“Secularizing Islam: The Colonial Encounter and the Making of a British Islamic Criminal Law in Northern Nigeria, 1903–58” by Rabiat Akande.
This article narrates the ways in which siyasa, understood as “discretionary powers of political rulers,” facilitated the making of a British Colonial Islamic law. Here, Akande focuses on criminal law in order to highlight what set Northern Nigeria apart in the British Empire. Save in parts of the Aden Protectorate, Northern Nigeria was the only part of the empire where Islamic law applied not just as personal law, but also as criminal law.