Islam and Urban Labor in Northern Nigeria: The Making of a Muslim Working Class

Abstract

This study analyses the process of urban class formation among Muslim workers in Kano, Northern Nigeria. it examines the interaction between Islamic nationalism and new forms of class consciousness and culture generated by industrialisation and the petroleum boom during the seventies. Paul Lubeck argues that, when industralisation is introduced from the West, Islamic nationalism supports class consciousness. The book begins with a review of the theoretical orientation and the historical background to both Islamisation and capitalist development, and goes on to discuss the impact of the Nigerian civil war and the oil boom on Kano's traders, craftsmen, hawkers and wage workers, the relationship between wage workers and informal sector producers, who together form the class base of the popular alliance, and the interaction between Islamic institutions and industrial processes and timing. In the later chapters the focus is on industrial workers - their recruitment, adjustment to industrial labour and social mobility, trade union organisation and strikes.