2026 – The Year Islam Come of Age
By: Deji Yesufu
As I write this piece, there is riot on the streets of Tehran and every major city in Iran. The people of Iran are demanding an end to theocracy; they are demanding reforms in their government that will alleviate their pain. For nearly six months now, Tehran, the capital of Iran, has been without water. It was so bad that major government units had to evacuate the city to other parts of the country where they could find water. How did Iran reach this sorry state? It is a historic reality that is playing out in the early days of the New Year: 2026. In 1979, something called the Iranian Revolution occurred. The Iranian people had had enough of the monarchy that was leading them then. They then gave Ayatollah Khomeini the opportunity to establish a theocracy in their country. Khomeini had long argued in his articles that only God, through his own leadership, could save Iran.
When Khomeini ceased power, they totally outlawed all Western kinds of civilization. They clamped their women in hijabs and relegated them to the room and the kitchen. Then they began to build up a war machinery that sought to wipe Israel off the map of the Middle East. Israel and Iran had been in something of a Cold War for decades, until it all exploded into a 12-Day war in 2025. That war was concluded when America bombed Iranian nuclear sites. A nuclear facility that was being built mainly to destroy Israel. Rather than invest money into building an economy that will better the lives of their people, Iran has been investing millions into destroying their enemies – America and Israel. In the process, their people are impoverished, and the result is that Iranians, today, are demanding an end to the theocratic experiment that began in 1979.
When I suggest that 2026 is the year Islam will come of age, I am saying essentially that every religion comes to maturity at one time or another. I would exemplify my thoughts with some recent happenings in my own home. My family and I were going out recently to visit friends during the yuletide. My wife then overheard the children singing one of these Davido or Wizkid songs. She reprimanded them for singing “the devil’s songs”. I neither objected to what she was saying nor supported her point, and she was upset about this. Later, I explained to her that religion is a very sensitive thing, and that children learn religion more by what they observe than by what you say. My point was that we must give our children liberty to experience the world, but that one day, when they come to maturity, they will realize that these songs, danceable as they sound, are really not healthy for the soul. The mistake that many religious groups make is that they believe they can engender piety through legislation. They forget that people choose to do right, not necessarily from what has been legislated, but from a mind of wisdom that has weighed good against evil, and has learnt that doing good, no matter how difficult it might be, is better than engaging in vice.
Christianity used to be militant in the days gone by. What modernity and civilization has learnt is that most people will do well in an atmosphere of liberty. When people are constrained by religious tenets, the result is usually not piety but legalism. But when people have the opportunity to weigh good and evil, and then do good, the result is not just piety but a wholesome lifestyle that builds society up. Freedom appears inimical to the religious zealots because it gives other people liberty to do things that the zealot secretly wishes to do but is inhibited by his religious tenets. Besides, if our world were to be governed by religion, what religion should we follow? This is why I espouse the theory of the marketplace of religion. Let every religion live out its tenets in public, and let people decide on what religion best serves their purpose. When one group arises in a country and shoves religion down the throat of every person, they are not building a country that honors God; they are building the likes of Iran.
Islam is fundamentally a political system. Its religious aspect is secondary. Islam seeks to dominate a polity and govern a space. Islam came into the region that would eventually be called Nigeria in the late 18th century through the religious teachings and reforms of Uthman Dan Fodio, the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate. Since that moment, Islam was spread throughout what would eventually be called northern Nigeria through trade, missionary activities, and in some extreme cases, the sword. In the early 19th century, Christian missionary fervor began to be raised among Europeans and Americans by the successful missionary efforts of men like William Carey in India. The Europeans also learnt that Islam was taking over many heathen lands in Africa. Europe had for ten centuries fought the incursion of Islam into its territories by Muslim forces from the Middle East. The missionaries then thought it best to counter the “Mohammedans” by entering Nigeria through the coastal areas with their ships, and working up missionary endeavors to northern Nigeria. Till this day, organizations like the Sudan Interior Missions (SIM), have it as a goal to bring the gospel to Muslim-dominated lands in northern Nigeria. As the missionaries shared the gospel with the people of Nigeria, European merchants also entered the country and began to trade. It is these trades, under British governmental oversight, that resulted in the colonization of Nigeria. But the efforts of the missionaries continued, and it resulted in the birth of schools and hospitals. While the colonizers instituted modern governmental systems in Nigeria. At the foundation of the creation of Nigeria, therefore, was a Christian worldview and a modern system of government that has developed over centuries in Europe and America. These modern system of government has nothing in common with Islamic jurisprudence. In northern Nigeria, the Europeans succeeded in merging this modern system of government with Islamic jurisprudence. Unfortunately, there are many groups in the Muslim world that still resent the fact that Nigeria was founded on something inherently Christian. They have sought to impose Islam on the country, and thus, the gradual introduction of Shariah laws to many northern states in Nigeria.
The challenge then arises: how much of Shariah shall we permit in our national life? It is here extremist groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP insist that all of Nigeria must be governed by Islam, the kind of theocracy that has ruined Iran today. Even if this suggestion could be given consideration, one begins to ask which Islamic jurisprudence do we follow? Do we do Shia Islam or Sunni Islam? The fact is that Islam, from the days following the death of their prophet, has been riddled with violence, where one group seeks dominance over the other by killing off the other. Where Christians have learnt to tolerate each other through the concept of denominations, Muslims slug it out with the sword, and the group that comes out on top rules the polity. This is the reason why ISWAP introduced itself to Nigerians first by killing Abubakar Shekau. This is the reason why the violence of Boko Haram has consumed not only Christians but also Muslims. Extremist groups will kill everyone – anyone who disagrees with their concept of religion. What is the way forward?
Most people want to live in peace and to possess freedom to pursue what gives them happiness, and what would help develop society. Few people care what government is in place. They begin to quarrel when those who govern them do not give them peace and happiness. The governments in Israel and the United States have discovered that extremist Islam is not good for our world today, and they are committed to rooting it out in any part of the world where it rears its ugly head. Since Nigeria has failed at dealing with extremists on its shores, Israel and the United States of America have taken up the duty to do it for us. There would be more killing of insurgents on Nigerian soil by these two foreign countries in 2026, and the Nigerian army will have the opportunity to completely root out Islamic insurgency from our country. Many Muslims are not happy that the country is having to depend on Israel and America to do this. Unfortunately, no one can eat their cake and still have it at the same time. We cannot wish to have peace in our land, and at the same time quarrel with those people who are seeking to bring peace to us. The other option for Muslims in Nigeria is to opt for the theocracy of Iran. That option is, however, not a good one, especially when you consider that this year, 2026, will be the end of the Ayatollah government in Iran.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]
Watch the concluding part on the Obafemi Awolowo series by TextandPublishing.com
Share this: