I would not have responded to that Press Statement because it was not based on knowledge, but on baseless selfish emotion. However, I responded because I owe it a duty to those who seek the truth to attain to it.
I knew the Emir Ado Bayero since I was a child and he was senior schoolboy. His father, the revered Emir Alhaji Abdullahi Bayero passed the responsibility of this favoured son to his brother, the saintly Galadima of Kano, Alhaji Muhammad Inuwa who eventually became the 12th Emir of Kano. The Galadima of Kano subsequently passed the responsibility of the young prince to my father who was his scribe, confidant and spiritual guide. My father was an accomplished intellectual and a political radical who influenced Kano leaders of thought of his time. The face of Ado Bayero, like the faces of Aminu Kano, Isa Wali and Maitama Sule, was familiar to me in the house of my father from my childhood. The first wife of Ado Bayero was the daughter of the Galadima and a ward of my father’s. I was in the party that took her to her groom’s house in Kano city from Dawakin Kudu.
When the Galadima became the Emir, I moved with him to the Kano Palace. My father had died earlier and I fell under the care of the Emir. I remained in the Palace when Alhaji Ado Bayero succeeded Alhaji Muhammad Inuwa as the Emir. I only left the Palace after I had built my own house and got married in 1967.
I was flabbergasted when the late magnificent Galadima of Kano, Alhaji Tijjani Hashim, told a disgruntled Emirate official unhappy with my views over some issues to note that i was one of the THREE persons who were closest to the Emir of Kan. The other were late Sheikh Malam Nasiru Kabara, the Head of Qadiriyyah Order and the late Waziri of Kano, Shiekh Malam Shehu Gidado. I used to write the papers that the Emir presented to the concourse of the most influential peoples of the world.
The greatest cord that bound to the Emir Ado Bayero was his great love and respect for my father. My father was a staunch Shiite who only recognised Imam Ali as his Leader after the Prophet. He saw the Ahl al- Bayt as the solution to human problems and Karbala as the Refuge of every distressed individual person. Without an iota of doubt, all scholarly houses which proffered support to the Emirs in Kano are Shi’ah.
We’ve explained how the Emir of Kano ‘Abbas became Shiite in a separate writing, the protestations of the Emir of Kano Sanusi II having been found academically baseless and was no more than a political expression of the embarrassed Doubting Emir and princes. Denial of scholarship is not a royal tradition anywhere in the world. When Queen Elizabeth II was informed in 1972 that she was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (sas) she said she was delighted. The Queen RESPECTED scholarship.
I know Emir Ado Bayero, like his blessed father, Emir ‘Abdullahi and his saintly father-in-law, Emir Muhammad Inuwa to possess some qualities that are distinctively Shiite. Emir Ado has great humility and an engaging character. He had great respect for elders of all categories including elderly people and scholars. His devotion to his mother was legendary. His Shiite credentials are many. He supported secretly hungry subjects. The scholars he respected and associated with were all Shiites in tendency. His aversion to Izala was well known; he was reluctant to allow them to preach at the Kano Central Mosque where he warmly welcomed the Shi’ah. The Emir and I have great aversion to Wahhabism and often discussed it. He allowed his wife who was my student at university to engage in strong Shiite activities. When the Waziri of Kano, Sheikh Malam Isa Waziri was invited to Iran to participate in the Islamic Revolution, he sought permission from the Emir. The Emir denied permission on the grounds of Taqiyyah. The only way you can understand the confession of an Emir is through the people who surrounded them. All post-colonial Emirs of Kano were surrounded by Shi’ah scholars except Usman II who was surrounded by traditionalists and Muhammadu Sanusi who was surrounded by Western educated colonial employees.
Mut’ah is a temporary marriage Allah has ordained in the Qur’an (Koran, Nisa’ 4:24) the Prophet advocated it strongly and the Companions of the Prophet engaged in it. Asma’ the daughter of Sayyiduna Abubakar contracted Mut’ah with Ja’far, the relative of the Prophet. Emir Ado Bayero like his father, Emir Abdullahi Bayero and many of the Companions of the Prophet had ferociously uncontrollable sexual appetite and Allah has provided through Mut’ah the means to dissipate it without falling into adultery. I pray that the Doubting Princes were not saying that the well established sexual escapades of their father that which he pursued with relish were in sin. عياذ بالله. The Emir Ado Bayero was far above his children’s imagination. Adultery is prohibited by Allah in the Koran, punishable by death in the traditions. Mut’ah is a legal marriage ordained by God, promoted by the Prophet and practiced by the Sahabah.
“…And you are allowed to seek out wives with your wealth in decorous conduct , but not in adultery/fornication, but give them their dowryfor what you have enjoyed of them in keeping with your promise.” (4:24)
