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Islamic Vigilantes
Break Up Lewd Wedding Party in Nigeria
KANO, Nigeria, July 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Members of an Islamic vigilante group broke up a party organized for the marriage of a well-known actress in northern Nigeria, injuring 17 people in the process, guests said Monday.
The mixing of men and women at the party outraged members of the Hisbah committee, which oversees the implementation of Islamic law code, Western news agencies said.
The event, advertised beforehand on state-run radio, was originally set to be held on Saturday in the main football stadium of the largest city in northern Nigeria.
It was banned by the Hisbah and moved to a private home Sunday, to celebrate the wedding of well-known local actress Fati Mohammed.
Angered that the celebration was going ahead, Hisbah members stormed the party and started fighting with the guests, of whom 17 were injured and one hospitalized, guests told the French news agency AFP.
Hisbah officials blamed the guests for the violence and defended their actions.
"Islam legitimizes celebrations which are exclusively organized for women or men. But it prohibits mixed parties of men and women," Hisbah deputy chairman Suleiman Mohammed told AFP.
He said committee members found alcohol and other "intoxicants" at the party.
"We have a legal right to stop anything that will affect the morals of our children," he said.
Eleven northern states have started implementing Shari'a, but the federal government is seeking to review the way it is being enforced in a country where some people, especially in the south, are Christians.
Nine northern states are already implementing the code fully. Two others have offered restricted versions of it despite opposition from Christians, Western Christian rights bodies and the federal government.
To ease tensions created by the introduction of Shari'a, the federal government has held two rounds of talks with northern governors on its implementation and the use by some states of vigilante groups to enforce it.
Vice President Atiku Abubakar, a Muslim, has led the talks, demanded by President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian. The most recent session was held early this month.
After lurching from one military coup to another, Nigeria now has an elected leadership.
But it faces the growing challenge of preventing Africa's most populous country from breaking apart along ethnic and religious lines, the BBC online archives said.
Thousands of people have already died over the past few years in communal rivalry, and separatist aspirations among some groups have been growing, prompting reminders of the bitter civil war over the breakaway Biafran republic in the late 1960s.
Having gained independence from the British Colonial Empire in 1960, Nigeria adopted a secular form of government rather than one based on Shari'a.
But Muslims of northern Nigeria wanted the restoration of the Shari'a, as it existed in pre-colonial Hausaland in the 19th Century.
Muslims in Nigeria, despite Western complaints, say they are happy to finally be able to take "their destiny in their own hands" and that Muslim masses have been able to assert "people's power."
In addition, they have often praised the changes that led Muslims to fight what they called "all manner of social evils afflicting them."
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