4 - Riyadha: Where Islam meets Kung-Fu at Sokoto Cinema – “It's like halal meets high-kick!"

As cinemas are converted to mosques due to ongoing sharia reforms in Sokoto, the seat of the ancient caliphate, local filmmakers find inspiration in intersecting Islam and kung-fu practices. They transform hadiths and Islamic moral teachings into martial artistic expressions and performative practices. Juxtaposing ethnographic data with film analysis, this paper presents a case study of how some Sokoto-based filmmakers integrate kung-fu practices within Islam. Using an ethnographic account of Buhari Master Alko, a school principal, martial arts trainer, and filmmaker, and analysis of his films, this paper presents a case of transglobal media flow, a term that refers to the global circulation and exchange of media content, and its impact on Muslim discourse in Africa, particularly, Asian-African connections through filmmaking. Master Alko got his filmmaking inspiration from watching Chinese movies since his childhood. He established a martial arts school in Sokoto. He and his students started staging dramas based on Kung-fu philosophy—which, according to him, refers to any discipline achieved through hard work and practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete. Adapting to the evolving landscape of Nigerian filmmaking and anticipating potential religious backlash from conservative religious authorities, Master Alko bridges kung-fu with Islamic concepts of riyadha. This fusion culminated in his first Islamic kung-fu movie in Hausa, "Riyadha," which emphasizes the importance of martial arts in Islam. He uses hadith to support his discourse, and he subsequently produced Ziyara, which was about “mind reading and deception,” and "Fikra," which narrates a hadith through martial arts.