Abstract
This paper explores othering in the acts of naming in the dialogical frames that are shaping the discursive practices across religious scholars and their own followers. A unique language style is used by religious scholars to other, appropriate, and deislamizedeach other across different sects in Northern Nigeria. Since the last century, the region has evolved as a deeply contested ideological space for varied sectarian orders. It began with the arrival of Tijjaniyya order that contested for space against the dominant Qadiriyya order which has been in the region for centuries and that has been hegemonized by the Jihad of Sheikh Usman bn Fodiyo and the Caliphate it established after 1804. In the 1970s, the Salafi-Izala, officially named as Jama’atulIzalatilBid’ahwaIqamatis-Sunnah emerged in the region. Puritanical in outlook, it soon established itself as a radical Islam that challenged both the Tijjaniyya and the Qadiriyya orders. Among the fringes were the Qur’an-only sect that propped up in the region around late 1960s through the 1980s becoming confrontational with authorities and prompting state intervention to crush it, leading to the death of its leader at the time, Malam Marwa popularly known as Mai-Tatsine. However, as this paper demonstrates, the use of language in the act of naming the Otherhas become a site for an ideological warfare among sects, each one claiming to be the sole and purest form of Islam. While each sectarian order has named itself, it has also been named by others. A multiplicity of vocabulary has been created in the process, each registering a position of a sect in the eye of its other. The paper is built on data from the speeches of different Islamic scholars and their followers sourced from Facebook pages and analysed through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis.
Keywords: Naming, Discourse Analysis, Salafi-Izala, Qur’an-Only, Ideology, Identity
