Abubakar Gumi

Who was Abubakar Gumi?

Sheik Abubakar Gumi was an outspoken Islamic scholar and Grand Khadi of the Northern Region of Nigeria, a position which made him a central authority in the interpretation of the Sharia legal system in the region. He was a close associate of Ahmadu Bello, the premier of the region in the 1950s and 1960s and became the Grand Khadi partly as a result of his friendship with the premier. In 1967, the position was abolished.

Gumi emerged as a vocal leader during the colonial era, where he felt the practice of indirect rule had weakened the religious power of Emirs and encouraged westernization. Beginning in the 1960s, public conflicts emerged between him and leaders of the Sufi brotherhood, some of whom he later debated on television programs in the 1970s and 1980s. By that time, he had managed to keep himself and his ideas in the spotlight by holding Friday talking sessions inside the Kaduna Central Mosque. He used the sessions to revive his criticism of established authorities based on his views of a back to the source approach or the need to embrace a puritanical practice of Islam.