North African traders were major actors in introducing Islam into West Africa. Several major trade routes connected Africa below the Sahara with the Mediterranean Middle East, such as Sijilmasa to Awdaghust and Ghadames to Gao.
The Almoravids there introduced a fundamentalist version of Islam and enforced stricter religious practices and Islamic law among West African Muslims.
According to Arab oral tradition, Islam first came to Africa with Muslim refugees fleeing persecution in the Arab peninsula. This was followed by a military invasion, some seven years after the death of the prophet Mohammed in 639, under the command of the Muslim Arab General, Amr ibn al-Asi.
Between the eighth and ninth centuries, Arab traders and travelers, then African clerics, began to spread the religion along the eastern coast of Africa and to the western and central Sudan (literally, “Land of Black people”), stimulating the development of urban communities.
What was the religion in West Africa before Islam?
Animism was the predominant belief system in West Africa before the spread of Islam. This spiritual practice revolves around the belief in spirits residing in all aspects of nature. Many ethnic groups, such as the Yoruba and Fon, held onto these animistic traditions even with the arrival of Islam.
Who was the first to convert to Islam in West Africa?
The first West Africans to be converted were the inhabitants of the Sahara, the Berbers, and it is generally agreed that by the second half of the tenth century, the Sahara had become Dar al-Islam that is the country of Islam.
North African traders were major actors in introducing Islam into West Africa. Several major trade routes connected Africa below the Sahara with the Mediterranean Middle East, such as Sijilmasa to Awdaghust and Ghadames to Gao.
Islam was first introduced to what is now modern-day Nigeria through contact with traders from North Africa and the Middle East. The earliest record of Islam in Nigeria dates back to the 9th century when a Muslim trader named Ali ibn Ghanim visited the kingdom of Kanem-Bornu in present-day Chad.
Islam was first introduced to Ghana by Muslims of Dyula and Mande speaking descents who moved downwards from the Western Sudan into the Volta Basin and the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) (Dumbe 2013:21).
Cohabitation or coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims remains, for the most part, peaceful. Nigeria is home to Africa's largest Muslim population. In 1999, Nigeria's northern states adopted the Sharia penal code, but punishments have been rare.
Qurʾan—though universal in its message—is largely a book about Africa. Many (probably most) of the tales related in the Qurʾan take place in Africa, and Africans figure prominently in many stories set elsewhere.
While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa.
Islam spread through military conquest, trade, pilgrimage, and missionaries. Arab Muslim forces conquered vast territories and built imperial structures over time.
Which people tried to prevent Islam from spreading?
As Islam spread in Mecca, the ruling tribes began to oppose Muhammad's preaching and his condemnation of idolatry. The Quraysh tribe controlled the Kaaba and drew their religious and political power from its polytheistic shrines, so they began to persecute the Muslims and many of Muhammad's followers became martyrs.
Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was a mix of polytheism, Christianity, Judaism, and Iranian religions. Arab polytheism, the dominant belief system, was based on the belief in deities and other supernatural beings such as djinn. Gods and goddesses were worshipped at local shrines, such as the Kaaba in Mecca.
The Prophet Muhammad and the Origins of Islam. The rise of Islam is intrinsically linked with the Prophet Muhammad, believed by Muslims to be the last in a long line of prophets that includes Moses and Jesus.
Muhammad himself did not write the revelations; instead, several of his trusted companions acted as scribes. These scribes documented the revelations on various materials available at the time, such as parchment, palm leaves, and bones.
Islam, introduced through 11th-century trans-Saharan trade, established northern strongholds, while Christianity, arriving with 15th-century Portuguese explorers and expanding under 19th-century British colonialism, took root in the south.
To reach West Africa, the religion of Islam joined the caravans of Amazigh traders. The Amazigh people were merchants who were a large part of the trans-Saharan trade. These caravans would cross the Sahara Desert to trade with the large, rich sub-Saharan empires, and they brought the religion with them.
In Nigeria, Sharia has been instituted as a main body of civil and criminal law in twelve Muslim-majority states since 1999, when then-Zamfara State governor Ahmad Sani Yerima began the push for the institution of Sharia at the state level of government.
Islam first entered Nigeria through Borno in the northeast in the 11th century. Its dissemination was essentially a peaceful process, mediated by Muslim clerics and traders, until the Fulani jihad of 1804, organized by Usman dan Fodio.
Many West African kings wanted to convert to Islam becuase they followed traders and wanted to extent their power over non-Muslim populations. Many people still practiced traditional beliefs in Africa.
How did West Africans worship before Islam's influence?
West African peoples often emphasized a worldview that included a High God at the top of a complex cosmological structure and also recognized ancestor spirits and supernatural actors as influential in daily life. Their spiritual practices were not rigid and tolerated variability in practices.
