Islam spread to the area of present-day northern Nigeria in the eleventh century and further southward in the nineteenth century. Some scholars claimed that although Islamic traditions appeared hegemonic, they did not completely supplant local music traditions (e.g., Trimingham 1959). Through a musical ethnography of two predominantly Muslim communities in Nigeria, our article interrogates this claim and explores specific ways Muslim musicians and community members contest Islamic orthodoxy and negotiate some form of liberalism. We argue that negotiating liberalism has been crucial to the sustenance of indigenous music traditions in the communities we studied in Nigeria.
