Shia was embraced by Persians because they saw it as an opportunity to distort a religion that destroyed their kingdom and culture. After the Iranian revolution which was led by Shiite scholars, the government of Iran set an agenda to spread Shia to other countries. In Nigeria, this task was to be carried out by one Ibrahim Yakub Elzakzaky. The man Elzakzaky devised several strategies to achieve his mission. First, he banked on the gullibility of some Muslim youth who could easily be misled by slogans like ‘Islamic revolution’, ‘establishment of Islamic state’, ‘total change’, etc. His group, who initially tagged themselves as Muslim brothers (meaning, of course, that other Muslims are not their brothers) organized lectures and several demonstrations in their first phase. In those days in the 1980s he told everyone that he was not a Shiite, his group was not out to promote Shia and that what they wanted was Islam and nothing else. The other methods used by Elzakzaky to introduce Shia to his followers were the same methods that Shiites have used over their long history. One of them is women. Shiites legalize temporary marriage. In Shia it is possible to marry a woman for two hours. Many people find it difficult to understand why young men and women who are supposed to be in school would trek from cities like Kano, Gusau and Katsina to Zaria, spending nights along the way in order to listen to Elzakzaky. This is the secret. It is an open one because the Shiites do not deny they do it. What they may deny is wife swapping, which many people accuse them of doing.
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