Professor Dawud Olatokunbo Shittu Noibi was born at Sapele in the present Delta State of Nigeria on 9th January 1934. His parents, Pa Shittu Noibi and Madam Thamriyyah Shittu Noibi, hailed respectively from Idoko Ajase and Odomagbo in Ijebu Imusin, Ogun State. His paternal grandfather, Pa Zubayr, was the Noibi (Deputy Imam) of the whole of Ijebu Imusin in his time. He was more popularly known by that title than by his first name. Consequently, ‘Noibi’ got recognised as the family name of his offspring. Incidentally, his father, Shittu Noibi, was eventually appointed the overall ‘Noibi’ of the Sapele Muslim Community; and at the same time he was the Imam of the local ‘Ijebu’ Mosque in the town. Thus, the name got further entrenched in the family.
Following his primary school education at Sapele, Professor Noibi successfully completed Form Three at a commercial secondary school in the town. He then commenced a five-year dressmaking apprenticeship there, which he later completed in Ibadan, following the death of his father in 1954. He obtained the Teacher Certificate Grade III from the Muslim Teacher Training College, Ijebu Ode, in 1958; the Arabic Teachers’ Certificate at Ibadan in 1959; the Teacher Certificate Grade II from the Government Teacher Training College, Lagos, in 1963; and the London University General Certificate of Education (Ordinary level) in the same year. He obtained a B.A degree in Arabic Studies from Cairo University in 1969; an M.A degree in Islamic Studies from the American University in Cairo (AUC) in 1972; and a PhD degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Ibadan in 1984.
While at Cairo University, Professor Noibi won an Anwarul Islam scholarship for undergraduate studies. He was also awarded a Graduate Assistantship by the American University in Cairo (AUC), followed by an International Fellowship in the course of his postgraduate studies at the university. He was one of the four pioneer translators and broadcasters of the Yoruba programme at the Egyptian Broadcasting Service, Cairo, Egypt, a position he held for about seven years.
He commenced his teaching career as a primary, and later secondary, school teacher in an Ibadan suburb and afterwards in Lagos. He also taught briefly at a Teacher Training College at Ojokoro, near Agege, Lagos. As a graduate, he was Education Officer at the Arabic Teachers’ College, Gombe, in the old North Eastern State of Nigeria for a brief period. In 1973, he was appointed a lecturer at the Jos Campus of the University of Ibadan. He rose to the rank of a Professor at the Ibadan campus of the University, where he retired in 1996. He was an external examiner to ten universities in Nigeria, Ghana and Norway.
Professor Noibi has many published works to his credit including books, chapters in books, and articles in several learned journals. His works include the presentation of Islam’s robust contribution to inter-faith relations. They also include Islamic legal opinions on British Muslim issues, written for barristers and courts in the United Kingdom. At the instance of solicitors and barristers, he gave Islamic legal opinions in high courts both in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
He has attended many inter-faith conferences in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, U.S.A., India and South Korea; as well as others in Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey and Morocco. While in the UK, Professor Noibi played a prominent role in the founding and running of the Multi-Faith Forum of the London Borough of Southwark (SMFF). In recognition of his immense contribution to inter-faith cooperation as an expert on Islam, Queen Elizabeth II of England awarded him the prestigious title of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2003.
For many years, Professor Noibi was the Chairman of the Executive Council and simultaneously the Imam of the University of Ibadan Muslim Community. He was also the Deputy Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). And for 13 years, he was Islamic Consultant to IQRA Trust, London, a British Muslim education charity. In that capacity, he was consultant to Her Majesty’s Prisons Service on the rights of Muslim prisoners, and eventually became Chairman of the National Council for the Welfare of Muslim Prisoners in the UK.
He participated in the founding of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and became one of its senior counsellors. He founded the Southwark Muslim Forum, the umbrella body embracing all Muslim organisations and ethnic groups in the South London Borough of Southwark, through which the government of the borough related to the Muslim community in the area. He also taught Islamic Law (Shari‘ah) at the postgraduate level at the Muslim College, London.
While in the UK, he founded the Council of Nigerian Muslim Organisations (CNMO), UK. During this time too, he taught and did da’wah (Islamic propagation) work particularly among the Nigerian Muslim community in the United Kingdom. His activities in this regard extended to a few other parts of continental Europe and, to some extent, the US.
In 2008, he was invite back home to take up the position of the Executive Secretary of the newly-formed Muslim Ummah of South West Nigeria (MUSWEN). That was in recognition of the various roles he had played within the Nigerian Muslim Ummah while in Nigeria, including his role in the formation of what is now the National Council of Muslim Youth Organisations (NACOMYO). In his current position, he is working hard to unite the Ummah both in the South West and nationally. He is a member of the National Committee on the implementation of the Almajiri Education Programme of the Federal Government.
Before going to the United Kingdom, Professor Noibi had been a member of the committee directing the affairs of the Ijebu Imusin Muslim community. He has since resumed his membership following his return.
Earlier in the year 2014, he received the Award for Excellency from the Jama‘atu Islamiyyah of Nigeria. He was later invited to London and granted the prestigious Muslim News Editor’s Lifetime Achievement Award. This was followed by the Muslim Association of Nigeria (UK) Honorary Membership Award at the Old Kent Road Mosque, London. Also in the same year, the Ijebu Division chapter of the National Council of Muslim Youth Organisations (NACOMYO) conferred on him an award of Excellence in Da’wah (Islamic propagation). This was followed by yet an Award of Excellence ‘as a Distinguished Muslim Intellectual’, conferred on him by The Muslim Congress (TMC), Oyo State.
Professor Noibi is a Fellow of Islamic Studies, Nigeria (FISN) and a Fellow of Islamic Academy, Cambridge (FIAC). He is married with children and grandchildren.
