Truth to Power
Fact Five: How Aisha Bint Abu Bakr(RA) to Nana Asmau: The Islamic role in Education
Nana Asma’u was personally commissioned by the Caliph of this West African spiritual community known as the Sokoto Caliphate to oversee an entire educational campaign which included mass literacy for women. She formed sisterhoods for the purposes of spreading and exchanging knowledge.
What is remarkable is that we can see the influence of Aisha Bint Abu Bakr(RA)) the wife of Prophet Muhammad(PBUH), on Nana Asmau’s educational endevours,” “I bring all women to Aisha; Aisha, the Noble Daughter of Al-Siddiq… She was held in esteem by the Prophet. “
The purpose of such a poem in her education campaign was to call upon her community to study the life of Aisha bint Abu Bakr to foster an attitude of women’s learning and scholarship.to motivate the women of the then newly formed Sokoto Caliphate to pursue learning.
The chain of sisterhoods of women scholars was linked between West Africa and the Middle East. Jean Boyd writes that this society where women regularly pursued knowledge “to deny women equal opportunity to develop their God-given talents was to challenge God’s will.” Asmau is one of many examples of the integral role that Islam played in education.
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