Some Biographical Notes on Artists of Sacred Sufi Painting in Kano, Nigeria

Abstract The Sufi Islamic leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Niass first came to Kano in 1937. His repeated visits paved the way for the development of Sufi artists in Kano. Through their representational art, they celebrate the various Sufi saints, particularly those of the Qādiriyyah and Tijjāniyyah Sufi orders. This article puts the growth of Sufi representational art in the context of the history of Tijjāniyyah Islam in Kano by examining the biographies and works of six Kano artists and their sacred Sufi painting, from the 1980s to the present day. This article concludes that paintings of Sufi saints by these artists, which countered alternative aniconic views associated with some branches of Islam, contributed not only to the development of representational paintings in Kano, but also to the acceptance of Western media, styles, and techniques in their visual representations of such paintings.