What Was, Still Is: A Counter to the Erasure of Hausa Identity.

Let’s begin with a truth: the history of Africa is complex. It is a weaving of threads, some native, some foreign, some entangled in blood, and others in borrowed cloths. But when a tweet compresses the identity of an entire ethnic group into a soundbite, we must take a breath, sit with history, and write back.



“The Hausas have tied their entire cultural identity to their religion.”

And the Greeks didn’t tie theirs to mythology? The Jews to Torah? The Irish to Catholicism? Culture and religion have always danced, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in chaos. But for the Hausas, to say their culture has been erased is not only intellectually lazy, it is historically dishonest.

Let’s not pretend that pre-Islamic Hausa culture is dead. You can still hear it in the rhythms of the kalangu, taste it in the smoke of dambu nama, see it in the folding architecture of Zaria’s mud palaces and the indigo-dyed garments of Kano. These are not relics. They are alive. The Hausa tongue is not Arabic. The stories of Bayajidda, the Queen of Daura, the hunter-gods, the praise poets—they remain. Just because they evolved doesn’t mean they disappeared.

“Most of them have Arabic names. All their cultural and traditional practices before Islamic colonization barely exists.”

Names are signifiers, not silencers. Nigerians name their children Ebube, Tariq, Jason, Ngozi, and Zainab. It’s not erasure. It’s syncretism. It’s survival. Africa has always been syncretic. Before the Muslims came, there were traders from the Maghreb, from Timbuktu, from the Nile, from the Mediterranean. Before them, there were gods, and spirits, and kings with sun-baked crowns.

To reduce Islam in Africa to a colonial force in the same breath as British imperialism is to misread the room and the record. Islam entered West Africa not through swords and fire, but through trade, scholarship, and negotiation. It was not planted by bayonets but watered by griots and merchants, scribes and clerics. Timbuktu wasn’t bombed into being, it was built into a city of learning, centuries before the first European set eyes on the Niger.

Now, does this mean Islam was entirely peaceful? No. But neither was indigenous African religion. Neither was Christianity. Neither was the state. Violence has no monopoly. But to call Islam’s presence in Africa “genocidal” is to collapse thousands of years of spiritual evolution into a headline. It flattens a tapestry into a thread. And that is dangerous.



Let me be clear: Islam, like Christianity, did contribute to the reformation of African societies. It transformed laws, norms, gender relations. But it also uplifted literacy. It brought governance structures that remain till today in Sokoto, in Katsina, in Kano. To label it simply as a colonial tool is to ignore the agency of African people who adopted, redefined, and owned the religion on their own terms.

I, a northern Nigerian woman, correction: a Northern Muslim Nigerian woman, walk with a thousand names: Samira, Kamila, Wardah, Naima, Yar Aisha, ’yar gida, bintu mai hankali. My history did not begin with Islam, nor did it end there. To suggest that I am erased because I am Muslim is to erase me.

And perhaps this is the real issue. The Western left—God bless them—wants neat binaries: oppressor and oppressed, colonizer and colonized, tradition and faith. But Africa was never neat. Africa is messy. It’s a pot of jollof, stirred by many hands. We must be cautious not to apply the framework of Western suffering to African living. We are not their case study.

In conclusion: the Hausa are not erased. We are not lost. We are evolving. To be Muslim and Hausa is not to be erased, it is to be layered. It is to carry in one body the desert and the rain, the prayer mat and the praise song, the mosque and the market. It is to know that colonization came not once, but many times and yet here we are.

We still speak. We still sing. We still are.

And if you really want to see Hausa culture alive and dancing, perhaps attend our weddings.

Where centuries old traditions meet the scent of turaren wuta and drums speak more truth than politicians. Where the kayan lefe is laid out in fine embroidery, showing not just wealth but heritage. Where the kamu night is a cultural opera—part comedy, part negotiation, all tradition. Where brides are adorned in rich vintage wrappers, the kind our grandmothers wore when fabric was still a declaration of lineage and pride. Wrappers that whisper stories of women who walked tall, hips swaying with dignity, even when history tried to make them invisible. There is the soft, weighty rustle of bazin from Mali, royal, starched, unbothered by time, flowing like silk but heavy with elegance. It traveled to us through ancient trade routes, passed from hand to hand, from Timbuktu to Kano, and found a home in the wardrobes of Northern women who stitched foreign fabric into local memory. And the Lafayya attire, bold and embroidered with intentionality, worn like armor by women who know the power of presence. Their hands are painted with lalle, their names spoken with respect, walking into rooms like queens returning from battle. The Fulani gele, the alkyabba, the music, the food, the language, it is a performance of history. And history is not erased when it is danced into memory.

Let’s be clear, this cultural wealth is not just Hausa, though “Hausa” has become the blanket term the uninformed use to generalize an entire region. That is not only foolishness, it is a symptom of intellectual laziness once again. Northern Nigeria is a mosaic: Tiv, Kanuri, Gwari, Fulani, Nupe, and more all layered in history, stitched in diversity, and embroidered in memory.

We are known for our rich cultural backgrounds and historic legacies. It is woven into our clothing, our food, our greetings, our very way of sitting, walking, serving. Hausa culture didn’t die, it adapted. It learned the art of breathing under layers. And still, it lives.

We were simply never looking to be defined by a Western lens.

So i plead, before you write us off as casualties of history, come visit Kano. Eat tuwo da miyan kuka. Listen to our lullabies. Watch our weddings. Smell the incense in the bride’s room. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll see that we were never gone.