Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

301 Nikolai A. Dobronravin. New sources on the Tijānī Emigration from West Africa... […] And the happiness (nu‘m) of jihād is when you are able to wage it. But the circumstances for it today are missing. And the necessary today is the flight (al-firār) in the name of faith. Despite Sirē ‘Āli’s advice, Mu ḥ ammad al-Hāshimī was apparently still reluctant to make a final decision in favour of either fighting or leaving the territory to be occupied by the British. The participation of the Tijānī brethren in the battle at Burmi was not an active one. They probably did take part in the fighting, but William Wallace, the Acting Governor of Northern Nigeria, wrote in his dispatch to Sir Chamberlain after the battle: “The Tejaniyah [Tijānīya] did not join in the fighting at Burmi but were in communication with the Sultan [ amīr al-mu’minīn Attahiru] and were inclined to join him but were afraid, they not having forgotten the lesson taught them by the French” 1 . Such was the European conqueror’s view and British “army way” of thinking about the colonial war. From the African Tijānī side, the discussion revolved around a different set of concepts, that is, hijra and jihād . Remarks by Sirē ‘Āli present a plan of the hijra that was in fact followed by Mu ḥ ammad al-Hāshimī and other Tijānī brethren who preferred emigration to staying in colonial Northern Nigeria. Other letters from the kundi show that the followers of Mu ḥ ammad al-Hāshimī did not only discuss his travel, but also checked the route and made necessary preparations for their shaykh . Thus, the emigration to the East and finally to Mecca and Medina was not just a chaotic flight under the pressure of unhappy circumstances, but rather a prepared movement (as much as it was possible), discussed among the brethren in the Tijānī tarīqa before their hijra towards today’s Sudan and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. 1 Muffett D. J. M. Concerning brave captains; being a history of the British occupation of Kano and Sokoto and of the last stand of the Fulani forces. London: André Deutsch, 1964. P. 192.