MUHAMMAD SHITTA-BEY (LAGOS)

INAUGURATION OF SHITTA-BEY 'AFRO-BRAZILIAN ' MOSQUE IN NIGERIA, 1894: AFRO-BRAZILIAN ARCHITECTURE IN WEST AFRICA

{Built by Oloye Muĥammad Shitta-Bey, a wealthy Sierra Leonean-born Nigerian Merchant and Philanthropist}

In the late nineteenth century, Oloye Muĥammad Shitta, a wealthy Sierra Leonean-born Nigerian merchant and philanthropist, built the Shitta Bey Mosque in Lagos, Nigeria. He was of Yoruba descent and was later awarded the title ‘Bey’ by the Ottoman Caliph as an honour and in recognition of his rank as leader of the Muslim community in Lagos. He was later known as Muĥammad Shitta-Bey.

He commissioned a mosque to be built according to the design of the Brazilian Joao Baptista da Costa and in 1892 it was constructed by a Nigerian builder called Sanusi Aka. Shitta-Bey financed the construction of the mosque, which was officially. inaugurated by the Governor of Lagos in 1894. Shitta-Bey was joined by Oyekan I (Oba 'Ruler' of Lagos) and Edward Wilmot Blyden (Pan-Africanist) at the inauguration of the mosque. The Shitta-Bey mosque is one of several examples of Afro-Brazilian religious architecture in Nigeria and Benin that were built by former slaves who returned to West Africa from Brazil in the late nineteenth century. The magnificent architectural design of the Brazilian baroque mosques in West Africa is a part of the great Afro-Brazilian legacy in West Africa.

#LeaveALegacy

#IlluminatingTheBlackness

~ Habeeb Akande

MUHAMMAD SHITTA-BEY

(Shaykh Daniyal's Ancestor)

nigerianwiki.com/wiki/Mohammed_Shitta_Bey

Mohammed Shitta Bey was a Nigerian philanthropist and businessman who was involved in commerce in Lagos and the Delta during the latter part of the nineteenth century and was one of the most successful immigrants during the period. LIfe He was born in 1824 in Sierra Leone to Liberated Africans from Yoruba land. His father named Salu was a Muslim leader in Sierra Leone.

He came to Lagos with his parents in 1844 along with some Aku or Yoruba Muslims from Sierra Leone. They originally settled in Badagry. At Badagry, Shitta Bey's father was the Imam of the Badagry Muslim community. After his father's death in 1847 in Badagry, Shitta Bey and a few other Muslims moved to Lagos, he then started commerce in the Lagos colony around 1861 but in a few years moved to the Delta where he was an agent for Miller Bros.

He was very successful in the area and was able to continue doing business on his own account, later having his brother as an agent for the Delta. He returned to Lagos in 1885 and later built a mosque which was opened in 1894, the opening ceremony had notable guests such as Edward Blyden.

Earlier in 1873, he had contributed financially to the erection of the Lagos Central Mosque. Later in his life, he was conferred with the tile of Seriki Musululmi (head of Muslims) of Lagos and was a prominent political leader of the Lagos Muslim community. He also had a good relationship with Oba Akintoye and Dosunmu and supported various Islamic causes including the erection of mosques beyond Lagos specifically at Otta, the use of Sharia as a guiding law for Muslims and the establishment of a Muslim school in Lagos.

Further reading

MOHAMMAD SHITTA BEY AND THE LAGOS MUSLIM COMMUNITY,. 1850-. 1895. (Parts I and 11). Titilola Euba. Nigerian Journal of - Islam, Ife References (1) Jean Kopytoff. A Preface to Modern Nigeria. p 299.

SHEIKH DANIYAL SHITTA-BEY (KADUNA)

via: allafrica.com/stories/201504281364.html

~Daily Trust

Sheikh Daniyalu Shitta Dies at 93

By: Maryam Ahmadu-Suka Kaduna

of Nigeria (MCON), an umbrella body of Yoruba Muslim Organisations, 93 year-old Sheikh Daniyalu Shitta Bey, died yesterday in Kaduna after brief illness. Born in Lagos State in 1922, Sheikh Daniyalu went to Kaduna in 1945 where he married his first wife in 1952 and his second in 1974.

Chief Imam of the Muslim Council

He is survived by wife, children, grand children and great grand children.