How Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi trains his disciples- Sheik Sidi Aliyu Sise

By Ahmed Mohammed, Bauchi

Sheik Shehu Dahiru Usman Bauchi is one of the leading Islamic scholars in Nigeria. He is the vice-chairman of the Fatwa committee of Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs working for the propagation of Islamic religion for nearly a century. He is a leader of Tijjaniyya movement in Africa.

An icon of peace, Sheik Shehu Dahiru Usman Bauchi who turned 99 years old in this month of the Islamic year Almuharram, 1445, was born on 2nd Almuharram 1346.

This year, the sheikh made a pronouncement that he has forgiven everyone who has done offended him in the world, and also asked everyone who feels he offended to forgive him. He said that God has fulfilled his wish for everything he wanted, only one thing left for hm.

He asked his children and followers to hold the Holy Qur’an in high esteem, and intensify efforts to memorize it and recite it every day, adding that if they held the Qur’an and protect it, it means they held the truth and whoever holds the truth Allah is with him

Our correspondent spoke to one of his children, Sheikh Sidi Aliyu Sise Sheikh Dahiru, an expert in memorisation and recitation of the Qur’an and its recitations, because he was the one Sheikh Dahiru sent with his Words that He has forgiven everybody.

Sheikh Sidi Aliyu Sise is the Director of Education Under the famous Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi Foundation.

Excerpts:

Sheikh Sidi Aliyu Sise is the Director of Education Under the famous Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi Foundation

You honor the students of the Qur’an who read and recited it in different ways, and their scholars, why are you doing this celebration at this time?

Alhamdulillah, what made us hold this celebration to honor the students of Maulana Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi who have memorized the Qur’an and are trying to learn the knowledge of the different recitations of the Qur’an and keep it is that the Sheikh gave us the order to do so, because of the way he cares for the Qur’an and its memorisation and recitation and cares for how to learn the knowledge of the Qur’an. Sheikh was not happy since during Elrufa’I tenure when as Governor of Kaduna State, he made effort to ban the learning of the Qur’an when he sent security to the house of Sheikh in Kaduna and evacuated his pupils late in the night.  We thank the almighty Allah these set of Qur’anic Pupils memorized the Holy Qur’an. We took them to Maulana Sheikh because he travelled to Abuja at that time , and the Qur’ani pupils recited the Quran in different Qira’at , and showed their skill in reciting the Qur’an and reciting it and memorizing it with different recitations and every one among them before he recited , would start telling you what kind of recitation he was going to recite, warshu or hafsu or whatever, he will say before recitations. Maulana Sheikh heard a lot of their recitations, they begged Sheikh for forgiveness. Sheikh was so happy with their recitation that he became so excited, and he prayed a lot. He said since what was done to him in Kaduna, he was not happy because he saw that some people rose up and stopped reading the Quran. But from what he saw, he knew that the Qur’an is still there and God continues to protect it, because anyone who hears the way these young students recited know that they were trying hard to preserve the Qur’an, and because of this the Sheikh gave the order that if we returned home, we should call a meeting to honor these students, as a step to strengthen them, after them there are among our scholars two Arabic Scholars from Egypt, who teach the Qur’an. One of them had completed his three-year stay, and one would go on vacation, and our teacher Alaramma Salihu Gano. Sheikh said we should honour them, not only pupils and but the Scholars. Sheikh said whoever attended the celebration should be honored with a copy of the Holy Qur’an, even though what we gave the celebrants and their Scholars was more than what we gave spectators that attended the celebration.

What is different about the kind of education that Sheik Bauchi Dahiru gives to his students?

This question is difficult to answer because of politeness, but if you are to explain the kind of education and discipline that Sheikh gave his children and disciples, it is the teachings of Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him, like frequent memorization and recitation of the Qur’an, taking care of glorifying the name of Allah, seeking for Allah’s forgiveness, and prayer and salutations to the Holy Prophet, avoiding the world and seeking the hereafter. As an icon of peace he also preaches peace, he always enjoined us to live in peace  with everyone and every day whenever the sheikh would do something he would pray and ask God to give us good  health and be safe and secure in Nigeria, He always pray for peace and stability in Nigeria, he also teaches us to fear Allah and uphold the truth always, to be patient and to help the needy, and many more  you can’t see the wisdom behind his teachings and prayers until when try to compare between disciples of Sheikh  and disciples of Ibn Taimiyyah , Muhamadu ibni Abdulwahab and their followers , who are the most possessors of worldly goods you will see that the disciples trained and molded by Sheikh Dahiru. They are the ones who are more diligent in learning the Sunnah of the Messenger of God than any other part that criticized him, but we agree that in terms of getting worldly things, they are better than us in getting worldly things., but when it comes to molding a scholar and great memorisers of the Holy Qur’an you will see that Sheikh’s Disciples supersede everyone. Take for example myself not to talk of anyone among his children or disciples. I have a bank account but there is nothing in my account.  I have many families, four wives, one maid and 37 brothers, but it is Sheikh despite his old age , he is the  who stands by me and the rest of my brothers and sisters to work for the religion of God, and we are still doing it. I have memorized the Qur’an in his hand and I have learnt and mastered the different ways of Qira’at , For God’s sake, those disciples who used to abuse Sheikh and some great  respected Scholars like Sheikh Tijjani , Sheikh Ibrahim Nyass of blessed memory , those abusing him, ask them can  they imitate me?  Can they produce a scholar who mastered the recitation of the Qur’an like me? I am small among the disciples of Maulana Sheikh. I challenged them, let them try and produce, I gave them six month, if they fail to produce a student like me they they should keep their mouth shut when it comes to religious matters, and in short when you compare Sheikh’s teachings and discipline , you will know that the disciples of Sheikh are the ones trained to be on the path of nothing but Allah, the Almighty and follow the teachings of Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him, but those who  failed to imitate the disciples of Sheikh  should keep quiet. They can’t say anything about Islamic affairs, because they haven’t studied to become teachers yet, for that don’t insult Shehu Tijjani, or Shehu Ibrahim or Maulana Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, if you compare their students and ours, Allah will show you where study is and where seeking the world is more effective. You can go to anywhere you will see the difference, because Sheikh Disciples don’t engage in moral decadence even smoking cigarette, they don’t.

On this issue of reading the Quran, you are the director in charge of education or how are your schools today?

Alhamdulillahi, the number of schools of Maulana Sheikh is difficult to verify because you know for about a century Maulana Sheikh is in the business of teaching and learning the Holy Quran in Nigeria and the neighbouring countries, but some years back after we established Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi Foundation, we started documenting, we have opened 557 Schools, built 1625 classrooms. We have 1973 teachers and we have 948,552 across Nigeria and beyond, out of them we have 20,271 students who have memorized the Quran, in different states in Nigeria.  In the countries neighboring Nigeria, for example in Niger Sheikh has opened six schools with 16 teachers and 1261 students, among them 92 students have memorized the Quran. We have also built 15 classrooms, in the Republic of Benin we have opened nine schools with 26 classrooms. There are 1110 students trying to memorize the Qur’an, but in Cameroon, we have opened five schools and have 16 classes, and five teachers. We have 638 students, four of them have memorized the Qur’an.  But only God knows the work of Sheikh, and what is amazing is how he encouraged his students to memorize the Qur’an. Today he has a clean record that no scholar has in this world. He has 76 his biological sons and daughters that are memorizers of the Qur’an, and   99 among his grandchildren, all of them have memorized the Qur’an. 17 of his great grandchildren today memorized the Holy Qur’an, even with this everyone will know where the truth is, where the Holy Quran dwells is where the truth is but only people with sound and clean mind will understand even though It’s shown physically, and now we want all of us to follow this will that Sheik told us to take care of the Quran and follow the Quran if we follow it, we will follow the truth and we will not be disappointed. We are going to intensify and broaden more ways in learning the Quran and other discipline according to Islam. We have partner with Algeria and taken over 60 students there who memorised the Holy Quran. They are still learning different Islamic teachings skills and discipline. I just recently I returned from Algiers where I went and saw how they are doing well. We are also going to improve in our quest to follow what he told us to hold the Qur’an and we don’t take his orders lightly. We are brainstorming we will do more in teaching learning and preserving the Quran, by the grace of Allah if you asked me next year or two you will hear and see more success, we don’t have salary, we are not Government workers, but we contribute a lot in service to humanity as we were trained by Maulana Sheikh and I believe even those at the government they don’t fight moral decadence the way disciples of Sheikh fight, we thank the almighty Allah for showing us the truth.

 You are the that Sheikh sent a message with his voice saying that God has fulfilled his wish completely, if there is only one thing left, what is this thing?

We thank the Almighty Allah for that day, because these students who are reciting the Qur’an excited  him  Therefore, the first order to honour them to encourage them and asked is to train all his students to hold  the Qur’an and do more to recite the Qur’an. For that if someone does something to him and he forgives him, he also asked for forgiveness if he did something to anybody in this world that he feels offended, he said that God will fulfill his wish, the only thing he is asking God to do for him is to fulfill it with faith In the end of his life,

What is your advice to the Muslim community?

My advice is that Muslims should live in peace and harmony. They should avoid insulting the saints and great servants of God because doing so will cause the anger of God Almighty, and anger on the sight of Allah and its consequences may makes life difficult for people. Every day Sheikh draws our attention to the fact that God said that whoever comes forward and insult the saint servants , he will come out and fight him, the calamities we are in this country  are expensive and other things that are bothering us. Let’s look at all these happenings because of the abuse of the saints servants of Allah, , All Muslins must respect them as ordained by the prophet if they are true followers of the Prophet and respect them as great scholars who memorized the  Holy Qur’an. Muslims should try to unite and help each other, protect each other’s  dignity by seeking forgiveness of God to save us from these calamities caused by fools. Let’s pray to God to give us health and be safe and secure in Nigeria. We also want to advised our new President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,  to honor two people because they love the Quranic learners memorized and reciters (Almajira) one of  them is  former governor of Bauchi State, Mallam Isa Yuguda, Tinubu should  appoint him as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria,  because when he was governor, he helped the Almajirai with 55 million naira ,every month, supporting  eleven thousand people and more than 20 cars to Almajirai, and secondly, the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, Tinubu should also honour him held him in high esteem,  among the Northern governors , Mai Mala Buni  was the only governor who came and asked Maulana Sheikh to be patient when Elrufai took his disciples away from his house in Kaduna,  Mai Mala was the only one who came out and told the Almjirai to return to his state