Describe how islam was introduced into the gambia

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.

There was also the change in cultural life as a result of the introduction of Islam in West Africa. In all the states of Western Sudan-Muslim wives of prominent men were required to live in purdah seclusion and to veil their faces when they went out.

Islam helped in the introduction of burnt brick for example, Ibrahim As-Sahil designed a magnificent brick mosque in Gao, Timbuctu and a stone palace in Mali for Mansa Musa.

Islam promoted trade between West Africa and the Mediterranean. The religion developed and widened the trans-Saharan Caravan trade. The trade enriched the West African and the Muslim traders. Muslims from North Africa came in their numbers and settled in the commercial centres.

This helped in the development of the cities such as Timbuctu, Gao, Jenne and Kano. The Islamic religion had a great effect on West African societies. In the first place, it challenged traditional African religion, weakening the basis on which some of the Sudanese states such as Kanem and ancient Ghana rested, contributing to their downfall. Secondly, it often divided the ruling group into Muslim and non-Moslem factions, conflict between which further weakened some of the states such as Songhai.

Thirdly, the jihad not only caused periodic outbreaks of instability and chaosin the Western Sudan but also precipitated the downfall of some states like the Hanusa. From here it is important to understand the history of Islam in West Africa through different movements. So the remainder of the chapter looks at some key moments: the Almoravids and Ghana, the role of the Jakhanke the rise of Sokoto in Nigeria, and the importance of Omar Tal in the 19th century.

The Almoravid dynasty was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus. The dynasty was founded by Abdallah Ibn Yasin.

The Almoravid capital was Marrakesh, a city which was the ruling house founded in The Gudala nomadic Berber tribes of the Sahara, traversing the territory between the Draa, the Niger and the Senegal rivers.

The Almoravids were crucial in preventing the fall of Al-Andalus to the Iberian Christian kingdoms, when they decisively defeated a coalition at the Battle of Sagrajas in This enabled them to control an empire that stretched 3, kilometers North to South, from Senegambia to Spain. Ibn Yasin certainly had the ardour of a puritan zealot, his creed was mainly characterised by a rigid formalising and a strict adherence to the dictates of the Quran and orthodox tradition.

He responded to questioning with charges of apostasy and handed out harsh punishments for the slightest deviations. The Gudala soon had enough and expelled him almost immediately after the death of his protector, Yahaya Ibn Ibrahim, sometime in the s. Ibn Yasin, however, found a more favourable reception among the neighbouring Lamtuna people. The Lamtuna leaders, however, kept Ibn Yasin on a careful leash, forging a more productive partnership between them.

He identified tribalism, in particular, as an obstacle. He believed it was not enough to urge his audiences to put aside their blood loyalties and ethnic differences, and embrace the equality of all Muslims under the Sacred Law, it was necessary to make them do so. For the Lamtuna leadership, this new ideology dovetailed with their long desire to refound the Sanhaja union and recover their lost dominions.

In the earlys, the Lamtuna, under the joint leadership of Yahya Ibn Umar and Abdallah Ibn Yasin-soon calling themselves the al-Murabitin Almoravids -set out on a campaign to bring their neighbours over to their cause.

From the year , the Almoravids began to spread their religious way to the Berber areas of the Sahara, and to the regions south of the desert. After winning over the Sanhaja Berber tribe, they quickly took control of the entire desert trade route, seizing Sijilmasa at the northern end in , and Aoudaghost at the southern end in Yahya Ibn Umar was killed in a battle in , but Abdullah Ibn Yasin, whose influence as a religious teacher was paramount named his brother Abu Bakr Ibn Umar as chief.

Under him, the Almoravids soon began to spread their power beyond the desert, and conquered the tribes of the Atlas Mountains. The Berghouata resisted.

Abdullah ibn Yasin was killed in battle with them in , in Krifla, a village near Rommani, Morocco. They were, however, completely conquered by Abu Bakr Ibn Umar, and were forced to convert to orthodox Islam. Abu Bakr married a noble and wealthy Berber woman, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyat, who would become very influential in the development of the dynasty.

Zaynab was the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Houara, who was said to be from Kairouan. In , Abu Bakr Ibn Umar made a division of the power he had established, handing over the more-settled parts to his cousin Yusuf Ibn Tashfin as viceroy, and also assigning to him his favourite wife Zaynab.

Ibn Umar kept the task of suppressing the revolts that had broken out in the desert. When he returned to resume control, he found his cousin too powerful to be superseded. In Novermber , Abu Bakr was killed in battle — according to oral tradition by an arrow, while fighting in the historic region of the Sudan. Yusuf Ibn Tashfin had in the meantime brought the large area of what is now known as Morocco, Western Sahara, and Mauritania into complete subjection.

In he founded the city of Marrakech. In , he conquered the kingdom of Tlemcen in modern-day Algeria and founded the present city of that name, his rule extending as far east as Oran.

According to Arab tradition, the Almoravids conquered the Ghana Empire sometime around An example of this tradition is the record of historian Ibn Khaldun, who cited Shaykh Uthman, the faqih of Ghana, writing in According to this source, the Almoravids weakened Ghana and collected tribute from the Sudan, to the extent that the authority of the rules of Ghana dwindled away, and they were subjected and absorbed by the Soso, a neighboring people of the Sudan.

Traditions in Mali related that the Soso attacked and took over Mali as well, and the ruler of the Soso, Sumaouro Kante Sumanguru Kante took over the land.

Lisbon was conquered by the Portuguese in According to some scholars, Ali Ibn Yusuf provided a new generation of leadership that had forgotten the desert life for the comforts of the city. He was defeated by the combined action of his Christian foes in Iberia and the agitation of Almohads the Muwahhids in Morocco.

In he was killed in a fall from a precipice while attempting escape after a defeat near Oran. The conquest of the city of Marrakech by the Almohads in marked the fall of the dynasty, though fragments of the Almoravids the Banu Ghanaiya, continued to struggle in the Balearic Islands, and finally in Tunisia. Abdallah Ibn Yussin imposed very strict discipline measures on his forces for every breach of his laws The Almoravid first military leader, Yahya Ibn Umar al-Lamtuni, gave them a good military organization.

Their main force was infantry, armed with javelins in the front ranks and pikes behind, which formed into a phalanx, and was supported by camelmen and horsemen on the flanks.

They also had a flag carrier as the front who guided the forces behind him, when the flag was upright, the combatants behind would stand and when it was turned down, they would sit. Al-Bakri reports that, while in combat, the Almoravids did not pursue those who fled in front of them. Their fighting was intense and they did not retreat when disadvantage by an advancing opposing force, they preferred death over defeat. These characteristics were possibly unusual at the time.

A history of Islam in West Africa cannot be complete without a mention, however brief, of the Jakhanke Islamic Movement which arose in the 12th century under the charismatic scholar Alhajj Salim Suwareh who helped to spread Islam in the present day countries of Mali, Guinea, Senegal and The Gambia, the most Islamized countries in West Africa today. The Jakhanke Islamization effort indeed have borne rich fruit! At that time, Mauritanian society was divided along scholar and warrior lineages.

The scholar Nasir al-Din led a failed jihad called Sharr Bubba. Unlike the failed jihad in Mauritania, the 19th century jihad movements in Senegambia and Hausaland in what is now northern Nigeria successfully overthrew the established order and transformed the ruling and landowning class.

In , Uthman Dan Fodio, a Fulani scholar, led a major jihad. The movement led to centralization of power in the Muslim community, education reforms, and transformations of law. Uthman Dan Fodio also sparked a literary revival with a production of religious work that included Arabic texts and vernacular written in Arabic script.

His heirs continued the legacy of literary production and education reform. In the s, Umar Tal returned from pilgrimage claiming to have received spiritual authority over the West African Tijani Sufi order.

From the s to s, he conquered three Bambara kingdoms. Although the French controlled the region, colonial authorities met another formidable enemy. Samori Toure rose up against the French and gathered a 30, strong army.

The French occupation of Senegal forced the final development of Islamic practice where leaders of Sufi orders became allies with colonial administrators.

Although European powers led to the decline of the Umarian state and the Sokoto Caliphate, colonial rule did little to stop the spread of Islam in West Africa.

The British used anti-slavery rhetoric as they began their conquest of the Sokoto Caliphate in The Sokoto Caliphate ended in , when British troops conquered the state. Colonial authorities attempted to maintain the established social order and ruled through Northern Nigerian emirs.

Despite the efforts of colonial authorities, colonialism had far reaching effects on Northern Nigerian Muslim society. Modern communication and transportation infrastructure facilitated increased exchange between Muslim communities.

As a result, Islam began to spread rapidly in new urban centers and regions such as Yoruba land. Similarly in the French Sudan, Islam actually spread in rates far greater than the previous centuries. Although Muslims lost political power, Muslim communities made rapid inroads in the West Africa during the early 20th century. The three stages of containment, mixing, and reform can shed light on the historical developments of Islam in this region.

The trans-Saharan trade was an important gateway for the spread of Islam in Africa. The legacy of the medieval empires and nineteenth century reform movements continues to have relevance in present day Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, as well as many neighboring communities. Muslim communities have existed in West Africa for over a millennium, pointing to the fact that Islam is a significant part of the African landscape. Skip to: Skip to content Skip to navigation.

Containment: Ghana and the Takrur The early presence of Islam was limited to segregated Muslim communities linked to the trans-Saharan trade. Mixing: The Empires of Mali and Songhay Over the next few decades, African rulers began to adopt Islam while ruling over populations with diverse faiths and cultures. In Timeline of Art History. Muslim Societies in African History. New York: Cambridge University Press, Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels eds. The History of Islam in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, Back to Top.

Share this Page. Corporate Social Responsiblity. Investor Relations. Review a Brill Book. The introduction of a Roman Catholic mission in the early s created new social and economic possibilities that consolidated an identity that stood as an alternative to the Muslim-Mandinka model.

This analysis emphasizes the equal importance of both macropolitical and economic factors and the more proximal effects of reference groups in understanding religious conversion. Finally, this discussion of the origins of religious pluralism within a community grants insight into how conflicts along religious lines have been defused. Africa 65 4 Cleary William Fr.

Ikenga-Metuh E Petersen K. Johnson Michelle C. Lewis M. N 39 B 2 Sapir J. Troy Michael Fr. Notations in this format refer to the location of the song in my field notes. Mark and Brooks have documented the presence of Roman Catholic Portuguese along this coast going back to the sixteenth century.

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