The largest ethnic
groups are the Hausa, Fulani and Kanuri (Borno)
but there are many others which are largely
Christian or follow indigenous religions. The
population of northern Nigeria is about 45
million (1991 census).
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Dress History

• We know about the history of the trading states
  - their laws, wars, rulers and customs but
  (with a few exceptions) with an almost entirely
  male-focus. Neither the early Arab travellers
  and writers nor the 19th century Europeans talked
  often with women and they were very little
  interested in recording womens dress. There was
  a wide variety of fabrics available there were
  skilled local weavers and dyers, and traders
  exchanged textiles with the Mediterranean, Egypt
  and beyond.

Shouaa women, Kingdom of Bornou, 1823.
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• Ordinary women The dress of the Bornuese women
  consists of one or two turkadees, blue, white, or
  striped. The turkadee is wrapped rather tightly
  round the body, and hangs down from the bosom,
  below the knees. If a second is worn, as by
  women of some consideration, it is commonly flung
  over the heads and shoulders.
• Upper class women The wives of the Sheikh of
  Beghanu, when travelling on horse-back, have
  their heads and figures
  completely enveloped in brown silk
  bornouses.

Shouaa women, Kingdom of Bornou, 1823.
Text and photo Narrative of Travels and
Discoveries in Northern Nigeria and Central
Africa, Denham, Clapperton and Oudney, 1826
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A Fulani Girl. E D Morel, Nigeria, 1911
A Hausa Trading Woman. Morel

• In general the Fulbe too wear the large tightly
  wrapped cloth of the Hausa which reaches from the
  armpit to the knee. The cloth around the
  shoulders which is so common in the north, is
  worn here only by a few well-to-do women. (1889)
• In the heart of the Hausa States, Paul
  Staudinger, 1889, trans. Johanna Moody, 1990

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Northern Nigerian Muslim Womenas seen by a
traveller in 1885
Young girls, as well as women, are very much
concerned with finery they do their hair with
great care, they hang ears, neck and arms with
jewellery and beads and use all the arts of
colour cosmetics which are known in these
countries. Over the loose-fitting main dress
they wear splendid cloths around the shoulders
and upper parts of the body, and one already sees
here a kind of sewn gown.
Paul Staudinger about Hausa women in Kano in
1885/6, trans. Johanna Moody, Kano Studies 1976
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Northern Nigerian Muslim Womenparticipants at
a Northern Nigerian womens meeting c. 1962

Jamiyar Matan Arewa
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Northern Nigerian Muslim Womenparticipants at a
West African womens meeting 2002
From Borno state ankle length boubou with
headscarf and maiyafi draped over head and
shoulders
From Adamawa state Ankle length boubou with
matching headscarf
Headscarf with maiyafi draped over head and
shoulders
Half boubou and wrapper with matching headscarf
and maiyafi (undraped)
From Adamawa state lace top and wrapper with
maiyafi (undraped) and matching headscarf
From Zamfara (First Sharia Criminal Law state)
Headscarf, maiyafi (wrap) and kaftan
WLUML Africa and Middle East/BAOBAB for Womens
Human Rights
Short sleeved top and matching headwrap
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Everyday Clothes
There are relatively few images of Muslim women
in Northern Nigeria outside the home just going
about their business and normal life normal
life was mainly within the compounds, or involved
social visiting after dusk.
Fulani women at a nutrition session, 1970s. This
photo shows them meeting in the public space of a
neighbourhood alley. By the 1990s such meetings
were held in private spaces, i.e. within peoples
compounds. By 2002 women would not have wrappers
only round their waists. Maggie Murray, Our Own
Freedom, 1981
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Of those women who are considered Muslim in
Northern Nigeria only the nomadic Fulani women
sell in local markets.
Fulani women selling milk in a small
market. Edward Hopen, 1958
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Cooking and selling food is the most frequently
practiced occupation.
If a Muslim woman sits outside her house selling
cooked food it can be inferred that she is
unmarried, as a result of divorce or the death of
a spouse Muslim Hausa Women in Nigeria, Barbara
Calloway, 1987
As this woman is a wife in seclusion, she must
rely on her children or husband or male relative
for daily purchases of raw ingredients and for
selling her prepared food. photo, Barbara
Calloway, 1987
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Schools

• Schools where women and children were taught the
  Arabic script were important as this gave them a
  means of written communication. Hausa was
  written with Arabic script (ajami) as well as
  Roman (boko).
• In the last twenty years there has been an
  increase in the amount of body that gets covered,
  and the looseness of the clothing. There has
  also been a steady but unrelated increase in
  mobility outside of the home - schooling and
  adult education, paid employment, trading and
  womens meetings. However, since October 1999,
  with the advent of enacted hudood offences
  (Sharia Criminal Law) in some states, there
  appears to have been a decrease in womens
  visibility in the public sphere and a definite
  increase in the amount and extent of womens
  covering (with policing from young male
  vigilantes).

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Women at an Islamiyya school. B Yusuf, Hausa
Women in the 20th century, 1991
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• Sharia shrouds students
• Jan 14 2002
• Boys in secondary schools in the mainly Muslim
  northern Nigerian state of Zamfara must in future
  wear turbans and caftans, while girls are obliged
  to wear a "hijab", a black dress that covers the
  entire body.
• Kano, Nigeria - The government in a mainly Muslim
  northern Nigerian state has made turbans
  obligatory for boys attending secondary schools,
  an official said on Monday.
• The Zamfara State education commissioner, Ango
  Umar, said in an interview on the state-run Radio
  Zamfara that it was now mandatory for the
  students to wear turbans and caftans.
• "Zamfara is a Sharia state and Sharia (Islamic
  code) should manifest itself in all
  ramifications. This directive is in conformity
  with the Sharia legal system, which the state
  operates," Umar said.
• Umar said that the state government has provided
  34 000 turbans to secondary schools across the
  state.
• Female secondary school students will be provided
  with a "hijab", a black dress that covers the
  entire body.
• Zamfara formally introduced Sharia in January
  2000. About a dozen other northern states in
  Nigeria later followed suit.
• Although Umar did not say if Christian students
  would be exempted from applying the dress code,
  the state government has always insisted that the
  Islamic code will not be imposed on Christians. -
  Sapa-AFP

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