Transcript Islam in Africa

Islam in Africa
Food for thought…
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Inroads to Africa
• North Africa to the Western Sahel
• Egypt through the Nile Valley
• Indian Ocean trade to the East coast of
Africa
Ghana – A World of Wealth
• Shadowing beginnings: Arab traveler in
1067 write about a Muslim community in
Ghana
• In 1010 the king of Gao converts to Islam,
as does the court. But the population
remains animist
• Trading communities in towns and cities
• Gold and slaves from the south, salt from
the east – sold to the north
• Ghana thrives till mid 13th century
Mali and the Malinke
• Mande speaking
• First king relies heavily on traditional religion and
magic
• Islamic rituals of Friday prayer and Eid become very
prominent
• Tensions between Islam / tradition – court and
people (mansas depend on local base; dress and
groveling before king)
• Ibn Battuta: mixed reviews (prayer good, gender
relations bad)
• Trade: gold, slaves and salt… Mansa Musa’s famous
pilgrimage in 1324
Songhay
• Songhay king Sonni Ali established realm
with base at Timbuktu in the 1400’s
• Timbuktu
– Depot for Sahara trade to Niger River trade
– Sanhaja & Tuareg Berbers, Arab merchants
and Songinke
– Becomes major scholarly center with around
160 madrasas
• Scholarly links to Morocco, Marakkesh to
the north, Egypt and Hejaz
• Empire and Timbukti fall into disrepair
after Sa’dian Moroccan conquest in 1591
The Muridiyya
• Shaykh Amadou Bamba (d. 1927): exiled several times by the
French but blesses WWI participation
• Branch of the Qadiriyya order based in Touba in Senegal
• Currently headed by the last surviving son of Amadou Bamba
Nile Valley to the Sudan
• Early on! 615 first Hijra to Ethiopia
• Late arrival: only in the 17th century does
Islam become a major cultural force in the
lower Nile Valley
• Unlike the Western Sahel, both Arabic and
Islam become predominant.
• Muslims become influential through trade:
ivory, ostrich feathers, slaves
The Mahdi Movement
• Muhammad al-Mahdi (d. 1885) declares
himself the Muslim Mahdi in 1881
– Confounds Sunni ulama and defeats
government forces
• Call for social justice and Islamic justice at
the end of the 1300’s
• Response to Anglo-Egyptian domination
of the Sudan after 1820
• Defeats Turkish garrisons and eventually
takes Khartoum in 1885
• Succeeded by ‘caliphs’, eventually defeated
by British at Omdurman 1898
East Africa
• Islam came with trade to the Horn of Africa and
the East coast “Sahel” in 1200’s onward (cloth
from India; ivory, gold, slaves, spices, rice from
Africa
• Jihad?
– Ahmad Gran in 1531 launches a jihad from
from the Somali coast against Ethiopia,
defeated by Portuguese
– Anti colonial struggles; jihad of Abdallah
Hasan in Somaila 1898-1920
• Indian Ocean world:
– Omani influence increases in 1800’s, with capital at
Zanzibar in 1832 under BuSaidis
– Immigration from India
Conversion to Islam
• Holy men “fakihs” as agents in West
africa; amulets, miracles, teaching Q
• Proof through miracles
• Sufism
– In West Africa, Qadiriya dominant till mid
1800s, when the Tijaniyya overtakes it
– More recently in East Africa the Alawiyya
order from Yemen enters, popular focus on
the mawlid and group liturgies
• Colonialism?!