Adeyemi Balogun

2 Publications in AERD

Author Publications

Guiding Muslim Women in the University: The Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria Women’s Programmes in Northern Nigeria

By Adeyemi Balogun

This article discusses how the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN) shapes the way of life of Muslim women in northern Nigeria’s higher educational institutions. The MSSN expects Muslim women to be symbols of piety, home builders and career professionals, and, in line with these objectives, it promotes an Islamic reform that emphasises Western education and the embodiment of prophetic traditions. Many platforms, such as the Sisters’ Circle and Marriage Guidance and Counselling (MAGACO), are used by the MSSN to guide the women on how to achieve this tradition of reform. Through these platforms, the women are engaged on a variety of subjects, such as giving support to acquire Western education, learning the prophetic traditions, and dealing with marital concerns and societal problems that affect their gender. I argue that these platforms enable Muslim women to actively participate in public life and deal with the problems they face in education, religion and marriage. This is demonstrated in their employment in many professional careers, and their ability to stimulate changes, including contesting the notion of women’s education, the women-centred reform orientation of the MSSN, and the government policy on veiling in public schools. © 2023 International African Institute.

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The Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria (MSSN) since 1954: education, Muslim-Christian encounters and regional variation

By Adeyemi Balogun

The Muslim Students' Society of Nigeria (MSSN) is a movement that promotes the Islamic identity of Muslims in Nigeria's educational institutions. Despite promoting the same objectives around the country, a comparison of the MSSN's activities between the northern and southern regions of Nigeria suggests that the success of the movement varies in many aspects. This is because there are two main types of regional variation relating to the MSSN: the success of Christian opposition to the MSSN's objectives; and the attitude of many Muslims and the government to those objectives. For example, in the Muslim-dominated northern states, the call by the MSSN to let Muslim girls wear the hijab in schools and the MSSN's support for the reintroduction of sharia were welcomed by the state governors. However, in the south-west region, where the populations of Muslims and Christians are roughly equal, the MSSN struggled to get the state governors to accept the hijab and the call for sharia was rejected. This article thus argues that, despite envisioning the same notion of Islam for all Muslim students in Nigeria, the MSSN's activities do not produce a monolithic Islam, and that this reflects differences in the practice of the religion across the country. © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute.

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