This gave rise to one of the major features of Ghana—the dual city; Ghana Kings benefited from Muslim traders, but kept them outside centers of power.
From the eighth to the thirteenth century, contact between Muslims and Africans increased and Muslim states began to emerge in the Sahel. Eventually, African kings began to allow Muslims to integrate. Accounts during the eleventh century reported a Muslim state called Takrur in the middle Senegal valley. The Almoravids imposed a fundamentalist version of Islam, in an attempt to purify beliefs and practices from syncretistic or heretical beliefs.
The Almoravid movement imposed greater uniformity of practice and Islamic law among West African Muslims. The Almoravids captured trade routes and posts, leading to the weakening of the Takruri state. Over the next hundred years, the empire dissolved into a number of small kingdoms. Over the next few decades, African rulers began to adopt Islam while ruling over populations with diverse faiths and cultures.
Many of these rulers blended Islam with traditional and local practices in what experts call the mixing phase. Over time, the population began to adopt Islam, often selectively appropriating aspects of the faith. At its height, the empire of Mali composed most of modern Mali, Senegal, parts of Mauritania and Guinea.
It was a multi-ethnic state with various religious and cultural groups. Muslims played a prominent role in the court as counselors and advisors. The most famous of them was Mansa Musa He made Islam the state religion and in went on pilgrimage from Mali to Mecca. Apparently, his spending devalued the price of gold in Egypt for several years.
By the fifteenth century, however, Mali dissolved largely due to internal dissent and conflicts with the Saharan Tuareg. Several Muslim polities developed farther east, including the Hausa city-states and the Kingdom of Kanem in modern Northern Nigeria. The Kingdom of Kanem near Lake Chad flourished as a commercial center from the ninth to 14th century.
The state became Muslim during the ninth century. Its successor state was Bornu. Modern day Northern Nigeria comprises much of Hausaland and Bornu in the east. By the 14th century all ruling elites of Hausaland were Muslim, although the majority of the population did not convert until the 18th century jihads.
Much like the rulers of earlier Muslims states, the rulers of Hausaland blended local practices and Islam. Emerging from the ruins of the Mali Empire, the Mande Songhay Empire s to ruled over a diverse and multi-ethnic empire.
Although Islam was the state religion, the majority of the population still practiced their traditional belief systems. Many rulers, however, combined local practices with Islam. In many areas of Africa, the coexistence of Islam with representational art forms continues today. But although Islam has influenced a wide range of artistic practices in Africa since its introduction, monumental architecture is the best-preserved legacy of its early history on the continent. Mosques are the most important architectural examples of the tremendous aesthetic diversity generated by the interaction between African peoples and Islamic faith.
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Islam and Tribal Art in West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Visiting The Met? Cave Stones. The Kings of Ghana, on the other hand did not embrace Islam until about the beginning of the twelfth century, after the Almoravid invasions. In the Chad region, it appears from the Arabic sources that Umme Jilmi, who became the king of Kanem in was the first Muslim King.
Islam was first introduced into Hausaland from either Kanem or Air in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, but it did not really take root there until during the second half of the fourteenth Century.
The following are the reasons for the spread Islam in West Africa. By the end of the fifteenth century, Islam had spread southwards to the fringes of the forest belt. The nature of Islam as a religion accepting polygamy to some extent, its tolerance of traditional African religions, its simplicity of doctrine and mode of worship helped propagators to make converts in Africa. These factors also made Islam easily adaptable to the African communities with which it came in contact.
Again, the Islamisation of Africa was paralleled by the Africanisation of Islam. The making and sale of charms and amulets, which were believed to offer protection against evil forces and generally ensure success in life, were important in winning over converts.
Another major reason that led to the rapid spread of Islam in West Africa was the trans-Saharan trade network. From the seventh century onwards, Muslim traders from the Maghreb and the Sahara started settling first in some of the market centres in the Sahel and then in the Savanna areas.
Also, according to Kano Chronicles, during the reign of Yaji, the King of Kano from to , the Wangarawa came from Melle bringing the Mohammedan religion. These examples grew the process of Islamisation or conversion to Islam, as it gathered momentum. Islam also spread into West Africa through the activities of Muslim clerics, marabouts and scholars or mallams. These clerics or learned men founded their own religious centres which attracted students from all parts of the Western Sudan and who on the completion of their studies and training went back to their own homes to win converts.
Many of them went on lecture or missionary tours to convert people, while others became advisers to Sudanese Kings on how to become effective rulers. Some clerics devoted a great deal of their time to writing books and instructions on all aspects of Islam for the education and conversion of people or the purification and strengthening of Islam. Some examples of clerics follow:.
Both of them settled in Mali where they taught Islam. Al-Sahili also designed the great mosque of Timbuktu as well as a magnificent palace for Mansa Musa in the capital of Mali. He built a mosque and introduced the practice of Koran recital and other devotional exercises.
Another brilliant Berber scholar called Abd al-Rahman al-Maghili established his Zawiyaie Islamic school in Tuat in the Sahara, and from there went on a missionary tour of the Western Sudan which lasted from to During this tour, he visited Air, Takedda, Kano, Katsina and Gao and preached to both rulers and commoners. Islam gained ground in West Africa through the activities of the individual rulers. The rulers of the Western Sudan encouraged the trans-Saharan trade and extended hospitality to both traders and visiting clerics, but perhaps one of the most important ways in which they encouraged acceptance of Islam was through their own conversion.
With a Muslim King or ruler it rapidly became a matter of prestige among the aristocracy also to convert to Islam in many kingdoms. Many rulers made considerable efforts to encourage Muslim institutions such as Islamic tax and legal systems or the provision of facilities such as mosques, through the appointment of Muslim officials such as judges and butchers who observe the Islamic code and to lead prayers, celebrating Muslim festival and ordering every town under their control to observe the ritual prayers.
The pilgrimages that many of the rulers undertook — such as Mansa Musa and Askia Mohammed — had a considerable spiritual effect increasing their determination both to strengthen and purify Islam and to spread it even further. What is more, another way in which Islam was introduced and spread in West Africa in general and the Western Sudan in particular was the militant jihad, or the waging of holy war against infidels or lukewarm Muslims.
This method allowed the third and final stage of the process of Islamisation to reach its climax with the nineteenth-century jihad in the Western Sudan, between Mali and Senegambia and Hausaland in northern Nigeria. The first jihad in the Western Sudan which has accounts was that waged by the head of the Sudanese confederation. It was Tarsina against the Sudanese people in , soon after his return from the pilgrimage to Mecca.
He was killed during these clashes. The second is that of the King of Takrur, War-Ajabbi, before his death in The third and the best known of these early jihads was the one declared by the Almoravid movement of ancient Ghana between and by the scholar, Abdallah Ibn Yasin.
Between and s, the Almoravid conquered the whole area between ancient Ghana and Sijilmasa. By the Almoravid Empire stretched from the Senegal in the south across the Mediterranean to Spain in the north. Islam also spread on to West Africa through inter-marriages. The Muslim merchants from North Africa came down settled and married the African women who became Muslims including their children.
The early Muslim missionaries opened Islamic schools and colleges. The products of these schools and colleges also did well by spreading the religion. They worked with the rulers as advisors, councilors etc. Also one of the greatest clerics and missionaries of the Western Sudan was al-Hajj Suware, the Soninke scholar founded the important Zawiga at Diakha — Bambuk which attracted students from all over the Western Sudan during the first half of the thirteenth century.
Scholarship was indeed also attractive to rulers in West Africa, because the widespread use of the Arabic script made administering their kingdoms easier, and tax revenues easier to accrue.
Thus, Timbuktu became known for its famous Djingnereber Mosque and prestigious Sankore University, both of which were established in the early s under the reign of the Mali Empire, most famous ruler Mansa Musa.
Islam had a great impact on the people and states of Western Sudan and for that matter West Africa in general. Unlike Christianity, Islam is not a just a religion or a mass of doctrines or beliefs and rituals, but rather a complete way of life or civilization. The following are the effects of Islam in West Africa.
Islam cut across family, clan and ethnic ties and loyalties and emphasized unity and brotherhood. It enabled rulers to build larger Kingdoms and empires embracing different peoples and Linguistic groups. It also provided them with a commonly accepted basis of authority in place of African traditional religious which differed from place to place.
Many of the rulers of Western Sudan, such as Mansa Musa of Mali, Askia Mohammed of Songhai and Idris Alooma of Borno did attempt to use Islam in these ways to generate a feeling of unity and as a basis of their authority. Most of the Muslim rulers of Western Sudan adopted the Muslim systems of justice and taxation. Thus, Islam promoted a more efficient administration in some of the states of Western Sudan since it enabled the rulers to employ educated Muslims as secretaries, administrators, judges and diplomats and also to correspond with provincial rulers and administrators.
It is significant that even non-Muslim rulers such as those of ancient Ghana before the eleventh century employed some Muslims in their administration. Furthermore, the holy wars which some rulers waged helped to extend the frontiers of their states. The rulers of Western Sudan established strong diplomatic relations with other Muslim rulers abroad as Mansa Musa and Idris Alooma did with those of Egypt and Tunis respectively.
The hajj brought pilgrims into contact with technology and scholarship at the centre of the Muslim world, which were often adopted and introduced when the pilgrims returned home.
For instance, Idris Alooma of Borno brought back from his pilgrimage musketeers and Turkish military instructors, and created musketeers corps in his army which enabled him to extend the frontiers of his state relatively with ease. The pilgrimage or hajj which Muslims were expected to undertake if they were able to do so, contributed in many ways to the growth and strength of some of the states.
This power was of great importance, especially for the rulers, since it greatly increased their reputation and religious standing among their subjects. Indeed, it is because of the acquisition of this power that the hajj was and is still so popular among Muslims, especially, Muslim rulers. There was the replacement of the worship of false gods in some areas. Converts seriously observed the five pillars of Islam, namely; daily prayers including the Friday congregational prayer, fasting, compulsory alms-giving and pilgrimage to Mecca hajj.
Islam introduced literacy as well as Muslim education into West Africa. Literacy made it possible for scholars to preserve the history and the oral traditions of some of the states in books. Literacy also enabled people in the Western Sudan to join access to the invaluable Islamic literature, sciences and philosophy which broadened their knowledge, improved their statecraft and widened their horizon.
As Islam continued to spread in West Africa, schools and educational centres were established in large towns and cities in Western Sudan. Islam produced great scholars in Western Sudanese states and West Africa as a whole. The third was Ahmed Baba, the author of fifty works on law and a biographical dictionary.
Thirteen of his writings are known. He was also the owner of an important library. In the early centuries of its existence, Islam in Africa had a dynamic and turbulent history, with reforming movements and dynasties clashing and succeeding each other. Gaining power depended on securing trade routes into gold-producing areas in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Islamic rulers expanded north as well as south. In the last quarter of the 11th century, Islam dominated the Mediterranean world.
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