Yusuf Soalih Ajura | |
---|---|
Personal life | |
Born | 1890 contested |
Died | December 22, 2004 (aged 114) |
Resting place | Anbariyya Islamic Institute |
Nationality | Ghanaian |
Region | West Africa |
Other names | Afa Ajura |
Occupation | |
Religious life | |
Religion | Islam |
Denomination | Sunni |
Jurisprudence | Hanbali |
Movement | Salafi |
Yusuf Soalih also called Afa Ajura (1890-2004), was a Ghanaian Islamic scholar, a preacher, political activist, and the founder and leader of a sect in Ghana. [1] Afa Ajura was a proponent of Sunni Islam shunning pre-Islamic pagan practices, and whom some have referred to as a precursor to Wahhabi reformism in Ghana. [2] He established the Anbariyya Islamic Institute in Tamale in the 1940s. He died in Tamale on December 22, 2004. He was succeeded by Saeed Abubakr Zakaria in 2007 as leader of the Anbariyya Sunni Community. [3]
Wahhabism is a religious revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to other parts of the Arabian Peninsula, and is today followed primarily in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Tamale is the capital city of the Northern Region of Ghana. It is Ghana's third largest city, with a population of 371,351 people. The city has been ranked as the fastest-growing city in West Africa. Tamale is located in the Kingdom of Dagbon, Ghana's oldest Kingdom. Major ethnic groups who resided in Tamale are Dagomba, Gonja, Mamprusi, Akan, and Dagaaba.
Yaa Naa Yakubu Andani II (1945–2002) was the King of Dagbon, the traditional kingdom of the Dagomba people in northern Ghana, from 31 May 1974 until his assassination on 27 March 2002. He was born in August 1945 in Sagnarigu, a suburb of Tamale in the Northern Region of Ghana. Yakubu II was killed on 27 March 2002 at Yendi, the capital of the Kingdom of Dagbon, by unknown people when clashes broke out between the two feuding Gates of Dagbon Kingship. For 600 years the Abudu and Andani clans, named after two sons of the ancient Dagbon king Ya Naa Yakubu I, cordially rotated control of the kingdom centred in Yendi, 530 kilometres (330 mi) north of Accra, the capital of Ghana. A regent acted as sovereign of the kingdom until 18 January 2019 when a new ruler is chosen to occupy the revered Lion Skins of Yendi.
The Dagbamba or Dagomba are an ethnic group of Ghana, and Togo. They number more than 3.1 million people. The term Dagbamba is originally extended to refer to other related peoples who were unified by Naa Gbewaa including the Mamprusi and Nanumba. The Dagomba country is called Dagbon and they speak Dagbanli language. Dagbanli is the most spoken language of northern Ghana and second most widely spoken local language of Ghana. Dagbanli belongs to the Mabia (Mole-Dagbani) subgroup of the Gur languages, a large group of related languages in West Africa. The Dagomba practises both patrilineal and matrilineal systems of inheritance.
Islam was the first Abrahamic monotheistic religion to arrive in Ghana. Today, it is the second most widely professed religion in the country behind Christianity. Its presence in Ghana dates back to the 10th century. According to the Ghana Statistical Service's Population and Housing census (2021), the percentage of Muslims in Ghana is about 19.9%.
Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Islamic groups themselves there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, and within Sunnī Islam different schools of theology and jurisprudence. Groups in Islam may be numerous, or relatively small in size.
Islam in Africa is the continent's second most widely professed faith behind Christianity. Africa was the first continent into which Islam spread from the Middle East, during the early 7th century CE. Almost one-third of the world's Muslim population resides in Africa. Muslims crossed current Djibouti and Somalia to seek refuge in present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia during the Hijrah ("Migration") to the Christian Kingdom of Aksum. Like the vast majority (90%) of Muslims in the world, most Muslims in Africa are also Sunni Muslims; the complexity of Islam in Africa is revealed in the various schools of thought, traditions, and voices in many African countries. Many African ethnicities, mostly in the northern half of the continent, consider Islam as their traditional religion. The practice of Islam on the continent is not static and is constantly being reshaped by prevalent social, economic, and political conditions. Generally Islam in Africa often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief systems forming Africa's own orthodoxies.
Muḥammad ibn Ali ibn Muḥammad ibn Abd Allah, better known as al-Shawkānī (1759–1834) was a prominent Yemeni Sunni Islamic scholar, jurist, theologian and reformer. Shawkani was one of the most influential proponents of Athari theology and is respected as one of their canonical scholars by Salafi Muslims. His teachings played a major role in the emergence of the Salafi movement. Influenced by the teachings of the medieval Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Shawkani became noteworthy for his staunch stances against the practice of Taqlid, calls for direct interpretation of Scriptures, opposition to Kalam as well as for his robust opposition to various folk practices which he condemned as shirk (idolatry).
Nyankpala, with the appelation Beyom Yili, is a town located about 10 miles south-west of Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region of Ghana. The University for Development Studies (UDS) has its premier campus located in the town. This campus is the first of the university's campuses, the first to be established in northern Ghana.
Saeed Abubakr Zakaria is a Ghanaian Islamic scholar and leader of the Anbariya Islamic Institute in Tamale, Ghana. He is the spiritual leader of Anbariya Sunni Community in Ghana. He succeeded Afa Ajura, who died on 22 December 2004.
Anbariya Sunni Community is an independent Islamic religious and cultural organization. It was founded by Yusuf Soalih Ajura and has its headquarters in Tamale, Ghana. It is headed by Saeed Abubakr Zakaria.
Izala Society or Jama'atu Izalatil Bid’ah Wa Iqamatus Sunnah, also known as JIBWIS, is a Salafi organization originally established in Northern Nigeria to fight what it sees as the Bid'ah and Shirk practiced by the Sufi orders. It is one of the largest Sunni societies in Nigeria, Chad, Ghana, Niger, and Cameroon.
Gumani is a community in Tamale Metropolitan District in the Northern Region of Ghana. It has a linear settlement with roads constructed within the community linking it to the Tamale-Bolgatanga trunk road. It is a populated community.
The Kingdom of Dagbon is the oldest and one of the most organised traditional kingdoms in Ghana founded by the Dagomba people (Dagbamba) in the 15th century. During its rise, it comprised, at various points, the Northern, Upper West, Upper East, Savannah Region and North East regions of present-day Ghana. It also covered portions of Burkina Faso, North East Ivory Coast and North West Togo. Since Ghana's independence in 1957, the Kingdom just like all of Ghana's kingdoms and ethnic states has assumed a traditional, customary role.
The Mole-Dagbon, also called Mabia, or Mossi-Dagbon are a meta-ethnicity and western Oti–Volta ethno-linguistic group residing in six present-day West Africa countries namely: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali and Togo. They number more than 45 million. The Mole/Mossi/Moore people are located primarily in Burkina Faso while over lord Dagbon is in Ghana. Previously, the term Gur was used, Mabia has been used to refer to the linguistic supercluster.
The 1892 Sack of Salaga was a Gonja civil war for the control of the town of Salaga that occurred on December 5, 1892. A rebellion led by Kabachewura Isifa and assisted by his Dagomba and Nanumba allies overthrew Kpembewura Napo who died in exile in the same year.
Ibrahim Basha Iddris also called Mallam Basha or Sheikh Bayaan, is a Ghanaian Islamic preacher, and one of the campaigners of the Sunni Islamic movement in Ghana. He founded Nuriyya Islamic Institute in Tamale in 1969 and is the leader of Masjidul Bayaan in Tamale.
Bukali II, known as Gariba II, is the current Yaa Naa, traditional ruler of the Kingdom of Dagbon in Northern Ghana.
Tamale Senior High School formerly Government Secondary School, Tamale, Gbewaa Secondary School, and more recently Tamale Secondary School is a co-educational second cycle boarding school located at Education Ridge, a suburb of the Sagnarigu Municipality. The school was founded in 1951 by the then British Colonial Authorities as the first second cycle institution of the Northern Territories.