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Islam in Tropical Africa

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Islam in
Tropical Africa
Second Edition

Edited by

I. M. Lewis

International African Institute

in association with
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and London
Copyright © 1966, 1980 by International African Institute
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’
Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
Manufactured in Great Britain

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

International African Seminar, 5th, Zaria, Nigeria, 1964.
Islam in tropical Africa, Second Edition, 1980.
Includes bibliographies and index.
1. Islam—Africa—Congresses. 2. Africa—History—
Congresses. 3. Muslims—Africa—Congresses.
I. Lewis, I. M. II. Title.
BP64.A1I57 1964 297':096 79-3292

ISBN 0-253—14956-8 (cloth)

ISBN 0-253-28514-3 (paper) I 2 3 4 5 84 83 82 81 80
 CONTENTS

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Part One Introduction I. M. Lewis’

. Regional Review of the Distribution of Islam
Il. Agents of Islamization 20
III. Islam and Political Systems a2
IV. Islamic Law and Customary Practice 45
. Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 58
VI. Islam and the Modern World 76

Part Two Special Studies

. The Phases of Islamic Expansion and Islamic
Culture Zones in Africa J. S. TRIMINGHAM 99
Il. The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan
Yusur Fapi Hasan 112
Il. Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464—
1591 J. O. Hunwick 124
IV. The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti
in the Early Nineteenth Century Ivor WILKs 144
. Lat-Dyor, Damel of Kayor (1842-86) and the
Islamization of the Wolof of Senegal VINCENT
MonTEIL 166
VI. Islam in Mossi Society ELtiott P. SKINNER 173
VI. Cattle Values and Islamic Values in a Pastoral
Population D. J. STENNING 194
VIII. Islam among the Fulbe of Adamawa P. F. Lacrorx 206
. The Jihad of Shehu Dan Fodio: Some Problems
M. G. SmitTH 213
. The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger—Chad
Region Sasurr Bropaxu and Munammapb Ax-Hass 226
 nL Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam I. M.
Lewis 240
XII. The Jumbe of Kota Kota and some Aspects of the
History of Islam in Malawi GzorcE SHEPPERSON 270
XIII. Sociological Factors in the Contact of the Gogo of
Central Tanzania with Islam P. J. A. Ricsy 266
XIV. A Controversy over Islamic Custom in Kilwa
Kivinje, Tanzania Perer L1ENHARDT 289

Index 301

Maps
. Location ofPeoples referred to in Special Studies
. Contemporary Distribution of Islam South of the
Sahara xi
Ill. Principal Areas of Muslim Influence in the Sixteenth
Century xii
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Since this volume of papers from the Fifth International African

Seminar, held at Zaria, was first published in 1966 there has been
a healthy growth in research on Islam in stib-Saharan Africa.
Some of the more important additions to the literature on themes
discussed in the Introduction have been indicated in the footnotes
to this edition and are included in the additional reference section
on page 92 (which, however, makes no pretension to being
exhaustive). This recent work includes monographic studies by
social anthropologists and political historians on particular
religious brotherhoods (e.g. Cohen, 1968; O’Brien, 1971), com-
parative works on the Islamic brotherhoods and the jihads as-
sociated with them (Martin, 1976), studies on the interaction
between Islam and traditional African politics (e.g. Last, 1967;
Levtzion, 1968; Paden, 1973), more general histories (e.g. Willis,
1979), and a valuable survey of the whole field by the dis-
tinguished Arabist, J. S. Trimingham (1968).
One of the more interesting theoretical developments is the
debate between R. Horton (1971, 1975) and H. J. Fisher (1973)
on the relationship between traditional African beliefs and
infrastructures and conversion to Islam. Following our general
argument (see e.g. pp. 59, 80 and 81), Horton contends that the
expansion of socio-economic relations associated with the
development of trade and colonization accentuated indigenous
theistic concepts, thus facilitating conversion to Allah as a
transcendent deity. Islam, as it were, did not invent God, but
rather took advantage of trends in African cosmology which
were already in train independently of Muslim prosyletization.
Pursuing this line of argument, Horton adopts what he terms an
‘“intellectualist’ (but it is also Durkheimian) view of conversion
which seems too narrow to apply adequately in the case of Islam
or other religions. For contrary to this mentalistic view, Islam
is not simply or solely a way of explaining things intellectually at
viii Preface to the Second Edition

the conscious level: it is also a source of spiritual solace and

pride and a set of rules for life. At the same time, the Muslim
faith introduces, as we emphasize, a radically different eschato-
logical evaluation of sin and moral dereliction, which adds a
new dimension to most traditional religious concepts—a factor
largely ignored in Horton’s somewhat mechanistic model.
In common with most orientalists and theologians, Fisher in
contrast overvalues the influence of Islam as a transcendental
spiritual force and underestimates the significance in conversion
of traditional religious beliefs and institutions. Like that of the
Islamic proselytizer his approach is essentially diffusionist. In
this vein Fisher follows the leading British authority on Islam
in Africa, J. S. Trimingham, whose three-stage model of con-
version (germinatién, crisis, and gradual re-orientation) he
transcribes as ‘quarantine’, ‘mixing’, and ‘reform’. These phases
may indeed seem to characterize a gradual process of acculturation
(or enculturation at the individual level) from the perspective of
an external Muslim observer, or one applying the external
standards of Islamic observance and belief. They do not neces-
sarily, however, convey what the people (or person) so charac-
terized consider themselves to be—Muslim or non-Muslim. Nor
do they do full justice to the subtleties of a faith in which the
most revered of saints are regularly exonerated from performing
the daily Islamic observances. The limitations of this diffusionist
approach and of Horton’s intellectualist perspective are high-
lighted if we ask how they could possibly explain the contem-
porary Black Muslim movement in America. This example, by
no means necessarily unique to its present period and setting,
indicates the crucial importance of Islam as an identity as well as
a religious faith. Both views again neglect what many people
would take to be the typical conversion experience, where divine
election manifests itself as a searing affliction which can only be
cured by entering the new religion (cf. Lewis, 1971).
Although it seems unlikely to be resolved in terms of single
cause explanations, the problem of conversion has clearly
received considerable attention since the first edition of this book.
Other issues have attracted less interest and discussion. It may be
 Preface to the Second Edition ix

worthwhile to draw attention to topics which seem unjustifiably

neglected and invite further research. It is still unfortunately true
that there is a surprising dearth of research by sociologists or
social anthropologists on the relationship between actual beliefs
and ritual, in the sense of practical religion, in Muslim societies
in sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, there remains much to
learn of the processes by which traditional African deities and
spirits (including ancestors) are incorporated in Islam. Similarly,
the interplay between indigenous jural institutions and the
Shari‘a which has been so extensively treated elsewhere, has been
almost ignored by social scientists working in this region of
the Islamic world. On a broader canvas, comparative historical
research on the expansion of Islam under the different colonial
regimes remains as unexplored as the important theme of the
influence of Islam on the development of modern African
nationalism. For those who seek promising research topics, Islam
in sub-Saharan Africa offers an unusual abundance of un-
exploited and exciting material. A new generation of African
scholars is beginning, but only beginning, to turn its energies
seriously to this rich heritage.
I. M. Lewis
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I. Location of Peoples referred to in Special Studies

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 1. INTRODUCTION

The Muslim population of tropical Africa! is more widely

scattered and less continuous in its distribution than that of
North Africa. In many instances its members form minority
communities in states which have no national allegiance to Islam,
and even when they live in countries which are predominantly
Muslim, few of these are formally constituted as Islamic states.?
Despite this, however, likely estimates place their total number at
almost 60,000,000,? the same figure usually taken to represent
the strength of the Muslim population of North Africa. Tropical
Africa, therefore, notwithstanding the highly variegated character
of its peoples’ religious adherence and their wide cultural diver-
sities, is thus nearly a quarter Muslim, and must be regarded as
one of the major Islamic areas of the world.
The Special Studies which form the basis for this volume
consider particular aspects of the Islamic life of a number of
communities—widely separated in space and time—within this
great Muslim belt. This introductory essay, which serves as a
preface to these Studies, begins by reviewing the broad historical
circumstances and salient characteristics of the penetration of
Islam in the five regions into which tropical Africa may conven-
iently be divided. It then proceeds to consider the contribution
made to the dissemination of Islam by such agencies as trade and
1 J.e, Africa south of the Sahara, but excluding Southern Africa.
2 Exceptions are the Somali and Sudan Republics.
Approximately two-thirds of this total are concentrated in West Africa,
and about 19,000,000 of these live in Nigeria. In Senegal, Guinea, Mali, and Niger,
Muslims constitute the predominant element, while the proportionately smallest
Muslim populations are found in Liberia, Ghana, and Togo. In North-East, East,
and Central Africa, where the remaining third of the total Muslim population of
tropical Africa is found, Muslims are in the majority in the Sudan Republic
(c. 9,000,000), while Zanzibar and the Somali Republic have for all intents and
purposes entirely Muslim populations. The Muslim element is also strong in
Ethiopia (including Eritrea) and in Tanzania, representing perhaps a quarter
to a third in each case. The smallest Muslim communities are found in Uganda,
Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), and in Zaire.
2 Introduction
proselytization. This leads to consideration of the interaction
between traditional local institutions and Islam in the political
field, and that in turn to the wider problem of the impact of Islamic
Law on customary law and practice. Discussion of the influence
of Islam on traditional religious phenomenology and on beliefs
and ritual follows; and in the final section attention centres on
the more contemporary issues of the role of Islam in the colonial
and post-colonial periods.
These themes are broadly those which were followed in our
general discussions at Zaria, and many of the points made then
are incorporated in the essay which follows.* Here the principal
aim is to outline a sociological framework within which the inter-
relations between African and Muslim beliefs and institutions can
be meaningfully and profitably discussed.
Since there is in European languages, to say nothing of Arabic,
already a substantial body of writing on Islam in Africa, it might
be thought that the preparation of a short sociological essay such
as this would bealight task. This, however, has not proved to be
the case. For, on closer examination of much of this literature, it
becomes abundantly clear that the sociological study of the con-
~nexions between beliefs and ritual among living Muslim peoples
is still in its infancy. The present position is thus a frustrating
one; and it is necessary to begin by challenging such misleading
preconceptions as that only centralized states can readily adopt
Islam, or that matrilineal societies are uniformly resistant to
Muslim penetration, or that Islamic marriage rules are incom-
patible with clan exogamy, before proceeding to establish the
real implications of the conversion of African societies to Islam.
If, therefore, many of the conclusions reached in the following
pages seem negative this is largely a reflection of the superficiality
and inadequacy of much of our present knowledge. It is also a
demonstration of the fundamental fact that Islam can be ana-
lysed sociologically only within the social context of the actual
life and folk beliefs of living Muslim communities. What is
4 Here I should like to acknowledge my debt to all the discussants at Zaria.
For comments on earlier drafts of this introduction I am particularly grateful to
the painstaking comment and criticism of Dr. Abner Cohen, Professor Daryll
Forde, Professor Spencer Trimingham, and Dr. Peter Ucko.
 Introduction 3
enshrined in the orthodox literary tradition of Islam and usually
taken as this religion’s essential character is often very differently
represented in the concepts and practices which inform everyday
Muslim life. Moreover, the method long established in Islamic
Studies of tracing the origins and historical development of
beliefs and institutions does not necessarily take one very far in
understanding their contemporary significance in any given
social context of living Islam. Of course, history, where it is
known or discernible, cannot be ignored—to do so would be to
limit the scope and depth of social analysis—but purely historical
explanations of events in terms of their antecedents are no
substitute for systematic analysis of the manner in which in-
stitutions are inter-related and mutually sustaining in a given
social setting.®
Thus, in this province of Islamic Studies, as elsewhere in the
subject, the final plea must be for more intensive field research
on actual Muslim communities. And, for the social anthropologist
and sociologist, there is the added challenge that the study of the
interaction between traditional pre-Islamic and Muslim beliefs
and institutions offers special opportunities for testing the validity
of functional hypotheses. If a social anthropologist’s analysis of
the social significance or ‘functions’ of institutions and customs
in a traditional Pre-Islamic community is correct it should have
some predictive value in suggesting how Islam will be accom-
modated. New developments under the impact of Islam which do
not support the previous analysis must inevitably cast doubt
on its validity. Hence the study of Islam in Africa, particularly
where Islam and Christianity are competing for new adherents,
presents a field full of potentialities for the social scientist and
deserves much more rigorous and concerted attention than it
has so far received.
5 See E. E. Evans—Pritchard, Anthropology and History, Manchester University
Press, 1961.
 I. REGIONAL REVIEW OF THE DISTRIBUTION
AND SPREAD OF ISLAM

(a) THE EASTERN:SUDAN

Of the regions of tropical Africa which are our concern in this
book, Islam made its earliest, most concerted inroads in the
Eastern Sudan and Horn of Africa. While the southern part of
what is today the Sudan Republic, with its largely Nilotic and
negroid populations remained until recently for the most part
shielded from any intensive Muslim influence, the north was
from early times subject to Islamic penetration along three main
paths. From the seventh century Islam began to infiltrate with
trade from the east, through the Red Sea ports of Badi, Aydhab,
and Suakin (and from the Dahlak Archipelago after a.D. 702.)
Later, a western stream of influence through Darfur assumed
some importance. But these two distinct lines of Muslim contact
pale into insignificance in comparison with the impact of the main
channel of early Islamization from Egypt and the north.
Following the Arab invasions and conquest of Egypt, from the
seventh century onwards Arab immigrants began to move south
into the northern Sudan in an ever-increasing tide. This informal
penetration was encouraged rather than hampered by the
generally cordial relations which were established between
Christian Nubia and the north after the failure of the initial
Egyptian attempts at conquest in a.D. 641 and 651. Nevertheless,
as Muslim Egypt grew in strength Nubian power gradually
diminished over the centuries, and what is remarkable is its
surprisingly long span of life rather than its eventual eclipse in
1317 when the Christian kingdom at last bowed to the might of
Mamluk Egypt. By this time, the effect of the continuous process
of population drift and infiltration was such that the northern
Sudan had become extensively populated by Arabic-speaking
peoples who had mixed in varying degrees with the indigenous
Hamitic peoples giving rise in many cases to entirely new
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 5
ethnic aggregations.1 Later Muslim immigrants and proselytizers
thus found that a broad framework of Islamic culture had already
been established, and this was subsequently further built upon
and consolidated, particularly in the Turco-Egyptian period,
achieving its most dramatic political expression in the nineteenth-
century Mahdia.
This prevailing current of Muslim influence has left an indelible
mark on the character of Sudanese Islam. The Egyptian connexion
accounts both for the prevalence of the Maliki School of Law
introduced from Upper Egypt probably in the middle of the
sixteenth century,” and for the establishment during the Turco-
Egyptian conquest in the early nineteenth century of the Hanafi
School as the official code of the courts. At the same time the
direct experience, at first hand, of Arabian Islam (the acceptance
of which would seem to have been facilitated by correspondences
between Hamitic Sudanese and Muslim Arab social institutions)
has had a profound effect which is readily apparent in the close
association of Islam with Arab identity. More than for most of
the other Muslim peoples of Africa, for the Sudanese to be a
Muslim is to be an Arab. It is this deep assimilation of Islam and
identification with Arab culture and society which is expressed
in the universal claim to Arab ancestry? and the overwhelming
currency of Arabic. Only the Nubians and Beja have preserved
their own languages.
When, however, we turn to that other equally salient trait of
Sudanese Islam, the emphasis placed on the cult of saints and the
great proliferation of Sufi zarigas (lit. ‘the way’, i.e. path of devo-
tion or religious discipline) or Religious Orders (often also called
‘brotherhoods’)4, we have to look to the influence of the Hijaz
For a fuller account of this process, see Fadl Hasan below, pp. 112-23.
2 Holt, 1961, p. 29.
3 See MacMichael, 1922.
41In addition to the various Schools of Law, these Orders form a basis for
denominational divisions within orthodox Sunni Islam. The adherents of each
Order believe that the religious exercises established by the Order’s founder
and the distinctive liturgies associated with him represent the ideal path to spiri-
tual blessing. Rivalry between Orders thus centres on the respective powers of
sanctity and ritual efficacy—as mediators with God through the Prophet—
attributed to their founders. And where the followers of several Orders live
together each Order tends to maintain and worship in its own exclusive mosque.
6 Introduction

during the Fung period (1500-1800). Trimingham® has noted the

existence of over twenty separate Orders, many of them locally
based, of which the Shadiliyya is probably the earliest (c. 1445),
and the Mirghaniyya (or Khatmiyya) the most popular today.
To appreciate their significance in the recent history of the Sudan
it is only necessary to recall that the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad
(1843-85) was himself an affiliate of the Sammaniyya Order, and
indeed, Khalifa or head of one of its branches. His mission as
Mahdi, of course, transcended sectarian zariga loyalties, and his
rule showed little tolerance of rival movements. But the division
between those who look to the religious leadership of his des-
cendants and are known as the Ansar, and those who adhere to
the Khatmiyya Order, remains one of the most important factors
in the religious and political life of the Sudan Republic today.

(b) NORTH-EASTERN AFRICA AND THE HORN

Whereas in the eastern Sudan the principal early bearers of

Islam were the Arabic-speaking Semitic tribal invaders whose
descendants, heavily mixed with Hamitic and negroid indigenous
elements, make up so much of the present population, Ethiopia
and the Horn of Africa were not subjected to any comparable
Muslim Arab influx. Their early Semitic-speaking peoples—of
whom the Christian Amhara must be regarded as the prototype—
have, on the whole, rejected and resisted Islam, which, by con-
trast, has made its most notable gains among Hamitic- (or
Cushitic-)'speaking populations such as the Saho, ‘Afar (Danakil),
and Somali, and more recently, and with less striking success,
among the Oromo. Important Semitic-speaking peoples who have
adopted the Muslim faith, however, are the Beni ‘Amir (Beja) of
the eastern Sudan and Eritrea, the Bait Asgade, the Marya and
Mensa of Eritrea, and some of the Tigrina-speaking groups of
Eritrea and north-west Ethiopia.®
In this region as a whole the main gateway for Muslim influence
has been the Red Sea and Indian Ocean coasts. Along these
shores Muslim Arab, and in some cases also Persian colonies,
5 Trimingham, 1949.
8 For a detailed account, see Trimingham, 1952, pp. 147 ff.
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 7
established—or continued—a string of trading posts from shortly
after the Azra. The Dahlak Islands off the coast of Eritrea were
occupied by a Muslim Arab garrison in A.D. 702, after a piratical
Abyssinian attack on Jedda, but the most important coastal
settlements were apparently at Zeila in the north and Mogadishu
in the south. Al-Ya‘qubi at the end of the ninth century supplies
the first secure reference to Zeila, and later Arab writers describe
the town and its political circumstances in increasing detail.”
Similar evidence, as well as local inscriptions, the earliest dated
A.D. 720, indicate that Mogadishu® and her sister towns (Merca
and Brava), of what later became known to the Arabs as the
‘Benadir’ coast, had thriving immigrant Muslim communities
by the tenth century, appreciably earlier than the date generally
accepted for the foundation of Kilwa to the south.
In these small coastal mercantile centres Muslim Arab and
Persian merchants and proselytizers settled, usually as local
aristocracies with a superior technology, bringing the faith and
marrying local women but rarely offering their own daughters in
return. Despite thus seeking initially to maintgin their own
exclusiveness, however, these communities in due time blended
in various degrees with the local inhabitants to form a mixed
coastal culture. This, at any rate, is the record of the Zeila region,
where the final hybrid ‘Zeilawi’ culture represents a blending of
Arab, Somali, and ‘Afar (Danakil) elements. With Mogadishu
the case was much the same; but here the ‘Afar were not repre-
sented and Persian influence seems to have been considerable.
Farther to the south, at Brava, there was also apparently a Bantu
component, the evidence for which is preserved in the town’s
distinctive Bravani dialect (‘Chimbalazi’).
As far as the spread of Islam to the peoples of the hinterland
is concerned, it was the northern rather than the southern coastal
sector which exercised the widest influence. In the north, and
especially from the smaller ports to the east of Zeila, the carrying
of Islam into the interior coincided with the great series of
Somali movements of expansion which, from perhaps as early
7 See article, ‘Zeila’, Encyclopaedia of Islam.
8 Ibid., article ‘Makdishu’, Vol. III, pp. 165—6, and Cerulli, 1957.
8 Introduction

as the tenth century and over nearly a thousand years, finally

brought the extension of the Somali nation to its most southerly
point in northern Kenya.® Throughout this large area, and over
this long period, the Somali pastoral nomads were the main
carriers of Islam and its principal local exponents.
To the north-west the position was different again. Here,
from the port of Zeila, the main trade-routes lay towards the
Ethiopian highlands by way of Harar,!° and the expansion
of Islam must have been intimately connected with the trade
in which Arabs and Arabized Africans participated directly.
Commercial expansion and political aggrandisement are probably
inextricably mingled in the origins of the Muslim sultanate of
Ifat, which arose in eastern Shoa about the end of the ninth
century, and to which trade flowed along the caravan routes
through the port of Zeila.1! The same motives seem to explain
the associated development of a loosely knit cluster of other
Muslim principalities (Dawaro, Hadiya, and Bali) round the
periphery of the expanding Christian kingdom of Abyssinia.
These early hinterland centres of Islam were soon embroiled in
a long and bitter struggle for political supremacy with the
Abyssinians. Intermittent hostilities dragged on for almost five
hundred years without any truly decisive result for either side
until, in 1542 when under their prodigious champion Imam
Ahmad Gran (the ‘left-handed’) the Muslims, although apparently
on the point of final victory, were at last defeated utterly, and their
states lost all political importance.”
In marked contrast to the collapse of Christian Nubia in the
Sudan; the final failure of the Muslim holy wars (jihads) in
Ethiopia in the sixteenth century led to the eclipse of Muslim
power in the highlands, to a great efflorescence of Abyssinian
and Christian influence—despite the Galla incursions—and to a
tradition of religious antagonism between the Christian peoples
® See Lewis, 1960. 10 See Cerulli, 1936.
11 On the history of the state of Ifat, see Cerulli, 1941, and Trimingham, 1952.
12 For this period there is an unusual wealth of documentation in both the
Ethiopian and Muslim chronicles, of which the Futuh al-Habasha, written about
1540 by Shihab al-Din, who was present at many of the battles, is quite out-
standing.
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 9
of the highlands and the Muslims of the lowlands and coast.
The jthad, so forcibly led at the beginning of this century by
the Somali Shaikh Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan, was a latter-day
attempt at Muslim resistance in the era of Christian colonization
and Abyssinian encroachment in the Muslim Somali lowlands.8
Although in those parts of the area in contact with the eastern
Sudan both the Maliki and Hanafi Schools of Law are represented,
the proximity to and constant social and cultural interchange with
most of the area and the Arabian peninsula have ensured that
the dominant School is that of al-Shafi‘i. Otherwise the Horn
of Africa shares with the Sudan that marked emphasis on the cult
of saints and Sufi Orders which is a characteristic feature of
traditional Islam. Although fewer zarigas are represented, their
hold is such that the profession of the faith is virtually synony-
mous with attachment to, if not formal membership of, an Order.
The most important in its following is probably the earliest, the
Qadiriyya,! reputedly introduced to the ancient centre of Muslim
learning of Harar by Sharif Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abdallah al-‘Aydarus,
who died in Aden at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
In the nineteenth century, however, the Ahmadiyya tariga of the
great Meccan reformer Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi (1670-1837) and
its derivatives—notably the Salihiyya to which Muhammad
‘Abdille Hassan belonged—assumed prominence. Although, as
in the Eastern Sudan, modernist opinion today is often strongly
opposed to the excessive veneration of saints and the exaggerated
regard in which some holy men are traditionally held, the Orders
continue to play an important role in the lives of the majority.
(c) EAST AFRICA

If authentic sources for retracing the early history of Islam

in North-East Africa leave much to be desired there is little
improvement as we move farther south into the East African
coastal zone proper. Here the earliest known local inscription
is the dedication of the mosque in Kizimkazi in southern Zanzibar,
13 See Lewis, 1965(a), pp. 63-91.
14 The Qadiriyya is the oldest Order in Islam, It was founded by Sayyid
‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, who died in Baghdad in a.p, 1166 and whose name is
celebrated throughout the Muslim world,
10 Introduction
ict
which dates as late as A.D. 1107. Moreover, there is some confl
the
between such documentary evidence as may be gleaned from
early Arab geographers’ and the results of recent archaeological
ue
excavation; Ibn Battuta, for example, describing the chief mosq
of Kilwa as a wooden structure in 1332, whereas archaeologists
18
conclude that it must have been made of stone at this time.
Equally, although the local Swahili chronicles appear at first
sight to promise much, it must not be forgotten that their com-
position cannot generally be securely dated before the nineteenth
century. Nevertheless, it is commonly accepted that the Kilwa
Chronicle giving the date of Kilwa’s foundation as A.D. 957 is
probably the most reliable.
Yet although much is thus left in obscurity and doubt, certain
broad trends can be distinguished. In the first place, in contrast
to the circumstances of the implanting of Islam in the Eastern
Sudan and Horn, where the tides of population movement seem
generally to have favoured the advance of the faith, in East
Africa the case is very different. Here, as a whole, the trend of
population movement seems mostly to have been from the non-
Muslim hinterland—as with the mysterious Zimba incursions
of the sixteenth century, and with the predatory movements of
the Galla in the northern sector of the area a little later. These
and the ultimately paralysing effect of the Portuguese presence
dealt a severe blow to the Shirazi and largely Persian-inspired
coastal culture. Henceforth the dominant Muslim influence was
from the Hadramaut, and this ensured the overwhelming pre-
valence of the Shafi‘i School of Law.
Secondly, as the Kilwa Chronicle and other sources seem to
emphasize, the centre of gravity of early Muslim settlement was
not so much on the coast itself as on the offshore islands, the
Comores, Zanzibar, and Pemba. And despite the exploitation
by Arab traders of the resources in gold, ivory, and slaves of
the interior, there seems until recent times little evidence of any
powerful politico-economic Muslim centres in the distant
hinterland. Indeed, apart from the connexions of Sofala with the
15 For a recent examination of these sources see Trimingham, 1964, pp. I-18.
16 Kirkman, 1954. See also Chittick, 1963.
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 11
|

Rhodesian mines, only apparently towards the end of the

eighteenth century did Muslim traders regularly frequent the
far interior.
From early times until the nineteenth century, therefore,
Islam seems to have remained an important force only on the
islands and along the coast. Its diffusion along such inland trade-
routes as existed must be assumed to have been discouraged both
by the nature of the terrain and its lack of large centres of popula-
tion and resources sufficient to attract the serious attention of the
Arab merchant. For, unlike West and North-East Africa, there
were few large-scale centralized kingdoms in the far interior to
serve as foci of economic interest, and the diffusion of Islam by
other means was hampered by the prevailing currents of popula-
tion movement. Moreover, such traffic as there was seems to have
been directed mainly towards the satisfaction of outside markets,
and carried out largely by slavers in a manner which was hardly
conducive to the reciprocal flow of goods characteristic of trade
elsewhere.
The impact of the hinterland on the coast, rather than the
opposite trend, is reflected in the structure of the Swahili language
with its rich store of Bantu roots. This is also apparent in the
distinctive character of Swahili culture as a whole, with its
unique synthesis of Bantu and Perso-Arab elements in no sense
a pale replica of Arabian civilization. In East Africa, consequently,
the prototype of the local Muslim is not the Arab, but the Swahili,
and new Arab settlers, as much as Africans from the interior,
have to adopt Swahili culture before they can gain acceptance
as members of this coastal society.”
Originally, the Shirazi-Swahili area probably extended
northwards at least as far as Brava, which, with its Swahili
dialect ‘Chimbalazi’, thus formed a bridge between the Islam
of North-East Africa and that of the East African coast. From
the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries Mogadishu and Kilwa
seem to have shared the distinction of being the most important
towns on the coast, Kilwa exerting a fitful control over the
17 For a recent examination of the character of Swahili culture see Lyndon
Harries, 1964, and also Arens, 1975.
12 Introduction
after,
lucrative gold trade through Sofala to the south. There
enth century there
Pate assumed prominence; and by the fifte
littoral
were at least thirty-seven towns established along the
from Kilwa in the south to Mogadishu in the north.’
their
Notwithstanding the obscurity which still surrounds
different
detailed political history, it is now clear that the many
rent times
circles of alliance which these towns assumed at diffe
Kilwa,
scarcely approached the mythical ‘Zanj Empire’, based on
the
of nineteenth-century tradition.1® Moreover, the arrival of
ided
Portuguese in the fifteenth century appears to have coinc
ation,
with the period of greatest local turbulence and disorganiz
centres to
the combined effect of which was to reduce the coastal
devas-
isolated outposts or deserted ruins. It was only after this
fusion of
tation, probably in the seventeenth century, that the
onent,
various ethnic elements, with their strong Bantu comp
took place in the new synthesis of Swahili culture and society.
e for
By this time, Mombasa had become the strategic centr
until
the entire Swahili coast and continued to enjoy this position
the Omani conquests. Finally, after the Portuguese withdrawal,
nes
fom the middle of the eighteenth century Mombasa’s fortu
again began to improve until the rise of Zanzibar in the nine-
teenth century.
Throughout this long era of Muslim influence, essentially
restricted to the coast and islands, the whole area’s history is
fundamentally maritime, with occasional eruptions from the
hinterland inimical to Islam. All this has naturally left its mark
on East African Islam, which, besides its Swahili setting, remains
largely town-based, poly-ethnic in spirit, and directed towards
the formation and development of urban commercial enterprise
rather than profoundly embedded in the exclusivistic social
structures of the peoples of the interior. In conformity with this,
the main local shrines of saint veneration are on the coast, as for
example at Lamu; but in any case the cult of saints does not seem
to have achieved an importance comparable to that in North-
East Africa. Nor has the assimilation of lineage ancestors to Sufi
18 See Mathew, 1963. 19 See Freeman—Grenville, 1962.
20 Prins, 1961, pp. 44 ff.
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 13
saints, typical of that region, occurred here on the same scale.?4
The tarigas, of which the Qadiriyya has the largest following, are
also largely limited to the coast, and do not seem to figure as
prominently in local Islam as in the Eastern Sudan and Horn.”
Finally, as has already been indicated, the principal Law
School is undoubtedly that of Shafi‘i; but the Ibadi code is
important in Zanzibar, where it was introduced with the ruling
Arab class from Oman. Alone of the regions dealt with in this
book, East Africa has also a substantial Shi‘a community com-
posed almost exclusively of relatively recent Indian and Pakistani
immigrants.

(d) CENTRAL AFRICA AND THE CONGO

With central Africa we enter a more peripheral zone in which
Muslim influence today is slight, but where there is some vestigial
indication of a once larger Islamic presence brought chiefly by
Arab and Swahili traders. It has been claimed, for instance, that
Muslim influence in the form of “Bantuized Perso-Arabs or Indo-
Arabs’ made itself felt in the Karanga kingdom of what is today
Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) as early as the tenth century, and that by
the sixteenth, when the Portuguese dislodged the Arab settlement
at Sena on the Zambezi there were several thousand Arabs settled
in the Karanga provinces.2? While it is not improbable that
further discoveries may corroborate these indications and reveal
other evidence of early Muslim penetration of these areas, there
seems little doubt that such importance as it had was checked
decisively by the Portuguese.
What remained of Arab influence after this time lay dormant
until the nineteenth century, when the stimulus of Zanzibari
interest and the new demand for slaves on the coast inaugurated
a new expansion of Muslim trading ventures. Thus, by the
1830s, as Dr. Cunnison has shown,”4 Arab traders from Zanzibar
were firmly ensconced among the Lunda. Indeed, by 1882/3
these merchants seeking ivory and slaves, having occupied the
21 This, of course, is partly to be expected in view of differences in social
structure between the regions.
22 For a recent survey of the main Orders, see Trimingham, 1964, pp. 93-103.
23 Abraham, 1961, p. 212. 24 Cunnison, 1963.
14 Introduction
Maniema region in North East Zaire, had opened a post at
Stanley Falls, and by 1889 had reached the neighbourhood of
Lake Albert.25 Their most westerly post was at Isangi, across the
Lomami from Stanley Falls. While their interests were evidently
primarily commercial, these Muslim traders found it convenient
to build up a loose-knit organizational network which did,
incipiently at least, exert some wider religious and political effect.
Leopold II’s colonizing action in the Congo, as Fr. Ceulemans
shows,26 at first took advantage of this Arab presence and thus
temporarily strengthened its impact.
The nineteenth-century renewal of Muslim activity was not
only centred on Zanzibar, nor was it merely commercial. In the
same period this region was also subjected to pressure aiming
at Muslim conquest from the north. This came first from the
Egyptians pushing southwards towards Lake Victoria; and then
from the Sudanese Mahdists, who in 1894 briefly established
themselves on the Upper Uele; and finally, also from the Muslim
ruler of Ndele to the north-west. This latter-day resurgence of
Muslim interest, however, was too long delayed and came at a
most unpropitious time for successful consummation. The col-
lapse of the Mahdists, and the strong measures taken by the
European powers, of whom the British particularly were at this
time naturally enough obsessed by fears of Islamic dominion
and Mahdism, nipped the new efflorescence in the bud. Islam’s
advance was sharply arrested; and many tribes proceeded to
relinquish those elements of Muslim dress and accoutrement
which, in emulation of the Arabs and Sudanese, they had begun
to adopt. Only in parts of Tanzania and among the Yao of
Malawi was the influence of Islam sustained on any substantial
scale.
Subsequently, Islam seems to have made little notable advance.
Partly, no doubt, this is to be ascribed to the association of the
Christian missions in Malawi with African nationalism and
to the unfavourable political circumstances of the immigrant
Asian communities who have been Islam’s chief recent protago-
nists. More fundamentally, however, account must also be taken
25 See Ceulemans, in Jslam, 1st ed., pp. 174-176. 26 [bid., pp. 180-187.
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 15
of the fact that the area is one in which matrilineal descent is
strongly entrenched, as the prevailing traditional system followed
in the inheritance of property and in succession to office. For
while, as will be discussed more fully presently, matrilineal
descent favours rather than hinders the initial establishment of
immigrant Muslim dynasties, it can scarcely be said to facilitate
the wider diffusion of the principles of Muslim inheritance which
emphasize patrilineal kinship ties at the expertse of matrilineal
connexions. Consequently, although in Central Africa Islam has
certainly gained a foothold, it can scarcely be said to have pene-
trated very deeply, despite the considerable extension of Swahili
as a lingua franca. In so far as it was introduced mainly from the
East African caast, its features are similar to those of Swahili
Islam, the local element distinguishing Muslim ritual in Tanzania
being the jando circumcision ceremonies.?’ Tariga affiliation is
hardly widely significant, although among the Yao denomin-
ational cleavages are of some significance.?8
(ec) WEST AFRICA
Islam entered this region mainly from the northern Sahara,
its southward advance being facilitated by traffic and movements
of population in the same general direction. Thus, as in the North-
East, in West Africa also there was a wide early proliferation of
Muslim influence in the interior of the region which was directly
connected with the foundation and expansion of trading states,
and eventually produced a series of local distinctive Muslim
cultures. Unlike the Horn and Eastern Sudan, however, Islam
was not spread mainly by Arabs, even initially, but rather by
other Muslim and only partly Arabized peoples. Unquestionably
the most influential of these were the Berbers, whose prominent
role ensured the dominance of Maghribi influence throughout
most of Muslim West Africa.
Despite certain important lacunae, a broad chronological
framework for the history of the spread of Islam in the later
medieval empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay has now been
27 See Trimingham, 1964, pp. 129 ff., and below, p. 111.
28 See Mitchell, 1956, pp. 51-2.
16 Introduction

proposed.2® While it is evident that Muslim traders of Berber and

Arab affiliation had earlier opened considerable settlements,
such as the merchants’ quarter associated with the capital of
Ghana described in the travellers’ reports compiled by the
Moorish geographer Al-Bakri in 1067, it was apparently not until
the eleventh century that the ruling dynasties came to adopt
Islam.3° This striking advance in the political domain must be
ascribed to the far-reaching effects of the rise of the Almoravid
sect, which, particularly through its adherence to the Maliki
School of Law predominant throughout West Africa, has lefta firm
imprint. The zealous followers of this early messianic movement
conquered Ghana in 1076, and perhaps also won the Mali dynasty
for Islam, and finally left evidence of their presence in Songhay in
the tombs at Gao.*! In the same crucial period also, the rulers of
Kanem-Bornu seem to have accepted Islam, although in this case
the predominant Muslim stimulus came across the central Sahara
and derived ultimately from Arabia rather than from the Maghrib.
While much remains to be discovered of the internal Muslim
history of these great Niger states, the general outline of their
subsequent fortunes is well established. In the first half of the
thirteenth century Mali began to replace Ghana after that state’s
decline and eclipse at the hands of the Almoravids.*? The rise to
renown of the Songhay empire under Sunni ‘Ali in the fifteenth
century was even more directly at the expense of the predecessor
power, Mali. Songhay and its sphere of Muslim influence was in
turn largely destroyed by the abortive Moroccan attempt to
gain direct control of the Western Sudan in the sixteenth century.33
This fierce intrusion, however, though it overwhelmed Songhay,
developed in time into a new local centre for the spread of Islam.
29 For a recent appraisal, see Trimingham, 1962; Mauny, 1961; and also
Pageard, 1962.
30 Although as far as Songhay is concerned Al-Muhallabi, quoted in Yaqut
(Mu jam al-buldan), describes its rulers as Muslim at the end of the tenth century
31 See Sauvaget, 1950, and Vire, 1959.
82 The Arab traveller Ibn Battuta spent about eight months in Mali and a
month at Gao in the middle of the fourteenth century. His direct observations
are reported in his Tuhfat al-nuzzar.
88 And it is in this and the following century that the two most important
local chronicles were composed—Mahmud Kati’s, Ta’rikh al-fattash (sixteenth
century) and Al-Sa‘di’s, Ta’rikh al-Sudan (seventeenth century).
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 17
Already, probably in the fourteenth century, both Kanem and
Mali had contributed significantly to the introduction of Islam
in the Hausa chiefdoms. And about the same time groups of
largely non-Muslim Fulani nomads seem to have begun their
gradual penetration of Hausaland, although the full import of
their presence was not dramatically realized until the jihads of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In the regions peripheral to the great states of Senegal, the
Middle Niger, and Chad the importance of the Islamic factor
prior to the nineteenth century may have been underestimated,
although a final assessment will have to be postponed until
further evidence has been uncovered. In Senegambia on the
Atlantic coast the records of the Portuguese explorers Cada Mosto
in the mid-fifteenth century and Pacheco Pereira in the sixteenth
suggest that already Islam had secured some hold on the Tokolor,
Wolof, and Malinke, and not only among the ruling dynasties—
although clerics were still largely foreigners (Arabs and Sanhaja).
Among the Yoruba in the seventeenth century too, as Bivar and
Hiskett have recently shown,4 Muslim communities were appa-
rently established. In Mossi the settlement of Muslim Yarse was
deliberately encouraged, a number of Mossi kings themselves
adopting Islam in the eighteenth century.*°
Such influence also extended into the regions comprehended in
modern Ghana, where from the fourteenth century the activities
of Muslim Dyula traders played a major role in disseminating
Islam. A century later certain of these intrepid entrepreneurs
reached the Guinea coast itself. It was their influence which
secured the late-sixteenth-century conversion of the Gonja
aristocracy, where Muslims came to constitute one of the estates
of the realm, and a century later those of Dagomba and Mam-
prussi. Finally, in Ashanti itself, although traditional opposition
prevented the Muslim faith gaining acceptanceas the state religion,
the King Osei Kwame was converted about 1780.*®
Although some Dyula communities, as in Kotokoli and no
34 BSOAS, 1962.
85 See E. P. Skinner, ‘Islam in Mossi Society’, below pp. 173ff.
86 See Ivor Wilks, ‘The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti in the
early r9th Century’, below, pp. 144ff.
18 Introduction
ance as a vital
doubt elsewhere, shed their faith, their signific
late medieval
factor in the continuity of Muslim influence from the
nineteenth
Niger empires to the jihads of the eighteenth and
Muslim energy
centuries cannot be ignored. Of the great surge of
nineteenth-
and expansion promoted by the eighteenth- and
is the connexion
century reformers, all that need be stressed here
ds of Futas
which seems to have existed between the Fulani jiha ”
nese Mahdia,®
Toro and Jallon, Masina, and Sokoto and the Suda °°
of 1900-20.
and through this movement with the Somali jihad
of these
While in no way questioning the extent to which each
own local
‘protest’? movements must be seen as rooted in its
nstration
circumstances, there can be no more impressive demo
ation and
of the effectiveness of the vital network of communic
the end
sentiment which Islam had succeeded in establishing by
of the nineteenth century.
concerned,
As far as the character of West African Islam is
the law
it is important to note the strong emphasis placed on
the rise of
(here Maliki) as the basis of Islam, its connexion with
ratic rule.
centralized states, and its eventual fulfilment in theoc
d in the
The cult of Muslim saints which is so strongly engraine
spread
Eastern Sudan and North-East Africa is not generally wide
is on
or important. Instead, the local West African emphasis
a
indigenous spirit-possession cults such as that of the Haus
both pheno-
bori, rather than as elsewhere on the co-existence of
ally
mena. Nevertheless, although their esoteric content is gener
not strongly developed, the sarigas have made some impact, their
iy-
most significant representatives being the Qadiriyya and Tijan
Arab
ya. The first of these was brought to Timbuktu by an
was
Kunta shaikh-in the sixteenth century, while the second
er,
introduced some two centuries later in the lifetime of its found
also is
Ahmad al-Tijani of Fez (d. 1815). Of particular interest
ded
the more recent, locally based, Senegal Muridiyya Order foun
This
by Ahmad Bamba (d. 1927) with Qadiriyya associations.
a
has acquired remarkable popularity.°? Elsewhere, the Tijaniyy
37 See Saburi Biobaku and Muhammad al-Hajj, below, pp. 226ff.
38 See Lewis, 1965(@), pp- 63-91.
Monteil, 1962;
89 See Gouilly, 1952, pp- 116-25; and Bourlon, 1962, pp. 53-743
O’Brien, 1971.
 Regional Review of the Distribution and Spread of Islam 19
has rapidly eclipsed the Qadiriyya in the strength of its following,
although the latter retains considerable influence in Northern
Nigeria through the teaching of ‘Uthman dan Fodio. The
Hamallist reformist derivative of the Tijaniyya, named after its
founder’s successor Shaikh Hamallah, whose turbulent career
ended with his death in exile in 1943, has been much less success-
ful.40 Finally, the Indian Ahmadiyya movement, with its strong
missionary emphasis, has introduced a new element of religious
controversy.4t
40 Gouilly, op. cit., pp. 134-61; and Moreau, 1964.
41 See Fisher, 1963.
 II. AGENTS OF ISLAMIZATION

(a) TRADE-ROUTES AND THE SPREAD OF ISLAM

In the previous section we emphasized some of the fortuitous

factors which seem to have aided or impeded the spread of Islam
in different parts of tropical Africa and noted the apparently
crucial significance of the prevailing currents of population
movement and migration. In East Africa the overall pressure of
population shifts ran contrary’ to the direction in which Islam
was spreading; in the Eastern Sudan, North-East Africa, and West
Africa, by contrast, the tides of population movement and Muslim
influence broadly coincided—with the results we have seen.
We also saw the importance of nomadism asa factor in the dis-
semination of Islam. We now turn to consider the significance of
trade and proselytization as more direct agencies in the spread
of Islam through much of tropical Africa.
It is not always easy to distinguish between the Islamizing
role of Muslim traders, on the one hand, and of teachers and holy
men, on the other, since these two activities are often associated
in Muslim communities and regularly combined in the same
person. Nevertheless, it is useful to begin consideration of the
means by which Islam has penetrated into and spread in tropical
Africa by examining the direction and character of long-distance
trade, which, in some areas certainly, only made its appearance
with the faith. Here, at the outset, it is important to appreciate that,
despite the Islamic prescriptions on usury (which in any case are
not difficult to circumvent), the Muslim ethic as a whole is
markedly favourable to trade, commerce, and industry. ‘These in-
deed are all regarded as eminently respectable activities, and their
practice in Africa has been favoured by the supra-ethnic ethos of
Islam, its common procedures and values, and the use of Arabic
as a means of commercial communication and account-keeping.
The main routes followed in the expansion of Muslim trade
were often those which already linked tropical Africa with the
 Agents of Islamization . 21
Mediterranean and Arabia, and which in previous ages had
carried some Mediterranean influence as far as the Gulf of Guinea.
Thus, by the tenth century the interior of the continent lay
exposed to trade and to Islam along three principal axes: through
North Africa, through the Red Sea coast, and through the ports
of the Indian Ocean. From North Africa the caravan routes
fanned out in three main directions. In the west of the desert
tracks ran from southern Morocco to Mauritariian Adrar, from
the present Algerian—Morocco confines to Wagadu and Ghana
by way of Taodeni, and from southern Algeria to Timbuktu
via Tuat. In the centre, Tunisia was connected with Gao by way
of Ghadames and Air, and from this route subsidiary tracks led
towards Tripoli, and in the south towards Chad. To the east,
the Nile valley was connected with Darfur through Assiut, and
through Darfur with Kanem, while another route led from
Cyrenaica through Kufra to Darfur.
‘Along these well-worn though often hazardous paths passed
the more readily transportable riches of the West African
hinterland: gold from the deposits along the Upper Niger and
Senegal valleys, slaves from most of the area, and ivory, and
kola nuts, and in later periods also ostrich feathers and hides.
These largely luxury exports were exchanged for the more
utilitarian imports of horses, salt, cloth, copper, some metal
weapons, as well as of cowrie shells, beads, and trinkets.!
Although much of its traffic passed northwards through
Egypt, the eastern Sudan had also more direct trading outlets
on the Red Sea coast at Suakin, Badi, and Aydhab. Following the
routes towards these ports, large caravans crossed the eastern
desert to the gold-mines in the Beja country; and particularly
at the time of the Crusades this path, with its western connexions
through Darfur, was favoured by pilgrims from West Africa
and from Egypt on their dangerous and wearisome journey to
Mecca, in the course of which many sought to defray their ex-
penses by engaging in trade on the way and some found a perma-
nent home in the Sudan.
1 On the trade and trade-routes of the Western Sudan, see Bovill, 1933;
and Mauny, op. cit., pp. 228-441.
22 Introduction

Towards the south, through the port of Zeila on the Somali

coast, the line of trade led first to the ancient walled city of Harar
in the Ethiopian highlands, the “Timbuktu of East Africa’ as
Burton described it in the nineteenth century, and thence along
two main paths, one leading westwards towards Shoa and the
Sidamo kingdoms, the other ranging farther south through part
of the Somali Ogaden to the sacred settlement of Shaikh Hussayn
Baliale (dating from at least the sixteenth century) on the Upper
Shebelle valley.2 Besides a host of subsidiary caravan tracks,
other important routes ran from Mogadishu and the other ports
of the Benadir coast up the valley of the Juba River and its
tributaries into south-eastern Ethiopia. Here the traffic in slaves,
ivory, and coffee, as well as in rarer commodities such as civet,
from the Ethiopian’ highlands—augmented by hides and skins,
ghee, ostrich feathers, and myrrh and frankincense from the torrid
pastoral lowlands—passed chiefly through Zeila to the markets
of the East. The goods entering in return included cloth, dates,
tea, iron, weapons, and chinaware, pottery, and glass vessels,
although as in West Africa some of these commodities were also
manufactured locally. Grain from the highlands also descended
along the same routes to the coastal plains, while salt from Lake
Assal was carried far into Ethiopia.*
Finally, farther still to the south from the East African coast
exports consisted chiefly of ivory, timber, tortoise-shell, skins,
ambergris, and gold, as well as the ubiquitous slaves. Here, until
the track from the port of Bagamoyo through Wagogo and
Tabora to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika was opened up in the
nineteenth century, only in the gold trade from the Rhodesian
mines through Sofala did any regular trade-routes reach into the
far interior. This line of commerce and Muslim penetration lay
far to the south of the much more widely ramifying reticula of
trade-routes in the north and west, and the attempts made on
the eve of European colonization by the Muslim slavers and
merchant chiefs to bring this route firmly into the main channel
of Muslim enterprise came too late to alter the general East
African picture of coastal concentration.
2 See Cerulli, 1959, p. 135- 3 See Pankhurst, 1961.
 Agents of Islamization 23
This brief survey is sufficient to indicate the early association
of long-distance trade and the march of Islam, with the con-
sequent implanting of nuclei of Muslim influence, both in the
dispersed centres of wealth and political power and in their
intermediary staging posts. From Mali, Songhay, and Kanem-
Bornu through Darfur and Sennar to the Muslim states of the
north-east, all the main centres of trade were strongly influenced
by Islam. In the Eastern Sudan, however, Where Islam came
initially with the Arab tribal migrations from Egypt, trade was a
less crucial though by no means negligible vehicle for the
dissemination of the faith. And finally, the vital general signifi-
cance of the trading factor in the spread of Islam is especially
apparent in the case of the East African interior, where, prior
to the nineteenth century, there was to all intents and purposes
neither trade nor Islam.
(b) TRADERS AND THEIR ORGANIZATION
The next step in tracing the concurrent extension of trade
and Islam is to distinguish the particular ethnic groups principally
involved, the character of their commercial interests, and their
internal social organization, as well as their relations with the
non-Muslim communities in which they settled and with which
they did business. While in North Africa and on the East African
coast especially, Persians and Arabs (and much later Indians;
and in West Africa particularly, Syrians and Lebanese, etc.),
and the medley of mixed communities to which they gave rise
by intermarriage with local peoples, played an important part,
due attention must also be paid to the crucial role, above all
through the caravan trade, of the great camel-owning non-Arab
nomads such as the Berbers in North-West Africa and the
Somali and ‘Afar in the North-East. It was these latter who
provided the main link in the chain of trade connexions over
vast areas of the continent. And despite the lack, over much of
the distances covered by the major routes, of any single uniform
rule of peace and order, a system of safe-passage and commercial
patronage existed which, though by no means free from extor-
tion, enabled the traffic to flow and ensured its carriers some
24 Introduction
measure of protection from the dangers of brigandage and
banditry.
By these means the territories customarily occupied by
independent and frequently mutually hostile peoples, however
uncentralized their political organization and free-ranging their
movements, could be regularly traversed. At each stage in the
journey as the caravan left one sphere of political influence to
move into another, agents were hired, preferably from the most
influential groups, whose patronage ensured the support of their
kinsmen and provided the members of the caravan with tempo-
rary rights of citizenship in the area concerned. This system of
safe-conduct was paralleled in the arrangements applied to foreign
Arab and Persian merchants in the ports of the Red Sea and
Indian Ocean coast, where, at least in the Somali area, prominent
local figures were engaged to act as patrons and protectors
(abbans) to ensure their employers the co-operation and support
of their clansmen in case of need.4
As well as these nomads converted to Islam who found in
long-distance trade an attractive and profitable supplement to
pastoralism, a number of other indigenous peoples in West
Africa developed highly specialized commercial organizations
associated with Islam which, though operating often on a smaller
scale, also contributed much to the promotion of the new religion.
Of special significance here were the Hausa and the Karimiya
(of Kanem) in the east, and the Dyula on the marches of the
Mande empire farther to the west. Although little is yet known of
the details of their early trading organization and of their part
in the extension of Islam at different periods, some conception
of their significance may be indicated bya brief consideration of
the Dyula.
The name Dyula, which in Malinke means ‘trader’, is a generic
term used today to refer to a number of Malinke-speaking
Muslim named and highly dispersed corporations (such as the
Watara, Turay, Kulibali, Bamba, etc.), specializing in commerce.
4 This system, which is still in operation in some Somali centres, is described
at Mogadishu by Yaqut (twelfth century) and by Ibn Battuta (fourteenth century).
For further information see Lewis, 1961, pp. 186-9.
 Agents of Islamization | 25
Membership of these groups is generally acquired by birth, a son
following his father; although descent is not usually traced to a
common ancestor nor are the groups exogamous. While in many
cases cherishing Arab and sometimes Meccan pedigrees, the
Dyula today seem to trace their origins and early dispersal centre
to the medieval empire of Mali,> from which their outwards
spread apparently gathered momentum from the fourteenth
century. By establishing trading colonies, and sometimes later
states, these Muslim merchants created a wide-flung supra-ethnic
network of trade which, according to the evidence of the Arab
historian Ibn Battuta, had spread widely by the middle of the
fourteenth century, and extended to Hausaland (the Kano
Chronicle), Senegambia, and the Guinea Coast (Portuguese
records) a century later. Through their organization in dispersed
corporations, or guilds, they were able to wield considerable
economic influence within the various states and communities
in which they operated. Thus, an eighteenth-century Dyula
merchant in Timbuktu might well employ agents buying gold
in Ashanti in the south, and others selling it in Fez in North
Africa. In central West Africa, where they met with the Hausa,
the latter similarly enjoyed a virtual monopoly of trade to the
east, working through what are today the states of Nigeria,
Benin (Dahomey), Togo, and Ghana.®
With their large extension and scope, these wide-ranging
Muslim trading communities inevitably command attention. But
we must also take due account of the smaller, more diversified,
and technically specialized communities of Muslim craftsmen,’ of
various origin and provenance, who made themselves indis-
pensable in the main centres of the West African states and
elsewhere as blacksmiths, leather-workers, dyers, and jewellers
(working gold and silver), and in later periods as gunsmiths and
5 Delafosse, 1912, and others have regarded the Dyula as of Soninke origin,
suggesting Masina as their point of dispersion. The view expressed here is
based on Professor Ivor Wilks’ studies on the Dyula in Ghana, the Ivory Coast,
and Upper Volta. See also Levtzion, 1968; Person, 1968.
6 Dr. A. Cohen has recently made an extensive study of contemporary Hausa
trading activities in Southern Nigeria, the results of which should throw new
light on this important topic. See Cohen, 1965, 1968, and Yusuf, 1975.
7 As distinct from indigenous non-Muslim artisans and specialists.
26 Introduction

artificers. Characteristic examples of these economically special-

ized Muslim nuclei are to be found in the Kotokoli of Togo,
the Bauba of Benin, and in the kalmashubbe goldsmiths of
such ancient centres at Harar and Mogadishu in North-East
Africa. Being less mobile, these small immigrant craft communities
tended to settle more permanently among non-Muslim popula-
tions, and marrying with their hosts, or certain classes of them at
least, must often have produced a more enduring impression.
They and those other Muslim immigrants who lived as permanent
residents in their adopted communities often acted as agents and
retailers, and as brokers and bankers for their more mobile co-
religionists, fulfilling a vital service in the collection and dis-
semination of market intelligence. Where the majority of their
hosts remained attached to traditional religious beliefs, such
Muslim minorities with the women they had married locally
occupied a distinctive and relatively self-contained quarter of a
town; or, if their numbers warranted it, formed their own urban
aggregation separate from the traditional political capital.
Throughout much of tropical Africa these ethnically diverse
Muslim traders and craftsmen seem often to have been the first
bearers of Islam and to have at least prepared the ground for a
later expansion of their faith, even where they made no efforts
at direct proselytization. Although all too little is yet known of
the initial impact made by them in particular areas and circum-
stances, or of their social relations with their hosts, the attention
attracted by their practice of the outward Muslim devotions and
the effect of their confidence in the superior spiritual power of
Islam in healing the sick, in ensuring the fertility of women and
crops, and in averting the dangers of witchcraft and sorcery can
be gauged from the regard in which they are held in those regions
in which Islam is spreading today. At the same time, we know
how in many cases such immigrant Muslim commercial colonies
sought, for the most part successfully, to gain the benevolent
protection and patronage of their local rulers. However damaging
to the position of traditional ritual experts and cult-leaders who
naturally sought to preserve their authority, such support
inevitably enhanced the standing of the new religion and culture
 Agents of Islamization 27
of which these Muslim immigrants were the bearers. It did not,
of course, ensure its success. There are many examples of the
strong traditional reaction which this provoked, sweeping away
with it in some cases rulers who, with miscalculated enthusiasm,
had too warmly espoused the cause of Islam.®
(c) TEACHERS AND HOLY MEN
If for so many parts of tropical Africa Muslim traders must
be regarded as those who first blazed the trail for the eventual
extension of Islam, it was the holymen and teachers who accom-
panied and followed them, or they themselves in this guise, who
were left with the task of consolidating the process of religious
conversion. Widely separated in space and time, by teaching and
practice, by their mystical powers (daraka) claimed for and
attributed to them, as mediators in secular as well as religious
affairs, and with their additional advantage as participators in a
written culture whose mysteries were only available directly to
the literate, these sturdy protagonists of Islam came to exercise
a remarkable effect in the communities upon which they impinged
and into which they often married. Wherever trade or migration
established new Muslim communities, teachers were required to
train the young and to direct the religious life of the faithful.
This was all the more necessary where commercial infiltration
had sewn the seed of Islam more widely, and those turning
towards the new religion sought advice and guidance, and not
merely in the religious and ritual spheres.
On this basis the celebrated ‘Abdallah ibn Yassin, founder of
the Moravids, launched his mission, at first unsuccessful, among
the Sanhaja in the eleventh century; similarly, the Fung kings
encouraged holy men from the Hijaz to settle among them as
teachers from the fourteenth century; and Mansa Musa imported
sharifs to teach Islam in Mali a century later. The same century
witnessed a wholesale influx of Fulani clerics into Hausaland; and
the Qadiriyya Order made its first appearance in West Africa,
where it was introduced at Timbuktu by the Moorish teacher
‘Umar al-Bakka’i (d. 1553) of the Kunta tribe. About the same
8 See, e.g., below, pp. 37-8.
28 Introduction

this time Order was also apparently established from Aden by

Sharif Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abdallah al-‘Aydarus (d. 1503) at Harar in
North-East Africa, where the thrusting Muslim states led by
Ifat had already attracted considerable numbers of teachers from
Arabia, as well as producing their own.
The arrival of such foreign proselytizers as these, usually
in the wake of trade, and many others with a less-widespread
impact, such, for example, as Sharif Yusuf ibn Ahmad al-
Kawneyn, who probably in the twelfth century gave a new
impetus to Islam among the Somali nomads, or Muhammad
al-Ja‘ali, who brought the faith to the Nuba Hills about 1530,1°
soon gave rise to thriving local centres of Muslim learning and
scholarship, of which the best known were Djenne and Timbuktu
in the west and Harar in the east. This gave a self-perpetuating
character to the new religion; for each great shaikh produced
scores of teachers, each of whom in turn, as his reputation grew,
built up a large following of local pupils. Lacking any formal
hierarchy beyond the loose organizations of clergy associated
with the Religious Orders and with no exclusivistic tradition of
expatriate appointment, there was little or no barrier to the
recruitment and training of local teachers to spread the faith.
Whether or not this growth of an indigenous clergy neces-
sarily introduced an entirely new occupational category—for
the analogies perceived in many regions between Muslim holy-
men and traditional ritual experts must not be overlooked—it
often provided in societies where Islam was expanding success-
fully a new line of social advancement, especially for those of
traditionally low status. In other more deliberate ways, too, many
of these early fathers of African Islam made great efforts to make
their message readily comprehensible, explaining the Quran,
hadiths, and Shari‘a in the local vernacular, and often encouraging
the transcription of the vernacular in the Arabic script, as, for
example, among the Wolof,!! Hausa, Swahili, and Somali. Not
every great teacher, perhaps, went as far as Sharif Yusuf ibn
Ahmad al-Kawneyn in Somaliland, who, eight centuries ago,
® See below. 10 See R. C. Stevenson, in Jslam, 1st ed., p. 209.
11 See V. Monteil, below, pp. 166-72.
 Agents of Islamization } 29
developed a Somali notation for the Arabic short vowels which
considerably aided the teaching of Arabic, and is still in use
today. Nevertheless, whatever the methods used, there soon
developed throughout tropical Africa an extensive indigenous
cadre of clergy and areligious literary tradition which, whether
in Arabic or in a written or oral vernacular is in many regions
as yet far from being adequately recorded, far less systematically
studied. Such records, as well as revealing the local bias of
religious interest—hagiologies clearly occupying a central place
in the Eastern Sudan and Horn of Africa—also offer a unique
source of information on a wide range of historical topics.1?
Whatever the ethnic affiliation of clerics, however, their
contemporary image in the popular mind as custodians of Muslim
charisma, through their access to the mystically charged symbols
of Islam, particularly the Quran, and their ritual functions widely
applied to healing the sick and preventing or assuaging misfor-
tune, as well as soothsaying, by means of Quranic charms,
talismans, and prophylactics, indicates without doubt one range
of their activities which has made a singular impression and
attracted followers. Examples of this well-known aspect of the
role of the Muslim cleric will be found in many of the papers in
this book. We need only pause here to refer to the unusual
situation among the partially Muslim Mossi, where traditional
diviners would seem to be undermining their own position by
attributing cases of barrenness in pagan women to the refusal of
children to be born except as Muslims.1% Elsewhere, the ritual
aspects of Islam as a source of mystical power, and the activities
of clerics as its principal agents, have, of course, at many times
and in many places led to bitter conflict with traditional ritual
experts. And it is only where other factors have been favourable
that the resulting tension and conflict have been resolved in a
new extension of Islam.
Probably the most militantly proselytizing achievements of
teachers and clerics have been those associated with the Sufi
12 See T. Hodgkin, in Js/am, 1st ed., pp. 443ff.
18 See E. P. Skinner, below, pp. 183ff. Cf. the production of ‘therapeutic
Muslims’ among the Giriama where certain spirit-caused illnesses can only be
cured by conversion to Islam. See Parkin, 1972.
30 Introduction
Orders. As we have seen, the earliest and most deep-rooted
development of Sufism in Muslim tropical Africa occurred in the
eastern Sudan and in North-East Africa, while in West Africa
the two most popular Orders—the Qadiriyya and Tijanityya—
only seem to have become widely significant towards the end of
the eighteenth century on the eve of the Fulani chads. This
contrast and the accompanying disparity in the importance and
popularity of Muslim saint cults must be regarded, in part at
least, as the outcome of the adaptation of Islam to differing local
circumstances in the three areas. In West Africa the early associa-
tion of Islam with centralized states, and the continuity of Muslim
state power, appear to have favoured an emphasis on the legalistic
elements of Islam. But in the less-centralized conditions of much
of North-East Africa and the eastern Sudan, at least over long
periods of time, the Sufistic aspects have achieved a greater
prominence and elaboration. This is a question of considerable
theoretical interest, to which we shall return at a later stage in this
introduction, when we consider the interaction of traditional
and Muslim beliefs in a wider context.
Although the arresting impact of the more obvious ritual and
magico-religious activities of holymen should not be minimized,
it is equally important not to lose sight of the other more secular
roles which clerics soon came to exercise as they began to pene-
trate non-Muslim communities. For the authority which they
frequently gained here was no less significant in the consolidation
and entrenchment of Islam. Many instances are on record of
malams and shaikhs acting as negotiators and mediators, both
internally—particularly in uncentralized societies—and _ exter-
nally, where in kingdoms and chiefdoms their knowledge of
Arabic and participation in the para-ethnic culture of Islam made
them especially valuable as agents and emissaries in external
affairs. Such mediation clearly tended to foster some wider
application of the Shari‘a and helped to enhance the value in
local eyes of the sources of Muslim Law. As scribes too, in
centralized societies, we find such men performing accounting
and other administrative functions, including the recording of
court cases; and also acting more generally as advisers, where
 Agents of Islamization | 31
their far-flung connexions and contacts were evidently of great
practical value. And, at least in the early stage of Islamization,
as a neutral element in local affairs, the small group of Muslims
under a ruler’s patronage were eminently suitable for recruitment
as members of his personal bodyguard. These are some of the
more secular positions for which their special status as members
of a minority group with its own distinctive culture made
Muslim clerics and their followers peculiarly appropriate. Some-
times, of course, the original motive which set this process in
train may have amounted to little more than the attraction of
appointing a Muslim man of letters to adorn a non-Muslim court.
Despite tantalizing glimpses of the circumstances in which
these early Muslim clerics sought to enlarge the hold of their
faith, whether in centralized or uncentralized societies, there are
few cases recorded in sufficient detail to permit thorough analysis
and understanding of the full interplay of traditional and Muslim
interests, which led in some cases to the furthering of Islam and
in others to its frustration. In this volume something of the
shifting character of the relations between Muslim minority and
traditional communities, or partly converted established
authorities, is revealed in Mr. Hunwick’s study of the reign of
the Songhay King Askia Muhammad;1* and witha corresponding-
ly greater wealth of detail, in Dr. Wilks’ reconstruction of the
more recent relations between Shaikh Baba and the Ashanti
King and court in the nineteenth century,” a situation strongly
reminiscent of the position of Shaikh Ahmad ibn Ibrahim at the
Court of the Baganda Kabakain the same period.1® These instances
suggest that it was the utilitarian and organizational aspects of
Muslim expertise as much as the religious and ritual qualities of
Muslim holymen and teachers which appealed to traditional
rulers. If present conditions among peoples such as the Oromo’
and Somali!§ are anything to go by, it may be presumed that in
uncentralized societies it was often the ritual activities and arbitrat-
ing and mediatory role of Muslim clerics which attracted most
attention and interest.
14 See below, pp. 132-42. 15 See below, pp. 144-63. 16 See Gray, 1947.
17 See P. T. W. Baxter, in Js/am, 1st ed., pp. 233-50. 18 See below, pp. 240-52.
 Ill. ISLAM AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

(a) ISLAM IN UNCENTRALIZED SOCIETIES

At first sight it might seem that uncentralized political systems,

lacking any single focus of power, would be more likely to
lie open to the influence of external cultural forces and innova-
tions—whether in response to Islam or to other new stimuli—
than politically centralized states shielded from penetration by a
tightly woven structure of government and administration.
From a different standpoint, however, it might be argued with
equal cogency, as indeed it has often been assumed, that central-
ized states with a single authority to mediate the impact of foreign
cultural influence, would be in a better position to accept and
apply novel ideas and practices. This latter presumption would
seem all the more plausible in the present context in view of the
elaborate character of Islamic Law as a theocratic system, origin-
ating in urban conditions, and particularly appropriate to the
needs and requirements of centralized administration. Certainly,
in uncentralized societies it would be difficult to envisage the
ready comprehension and general application of the Shari'a as
a legal system, without the introduction of radical and far-
reaching modifications. This, in turn, would suggest that
centralized polities would assimilate the legal ordinances of Islam
more readily, and with less dislocation, than traditional societies
without chiefs and centralized authority. At the very least, there-
fore, we should expect to find different patterns of accommoda-
tion in the two contrasting types of political system.
What, however, are the facts? In West Africa, notwithstanding
the equivocal role of the Fulani—once resistant to Islam and later
its most vigorous and radical proselytizers—the history of Muslim
penetration and expansion is, by and large, the story of the
actions and attitudes towards Islam assumed by the rulers of
centralized or relatively centralized states. To some extent, no
doubt, this reflects the high incidence of centralized political
 Islam and Political Systems | 33
organizations in traditional West Africa. But the significance of
chiefs in the spread of Islam is also strongly suggested by the
marked lack of response to Muslim influence evinced by uncen-
tralized agricultural peoples in the interior of Guinea and the
Ivory Coast, and more familiar to English readers, by the
Tallensi, notwithstanding the close proximity of strong centres
of Muslim radiation. When, moreover, circumstances in East
Africa are included in the discussion the inéffectual Muslim
penetration of its hinterland prior to the nineteenth century seems
to lend additional substance to the argument linking the presence
of chiefs with Islamization. For unlike West Africa, few of this
region’s traditional societies were organized in powerful states.
Yet, despite this not inconsiderable weight of evidence, even
within the parts of Africa dealt with in this book, we cannot
ignore the completely contrary reactions of the acephalous
Muslim Somali, those of the Oromo who are Muslim, and a host
of other uncentralized Muslim peoples in Eritrea and the eastern
Sudan. If, moreover, we go beyond these limits and also take into
account the pastoral nomads of North Africa and Arabia we find
a further range of uncentralized societies whose acceptance of
Islam is not in dispute.
From these examples it is ‘abundantly evident that the distinc-
tion between centralized and uncentralized traditional political
systems is not one which is crucial for the diffusion of Islam. Nor,
indeed, can we make any broad generalizations as to the readiness
or ease with which societies in either category will accept Islam.
Once trade or migration has brought Islam into contact with
traditional societies, whatever their political type, the subsequent
trend of events would seem to depend in large measure on the
effect of such other attendant variables as demographic factors—
particularly those associated with population pressure and
expansion; prevailing patterns of economic interest; and com-
munity ethos and values in the widest sense.
In pointing to the significance of these factors, we are prompted
by what is known of the circumstances in which such uncentral-
ized peoples as the Arab Bedouin, Berbers, and Somali and
other Hamites have come to adopt Islam. Among such egalitarian
34 Introduction
and habitually warring pastoral nomads, especially in conditions
of acute pressure of population on resources, and consequent
expansion and migration, Islam, acquaintance with which is
rapidly diffused by the high degree of geographical mobility and
interaction characteristic of these societies, has been warmly
embraced as an enhancement to a people’s solidarity and exclusive-
ness. And with its appealing summons to the jihad, the new faith
had readily been accepted as both a spur to, and ajustification for,
further expansion and conquest. Thus, ethnic congeries, such as
the Somali, lacking any single fount of political authority but
possessing a strong diffuse sense of cultural identity, have found
in Islam new support for their traditional sentiments of ethnic
exclusiveness and superiority. Nor is it merely in such cases
that cultural identity is buttressed by Islam. More tangibly, and
at least as significantly, through the adoption of the Shari'a
system of blood-compensation payments these societies have
acquired a novel method of compounding delicts and settling
disputes which both permits and encourages the formation of
wider political cohesion.
The influence of such provisions of the Shari‘a as are applied
in other spheres of customary law will be discussed in a later
section of this introduction.! Here we need only note in passing
that such acephalous societies as the Somali, and particularly
those with a strongly delineated clan and lineage organization,
have found it possible to adopt more than the minimal criteria
of Muslim identity—the ‘five pillars of the faith’*—-while rejecting
or disregarding many of the more detailed prescriptions of Islamic
Law. Indeed, as will be argued later, it is here that the Sufistic
(i.e. mystical) interpretation of Islam often affords an attractive
avenue for Islamization where much of the apparatus of the state
ordinances of the Shari‘a would be inappropriate. In more central-
ized conditions, on the contrary, we should expect to find that as
the process of Islamization gathers force and momentum there
should develop a selective bias towards the application of the more
1 See below, pp. 45-57.
2 L.e. the profession of the faith; the daily prayers; fasting; the giving of alms;
and pilgrimage to Mecca.
 Islam and Political Systems 35
formally legalistic elements of Muslim Law. That there is indeed
good evidence for this kind of adaptive selection we shall soon
see. It is in this sense, and this sense only, that it becomes meaning-
ful to take into account variations in political centralization, as
in other institutions, in tracing the response of traditional social
structures to Islam. Structural factors alone do not explain why
particular peoples become Muslims while others do not. Rather
they are of crucial importance in understanding the course
followed once Islam has gained a foothold.
(b) ISLAM IN CENTRALIZED SOCIETIES
A number of the studies presented in this book afford revealing
insights into the sorts of recurrent situations which have arisen
with the introduction and expansion of Islam in states and
centralized societies. As with other aspects of the various reactions
and adjustments which occur in these circumstances, the influence
of traditional structural forms and cultural features is always
strongly marked. In contact with Muslim influence, either
through trade or migration, the rulers of traditional states have
shown themselves to be generally receptive to those elements
of Islam and Muslim culture and organization which could be
applied to reinforce and extend their established authority.
Hence, as has been seen, we find traditional rulers in various
stages of conversion to Islam utilizing Muslim functionaries,
as the colonial administrations were to do after them, in a wide
range of roles. At the same time, where in traditional values
kingship has a strong ritual component—and there are few cases
where it does not—Muslim regalia and ritual elements are often
adopted for added lustre and support.
In this way we find Muslim rites adopted in their royal instal-
lation ceremony by the Kayor Wolof in the sixteenth century,’
and spread widely in other West African kingdoms whose courts
were as yet often far from being fully Muslim at this time. Such
initial steps towards a fuller adoption of Islam are likely to be
facilitated in local circumstances where Islam appears as the most
obvious factor which distinguishes a thrusting and successful
8 See V. Monteil, below, pp. 166ff.
36 Introduction
kingdom from its less-dynamic rivals. Equally, of course, though
perhaps not so often as might be anticipated, the advance of
Islam may be retarded or arrested where the new faith, or such
of its ritual elements as have been adopted by a warrior monarch,
is identified with failure and defeat.
Whatever the external circumstances, however, one important
structural principle which might be expected to militate against
the establishment of Islam as the court religion, but seems in
fact generally to have facilitated it, is matriliny. This is particularly
so where Islam has been introduced by a migrant group who,
once married into the ruling matrilineage, have by the local
principle of succession secured dynastic rights in the throne.
The importance of this convenient accession to power is parti-
cularly evident in the eastern Sudan, where the foundation of
immigrant Muslim dynasties by marriage with the reigning
chief’s daughter in matrilineal societies is a theme which occurs
frequently in traditional history.‘
Whether, as in Nubia, by this structural juxtaposition or by
a much slower and more long-drawn-out process of adoption
_and adaptation of Muslim ritual elements, a stage is eventually
reached where the ruling stratum of society becomes increasingly
Muslim, and, as with the rulers of Mali, and later Songhay, Islam
is established as the apanage of aristocracy. Here the acceptance
of Islam as in some sense a royal prerogative necessarily militates
against its unfettered extension throughout the king’s domains.
Thus, we find the Songhay monarch Sunni ‘Ali (1465-92)
seeking to monopolize those Muslim elements with which he
sought to embellish his ritual authority; and his successor Askia
Muhammad (d. 1528) throwing overboard most of the old ritual
panoply of kingship in favour of the baraka, which, like Mansa
Musa of Mali, he had acquired through his pilgrimage to Mecca.®
An extreme though perhaps fortuitous case of this Muslim
ritualization ot monarchy is seen in nineteenth-century Adamawa,
where in some areas non-Muslim subjects regarded their Fulani
rulers as sacred kings, ‘praying and fasting for all their slaves’.®
4 See below, p. 118. >’ See J. O. Hunwick, below, pp. 124ff.
6 See P. F. Lacroix, below, p. 209.
 Islam and Political Systems | 37
There is, however, an important distinction to be made
between rituals of kingship in the old and new sense. Unlike
pre-Islamic royal cults, those elements of Muslim ritual and myth
which are applied to strengthen traditional authority do so only
in a manner which is at once vicarious and accidental, and which
is far from being their sole, or even principal, raison d’étre.”
By its very nature, Islam cannot in the long run be constrained
to serve the interests, or be applied to the exclusive benefit, of
particular kings, aristocracies, or peoples.
From the point of view of the ruler, of course, who sees in
Islam an added vindication of his traditional authority, this
universalistic current points towards the extension of his domin-
ions. And although the dynamic qualities of traditional African
political and ritual ideologies are often underestimated by the
Arabist, Islam unquestionably presents special advantages for
the extension of frontiers, particularly where there is cultural
and linguistic confusion. As Gouilly has expressively put it,
Islam offered those ambitious of power ‘a doctrine, a flag, and an
arm’. But if the challenge was accepted, and the conquests
which followed were successful, the new conversions which
resulted from the extension of Muslim power might be little more
than nominal. For the mass of the new subjects little more might
be involved than acts of submission, vassalage, and clientage.®
But in the march of Islam all was not to the benefit of estab-
lished authority. If Islam could be applied to enhance the legiti-
macy and to strengthen the arm of traditional sovereigns its
universalistic message also inevitably pointed to a wider egalita-
rian fraternity which, in appropriate circumstances, was likely to
encourage subject peoples to rise against their rulers under the
inspiration of popular reformist leaders. Nor was it only in
Muslim ideology that such protests might be phrased. Particularly
in the early stages of the importation of Islamic ritual by kings,
authority might be challenged in the idiom of pagan reaction
against Muslim intrusion. Hence, as Mr. Hunwick observes in
his study of Songhay,1° those rulers who turned to Islam for
7 Cf. Nadel, 1954, p. 233. BNO525 D4.
9 Nadel, op. cit., p. 235. 10 See below, p. 142.
38 Introduction
support and applied the faith to expand their dominions must
always have found it necessary to steer a delicate course between
the forces of Muslim innovation, traditional conservatism, and
the fluctuating attachments of their subjects. This equivocal
position of the innovating Muslim ruler, seeking to mediate
between two partly opposed cultural systems, is, in some respects
akin to that of the administrative chief or headmen under colonial
rule
Thus, Islamic innovation provided—as the examples of Sunni
‘Ali and the Baganda Kabaka Kalema show—as ready a target for
revolution against a ruler, or ruling class, unpopular on other
grounds, as in other circumstances imputed back-sliding afforded
the motive and rallying-cry applied by the Fulani in the over-
throw of their Habe masters. This latter instance, and the peasant
revolts in Adamawa against the Fulbe aristocracy and Muslim
clergy,}? illustrate as much as need be said here of the final levelling
effect of Islam and the politically crucial opportunities which it
creates for social mobility. For once a tradition of reformist
revelation had been created, the legitimacy of the established
Muslim ruler was subject to scrutiny not merely by the clerical
establishment but also, and ultimately more critically, by those
who claimed a new, directly revealed dispensation from God.
(c) THEOCRATIZATION AND MAHDISM

It is, no doubt, a significant indication of the comparatively

superficial character of early West African Islam in comparison
with Islam in the eastern Sudan and North-East Africa that,
notwithstanding the high incidence of centralized states and the
corresponding bias towards a legalistic interpretation of the faith,
true theocracies (or as Trimingham calls them “divine nomo-
cracies’)!3 only made their appearance in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. In tropical Africa as a whole the earliest
instance of a centralized Islamic state seems to have been ninth-
century Ifat, shortly after which the coastal sultanates of Zeila,
Mogadishu, and later Kilwa were developing—all utilizing to
11 Cf, Barnes, Mitchell, and Gluckman, 1949.
12 See P. F. Lacroix, below, pp. 206-12. 13 1959, p. 161.
 Islam and Political Systems | 39
some degree Muslim patterns of government and administration.
In the eastern Sudan itself parallel developments seem to be later,
the Fung sultanate of Sennar rising apparently in the sixteenth
century and applying Islamic administrative and legal procedures
shortly after.14
Although little or nothing is yet known of the pre-Islamic
political institutions which preceded the foundation of these
Muslim dynasties, their initial formation at least does not appear
to have been the direct consequence of Mahdist revelation or
holy wars of conquest. However, in North-East Africa parti-
cularly, Muslim expansion later acquired this character in the
long cycle of conflict with Christian Abyssinia.1> In West Africa,
although gadis are recorded as having been appointed by those
rulers who adopted Islam in earlier periods, and some limited
degree of Muslim jurisdiction may be presumed to have existed
among minority Muslim communities in still largely traditionalist
states, more intensive forms of Muslim government inspired by
the model of the Caliphate had to await the great reformist
movements of recent centuries. The first manifestation of this
tide of Islamic revival occurred in Futa Jallon in 1725, leading
to the creation of the Imamate there with the capital at Timbo.
This was followed by the foundation of the Imamate of Futa
Toro in 1775, and led to the celebrated conquests of ‘Uthman
dan Fodio in Hausaland, of Sheku Hamada in Masina, and al-
Hajj ‘Umar in the Bambara states of Nyoro and Segu.1@ The new
Muslim states which arose with their Fulani aristocracies out
of the old Habe kingdoms are seen at their apogee in the Sokoto
Empire of the mid-nineteenth century, which in the legalistic
form characteristic of West Africa represents the area’s fullest
political realization of Islam in the pre-colonial era.1”
‘Uthman dan Fodio’s model of government which he and his

14 See Crawford, 1951; Holt, 1963. 15 See above, p. 8.

16 For an evaluation of this period as a whole, see H. F. C. Smith, 196.
17 The role of the Fulani in these movements, both as religious leaders and
warrior followers, whether or not as Trimingham argues it has often been
exaggerated, certainly merits further study. It would seem to have strong
analogies with that of the Berbers and of the Arab Bedouin in similar circum-
stances.
40 Introduction
hate.
followers sought to reproduce was that of the ‘Abbasid Calip
Sultan
Consequently, in nineteenth-century Sokoto under the
minin)
or Khalifa (‘the Commander of the Faithful’, amir al-mu’
adminis-
we find large political units, such as Kano and Zazzau,
by
tered by locally elected emirs—but confirmed and deposed
1804-10
the Sultan; and ‘Uthman’s principal assistants from the
The
jihad, given offices as agents to supervise the various emirs.
the
most important of these was the Sultan’s cross-cousin,
Fulani
waziri, who held the position of executive head of the
Sokoto states.
The internal organization of these component emirates varied
r
to some extent, as we should expect, according to their forme
the
structures prior to the jihads.'8 Typically, however, in each
emir exercised authority in foreign relations, in tribute, in
appointments to office, movements of population, the establish-
ment of new towns, and the regulation of trade. The army,
consisting of horsed noblemen and commoner and slave infantry,
was entrusted by the ruler to the command of senior nobles—
Fulani title-holders recruited hereditarily (the zrikaz). In fiscal
matters a theoretical distinction was maintained between the
state treasury administered by the treasurer (ma’aji al-mutwalt),
a non-hereditary office, and the throne treasury containing royal
insignia and palace wealth administered by eunuch officials
separately from that of the State as a whole. State resources were
freely applied to advance political ends and to reward loyal
service. The police force in each state consisted mainly of palace
slaves acting with the courts to apprehend and imprison offenders
under the direction of the civil administration. Capital sentences
could only be passed by the emir’s judicial court, which also
dealt with land disputes, redress of administrative wrongs, and
relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Here, in framing
his judgements, the emir was guided by malams. Other legal
matters were the responsibility of subsidiary gadis’ courts, from
whose decisions appeal ran to the chief gadi in each emirate, and
ultimately to Sokoto. Tax records were maintained by mainly
Fulani scribes.
18 See M. G. Smith, 1960; Paden, 1973; Willis, 1979.
 Islam and Political Systems 41
Territorial organization varied considerably. Apart from
hereditary vassal chiefs living in their dominions and nominated
by local electoral councils—these rendering military service and
paying tribute rather than taxes—scattered fiefs were administered
indirectly through titled functionaries recruited by kinship,
clientage, and slavery for the fief-holders who lived in the capital.
Locally resident chiefs, mainly Fulani, administered their com-
munities under the supervision and sonnel of the fief-holder,
who could appoint as well as depose them. Between the various
emirates there was considerable variation in the extent to which
these fief-holding offices were hereditary, or allocated to members
of different social strata. In the main, however, they tended to be
held by Fulani nobles.
Each emirate had its electoral council composed of senior
clerical officials and administrators (though not royals), to select
candidates for succession to the office of emir. The Sultan at
Sokoto, through his vizier, however, exercised final control.
Emirs bearing tribute paid annual homage to the Sultan in the
early dry season, and discussed affairs of imperial concern with
him and his Court. Land taxes were levied on Muslims, poll
tax (j77ya) on non-Muslims, and cattle-tithes (jangalz) on nomadic
Fulani. Market vendors and craft specialists paid a variety of
taxes; other revenue consisted of vassal tribute, court fines, and
commissions—such as death duty and war booty.
The extent to which the elaborate Islamic governmental
organization of this loosely knit Fulani Empire represented real
innovations established by the Fulani conquerors, or merely
continued earlier Habe practice, remains in many respects
obscure. We may anticipate, however, that further light on this
important question will result from the detailed comparative
studies which Professor M. G. Smith is now conducting on the
basis of his earlier work in Zazzau. But what is already abundantly
clear is the degree to which the Fulani reformers based their
claim to renovate and rule on a fundamentalist interpretation of
Islam, and the Shari‘a, inaugurating forms of government which
however many institutions of the old régime they included, were
essentially theocratic in spirit.
42 Introduction
Assessment of the legitimacy of the various jihads launched
by the Fulani reformers is, of course, another matter and not
one which is easily settled in any absolute sense. For as with
other conflicting schismatic positions and movements in Islam,
as in other religions and philosophies, this question raises
complicated problems of interpretation for which it is by no
means easy to find a completely neutral basis of judgement.
This, as M. G. Smith rightly points out,!® is especially true in
Islam, where the legitimacy of men’s actions is largely decided,
according to the interpretation of the Quran, hadiths, and the
Shari‘a and its numerous commentaries, by the ambiguous
notion of the consensus of the community. Here, in matters of
dispute, the ultimate,problem is to decide who, precisely, con-
stitute the ‘rightly guided community’. Nowhere is this probem
more acute than when the legitimacy of messianic claims is in
question.
Whether these West African jihads are to be regarded as
religiously inspired eruptions of reformist zeal, as secular con-
quests won in the name of Islam, or as Fulani reactions to Hausa
domination, or more plausibly as a mixture of these and other
motives, it was in the Mahdia of the Eastern Sudan for which, as
Drs. Biobaku and Muhammad al-Hajj show,?° they helped to
prepare the way, that the closest approximation to the ideal
Muslim theocratic state was attained. It was here too, perhaps,
that the striking potentialities which Islam affords for the political
unification of diverse peoples and cultures were most dramatically
realized. The Mahdi2? Muhammad Ahmad ibn ‘Abdallah (1844-85)
~ issued his governmental decrees on the authority of a visionary
meeting (hadra) with the Prophet, describing in one of his
letters how on a number of occasions the Prophet had conferred
the title upon him and ‘girded him with his sword’.
The Mahdi’s chief disciples, the commanders of divisions of
19 See below, pp. 213-25.
20 See below, pp. 226-39, and Hiskett, 1973.
21 Jt is important to notice here that despite frequent European misconcep-
tions, although some of those associated with the eighteenth and nineteenth-
century reformers claimed the title of Mahdi, its main adherents did not actually
go so far as this.
 * Islam and Political Systems | 43
the army of his followers (the Ansar), were invested with
Khalifa titles linking them with the Companions of the Prophet,
of whom the Khalifa ‘Abdullahi (of Baggara origin) acted as
vizier and head of the Mahdi’s administration. Beneath these,
officers of state were appointed from the ranks of those who had
been the Mahdi’s staunchest early adherents. These were generally
given the title of emir, and later of ‘amil (agent). During his
lifetime the State also contained a national treasury and a chief
judge. Tax, levied at a lower rate than that applied under the
Turco-Egyptian régime, was paid into the central treasury (the
bayt al-mal), of which the chief source of wealth, however,
remained the spoils of war. The Mahdi also maintained his own
mint, from which the Ansar struck their coinage.
Legal cases were heard not only by the judges and chief judge
(the gadi al-Islam) but also by other officers of state, and even
the Khalifas and the Mahdi himself, who, indeed, while in theory
ruling on the basis of the Shari‘a, also exercised extensive legis-
lative powers through his proclamations and decrees on points
of law. This personal theocratic rule, with its proto-bureaucratic
elements, hardened under his successor, the Khalifa ‘Abdullahi,
into a more highly centralized system of rule with more elaborate
administrative, judicial, and fiscal organs, and a markedly
bureaucratic structure,?? akin to that of the Fulani-Hausa states.
Yet, however much power was in such circumstances concen-
trated in the hands of the ruler, the possibility of rebellious
movements with new mahdist claims to legitimacy was not, and
could not be, excluded. If, therefore, in tropical Africa the most
highly centralized and theocratic systems of Muslim rule (with
such exceptions as Ifat) have been established under the impetus
of reformist jihads, these have also been those in which the
question of the legitimacy of the rulers has been most acutely
raised. Those states which owed their origin to, and drew their
inspiration most directly from, the Muslim reformers were
particularly susceptible to new messianic challenge. Islam,
indeed, had now become so deeply rooted in the political life
of these states that competition for power assumed the character
22 See Holt, 1958.
44 Introduction
of rebellion rather than revolution. The jihad had become
institutionalized as the main instrument of usurpation and
dynastic rivalry. In the present volume this effect is well illus-
trated in Professor Lacroix’s analysis of the more recent history of
Islam in Adamawa.??
23 Below, pp. 206-12.
IV. ISLAMIC LAW AND CUSTOMARY PRACTICE

(a) GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

Although it is still among the least systematically studied,}

one of the most interesting and significant facets of the intro-
duction and assimilation of Islam in tropical Africa is that of the
interaction in the field of social organization and personal
relations between the provisions of the Shari‘a and the canons of
customary legal procedure. Disregarding differences between the
two major Law Schools—Maliki in West Africa and the eastern
Sudan, and Shafi‘i in North-East and East Africa, it can at once
be said that those ordinances of the Shari‘a which refer to secular
rather than to purely religious matters have achieved their widest
and most rigorous application in theocratic states. But, as in the
history of Islam generally, even in such congenial conditions the
theoretical regulations of the Shari‘a are in their actual application
much modified by the recognition accorded to local custom
(‘ado, or ‘urf), as an auxiliary source of law. In less theocratic
circumstances, as in most modern Muslim states, the scope of
Islamic Law is often confined largely to matters of personal
status administered by gadis (in West Africa, alkalis [H.]), other
legal issues being decided by the courts of the secular authority.
At the same time it should be remembered that in any case
the Shari‘a regards only a restricted range of offences as crimes
in a formal legal sense. In the main, this category is limited to
such matters as illicit sexual relations, theft, brigandage, drinking
alcohol, and sometimes apostasy. Homicide and physical injury
are not included, since they are treated as torts rather than as
crimes. Moreover, the emphasis in the Shari‘a on the principle
of restitution in the settlement of such torts corresponds well with
the spirit of much, perhaps most, traditional African law. This
1 These remarks apply particularly to social anthropologists who have shown
a disappointing tendency to shy away from this important topic, leaving the
field almost entirely to Arabists—of whom Trimingham, and Anderson (1954)
have unquestionably made the most valuable contributions to date.
46 Introduction
coincidence consequently favours the, at least partial, application
of many Muslim legal categories and procedures in the settlement
of disputes, even when, in their actual operation, these are modi-
fied by the imperatives of traditional custom and social structure.
There is also much evidence to suggest that where traditional
and Shari‘a courts exist side by side in a community in which
Islam is spreading and enjoys high prestige from its association
with (or opposition to) authority, litigants who are offered the
choice of being treated as non-Muslims or as Muslims tend to
prefer the latter. This trend towards the extension of Shari‘a
influence, and consequent consolidation of Islam, is further
encouraged in all situations where access to a Shari‘a court can
be applied to strengthen his legal position by the stronger of the
parties to a dispute. Furthermore, to the extent that changing
social conditions and exposure to new cultural ideals create
disputes and offences which involve dissension from traditional
rules of conduct, it becomes increasingly advantageous for
litigants and offenders to dissociate themselves from traditional
justice and to appeal to the new source of law and judgement
which the Shari‘a offers.” This, of course, is particularly so where
the provisions of the Shari‘a recognize the legitimacy of new
types of claim and interest and protect them against the demands
of custom. Thus, as we have seen with politics, attitudes towards
Islam as a source of law are also strongly coloured by utilitarian
considerations. As in other fields, in the accommodation of Mus-
lim to traditional values and institutions, pragmatic considera-
tions are of the utmost importance.
(b) THE TREATMENT OF DELICTS AND TORTS
In the treatment of wrongs and offences the most important
contribution brought by Islam to the traditional procedures for
settling disputes was either the introduction of a system of
compensation for injury and death or, where this already existed,
the establishment of a regular tariff of indemnifications for such
torts and its investment with Islamic authority. The sociological
significance of this innovation in providing a ready index of
2 Cf. Nadel, 1942, p. 170.
 Islamic Law and Customary Practice 47
status, and in the proportions of damages contributed and dis-
tributed by the various groups and categories of persons involved
a quantitative evaluation of the jural content of their relation-
ships, has seldom been fully appreciated by social anthropolo-
ists.
With both the Maliki and Shafi‘i Schools of Law full blood-
wealth (diya) for a freeborn Muslim male is set at a standard
value of one hundred camels (or their local equivalent) and half
that amount in the case of a woman. Compensation for less-
serious injury usually varies similarly according to whether the
victim is a man or a woman. These are the theoretical standards.
In practice, however, great variation prevails in the values which
are given locally to the different categories of compensation,
and in the manner in which they are contributed and distributed.®
In Kanem, for instance, in cases of male homicide fifty animals
were paid by the chief, the alifa of Mao, and fifty by the kinsmen
of the murderer, although the chief’s contribution was later
returned to him as his fee for settling the case.* Usually, the lives
of slaves and people of servile or low status generally were
valued at a lower rate than that payable in the case of free Muslims;
and non-Muslims at lower rates still. Not infrequently, the recog-
nition of these distinctions was further elaborated into a differ-
ential scale in which the actual amounts of damages claimed and
paid varied not only with the sex and status but also with the age
of the victim.
Where in traditional society the solidarity of corporate
groups, typically lineages, was mobilized in such cases—and
this applied in many kingdoms as well as in less-centralized
communities—this collective responsibility found immediate
justification in the Shari‘a. For the Shari‘a recognizes the legiti-
mate involvement of the patrilineal kin (and sometimes of neigh-
bours and guild members) of the parties in such issues. Yet,
ideally, this extension of responsibility to the kinsmen of the
victim and his assailant properly applies only in cases of accidental
killing. In deliberate homicide the murderer alone should make
3 For the modern position in Northern Nigeria generally, see Anderson
op. cit., pp. 195-204. 4 See Boullié, 1937, p. 211; Lebeuf, 1959.
48 Introduction
reparation without the support of his kin. This, however, is a
distinction which must often have seemed more academic than
material; and in societies like the Somali, whatever the circum-
stances of a killing, such limitations to collective involvement
are generally ignored, although they are known to be enjoined
by the Law.5 Where, on the contrary, these provisions are
respected, and this is particularly the case where new social
circumstances make their honouring advantageous, they encour-
age the curtailment of collective loyalties and the intensification
of individual independence.
() KINSHIP AND SHARI‘A ATTITUDES TOWARDS
PROPERTY RIGHTS

The effects of the patrilineal emphasis in Islam, particularly

evident in Muslim rules of inheritance, where paternal ties are
stressed rather than those traced through women, are seen most
strikingly when matrilineal societies come to adopt the new
religion. Here, as with Christian and Western influence generally
(which are also assumed to present a patrilineal ideology and
emphasis), the eventual effect is to weaken extended matrilineal
bonds and to promote a more bilateral recognition of descent.
On the whole, matrilineal societies do not seem to have
proved as uniformly resistant to Islam as these implications
might suggest. Not only have immigrant Muslims frequently
been able to acquire political influence through intermarriage, as
we have seen, but also in a wider sense, particularly when in
contact with patrilineal peoples, or where new economic
conditions have afforded new opportunities for the formation
of personal wealth and status, Muslim legal provisions have
often been gradually adopted with a corresponding shift in the
traditional pattern of descent in the direction of increased patri-
lineal emphasis.* This is seen, at least incipiently, among such
traditionally matrilineal peoples as those of Western Guinea,
and to a lesser extent among the Yao.’
5 See Lewis, 1961, pp. 161-95.
® This may also be facilitated, as with the influence of Western Christianity
generally, by the use of Muslim testamentary provisions and written wills, cf
Colson, 1950. ? See Mitchell, 1956.
 Tslamic Law and Customary Practice 49
On the other hand, strongly patrilineal societies where lineage
members traditionally exercise corporate interests in livestock or
land, or both, have shown themselves to be generally reluctant
to adopt the full provisions of the Shari‘a in matters of inheritance,
transfer, and disposal. This is evident particularly with land
tenure in Northern Nigeria,® the Kenya coast, Zanzibar, Southern
Somalia, and Eritrea; and in relation to livestock among such
Muslim pastoralists as the Somali and Fulani. If almost every
case here, except where new economic and other innovating
pressures are at work, the full application of the Shari‘a inheri-
tance rules is the exception rather than the rule. It is to the impact
of these other imperatives as much as to that of Islam that we
must attribute such radical changes, including the introduction of
individual freehold, as those described in parts of Zanzibar by
Middleton,® and in Nupe by Nadel.!°
The same trend towards change can be seen where Islamic
Law may be applied to circumvent onerous traditional obligations
towards kinsfolk, converts to Islam taking advantage of their
new legal position to deny specific kinsmen a share in newly
acquired wealth. In this fashion, when new economic conditions
favour individual enterprise and effort and at the same time
reduce the need for collective solidarity in the old sense, those
aspects of Islamic Law which stress the economic independence
of the individual are readily seized upon. And such conflict of
laws as may ensue is likely to lead to a further entrenchment of
the Shari‘a. This process is apparent, for example, in the changing
character of the relations between Somali pastoral nomads and
their urbanized merchant kin. The latter, living in conditions
of relative security and progressively investing their wealth in
urban property, can afford to neglect their traditional blood-
compensation ties with their nomadic clansmen, and seek
justification for their position in a strict interpretation of the
Sharia.
In such cases the final outcome in the tussle between opposed
customary and Muslim rulings depends upon the extent to which
8 See Cole, 949; and Smith, 1955. 9 Middleton, 1961.
10 1942, pp. 242-3. On the question in Futa Toro see Gueye, 1957.
50 Introduction
those who see in Islamic Law an escape from irksome traditional
obligations, and a rationale for increased individual independence,
can in fact safely dispense with traditional loyalties; or manipulate
them selectively to their own private advantage. Wealth and other
new means of gaining adherents and support are clearly critical
factors here. Those who refuse to reciprocate on a traditional
basis will have to find other means of gaining the services of
others when they require them.
(d) THE POSITION OF WOMEN AND SUBJECT GROUPS

Much the same range of factors emerges in relation to the

position of women. Although the entitlement of female heirs to
inherit property under the Shari‘a is likely to be interpreted
according to traditional patterns of property interest, especially
where corporate patrilineal wealth in land or livestock is in ques-
tion (as, e.g., among the Fulani! or Somali), the possibility of a
new dispensation is at least given, and may be such as to change
the general position of women advantageously.
And while in traditional Islam women are generally treated
as minors, where Muslim affiliation enables people to claim a
privileged status outside the reach of customary obligations,
women may apply this to their own profit. Here the case of
Kotokoli prostitutes in Northern Togo is not without interest.
Those of these women who return home with a considerable
personal fortune after plying their trade successfully in Ghana
often profess Islam as a means of escaping from paternal authority
and the burdensome demands of their kin.!2 On the other hand,
while all traditional societies which accept Islam do not neces-
sarily adopt the full rigours of Muslim purdah—and particularly
not where, as among Somali and Fulani nomads, such constriction
is seen as hampering women’s pastoral duties—others do so,
even in rare cases to the extent of re-assigning formerly degrading
female tasks to men.}8
11 See Hopen, 1958; Stenning, 1959; and Dupire, 1962.
12 See Alexandre, 1963, p. 54.
18 Thus, in some Hausa areas women have discontinued their traditional
farming duties on the conversion of their men-folk to Islam. See Greenberg,
1947:
 Islamic Law and Customary Practice 51
In this respect the position of slaves and other dependent
categories of persons and groups, traditionally subject to dis-
crimination, is somewhat different. For while the Shari‘a recog-
nizes, and therefore might be applied to legalize, slavery and
various forms of bondage, as, for example, in Zanzibar, it also
permits upward mobility through the conversion of the most
debased positions to those of client. Equally, it presents the possi-
bility of complete enfranchisement (by manuthission and the
purchase of freedom), which may not have existed in the tradi-
tional system.!4
This liberalizing effect was probably more significant in the
case of captives or slaves proper (Hausa, Jay) than in the case
of domestic slaves or serfs, who seem often to have enjoyed a
traditionally more favoured status than that offered by Islam.!5
Muslim slaves (unlike women), moreover, were readily accepted
into the clergy, and could also rise to hold political and military
positions of power and eminence.
Certainly, while wide status differences and elaborate social
stratification can scarcely be said to be of rare occurrence in the
history of Islam, there is still present the ideal notion of Muslim
equality. And this, as we have already suggested, has played an
important part in the spread of Islam in tropical Africa. It is not
surprising, therefore, that in such disparate cases as the relations
between Fulani and Habe, or between the Fulani reformist
clergy and their untutored nomadic kinsmen, or again between
Somali nomads and their artisan dependants, such social differ-
ences should be rationalized and justified in terms of the imputed
religious ignorance and negligence of those who are despised.
If they were regarded as exemplary Muslims it would be less easy
to treat them as inferiors.

(ec) MARRIAGE PATTERNS

In marriage we find as diverse accommodations between
traditional and Muslim practice as those already noted in other
14 The position varies somewhat among the various Schools, the Maliki code
being among the most generous in its views on the rights of slaves.
15 See Trimingham, 1959, pp. 132 ff.; Smith, 1959; Sanneh, 1976.
52 Introduction
fields. We must begin, however, by emphasizing that the pattern
of preferential marriage between a man and his father’s brother’s
daughter is not specifically enjoined in Muslim Law and cannot
therefore be taken as an infallible index of the degree of Islamiza-
tion of traditional societies. At the same time it should also be
recognized that the practice of this form of marriage by the Bed-
ouinand other Arabized peoples has given it a distinct lustre in the
eyes of many Muslims who do consequently tend to regard it as
a specifically Islamic feature. Hence although, like circumcision,"®
it is not properly an inherent Muslim trait, this type of marriage
is widely distributed in Islamic tropical Africa, and particularly,
but not only, in societies which lack deep, well-developed
lineage organization.
Where such patrilateral parallel cousin marriage (with real
or classificatory cousins) is practised extensively and where
women are allowed some of their inheritance rights according
to the Shari‘a, this form of marriage is commonly regarded as a
means of ensuring that property which passes to women remains
within the extended family. Where women do not effectively
inherit valued property, the practice may be justified on other
grounds. Moreover, whatever the position in regard to inheri-
tance, where this form of cousin marriage occurs, its actual
incidence in relation to all other forms of marriage is not neces-
sarily very high, and may even be surpassed by other patterns of
cousin marriage, as, for example, with father’s sister’s daughter,
and mother’s brother’s daughter. This is in fact what happens
among some of the Fulani,!” in some Swahili communities,'®
and has also been recorded in the Muslim Sudan.}9 Elsewhere, in
some parts of the region surveyed in this book, as with the
northern pastoral Somali nomads and the Wolof, the practice
has made no obvious inroads at all.2° For the reasons previously
16
See below, p. 68.
17
See Hopen, op. cit., pp. 71-83; Stenning, op. cit., pp. 111 ff.
18
Tanner, 1964. 19 Barclay, 1964, pp. 118 ff.
20
But among the Wolof in the urban situation of Dakar patrilateral parallel
cousin marriage has made some inroads, see Thore, 1964. And among the
‘Afar (Danakil) of French Somaliland and Ethiopia, who adhere strongly to
Islam, marriage is preferentially with the father’s sister’s daughter. See Chede-
ville, 1966.
 Islamic Law and Customary Practice 53
given, these and other instances of failure to conform to this
pattern of preferential marriage, or for that matter of failure to
observe lineage endogamy in general, must not be taken as defi-
ciencies in Muslim devotion.
Next, we need to note the effect of the Islamic tolerance of
polygyny to the extent of four legitimate wives. As far as tradi-
tional plural marriage in tropical Africa is concerned, this
limitation is less formidable than it might at frst appear. It is
in any case only likely to conflict with traditional marriage
practice in the case of extensively polygynous chiefs. Such
restrictions as it imposes are, moreover, mitigated both by the
ease of divorce in Islam, and by the discretion granted to husbands
in recognizing as legitimate heirs and successors their children
by concubines.
A more crucial issue is that of the way in which the Muslim
conception of matrimony, and the rights and duties created by it,
impinge upon the character of traditional marriage. Despite the
control over a woman vested in her guardian (wali), the Shari‘a
conceives of marriage as in éssence a voluntary contract between
individual spouses. The fundamental transaction is the explicit
agreement of the bride (subject only to the constraint, jabr, of
her guardian), and her acceptance of the personal marriage
payment (mahr or sadag) proposed by the husband. This, of
course, has to be appropriately solemnized by witnesses and also
requires the presence of a cleric, or shaikh, to perform the marriage
ceremony.
The fulfilment of these requirements confers upon the husband
full rights over his spouse as a sexual and domestic partner,
and entitles him to claim as his all children born to his wife during
their union. Although marriage also gives the husband almost
complete authority over his wife, who, as a legal minor, is now
subject to his control rather than as formerly to that of her
father and brothers, it imposes corresponding obligations and
duties upon the male partner. At the very least these make the
husband responsible for the general well-being of his wife and
children. Yet the husband is not necessarily fully answerable at
law for the legal person of his wife. Nor, similarly, are her
54 Introduction
jural links with her own natal kin (or guardian) completely
severed by marriage. The husband’s position is additionally
strengthened by the ease with which he can terminate the union
conditionally, or finally, by established divorce procedures,
while still retaining his rights over the children. And his enviable
prerogatives here are little weakened by the fact that, in such
circumstances, the divorced wife is entitled to maintenance for a
stipulated period; or by the consideration that, with greater ease
in theory than in practice, she also may obtain the annulment of
the marriage. This, indeed, only applies when the husband
maltreats her ‘unreasonably’, fails to provide for her, deserts her
without adequate provision, or if he can be shown to be impotent,
or suffering from certain other physical or mental defects. It
need scarcely be added that in Muslim communities the degree
of elaboration of the various Law Schools on these and cognate
points is rivalled only by the extent of actual litigation on such
issues.
As far as the adoption of Islamic marriage rules by matrilineal
peoples is concerned, the most crucial effect is upon the position
of the children, who, if their mother remains outside Islam,
acquire dual affiliation—in their mother’s group through their
maternal ties, and in their father’s group through their paternal
ties. This may be seen as a source of conflict; or it may be utilized
to advantage to extend the range of effective ties of the children
of such unions. If the wife also adopts Islam the affiliation of the
children is unambiguously with the father and his kin, thus re-
inforcing the impact of the Shari‘a rules of inheritance.
In the initial stages of Islamization, as among the matrilineal
Digo of Tanzania, conflicts are likely to arise over succession
as well as inheritance, with divergent rulings being given by
customary and Shari‘a courts.?2 Here, again, individuals will take
advantage, where they can, of the Shari‘a to get round traditional
rules which are against their interest. Thus, Yao chiefs utilize
Islamic marriage with payment of mahr to give them more sub-
stantial control over their wives and, in particular, to by-pass the
21 Evaluations of reasonable and unreasonable ill-treatment vary enormously,
as may be imagined. 22 See Trimingham, 1964, pp. 150-1.
 Islamic Lew and Customary Practice 55
traditional system of uxorilocal residence, under which the
couple should continue to livein the wife’s matrilineal settlement.?4
It is something of a paradox, that while this conflict over
affiliation, succession, and residence after marriage (where
uxorilocality has previously prevailed) necessarily arises when
Islam makes inroads into matrilineal societies, matrilineal mar-
riage itself like marriage in (patrilineal) Islam is easily dissolved
and often unstable.
Wider problems are raised by the normally corporate nature
of African marriage relations, and the corresponding system of
traditional marriage payments and prestations. To take the latter
first, the essential Islamic marriage gift (mahr or sadag) is usually
adopted into the traditional system of payments as a personal
and often conditional—indeed, sometimes entirely nominal—
present to the bride which is payable principally upon the divorce
or death of the husband. This is the general position among such
diverse Muslim peoples as the Mandinka, Tokolor, Kanuri,
Hausa, Fulani, and Somali.24 Among the West African Dyula
trading communities, with their more dispersed and fragmented
organization, and generally in more urbanized conditions where
corporate groups have shed many of their traditional functions,?°
usually only the bride’s personal dower is paid.
Although the position in other cases does not seem to be very
clear, there is some indication in Stenning’s descriptions of
pastoral Fulani ‘contract’ marriage? that here the Islamic part of
the marriage prestations and ceremonial is interpreted as referring
to that aspect of matrimony which concerns the relations between
the spouses as individuals, rather than as members of affinally
related groups. This distinction is especially clear among the
Somali pastoral nomads, where the performance of the Muslim
marriage ceremony and mar contract, as in marriage by elope-
ment, when no other marriage payments are made, establish
a full marital union between the couple and give the husband
complete control over his wife’s fertility (during their union).
23 See Mitchell, 1956, pp.130ff.; cf. Islam among the Zaramo, in Swantz, 1970.
24 See Trimingham, 1959, pp. 165-8; and for the Hausa, Smith, 1953, pp.
321 ff.; for the Fulani, see Hopen, Stenning, and Dupire; for the Somali, Lewis,
1962. 25 See, e.g., Barclay, op. cit., pp. 246-7. 2Pour3> is 1950.
g67- > Introduction
They do not, however, create an affinal relationship between the
lineages of the spouses; nor do they entitle the husband to claim
a sororatic replacement in the event of his wife’s death, or allow
his kin to automatically inherit his widow.
Thus, in the case of the Somali the mahr ceremony transfers
to the husband full rights to any children borne to his wife during
their union—whoever actually fathers them. From the present
literature, however, it seems difficult to determine the extent to
which this applies in other parts of tropical Africa, where the
Islamic mahr has been incorporated into the traditional system of
marriage payments. This is a point which requires more detailed
and careful examination by anthropologists.
Leviratic marriage, widow inheritance, and sororatic replace-
ment, which, in their wider group aspects, are disapproved of,
if not disallowed by the Shari‘a, have already been touched on.??
Here the general position seems to be that whete corporate kin
groups continue to play an important part in social relations, and
where marriage establishes an affinal relationship between groups,
these traditional marital replacement rights are retained. Never-
theless, widows who, for personal reasons, wish to sever their
connexion with their deceased husband’s lineage, may generally
do so by applying to the Shari‘a courts.?8 Here, of course, the
Islamic rules respecting the observance of the obligatory period
of continence (‘idda) (during which the widow may not remarry),
which stress the rights of a deceased (or divorced) husband in
his former partner’s fertility, agree well with customary require-
ments in many patrilineal systems of descent.
Finally, a highly significant point which merits further study,
and is likely to have a direct bearing on the influence of Islam
on the stability of the marriage, concerns the nature of a married
woman’s jural relations with her own kin. While in patrilineal
societies the Shari‘a strengthens, or at any rate does nothing to
27 The effect of Islamic Law on other traditional forms of marriage, such, for
example, as Fulani ‘cicisbean’ marriage, is also worthy of mention. See Stenning,
op. cit., pp. 140-6.
28 Trimingham, 1959, pp. 169-70. In Nupe a conflict between traditional
and Muslim practice arises here, since customarily only a junior brother may suc-
ceed to his deceased brother’s widow. See Nadel, p. 280, 1954.
 Islamic Law and Customary Practice 57
weaken, a man’s rights in the child-bearing capacity of his wife,
at the same time it also requires a married woman to retain strong
jJural ties with her own natal kin. In Islam it is indeed the woman’s
own paternal kin, rather than the husband and his relatives, who
are legally involved in all serious torts concerning or committed
by her. They, for example, rather than the husband, pay and
receive blood-wealth (diya) on behalf of their married daughter.
Thus, among the Somali a husband has no claim to blood-money
if his wife is killed; his only entitlement is to a sororatic replace-
ment from her own kin.
In many other traditional patrilineal societies, however,
marriage involves not only the complete transfer of the wife’s
fertility to her husband (and his kin) but also the acquisition by
him of full responsibility for her person at law.?® It is in this type
of patrilineal society that marriage is usually most stable, so that
the introduction and application of the Shari‘a here might be
expected to have the double effect of altering the traditional
distribution of rights over a married woman between her own
and her husband’s kin, and of weakening the strength of the mari-
tal ties as such. Changes of this kind are likely to be most striking
in the case of peoples such as the Galla, where traditional marriage
is indissoluble.
An analagous issue of interest here concerns the effect of these
Shari‘a principles regarding men’s paternity rights in patrilineal
societies, where (as with the Baganda) traditionally marriage
does not confer on the husband monopolistic rights in his wife’s
fertility, and children born of irregular liaisons belong to the man
who fathers them rather than necessarily to the legal husband.
If much has been said here of marriage and its associated
rights and obligations, this is because it is in this area of personal
status, as well as in inheritance, that the legal ordinances of the
Shari‘a tend to make their greatest impact. This trend has con-
tinued under colonial rule and into the present era of independ-
ence, where other aspects of law increasingly fall within the
purview of the secular administration.
29 These issues are discussed in some detail in Lewis, 1962; and in Lewis in
Banton (ed.), 1965, pp. 87-112.
 V. ISLAM AND TRADITIONAL BELIEF
AND RITUAL

(a) DOCTRINE AND BELIEF

Seldom in the first phases of its penetration in tropical Africa

can Islam have been taught as a comprehensive theology. Indeed,
in the purely religious field all that was required of its early
converts was that they should acknowledge the fundamental
doctrine—there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Pro-
phet—and a handful of related ritual injunctions and prescript-
ions.! Nevertheless, once introduced in however schematic a
form, the question how much of the traditional religion (and not
merely of its ritual) could be accommodated in Islamic practice,
soon became an issue of importance. Here therefore, as in the
other areas of social life already dealt with, we have to begin by
examining such conformities as may exist between pre-Islamic
and Islamic concepts and rites, and consider how far the resulting
interaction, or ‘dialogue’, shapes the local character of Muslim
worship.
Before examining how traditional religious phenomena affect
and are affected by the profession of Islam, a general character-
istic of most African religion may be noted. This is not the dis-
tinction so often drawn between animist religious systems and
Islam as a ‘revealed religion’; for, although it must be admitted

1 Theoretically, the minimum definition of the practising Muslim is in terms

of the observance of the five ‘Pillars of the faith’. But in all Muslim communities
it is recognized that these represent ideals of conduct which are often perfunctorily
and imperfectly realized. They are therefore best regarded as ideals to which all
professing Muslims subscribe and seek to honour with varying degrees of deter-
mination and success. Even such zealous spiritual leaders as the nineteenth-
century West African reformers, including Muhammad Bello, showed in their
treatment of captives that for them the profession of the faith and a correct
knowledge of the statutory ritual ablutions were sufficient to determine Muslim
adherence. Thus, ultimately, it becomes necessary to adopt the operational
(and tautological) definition that those are Muslims who call and regard them-
selves such.
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 59
that this seems to have some force,? traditional spirit-cults are also
often ‘revealed’ in one context or another. But what appears to be
of much wider significance is the special character of immediacy
which is such a striking feature of indigenous religions. Tradi-
tional religious powers are normally believed to sustain a moral
order in which the just prosper and the good are rewarded, not
so much in some nebulous afterlife as within society itself. The
notions of heaven and hell thus seem not to be strongly empha-
sized, or to be absent altogether; and particular misfortunes and
illnesses, and often death itself, are regarded, at least in part,
as a reflection or epiphenomenon of the processes of moral life
in society. For all their rich complexity and wealth of cosmo-
logical elaboration, therefore, this gives to most African religions
an involute, enclosed, and highly ethnocentric character which
corresponds well with the particularity of traditional society.
All this is evidently antithetical to the universalistic spirit of
Islam, its concern with eternity rather than today, and in a
religious context opposed to Muslim eschatology, with its
fatalistic acceptance of divine reward and retribution in the after
life rather than in this. Nevertheless, as we have repeatedly
noticed, it is especially in circumstances of the expansion of
cultural and social frontiers, with new possibilities of social
interaction and interest, that the impetus towards the acceptance
of Islam as a new cultural model is most strongly sustained. In
such favourable conditions, where the scale of economic and social
relations is widening, the contrasts noted above have not halted
the march of Islam, but with other not easily compounded
differences they have certainly contributed to the dynamic
tension between the old and new religion. This tension, it should
be remarked, is of a different character from that produced by
other cultural interactions of the past. For the written heritage
of Islam, however inadequately represented in the sparse libraries
of local clergy, preserves a standard divinely inspired code of
ideals which lays bare the inconsistencies and imperfections of
2 Thus the tendency in West Africa not to accentuate the special role of the
Prophet may perhaps be interpreted as evidence for the foreignness of this
conception. See below, p. 61.
60 Introduction

actual practice far more effectively than the orally conserved

canons of custom.
In the ensuing process of the Islamization of traditional belief
the most important aspect of Muslim religious phenomenology
which has greatly facilitated its initial impact and appeal—often
at the cost of a more thorough penetration—is its truly catholic
recognition of the multiplicity of ‘mystical power. Of course,
Islam insists on the uniqueness of God as a single omnipotent
creator deity, and rigorously excludes all conflicting sources of
power which could in any way impair His absolute dominion.
But once this is said, and as long as God’s lofty pre-eminence is
not compromised, the Quran itself provides scriptural warrant for
the existence of a host of subsidiary powers and spirits. These
may not all be equally legitimate, but their existence and effective-
ness, whether as malign or beneficial agencies, is not disputed.
Consequently, as long as traditional beliefs can be adjusted
in such a way that they fall into place within a Muslim schema
in which the absoluteness of Allah remains unquestioned, Islam
does not ask its new adherents to abandon their accustomed
confidence in all their mystical forces. Far from it. In the volumi-
nous Quranic store-house of angels, jinns, and devils, whose
number is legion,? many of these traditional powers find a hospit-
able home; and passages from the Quran are cited to justify their
existence as real phenomena. Moreover, pre-Islamic figures which
can be assimilated without too great distortion to the Muslim
concept of saints, especially in the mystical (Sufi) interpretation
of Islam, can be readily absorbed into the chain of intermediaries
along which men’s humble petitions flow to the Prophet and
through him to God.
Muslim theology is equally tolerant in its attitude towards
divination, magic, witchcraft, and sorcery. It condemns the
illegitimate use of the last two; but it does not question their
efficacy. And these related mystical activities, known by a variety
of names in Arabic but most generally perhaps as szhr,* have come
3 See articles ‘djinn’ and ‘shaitan’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 1, pp. 1045-6,
and Vol IV, pp. 286-7.
4 See article ‘sihr’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. IV, pp. 409-17.
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual G61
to occupy a prominent and secure place in the popular heritage
of Islam.
How successfully do these Muslim categories in fact provide
for the assimilation of traditional beliefs and cults? Traditional
concepts of a supreme power or spirit (a ‘High God’) seem
generally to be readily identified with Allah. This is especially
the case where the traditional power is essentially otiose or remote
from the more specific concerns of men. Thus, we fand the assimil-
ation of the Cushitic god wag to Allah among both Muslim
Galla and Somali, and the use among some of the latter of his
name in a common expression for sacrifice (wag de‘in: lit. ‘Offering
to God’).° In the same way, the Mossi apply the name of their
otiose deity winam to Allah; and the Nupe equate their traditional
supreme deity soko with Him also.® Again, among the Swahili
in East Africa the traditional creator God mungu is identified with
Allah: and the Arabic term itself is reserved principally for use
in poetry and in stock Arabic expressions, while mungu is
invoked in informal prayer.’ Similarly, those Yoruba who have
adopted Islam identify their traditional High God Olorin or
Olodumare with Allah. With the Hausa and Songhay, however,
there is apparently no distinct pre-Islamic name for a supreme
deity, if the concept is entertained at all, and vernacular terms
equivalent to the English Master or Lord are applied to Allah.
For the Prophet Muhammad it is usually less easy to find a
vernacular term expressive of his unique position, although in
Swahili and Hausa he is described accurately enough as God’s
‘messenger’. In West Africa, particularly among the least
Islamized, there isa tendency to play down the role of the Prophet.
And in some areas the Muslim taboo on the pig has been inverted,
this animal being regarded as sacred and associated in a special
way with Muhammad.8

5 There is in fact in Somali a wide range of vernacular equivalents for the

ninety-nine praise-names of God. See Lewis, 1959.
® Nadel, 1954, p-. 235, suggests, not entirely convincingly, that this equation
may account for the Nupe failure to stress that part of the profession of faith
which acclaims the uniqueness of Allah.
7 See Trimingham, 1964, p. 78; Grottanelli, 1955, p. 306.
8 See Trimingham, 1959, p, 67.
62 Introduction

In the field of spirit activity of more direct concern to man

traditional ancestor cults may be accommodated effectively and
persist in a Muslim guise. In contrast to the identification of pre-
no
existing ‘High Gods’ with Allah, however, ancestors can
longer remain if they ever were sources of power in their own
right. Their role in Islam is that of intercessors in the chain of
supplication which begins with man and ends in God. The transi-
tion point which, if achieved, ensures them an honoured place in
the local practice of Islam is thus when they cease to be prayed to,
but are rather prayed for, or through.
This complete incorporation is well illustrated among some
Eastern Sudanese and Eritrean peoples; among the Somali,
where clan and lineage ancestors are in effect canonized as Muslim
saints and classed ‘with the saints of Islam generally;® to some
extent also among the Swahili;!° and in parts of West Africa.
In the last region, however, it must be admitted that the position
is often far from clear, and evidently requires further study. The
equation is reported among the Mende and Temne, where the
dead, those who have ‘crossed the river’, are associated with the
saints and the Prophet as intercessors with God; and, more
definitely on the North-East African pattern, among the Diak-
hanke of eastern Senegal.}? In the case of the Songhay the position
seems to be somewhat different. Here some ancestors are assimil-
ated to angels (Ar. mala’ika) in the Muslim mystical hierarchy,
while others, and it seems the majority, are classed as jinns (zin).38
Whether these instances of successful positive assimilation
between pre- and Islamic categories of religious phenomena are
in the long run likely to survive depends upon a variety offactors.
Among the most important of these are probably: whether such
cults are of ancestors proper, or merely of the undifferentiated
dead;!4 whether the social groups which they represent (clans
® Here the channel of communication is explicitly stated to be as follows:
the saint (whether an ancestor or otherwise) stands in the gateway of the Prophet,
who, in turn, stands in the door of God.
10 See Prins, 1961, p. 113.
1 Vittle; 1951, p. 273.
12 Pierre Smith, Musée de l’Homme, personal communication.
13 Rouch, 1954, pp. 60 ff., and the same author’s more detailed study, 1960.
14 Cf, Fortes, 1965, pp. 122-44; and Bradbury, 1965, pp. 96-115.
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 63
and lineages) persist as viable entities; and, finally, the extent to
which the Sufistic cult of saints as a whole receives local en-
couragement and support. Where a rigid fundamentalist inter-
pretation of the Shari‘a, or modernist contempt for ‘venal’
holy men condemns the veneration of saints and inhibits the local
development of Sufism, this assimilation is likely to disappear,
or to be consigned to a barely tolerated clandestine existence.
By the same token, strongly developed indigenous ancestor
cults would seem to offer conditions propitious to the develop-
ment of a Sufistic interpretation of Islam, with emphasis on saints
as mediators between man and the Prophet. And this suggests
that any consideration of the relative unimportance of saints
and Sufism in West African Islam must take account not only of
the way in which the region’s kings and chiefs sought to appro-
priate mystical blessing (daraka) for their own use but also of
the fact that the Fulani reformist leaders belonged to a society
in which traditionally there was no ancestor cult.
Nature-spirits and powers associated directly with the fertility
of particular localities (and this may include some ancestors)1°
are usually treated with less consideration by orthodox Muslims.
Unlike lineage ancestors, they are generally not assimilated pos-
itively; their veneration is usually condemned, and they become
negatively incorporated into the world of non-Muslim jinns.
Despite this, however, such phenomena are sometimes inte-
grated indirectly in a manner which both emphasizes the superior
power of Islam and maintains religious continuity. Thus,
Trimingham reports that in some Temne villages mosques have
been built in what were formerly the sacred groves of the local
secret society, the mosque here deriving its sanctity from a
conjunction of the old with the new power and symbolizing the
pre-eminence of Islam.!® Similarly, the tomb of Sharif Yusuf
al-Kawneyn, one of the principal founding fathers of Islam in
Somaliland,1’ lies beside a small hill which is said to contain the
mortal remains of the pagan magician chief whose rule the
15 This, for instance, is the case with localized ancestors in Songhay whom
Muslims regard as jinns. 16 Trimingham, 1959, p. 109.
17 See above, p. 28, and Lewis, 1963a, pp. 113-15.
64 Introduction
shaikh overturned, and whom, by his superior mystical power,
he incarcerated in the mountain as a permanent memorial to the
glory of Islam. Other attempts at this sort of association are often
less successful and frequently give rise to serious religious
controversy. Professor Skinner reports such an instance among
the Mossi later in this volume.
With spirit-possession cults which, under the impress of Islam,
are likely to develop into voluminous repositories for other
displaced traditional cults, the position is equally ambiguous.
At best, as with many cults of nature spirits, the mystical forces
at play here are classed as jinns on whose precise identification
as good or evil, and on the degree of tolerance which should be
shown towards them, there is often much debate among the clergy.
Typical examples Here are the spirit cults of the West African
secret societies generally, and the Songhay holey, Mossi kinkarst,
and Hausa ori in particular;!9 the Swahili pepo-possession cults;
and the zar cult in Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Somali Republic, and
the Sudan. Despite the distaste with which they are almost
universally regarded by the pious, these cults, particularly those
which do not employ physical images and masks, have not only
shown considerable powers of survival in their own local situa-
tion but have also sometimes succeeded in spreading to other
Muslim countries. Thus, the cult of zar-spirits has been carried
from its place of origin in Ethiopia into the Sudan Republic
and Egypt, and even into the Arabian Peninsula itself.?°
The continuing vitality of these spirit-possession cults,
notwithstanding their official disfavour, is only partly explicable
in terms of the fact that Islam does not deny the existence of the
powers, however malignant, upon which they depend. Of at
least equal significance is the positive attraction which they have
for all those who are excluded from full participation in the public
rituals of orthodox Islam. Hence their popularity with women,
and through women their association in many cases with pro-
stitution. Their appeal, however, is not limited merely to those
18 See below, p. 188.
19 See (Hausa) Greenberg, 1946, and Raulin, 1962; (Songhay) Rouch, 1954,
pp. 61 ff., and 1960, pp. 45—-77-
20 See Leiris, 1958; Lewis, 1961, pp. 261 ff.
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 65
who are subject to regular discrimination and for whom they
offer some sort of compensation. They also attract those who seek
relief from afflictions which the orthodox rituals and prophy-
lactics of Islam have failed to remedy. As is to be expected, con-
ditions of rapid social change which bring in their train fresh
conflicts and anxieties provide additional scope for the operation
of these cults. And where in traditional life witchcraft and sorcery
occupied a prominent place, these spirit-possession cults may
fulfil some of the functions of anti-witchcraft movements.
Certainly no one who has witnessed them can deny their cathartic
function.
Finally, in witchcraft, oracles, and magic (all forms of schr)
Islamic ideas share a large measure of agreement with those of
traditional religion. And, as long as they depend upon techniques
which derive their validity from a Muslim source, Islam fully
approves and sanctions magical procedures which are directed
towards such legitimate ends as the cure of disease, the prevention
and curtailment of misfortune, and the assurance of prosperity
and success. For the fulfilment of all these hopes lies ultimately,
of course, with God. Only modernist opinion condemns such
attitudes as superstitious. The case is much the same with divi-
nation, on which a large number of Arabic compendia enjoy
a wide circulation throughout Muslim Africa. And, as is to be
expected, Muslim proselytizers are not above using divinatory
techniques in their efforts to impress unbelievers with the power
of Islam.#4
As in traditional ethics, witchcraft and sorcery are regarded
as evil, indeed amoral; and their use can only be justified when it
is applied to protect the rights of the just and to trap wrongdoers.
Thus, it is perfectly appropriate to employ a cleric to perform a
spell upon the footprints of a thief. Similarly, wanton attack on
a holyman is usually believed to evoke divine retribution, with
or without the direct intervention of the victim. Indeed, clerics
and holymen generally are thought to share something of the
mystical blessing (4araka) of saints, which in itself safeguards
them from danger. Again, as in traditional society, circumstances
21 Cf, Little, 1947.
66 Introduction
sometimes arise where the same mystical action is not regarded
by all those concerned as equally justified or legitimate. Holy-
men, for example, may be considered to abuse their divine power
by seeking to advance their own personal advantage, harming
others in the process.
Yet, although their moral evaluation is thus not always
unambiguous, these types of supernatural activity represent
well-established themes in Muslim culture, to such an extent
indeed that in some areas the presence of magic and divination
must be attributed to Islam rather than to indigenous sources.
This consideration and the formidable proliferation of cabbalistic
works in Arabic on geomancy,” astrology, and divination make
it essential to exercise some caution in regarding such ‘animistic’
beliefs where they occur in Muslim cultures as necessarily pre-
Islamic, or as evidence of only a weak degree of Islamization.
On a more abstract plane, the continuing vitality in Muslim
communities of these various mystical and spiritual forces seems
to stem from their concern with those aspects of the immediacy
of human intercourse which are largely excluded, or stifled in
the orthodox cult of God and the Prophet. To this extent, all
these peripheral cults, whether condemned or condoned, may be
seen as attempts to bridge the gap between the moral intensity
of traditional personal and social interaction and aspirations—
with their customary mystical overtones—and the lofty and fatal-
istic conceptions of Muslim eschatology. With this in mind, the
accommodations which have been discussed in the foregoing
may now be summarized as follows:
Traditional Categories and Cults Islam
(Otiose) High God > Allah

The Prophet

Ancestors (particularly where seen as part of ae Angels/saints/jinns

High God hierarchy)
of hk

Nature, fertility, and possession spirits i jinns/devils

a
Witchcraft, oracles, magic, divination ——-> the same: szhr, etc.
22 For an excellent recent study of this subject, see Hébert, 1961.
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 67
Finally, when the adoption of Muslim theological and cosmo-
logical elements is considered from the point of view of the old
religion in terms of a dynamic process of adjustment and adapt-
ation, it is appropriate, at least in some phases of religious change,
to refer to a ‘syncretism’ between Muslim and traditional concepts
and ritual. From the point of view of Islam, however (and, a
fortiori of the Arabist), this new syncretism is to be regarded
merely as a temporary stage in the long journey towards a more
perfect comprehension of the faith. For such inharmonious
traditional beliefs and values as continue to be respected cannot
blend fully with Islam to produce a new syncretic entity without
changing the very nature of this religion. Whatever the practice,
if the faith is to survive as an ideal it must retain its rigid doctrinal
core unshaken and immutable.
Where therefore novel ideas and rites from traditional religion
are incorporated, to the extent of modifying these basic doctrines,
inevitably new schismatic movements arise which the majority
of orthodox believers must regard as heretical. Nevertheless,
between these two poles lies a vast territory in which the sorts of
accommodations we have noted in the field of religious pheno-
menology provide ample ground for controversy.
(b) RITUAL AND CEREMONIAL
As we have seen, it is in the sphere of personal relations that
the provisions of the Shari‘a tend to make their readiest and most
profound impact. So, too, with ritual. Along with the at least
nominal observance of the daily prayers, those rites which pertain
to the life cycle of the individual are usually those which are most
quickly absorbed. Thus, often in cultures which in other respects
are as yet little affected by Islam, those statutory Muslim rituals
which cluster round the three main turning-points in life—birth,
marriage, and death—are normally speedily taken up.** They
may, of course, undergo considerable modification and re-
interpretation in the process. Such accommodation is probably
23 Thus, among the Fulani, of the internal rituals which refer to their pastoral
existence, only those which are concerned with transitions in personal
status bear the firm imprint of Islam. Those which relate to rights in cattle retain
their traditional non-Muslim character. See Stenning, below, pp. 199ff.
68 Introduction
best seen with the Muslim rite of circumcision which, though
it is not explicitly mentioned in the Quran, is regarded alike by
Muslims and non-Muslims as an indispensable mark of adherence
to the faith.
Coinciding with the long-term trend in all regions subject to
major social change, the emphasis in Islam is on the conception
of male circumcision (and female clitoridectomy) as an individual
rite. But where the traditional social structure includes an age-set
organization and circumcision is a novelty introduced by Islam,
the rite tends to be incorporated as a collective rite de passage in
the cycle of age ceremonies. This assimilation, which normally
fixes circumcision as an initiation rite into manhood and at a later
age than is prescribed by Islam, is well calculated to provoke
controversy among the clergy. It may also require the services
of both traditional and Muslim ritual experts.
The sort of dualism which results in such cases is well
illustrated by the Swahili yando circumcision rites. Here the actual
circumcision is frequently performed by a local Muslim cleric,
but the initiation retreat rituals which are part of the age-set
ceremonies are controlled by traditional officiants. At the end of
the novices’ retreat the coming-out ceremonies include such
Muslim rituals as the reading of the Prophet’s birthday service
(mawlid) and a sacrificial feast (sadaga). Where, however, the
Islamic circumcision ceremony is performed in early childhood,
as is required on the orthodox view, and is thus detached from
rituals of transition to adult status, the latter are celebrated
separately. This is the position in some Swahili communities;
and often elsewhere when there is no traditional age-set organi-
zation and circumcision is performed as an individual act within
the bosom of the family.
To those for whom bodily mutilations represent tribal identity
marks, but who do not themselves traditionally practice it,
circumcision regularly appears as one of the most striking Islamic
traits. But the part must not be taken for the whole: as with such
24 See Prins, 1961, pp. 108-9. Foran excellent description of the jando rites
in Tanganyika, see Cory, 1951, pp.77, 78, 81-94, 159-68, and among the Yao,
where it has made some slight headway, see Mitchell, 1956, pp. 81-2.
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 69
other superficial elements of Muslim culture as styles of dress
and accoutrement, the spread of circumcision has often far
out-distanced the faith with which it is associated. Thus, the
Azande of the Sudan and Congo seem to have adopted it from
an Islamic source without becoming Muslims:?° moreover, not-
withstanding such well-documented cases where a Muslim source
is indicated, circumcision cannot always be attributed with
certainty to Islamic influence.
It should also be noted that where Islam introduces, or
reinforces, the practice of female excision or clitoridectomy
among a people who traditionally carry out such other genital
mutilations as infibulation, this conjunction may serve to add
new weight, though quite without warrant, to the latter. To
some degree this is apparently the case in those parts of the Sudan
Republic, Ethiopia, and the Somali Republic where women are
regularly infibulated.2® Here, just as an uncircumcised man is
incomplete and unclean, the purpose of clitoridectomy is to make
a woman clean and wholesome in a religious sense. Infibulation,
on the other hand, is concerned to exaggerate virginity and to
ensure its preservation until the time of marriage.
With regard to marriage itself, the jural aspects of which have
already been discussed, we need only note here the ready and
widespread adoption of the appropriate Islamic ceremonial
(especially the wedding feast, walima [Sw.]) and its various
combinations with traditional rituals. Islam even sets the pattern
for the length of the wedding festivities, which, particularly in
the case of a man’s first marriage, or the marriage of a virgin,
usually continue over seven days.
The position is much the same with funeral ritual, which,
wherever Islam has spread, shows a remarkable underlying uni-
formity, despite the presence of an assortment of traditional
elements. The distinctive Muslim traits are: the ritual washing of
the corpse to the accompaniment of prayer; the incensing of
the body; the use of a bier to carry the corpse to the grave; the
25 See Evans—Pritchard, 1965.
26 For a recent comprehensive examination of this subject see, C. G. Widstrand,
1964.
70 Introduction
standard type and orientation of the grave towards Mecca;”” the
ritual funeral service conducted by clerics; the sprinkling of
earth over the grave; the ritual mourning of the bereaved
(washing, seclusion, and purification); and the observance of the
subsequent ceremonies for the dead on the first, third, seventh,
and fortieth days. All these elements, or the majority of them, are
widely distributed—sometimes extending into areas where Islam
has as yet made little other impression—and are variously com-
bined with indigenous burial ritual. But, whereas most traditional
religions share Islam’s belief in the survival of the soul, generally
the accompanying Muslim eschatology strikes a new note.
(c) CALENDAR FEASTS

The Muslim lunarcalendar is everywhere adopted with Islam,

and tends to displace other systems of time-reckoning, except
where these are very tirmly embedded in an unchanging seasonal
cycle of economic interests. To the extent that pre-Islamic sys-
tems (e.g. solar calendars) continue to exist in parallel with the
Muslim calendar, earlier non-Muslim ceremonies marking tran-
sition points in the year also tend to be observed.
Generally, however, the Arabic names for the Muslim months
are adopted, although alternative local names based on an earlier
calendar may also be utilized, as well as direct vernacular trans-
lations expressive of the social and religious content of the month
in question. Thus, the month of Ramadan is known to the Mende
as the ‘moon of deprivation’, and more generally throughout
Muslim West Africa as simply the ‘fasting month’, a usage which
is also found among the Somali®8 and in the Swahili area as well as
elsewhere. This month of abnegation with its jubilant closing
ceremony, the ‘id al-fitr, is everywhere celebrated and acquires
a special measure of holiness, so that, for example, many evil
spirits and malignant powers are believed to be largely incapaci-
tated during it.
27 There is, however, frequent controversy on the question of tombstones
and the degree of their elaboration and conspicuousness. The fundamentalists,
who oppose the cult of saints, also look askance at over-elaborate burials and
grave markings.
28 Where the following month is known as ‘fast-opening’ (soonfur).
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 71
Paradoxically, despite its name, the ‘Great Feast’ or ‘id al-
kabir, which falls on the 12th day of the Muslim month of pil-
grimage (Dhu'l-hijja), tends to be the lesser of these two impor-
tant festive occasions. Known generally in the Western Sudan as
tabaske, in centralized states such as those of the Wolof this feast
provides the opportunity for public payment of homage to kings
and chiefs.? This motif is strongly marked in Nupe, where Nadel
has drawn attention to the manifestations of’ social solidarity
and interdependence which the celebrations include, thus serving
as a ‘display of kingship’ and a ‘confirmation of political alle-
giance’.2° The extent to which these important public political
rituals of Islam may also include elements of symbolic rebellion
and opposition, expressive of the tension in authority, has yet to
be determined.
In contrast to the popularity of these festivals, the anniversary
of the Prophet’s birthday (mawilid) itself tends to receive less
attention, especially in West Africa: in Nupe it is identified with
the gani age-grade ceremonies.*! In the eastern Sudan, North-
East Africa, and East Africa, however, this feast is more regularly
celebrated, and it is perhaps not too far-fetched to suggest that,
like pilgrimage,** it may to some extent be regarded as an exten-
sion or sublimation of ancestor cults.
The Muslim new year falling on the roth day of Muharram is
also generally the occasion for festivity. The emphasis given to
this feast seems to vary more or less directly with the extent to
which earlier fertility cults, where they existed, have become de-
tached from a pre-Islamic calendar regulating the productive
divisions of the year. When the latter system of time-reckoning
continues to play an important part through its connexion with
seasonal economic interests and activities, traditional new-year
ceremonies persist and are likely to eclipse Muharram in import-
ance.
Thus, among the Swahili, where the old solar calendar, which
is probably of Persian origin, is tied to sea-faring and cultivation,
29 See Monteil, below, p. 167. 30 Nadel, 1954, p. 240.
31 Nadel, op. cit., p. 217.
82 It seems significant in this context that the Swahili hold ceremonial feasts
commemorating the dead during the pilgrimage festivities of Dhu‘l-hijja.
72 Introduction
the new-year feast of Nayrus is widely celebrated with elaborate
feasting and sacrifice, while Muharram is largely ignored.33 This
feast continues to enjoy prominence all the way up the Somali*4
coast; and among the southern agricultural Somali is also regu-
larly celebrated, particularly in the elaborate ‘feast of beating’
(iskutun) at Afgoi near Mogadishu. Among the nomads, however,
who lay greater emphasis on the Muslim new year, this tradi-
tional feast is no longer regularly observed, and has become little
more than a superstition. Finally, in Nupe the reverse process
has occurred. Here the traditional and Muslim new-year festivals
have fused and the navu feast of torches is celebrated in Muhar-
ram. This new hybrid ceremony has spread into non-Muslim
areas to be incorporated in other calendrical cycles.*°
Everywhere the persistence of such traditional rituals, whether
as part of the Muslim cycle of feasts, or as part of a separate
calendar, or as elements variously blended with those of the
Islamic heritage, provides fertile soil for religious debate in the
increasingly Muslim community. In this book a very charac-
teristic example of such disputation on the question of the legiti-
macy of traditional rites is that described in a Swahili community
by Dr. Peter Lienhardt.°®
(d) ALMS AND SACRIFICE

Having already made brief passing reference to the assimilation

of Muslim elements in traditional kingship rituals,” we must now
turn to consider the meaning given in the local African context
to the two principal categories of Muslim alms (sadaga) and tithes
(zakat). While in the Islamic theocracies of West Africa (and in
the Mahdist state of the Eastern Sudan) zakaz formed part of the
state taxes, under the colonial régimes it ceased to be levied in this
form and is generally everywhere confused today with sadaga,
voluntary alms. Such distinction as remains is that usually the
term zakat is applied to contributions made to prominent shaikhs
and the clergy, generally by way of charity,38 while sadaga de-
33 See Gray, 1955. 34 See Lewis, 1955, Pp- 64-65.
35 Nadel, op. cit., p. 241. See also more generally, Trimingham, 1959, pp-
76-7 36 Below, pp. 289-300. 37 Above, p. 71.
88 The institution of religious benefices or wagfs is particul arly rare in West
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 73
notes a much wider range of meritorious gifts to all categories of
the poor and includes formal sacrifice of meat and other offerings
to God.
This should surprise no one: for in Islam all those who are
weak in a secular sense are believed to enjoy the special care and
protection of God. And those who give charity do so in the
knowledge that in the process they stand to gain merit in the eyes
of God. Such offerings, then, though associated with feasts (either
at transition rites or in the great calendrical festivals) are essen-
tially for the consumption of the poor, of children, and of the
clergy—all those to whom the solicitous attentions of the pious
bring their own reward.
Hence sadaga becomes synonymous with sacrifice, and even in
urban areas of the Sudan Republic is regularly used to mean a
memorial service for the dead.*° Its use is similarly widely extended
to describe Muslim rain-making ceremonies, directed by the
clergy, in West, East, and North-East Africa, when Quranic
prayers are recited and offerings made to petition God to send
rain. Indeed, the full range of ceremonies and ritual occasions
involving prestation and containing the notion of sacrifice thus
assimilated to the Muslim institution of sadaga also includes such
diverse activities as the free distribution of sacrifice at Hausa
iskoki spirit ceremonies‘? and fund-raising parties held by ro-
tating credit societies and mutual benefit clubs and associations
among the Mossi and in West Africa generally. These diverse
local interpretations and adaptations of one of the primary reli-
gious institutions of the faith illustrate something of the wide
variety in forms of assimilation which can be achieved even within
the minimal tenets of Islam.
Similarly, and lastly, accommodations of a different kind also
occur with the cherished religious ideal of pilgrimage to Mecca,
which, even with recent developments in air-communication,
remains for most Africans perhaps the most difficult of the ‘Five
Africa, though not quite so uncommon in East and North-East Africa. See
Anderson, 1959.
3® See Barclay, 1964, pp. 264-6. Elsewhere, as, e.g., among Swahili and Somali,
the Arabic term ziyara, the ‘visitation’ of a saint’s tomb, is generally used in this
sense. 49 Greenberg, 1946, p. 45.
714 Introduction
Pillars’ to accomplish. Nevertheless, the popularity of the hay,
and, despite all the problems and expense it involves, especially
in peripheral or isolated areas, is a remarkable testimony both to
the strength of religious devotion shown by many of the most
humble believers and to the prestige which its successful accom-
plishment brings. Here it is pertinent to ask to what extent pil-
grimage to Mecca may be regarded as a form of sublimation of
pre-Islamic ancestor veneration. This question, however, is
easier to raise than to answer. For pilgrimage to Mecca is also
widely observed in areas such as North-East Africa, where
distance is not a great obstacle and where traditional ancestor
cults are successfully assimilated to Muslim saint veneration.
Despite, or perhaps rather because of, its unique character,
both in its geographical situation and in the emotional appeal
which it exercises for the devout, local pilgrimage cults modelled
on that at Mecca have arisen in some of the areas with which we
are concerned. Thus, for example, in West Africa the shrines of
the Murid leader Amadu Bambaat Touba,*! and that at Tivaouane
in the custody of the Hafid Tijaniyya,*? attract crowds on a scale
which is certainly comparable with the Meccan pilgrimage. The
cult of Shaikh Hussayn Baliale at his shrine on the Upper
Shebelle River in Ethiopia, which involves a unique blending of
Muslim and animist Galla elements, provides a similar instance of
these local attempts to emulate, if not eclipse, the orthodox cult
at Mecca. The Somali veneration of Sharif Yusuf al-Kawneyn,
at his shrine near Hargeisa,*% is neither so elaborate nor ambitious
in intention. It is, however, brought into equivalence with the
holy pilgrimage to Mecca in the popular Somali view that to
visit this local shrine three times is as meritorious and rewarding
as to go once to the Ka‘ba itself.
(e) ASSIMILATION OR ABERRATION

Some of the accommodations discussed in the foregoing, how-

ever much they testify to the vitality of traditional religious con-
cepts and practice and to the generous catholicity of Islam, are
41 See Bourlon, 1962, pp. 53 ff.
42 Quesnot, 1962, pp. 133-55- 43 Above, p. 63.
 Islam and Traditional Belief and Ritual 75
inevitably of questionable orthodoxy and frequently provoke
long and bitter controversy. But, as those students of Islam whose
conceptions derive from the study of documents rather than from
the observation of actual behaviour must always be reminded,
the gulf in Islam between ideals and practice, as with other reli-
gions with codified theologies, is generally wide, and the problem
is to decide how far the boundary of apologetics can reasonably
be strained. Variously extended by such cultural appendages as
circumcision, the objective minimum criteria of Islam remain the
‘Five Pillars’, and while these are most realistically regarded as
norms which all Muslims accept and, with varying degrees of
success, seek to fulfil, the extent to which deviations from them
may be tolerated and treated as the inevitable failure of practice
to match ideals can only be decided by the Muslim community at
large. In reality, of course, there is not one but many communities
in Islam. And many who regard themselves as Muslims are
scarcely accepted as such by those they take to be their co-
religionists.
This is not the place to venture further into what is ultimately
a metaphysical problem beyond the realms of sociological analy-
sis. Here it is sufficient to recall that African Muslims, as other
Muslims, tend to represent Islam to the non-Muslim asa totally
religious creed and system of ritual observances and injunctions
rather than as a way of life or complete cultural system. Yet, in
truth, Islam is all these. Nor, and this is sometimes accounted
Islam’s distinguishing genius, do Muslims experience difficulty
in dividing the imperatives which direct the conduct of their
lives into those which are part of the Islamic heritage and those
which belong to local tradition. This dichotomy which enables
Muslims, if not Islam as such, to accommodate so much and so
variously, not only of traditional but also of new influences, is
not always adequately expressed in such terms as ‘dualism’ and
‘parallelism’, etc. For the strength of Muslim devotion, at least
in many areas, is still such that in the last analysis these two dis-
tinct sources of legitimacy are seen as merging in a single Muslim
way of life where all standards of thought and conduct are as-
sumed to derive their final sanctity.
 VI. ISLAM AND THE MODERN WORLD

(a) THE COLONIAL ERA

Our main purpose here will be to consider the effects of the

colonial situation on the character of the relations between Mus-
lim and non-Muslim peoples and, despite (or sometimes because
of) the association of colonization with Christianity, the further
consolidation and spread of Islam during this period. It need
scarcely be added that this is an extremely broad question. In
seeking to deal with it we shall find, as in other aspects of the
development of Islam in tropical Africa, a similar range of appa-
rently contradictory responses and reactions which reflect the
diversity of circumstances and conditions in different regions
and at different times during the colonial era. Notwithstanding
this, however, certain broad generalizations will emerge.
The immediate effects of colonial rule naturally varied with the
policies and attitudes of the colonizers, both official and un-
official, towards Islam. As well as by larger imperial concerns,
these have inevitably been influenced by the degree and charac-
ter of the attachment of the administering powers to Christianity,
and even more significantly in practice, by the exigencies of local
circumstances. Consequently, it is scarcely surprising that policy
and practice should have varied considerably both among the
colonial possessions of a single metropolitan power and within
the same colonial territory at different periods and phases of its
existence. These contrasts reflecting a necessarily pragmatic
response to differing conditions are especially apparent in the
early stages of colonization. Compare, for example, Leopold’s
initial alliance with the Arabs in the Congo with later events;
or the use by Britain of Zanzibar’s tenuous claims to the East
African Coast, with British opposition to Islam in Buganda and
Central Africa.
One of the clearest and least ambiguous instances of a colonial
power’s direct encouragement of Islam, and not merely as a
 Islam and the Modern World 77
religious force, is seen in the history of the Italian colonies of
Eritrea and Somalia. In these territories once the work of paci-
fication had been completed the local administrations sought to
use Islam as a means of furthering the metropolitan government’s
aggressive ambitions against Christian Ethiopia. Here, in fact,
to a large extent, and particularly in Somalia, which was in any
case solidly Muslim, the colonial situation represented a con-
tinuation, and in some respects an intensification, of the pre-
colonial political circumstances. In her North African colonies,
and especially in Cyrenaica, where she had Senusi nationalism to
contend with, Italy’s enthusiasm for Islam was more restrained.t
At the other extreme in the Belgian Congo, once the Arab flirta-
tion had outgrown its utility, the administration’s attitude was
one of uncompromising hostility towards Islam. This, of course,
was in part the result of Leopoldian clericalism, as well as the
need to limit Arab trading competition, and the authorities’ in-
tolerance of Islam in this case virtually halted the spread of the
new faith in an area where it had just begun to make a tangible
impact.
In the British sphere, although the Kenya Coast and Zanzibar
have some claim, Northern Nigeria and the Northern Sudan
probably afford the best examples of territories where adminis-
trative sympathy and support for Islam was strongly expressed.
Once the initial resistance to British control had been overcome
in northern Nigeria, the agreements establishing the authority
of the new rulers forbade all Christian proselytization in the
Emirates, and left the field clear for further Muslim consoli-
dation. Moreover, the incorporation of many elements of the
traditional Muslim political organization in the new administra-
tive system of indirect rule naturally enhanced the status of Islam
and encouraged its wider dissemination. In the Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan, after the storms and tribulations of the Mahdia were
safely over, much the same position was reached.
Ona much smaller scale a comparable degree of administrative
partiality for the Muslim Somali of the Northern Province of
Kenya (similar to that displayed in British Somaliland) led to the
1 See Evans-Pritchard, 1949.
78 Introduction
preferment of these nomads in their conflicts with non-Muslim
Galla Boran, and helped to convince those Boran who were cut
off from their traditional ritual centres that the best passport
to success lay in their adopting Islam on the Somali pattern.”
In quite other circumstances and with different effects, where
administrative attitudes towards Muslim minorities were not
so favourable, the Ndendeuli of Tanganyika provide an instance
of a people to many of whom Islam seemed more attractive than
Christianity, since they identified the latter religion with their
traditional enemies the Ngoni.
In the French West African territories the establishment of
colonial rule involved widespread conflict with Islam, for in the
circumstances of the extensive influence of Haji ‘Umar’s Tijaniyya
brotherhood it was as Richard-Molard has put it: ‘the world of
the torobe (clerics) that it was necessary to dominate entirely, or
nothing at all’. While this naturally fostered the continuance of
the tradition of revivalist holy wars and their redirection against
the Christian colonizers, a combination of strong measures with a
later practical tolerance of Islam did not prevent the eventual
attainment of harmonious relations between the two sides.
Official French policy towards Islam vacillated considerably,
but even at its most hostile made little difference to the situation
on the ground. As Gouilly has aptly remarked: “The same men,
who at Bamako or Dakar elaborated directives destined to con-
found ‘The Peril of Islam’’, in practice took measures which were
designed to strengthen it.* And in any case, unlike the position
in Leopold’s Congo, many of the French officials held strongly
secular and anti-clerical views which left little room for any
religiously grounded intolerance of Islam. Others had come from
Algeria.
If, then, official French policy was from time to time, and
particularly in the first two decades of this century, deliberately
concerned to restrain Muslim proselytization and ever watchful
of foreign Muslim infiltration, this did not prevent the local
2 See Baxter, in Islam, rst ed., p. 242. 8 1949, p. 69.
4 1952, p. 254. For an excellent analysis of French policy see pp. 247 ff. of
this work, and for an admirably concise statement Lord Hailey—in Anderson,
1954, pp. V-VI.
 Islam and the Modern World 79
administrative officials from reaching something of the same
sort of practical understanding with their Muslim subjects as
was generally achieved under British rule. Thus, even such an
initially intransigent movement as that of the Muridiyya in
Senegal, formed at a time when orthodox Islam supported the
colonial system, later lost its militancy and devoted its energies
to the intensive cultivation of ground-nuts with the benevolent
approval of the French authorities. Likewise, in’ Britain’s small
Somaliland Protectorate, where Shaikh Muhammad ‘Abdille
Hassan’s twenty-years’ jihad (1900-20) against the Christian
Ethiopians and British affords one of the clearest instances of a
Muslim protest movement which arose directly in circumstances
of Christian colonization, the end of this turbulent period led
eventually to a new understanding With the Administration in
which Islamic institutions were respected and supported and all
Christian proselytization was prohibited.
Thus, in general in those colonies where Islam was already
strongly entrenched, whatever the character of the initial coloniz-
ing action, and whether or not traditional Muslim rulers were
retained, as in most British possessions, or displaced, as was often
the case with the more direct system of French administration,®
the new authorities did not seek to disestablish Islam. Nor, in-
deed, except in the Congo, did the colonial administrations suc-
ceed in preventing proselytization or the further spread of Islam.
On the contrary, the overall effect of colonization was rather
generally conducive to a new expansion of the faith. And while
the exclusion of Christian proselytization from the most ardently
Muslim areas under British rule did not, of course, cordon these
off completely from Christian influence, since, as in Northern
Nigeria, Christians were frequently employed in the administra-
tive services, almost universally the colonial administrations
helped their Muslim subjects to build mosques and schools, and
often directly subsidized pilgrimage to Mecca or facilitated its
organization. Here administrative action was largely determined,
irrespective of the official policy in vogue, by the inescapable fact
5 The practical effects of French and British administrative policy must not,
of course, be contrasted too strongly. See Deschamps, 1963, and Crowder, 1964.
80 Introduction

that in Islam Muslims possessed a bridge mediating between the

narrow particularism of traditional: society and the wider im-
pulses and requirements of modern life and economic interests.
Significantly, it was precisely in those regions where Islam was
not already available to provide this vital service that the ad-
herents of traditional African religions turned with enthusiasm to
Christianity as the means to an effective participation in the wider
world opened up by colonization. This was generally the situa-
tion in East Africa behind the Muslim coastal belt, and on the
West African coast. In both these regions Africans achieved
positions of prominence in the wider supra-ethnic society, not so
much as in Muslim areas by success as traders and soldiers, as
in the Christian Western occupations of teacher, clerk, and
government official.
In areas in which both religions were represented the dichoto-
my between Muslim and Christian occupations was most marked
where the British pattern of Indirect Rule had entrenched con-
servativist Islam and the young aspiring men of modernist out-
look issued from the schools of the Christian missions. This divi-
sion seems to have been less marked in the Sudan Republic,
where British rule was more direct. The contrast was also much
less striking in the French and Italian territories, where the system
of administration and the ‘civilizing mission’ of the colonizers
exerted a powerful levelling effect. These provisional generaliza-
tions, however, certainly require more detailed testing, and a
comparative study of the cultural and religious backgrounds
and school careers of officials and politicians in the different
territories would be illuminating.
In British, French, and Italian territories a further important
effect of administrative action directly favourable to Islam was
the considerable, though varying, authority allowed to the Shari'a
under colonial government and the widespread appointment of
official gadis and Muslim courts whose jurisdiction was by no
means restricted only to suits between professing Muslims.®
Moreover, in many regions the use made of the Quran for swear-

® On the position in British territories, see Anderson, 1954, passim; and in

French territories, Gouilly, 1952, pp. 236-7, 254 ff.
 Islam and the Modern World 81
ing witnesses has exerted a notable influence. Where the un-
converted have been offered the choice of swearing on the Quran,
or on the Bible, or by some ‘fetish’, the general tendency has been
to adopt the Muslim practice.
More widely still, irrespective of particular colonial policies
and administrative procedures, the pax colonica itself created
conditions which greatly encouraged the dissemination of Islam.
Prior to colonization, as we have seen, Islam had spread most
successfully in circumstances of social change, of ethnic inter-
action and dislocation, and of the extension of economic and
political frontiers. With the new opportunities for trade and
commerce and the greatly improved and more secure communi-
cations, both within countries and between them, it is scarcely
to be wondered at that a new era of Islamic expansion should
have been ushered in. The trend now, moreover, was towards
individual conversion, the very personal character of which is
seen in the presence of Muslims, Christians, and the adherents of
traditional religions within the bosom of the same families and
kinship groups.
Increased travel and trading activities, migrant labour and
movement, the development of administrative and commercial
towns, all these played avital part in throwing together Muslims
and non-Muslims of different origin and ethnic groups in circum-
stances in which co-religionists displayed an impressive soli-
darity despite their differences of origin. Nothing could more
persuasively demonstrate the supra-ethnic character of the com-
munity of Islam, and the many advantages open to its members.
Christianity of course, and Church and other Christian associa-
tions, offered similar benefits, but not, it would seem, on the
same scale or as readily.’
At the same time the local expansion of Islam received renewed
stimulus and encouragement with the arrival of new Muslim
immigrants from the Middle East and India and Pakistan, and the
introduction of dynamic modern missionary movements such as
the Ahmadiyya® sect in West Africa and the Isma‘ili and other
7 There would seem scope here for a comparative study of the functions and
success of Muslim (see Grindal, 1973) and Christian associations.
8 See Fisher, 1963.
82 < Introduction
sectarian organizations in East Africa. Although these often
gave rise to new lines of division and conflict, they also brought
welcome new blood.
Finally, it is essential not to overlook the obvious considera-
tion that, especially in areas subject to dual missionary activity,
the association of the colonizers with Christianity usually tended
to give Islam a special appeal as the religion of resistance and
independence, and this effect was enhanced by the readiness with
which Islam, unlike Christianity, adapted itself to local conditions
and imposed few, if any, restrictions on the formation of a local
indigenous clergy. Despite some tendencies towards unorthodox
developments in Islam, it is perhaps this above all which accounts
for the very small number of Muslim separatist movements in
Africa, in contrast to the multitude of Christian separatist
churches, and explains the remarkable unity of Islam throughout
tropical Africa.
Thus, the total effect of the pax colonica, as much involuntary
as intended, was to promote an unprecedented expansion of
Islam. And, as Professor Froelich® justly observes for West
Africa, and this also applies to a lesser extent in the other areas
surveyed in this book, in half a century of European colonization
Islam progressed more widely and more profoundly than in ten
centuries of pre-colonial history. In this short space of time it
seems probable that the number of Muslims in tropical Africa had
at least doubled.
This rapid expansion has naturally not been completely un-
contested, least of all by the Christian missions themselves. And,
as we have seen, attachment to Christianity has furnished an
important alternative avenue into the new world of larger alle-
giances and interests, and also another means for the expression
of traditional hostilities and conflicts. This is especially evident
in the contrasting cases of Ethiopia and the Sudan Republic.
In the first, national integration has been pursued through the
medium of the Christian culture of the dominant Amhara and the
Amharic language, in opposition to the conflicting claims of
scarcely less numerous but less powerful Muslim interests. In
® In Islam, ist ed., p. 166.
 Islam and the Modern World 83
the second, it is the Muslim culture of the dominant north which
has become associated with national integration at the expense of
the south, where a separatist tradition was fostered under British
rule and found expression through Christianity.
Conflicting religious attachments, and not merely between
Islam and Christianity but also within Islam itself, have thus
sometimes served to entrench traditional differences, leaving
many denominational conflicts to be resolved after independence.
Yet they have, at the same time, also pointed to wider loyalties
and interests, and have helped to override traditional ethnic
particularism. From the point of view of the secular needs of the
new states, this is certainly a most significant contribution; and
what is perhaps most remarkable is the mutual tolerance and re-
straint which Muslim and Christian proselytizers have frequently
displayed.1°
(b) NATIONALISM AND INDEPENDENCE
The history of the role of Islam in the development of African
nationalism has yet to be written. There are few studies, even
in particular territories, of the political activities and alignments of
Muslims, or of the influence of Pan-Islamic propaganda from
Egyptian and other sources, far less any general examination of
this important topic as a whole. Hence we can only conclude this
brief survey by suggesting some points of comparative interest
concerning the political positions associated with Islam in the
growth of national movements, and the place of this religion
and of its adherents in the newly independent states.
It will be apparent that the same factors which enabled Islam
to act as a bridge between ethnicity and the wider system of rela-
tions established under colonial rule might also be expected to
give African Muslims an initial advantage over their non-Muslim
countrymen in the initiation and organization of nationalist
movements directed towards sovereignty and independence.
Thus, particularly in West Africa, as the heirs of a commercial
and partly urban tradition concerned with long-distance trade
10 For a sensitive appraisal of the situation in French West Africa prior to
independence, see Gouilly, op. cit., pp. 267 ff.
84 . Introduction
and the pilgrimage, with at the same time a fund of Muslim
knowledge and some command of a written language and adminis-
trative experience in both the pre-colonial and colonial régimes,
as well as often of resistance to the colonizers, local Muslims
clearly possessed a unique heritage which could be applied to
the development of modern nationalism. Their special advantages,
moreover, lay not only in the field of ideas, organization, and
communication but also in the crucial realm of finance.
These resources, of course, could only be expected to be un-
reservedly harnessed to modern nationalist endeavour where this
aimed at goals which were fully acceptable to the interests of the
Muslims concerned. Where the attainment of independence was
regarded as being likely to prejudice Muslim interests, the same
organizational resources and skills could equally easily be applied
in a manner which radical African nationalists would regard as
conservative. The manner in which the Muslim factor has operated
in the growth of African nationalism, therefore, has depended
very largely upon the special circumstances of Muslim interests
in different territories at different times.
The recent political histories of Mali,1! Senegal,!? and also
Guinea!’ probably afford the best examples of the general coinci-
dence of Muslim and popular nationalist aims in West Africa,
while this is seen even more unequivocally in the rather different
circumstances of Somaliland!4 and the Sudan Republic?®. On the
other hand, in territories where former ruling Muslim dynasties
were preserved, or immigrant Muslim communities (such as the
Arabs in East Africa) were assigned a specially privileged position
by the colonial administrations, they naturally tended to adopt a
more conservative ideology and position. Consequently, as in
Zanzibar and northern Nigeria, such specially favoured Muslim
11 See Hodgkin and Schachter Morgenthau, 1965. See also M. Chailley, 1962.
12 See Bourlon, 1962; Quesnot, 1962; and Bourlon, 1964.
13 See Gray Cowan, 1962. And for some indication of the political role of
Islam generally in francophone West Africa, Thompson and Adloff, 1958;
and more generally, Post, 1964. For the Muslim factor in Sierra Leone politics
see Proudfoot, 1961.
14 This term is used here to include all the Somali territories—those under
Ethiopian and Kenyan jurisdiction, as well as those in French Somaliland and
the Somali Republic. See Lewis, 1965 (a). 15 See Holt, 1961.
 Islam and the Modern World - 85
groups resisted the appeal to a wider nationalism, except when
they were in a position to espouse a type of nationalism which
seemed compatible with the advancement of their own particu-
larist aims. The contrast here can perhaps be seen when the suc-
cess of popular ‘radical’ nationalism in Mali is compared with its
failure (at least up to the present) in northern Nigeria, following
the French destruction of traditional Muslim power in Mali and
its preservation by the British in northern Nigeria.
Nevertheless, although this distinction appears to have some
value, and not least in suggesting lines along which further analy-
sis might profitably be directed, it must not be maintained too
rigidly. There is a sense, for example, in which it may be argued
that nationalism in the Sudan Republic, despite its early Muslim
Dinka direction,!® may be regarded as concerned with the
conservation of northern Muslim political control. And the
case of Somalia is so unusual that it merits further brief men-
tion.
The roots of modern popular Somali nationalism lie in the
traditional cultural nationalism of this ethnic group, in which
Islam has always been a vital component. From the beginning,
Somali nationalism has aimed at the creation of a sovereign Somali
state embracing the entire Somali population, and has conse-
quently sought the re-unification of those parts of the nation dis-
membered by the colonial partition.1” Hence although two parts
of the nation (the former British and Italian Somalilands) are
now joined in the Somali Republic, the struggle to unite with the
remaining areas of Djibouti (French Somaliland), Ethiopia, and
northern Kenya still continues. This, of course, is the reverse
of the general trend elsewhere in Africa, where the movement is
not from nation to state, but from state to nation; and parallel
phenomena are only found in the particularistic ethnic divisions
within states.
Given the particular advantages which the Somali enjoy,
although they remain as yet not fully realized, it might be thought
16 Holt, Ibid., pp. 127 ff. See also Beshir, 1974.
17 Prior to colonization, however, despite their strong cultural nationalism,
the Somalis did not form a single political group. See Lewis, 1965 (a).
86 Introduction
that in other new states, with their patchworks of peoples and
language groups, Islam might be regarded as an aid to national
integration. So far elsewhere, however, Islam seems rarely to
have been viewed in this light, except in the Sudan Republic
and, more questionably perhaps, to some extent in Mali and
Senegal.
As far as actual Muslim participation in nationalist movements
is concerned, in all areas where the Religious orders were strongly
developed they played a significant role. In Senegal the Muridiyya
movement’s change of position from militant anti-French activity
to quietist co-operation was followed subsequently by pressure-
group activity in favour of the Section Frangaise de I’Inter-
nationale Ouvriére and later by support for Senghor’s Bloc
Démocratique Sénégalais. Again in Senegal during the crucial
period between 1958 and 1960 the Muridiyya and the Tijaniyya
(almost three times as strong) both aligned themselves with
those who favoured the retention of strong ties with France.
But the Hamallist reformist branch of the Tijaniyya developed
in the years between the two world wars in the Soudan (i.e.
Mali) and neighbouring French territories as a proto-nationalist
vehicle of popular protest against colonial administration and
Muslim compliance. It appealed most to submerged social groups,
and with such a following it helped to prepare the ground for the
emergence of the Rassemblement Démocratique African after
the Bamako conference in 1946.
In the Sudan Republic, as might be expected, recent political
developments have been more strongly influenced by the activi-
ties of the Religious Orders. Here the critical factor is the
association between the Khatmiyya sariga and the Ashiqqa party,
on the one hand, and that between their rivals the Ansar (led
by the Mahdi’s son) and the Umma party, on the other. The
tarigas have also similarly played an important role in Somali
politics, although in this case, with the overriding strength of
clan ties, their political connexions are less clear-cut.
If the religious orders, by their very nature as organizations
dedicated to promoting a wider sense of communal identity
than that based on ethnicity, have facilitated the growth and
 Islam and the Modern World - 87
achievement of modern nationalism (and, incidentally, pointed
to wider territorial regroupings of African states), where they
have come to be of importance in modern politics their inter-
denominational rivalries have also necessarily exerted a significant
force. This is evident, as we have seen in the competition be-
tween the Khatmiyya and Ansar in the Sudan Republic, and is
also apparent in West Africa in the rival attractions of the Qadi-
riyya and Tijaniyya. Thus, in strongly Musjim countries the
tarigas have not only contributed in various ways to the develop-
ment of nationalism as such but have also markedly affected the
character of internal politics in the pre- and post-independence
phases. Detailed comparison of their political roles with those of
Christian organizations in areas of mixed religious affiliation
would be of considerable interest.
Passing now to Islamic education, we find that traditional
forms of religious teaching and schooling, while showing re-
markable resilience, have naturally tended to be weakened in
competition with imported forms of Western secular education.
Consequently, the products of the former system, malams,
shaikhs, and gadis, etc., have generally only identified themselves
strongly with the new nationalist movements in territories such
as Mali, Senegal, the Sudan Republic, and the Somali Republic
(and in different circumstances in northern Nigeria), where
nationalist aims and aspirations have been couched, at least
partly, in Muslim terms by parties under predominantly Muslim
leadership or seeking Muslim support. And even then, although
their co-operation has been important, they have seldom played a
leading role. Their sustained allegiance has probably been most
crucial in such countries as the Sudan and Somali Republics, where
Islam is a fundamental part of local culture and where the rise of
modern nationalist movements was at the beginning, at least,
largely independent of any large-scale economic development
and trade-union activity.
By contrast, those who have had experience of the modernist
centres of Muslim higher education in Egypt and North Africa
seem generally to have played a more active and critical role in
the generation and diffusion of nationalist ideas and also in the
88 Introduction
organization of local independent Muslim schools as instruments
of educational and social reform.18 Equally, pilgrimage to
Mecca, with greatly increased participation from such outlying
areas as West Africa, and the growth of local interest and
involvement in such organizations as the Islamic Congress’?
fostered the wider dissemination of reformist anti-colonial
ideas from the Arab World, to say nothing of the extremely
significant impact of the Arab Press and Radio, particularly
from Cairo.
Faced with such a militant modernist interpretation of Islam,
with its ready accommodation to the secular requirements of
nationalism and the modern state, the old order of clergy has
tended to become a conservative force wedded to traditional
forms of religious education and opposed to the extension of
modern secular schooling. Hence, even in predominantly Muslim
countries, despite the deep commitment of the political élite to
Islam, this old guard has naturally not been immune from
criticism and attack. Friction similarly arises over the traditional
activities of holymen and the custodians of saints’ shrines where
these are seen as profiting from the ignorance and unsophistica-
tion of the populace. This conflict between the guardians of
traditional Islam and the new more secularly orientated political
leaders is highlighted by such controversies as that over the
status of Arabic and the Arabic script in countries such as the
Somali Republic.
At the level of ideology itself the conceptual scheme of Islam
(especially in its reformist modes), if secularized sufficiently,
can readily be transposed into that type of modern nationalism
which is the moving spirit of Pan-A fricanism.?° Thus, the leaders
of Sekou Touré’s Parti Démocratique de Guinée, much influenced
by their experience of trade unionism and the theory of Marxism,
18 For the effect of these in West Africa, see Cardaire, 1954. Cheikh Touré’s
Li takune mu’minan. A fin que tu deviennes Croyant (1957) provides an interesting
statement of the reformist position in Senegal at this period. Here the faithful
are exhorted to join the struggle against colonialism and capitalism and against
the obscurantism and extortions of venal marabouts.
19 The Sixth World Islamic Conference met at Mogadishu in the Somali
Republic in December 1964. Egypt and Algeria did not attend.
20 See Hodgkin, 1962.
 Islam and the Modern World 89
could claim in 1954 that: ‘... we are in the pure line of Islam,
conquering because humane and charitable’.21
In this accommodation to new circumstances and needs, in
which, up to a point, the resilience of Islam is again demonstrated,
the jihad becomes the struggle against colonialism (or neo-
colonialism), the reformers become ‘freedom fighters’, as in
Algeria, dar al-Islam becomes the body of sovereign African
states, and dar al-harb those which have yet to shake off the
colonialist yoke, And, stretching the analogy yet further, the
unity of the community (wmma) may be seen as the unity of
the African or Afro-Asian peoples. The ideal universal state
ruled according to the precepts of Islam in which justice, equality,
and brotherhood shall. prevail, is transposed into the model
African union organized according to the principles of ‘African
socialism’.?? These and other conceptual equivalences would seem
to give the popularist ideology of Pan-Africanism (at least in
the local context) a special appeal, actual or potential, among
Muslim communities with a tradition of reformist or Mahdist
ideas.
Once this has been said, however, it must immediately be
added that these theoretical correspondences, however persuasive,
have not so far been realized in any stable wider political associa-
tion, despite several abortive attempts, between the Muslim and
non-Muslim states of Africa and Asia. Pan-Africanism and Pan-
Islamism remain two distinct, sometimes over-lapping, but never
fully interlocked spheres of interest and attachment, and are both
encompassed in that larger, vaguer, and even more fluid circle of
alignments represented by the Third World block. And this seems
likely to continue as long as a distinction is drawn within Islam
between Arab and non-Arab. For those African Muslims who once
vaunted their putative Arab connexions are now increasingly
claiming that they are Africans.
71 Quoted from /a Liberté, 28 December 1954, by Ken Post, The New States
of West Africa, Penguin Books, London, 1964. Sekou Touré is, of course,
himself a Muslim. Similar claims are made to justify modern socialist trends in
Somalia. See Lewis, 1979(a).
22 For a valuable discussion of the nature of African socialism, see Friedland
and Rosberg, 1964; and, particularly with reference to Islam, Monteil, 1964.
90 Introduction
The difficulties involved in any wider political identification
are perhaps most acutely revealed in the external policies of
Egypt which sits uncomfortably athwart both worlds and aspires
to a position of leadership in each. And here, of course, the tradi-
tional attachment of states such as Ethiopia, and of many of the
new African leaders to Christianity, would seem destined to help
to maintain these distinctions. In inter-African affairs the real
importance of these cleavages is evident in the uneasy relation-
ships between Egypt, the Sudan, and Ethiopia, to say nothing of
the problem of Somali unification, on which the often vigorously
voiced support of those Muslim states outside Africa has fallen
upon deaf ears as far as those of their co-religionists who live
in the continent itself are concerned.?* The understandable in-
terest of the latter in the preservation of their own sensitive
frontiers and territorial prestige, and their natural fear of com-
parable particularist movements at home, have restrained such
sympathy as they might perhaps otherwise have felt for a cause
which to Somali nevertheless appears as a positive contribution
both to African and Islamic unity.™4
At the same time, it must also be remarked that those African
“countries which are officially constituted as Muslim states seem in
African, as in wider extra-African, affairs to have shown little
identity of interest or purpose. Often, indeed, they have adopted
contrary positions on international issues (as, for example, in
their attitudes towards Israel) and fallen into opposed camps in
their larger allegiances, other principles of common interest
exerting a greater attractive force than the bond of common
adherence to Islam.25 Nor could it be said that their various con-
stitutions conform in any sense to a common ‘Muslim’ pattern.
The extent to which Islam has in any constant fashion moulded
the character of their political processes, save in superficial aspects,
23 At the same time, however, it must be remarked that at the Sixth World
Muslim Conference in Mogadishu in 1964 all the African Muslim countries and
communities represented (including those from West Africa) pledged themselves
to support the Somali struggle for unification. Although it would be premature
to assess the significance of the Conference’s resolutions on this or other wider
issues (such as hostility towards Israel), it seems reasonable to suggest that the
mounting of the meeting itself should be seen as a Muslim attempt to emulate
the Addis Ababa Pan-African Summit conference of 1963. Somalia joined the
Arab League in 1974.
24 See Lewis, 1963 (4); 1979 (4) 25 See Legum, 1962.
 Islam and the Modern World — 91
is equally open to question, although, admittedly, this is a topic
which requires much more intensive research before a considered
judgment can be given. Nevertheless, the presence of Islam as a
unifying culturo-religious force might be supposed to endow
these states with a sufficient sense cf cohesion to permit the
existence of democratically competing political parties without
danger to their national solidarity. This potential, if it is such,
has so far seldom been realized very effectively, except in the
Somali Republic, where there is an unusually high degree of
cultural homogeneity and national cohesion.
Finally, if everywhere in tropical Africa Islam is today on the
march, the wider political consequences of any great new expan-
sion of Muslim influence and Pan-Islamic solidarity seem likely to
be tempered by the increasing secularism of modern Muslim
states and the general recognition that secular aims and policies
are more important in the modern world than common religious
interest. Moreover, today in states of mixed denomination all
religions are honoured, and at state ceremonies the Muslim, the
Christian, and the traditionalist join together in offering prayers
and libations, each according to his fashion. As with Christianity
in the West, Islamic civilization is being gradually detached from
its religious roots, and the gulf between the spiritual and the
secular spheres of life is widening. While, as elsewhere in the
Muslim world, continuing to influence deeply the private lives of
individuals, it is thus at least questionable whether Islam can be
expected in the future to exercise the profound political effect it
has had in earlier periods of African history.
Thus, although Islam may be regarded as a distinctive mode of
life and religion, as a historical heritage, or as a general ideology
of universal applicability, or, indeed, as all of these, it is increas-
ingly on the first two, rather than on the last of these that the
emphasis falls today. Or so it seemed in 1966. Over a decade later,
in the context of the world energy crisis, the concentration of oil
resources in the Arabian peninsula gave Arab and Islamic
identity an entirely new significance. However, if the Middle East
and North Africa are reliable guides, there seems little doubt that
as Islam becomes further entrenched within black Africa it will
become equally riven by local divisions and disputes.
92 Introduction
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Sauvaget, J.
(1950) ‘Les Epitaphes royales de Gao’, Bull. JFAN, vol. XII, pp. 418-40.
Smith, M. G.
(1953) ‘Secondary marriage in Northern Nigeria’, Africa, vol. XXIII, pp.
298-323.
(1955) The Economy of Hausa Communities of Zaria. London.
(1959) ‘The Hausa system of social status’, Africa, vol. XXIX, pp. 239-52.
(1960) Government in Zazzau. London.
Smith, H. F. C.
(1961) ‘A neglected theme of West African history: the Islamic revolutions of
the r9th century’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. II, no. 1.
Stenning, D. J.
(1959) Savannah Nomads. London.
Tanner, R. E. S.
(1964) ‘Cousin marriage in the Afro-Arab community of Mombasa, Kenya’,
Africa, vol. XXXIV, pp. 127-38.
Thompson, V. and Adboff, R.
(1958) French West Africa, London.
Thore, Luc
(1964) ‘Marriage et divorce dans la banlieue de Dakar’, Cahiers d’ Etudes
Africaines, vol. IV, pp. 479-552.
Touré, Cheikh
(1957) Li takune mu’minan. A fin que tu deviennes Croyant. Dakar.
Trimingham, J. S.
(1949) Islam in the Sudan. London.
(1952) Islam in Ethiopia. London.
(1959) Islam in West Africa. London.
(1962) A History of Islam in West Africa. London.
(1964) Islam in East Africa. Oxford.
Tubiana, M. J.
(1964) Survivances Préislamiques en Pays Zaghawa., Paris.
Vire, M. M.
(1959) ‘Stéles funeraires musulmanes soudano-sahariennes’, Bull. IF AN,
vol. XXI, pp. 459-500
Widstrand, C. G.
(1964) ‘Female infibulation’, Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia, vol. xx, pp.
95-124.

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Arens, W.
(1975) ‘The Waswahili: the social history of an ethnic group’, Africa, vol. 45,
PP. 426-37.
Beshir, M. O.
(1974) Revolution and Nationalism in the Sudan. London.
Caplan, A. P.
(1976) ‘Boys’ circumcision and girls’ puberty rites among the Swahili of Mafia
Island, Tanzania’, Africa, vol. 46, pp. 21-33.
Cohen, A.
(1968) Custom and Politics in Africa. London.
 References since 1967 97
Curtin, P.
(1971) ‘Jihad in West Africa’, Journal of African History, vol. XII, pp. 11-24.
Donald, L. H.
(1974) ‘Arabic literacy among the Yalunka of Sierra Leone’, Africa, vol. 44,
pp. 71-81.
Fisher, H. J.
(1973) ‘Conversion reconsidered: some historical aspects of religious con-
version in Black Africa’, Africa, vol. 43, pp. 27-40.
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(1973) “Changing family structures among the rural Hausa’, Africa, vol. 43,
pp. 207-18. ‘
Grindal, B. T.
(1973) ‘Islamic affiliations and urban adaptation: the Sisala migrant in Accra,
Ghana’, Africa, vol. 43, pp. 333-46.
Hiskett, M.
(1973) The Sword of Truth, New York.
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(1974) ‘Barbers and bearers: ecology and ethnicity in an Islamic society’,
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Horton, R.
(1975) “On the rationality of conversion’, Africa, vol. 45, pp. 219-35, 373-
99-
Last, M.
(1967) The Sokoto Caliphate. London.
Levtzion, N.
(1968) Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa. Oxford.
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(1971) Ecstatic Religion. Harmondsworth, UK.
(1979(a)) ‘Kim-il-Sung in Somalia’, in The Politics of Office, ed. P. Cohen and
W. Shack. Oxford.
(1979(4)) The Modern History of Somalia. London.
Martin, B. G.
(1976) Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth Century Africa. Cambridge.
O’Brien, D. B. C.
(1971) The Mourides of Senegal. Oxford.
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(1973) Religion and Political Culture in Kano. London.
Parkin, D.
(1972) Palms, Wine and Witnesses. London.
Person, Y.
(1968) Samouri: Une Révolution Dyula, 1. Dakar.
Salamone, F. A.
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study of ethnic pluralism and stratification’, Africa, vol. 45, pp. 410-24.
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344-59.
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(1970) Ritual and Symbol in Transitional Zaramo Society. Uppsala.
98 Introduction
Trimingham, J. S.
(1968) The Influence of Islam upon Africa. London.
Willis, J. R. (ed.)
(1979) Studies in West African Islamic History. London.
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 Il. SPECIAL STUDIES

I. THE PHASES OF ISLAMIC EXPANSION AND

ISLAMIC CULTURE ZONES IN AFRICA

J. S. TRIMINGHAM

I. THE SPREAD OF ISLAM

The spread of Islam in Africa is marked by four phases, which
also represent methods and depths and correspond to types of
contemporary Islam.

1. The Winning of North Africa (A.D. 638-1050)

The first stage is the conquest by the early Muslim Arabs of
all the Mediterranean littoral from Egypt to Morocco; then there
followed a period of pacification, quickly succeeded by a break-
up of the short-lived political unity into many Muslim states.
Islam slowly won over the Berbers, but their Arabization took
place during the next stage, following a new break-in of Arab
nomads.

2. The Spread of Islam into the Sudan Belt (1050-1750)

This period witnessed the slow and largely peaceful spread of
Islam southwards across the Sahara and up the valley of the Nile
into the Hamitic and Black Africa of the Sudan belt. Across the
Red Sea and by way of East Africa sea-routes it spread into the
plains of the Eastern Horn, where it gained the ‘Afar and Somali.
Settlements were formed along the East African coast, where a
new cultural group—the Swahili—was formed, but Islam had
no effect upon the Bantu and other peoples of the region.
This phase began with the upsurge of the Berber Murabitun
(from 1056) and the dispersion throughout North Africa of Arab
nomads of the Bani Hilal (from 1045). These events principally
 \
100 Special Studies
affected the desert and North Africa, for though the Murabits
conquered the Negro state of Gana on the edge of the southern
desert, they were soon expelled. The Arab peoples did not spread
Islam, but their conquest of the Berbers of Mauritania, south of
Morocco, led to their Arabization. The Berbers of central Sahara,
the Tuareg, were neither conquered nor Arabized.
The spread of Islam across the Sahara into the northern Sudan
came through the work of Berber traders and clerics in the west
and an influx of Arab peoples (a.D. 1300-1500) in the east, where
the Christianity of the Nilotic Sudan disappeared.
The feature of this period is the adoption of Islam as a class
religion—the imperial cult in the Sudan states like Mali and
Kanem and as the cult of the trading and clerical classes. Just as
various religious strata existed side by side in the mosaic of
Sudanese religion, so when Islam came on the scene there was no
feeling that it was incompatible with an African religious out-
look, and, strange though it may seem, Islam was incorporated
into the Sudanese religious scheme. Religious life was character-
ized by accommodation or, more correctly, by a dualism or a
parallelism of the old and the new—the African idea of the har-
mony of society maintained itself over against any idea of Islamic
exclusiveness. Consequently, Islam’s elements of challenge to
traditional life were largely neutralized.
The next period witnessed the triumph of Islam throughout
the Sudan belt in a form which claimed its exclusiveness, while
the modern period has seen the emergence among new converts
of a secular Islam different from traditional African Islam.
3. The Era of Theocracies and of states where Islam is the state
religion (1750-1901)
The nineteenth century was characterized by the appearance
of a new, intolerant and militant Islam. Clerics made their appear-
ance (the first in Futa Jalon in 1725) who waged the jzhad or holy
war and formed a number of theocratic states as they are usually
called, though they should really be called divine nomocracies,
since they all claimed to be ruled by divine law. These states
appeared throughout the Sudan belt from Guinea (Futa Jallon
 The Phases of Islamic Expansion 101
1776) and Senegal (Futa Toro, 1776), through Masina (1818)
and Sokoto (1802) to the Mahdia of the Nilotic Sudan (1881).
These states degenerated, and most of them were conquered or
came under the rule of a new type of despot, for example, al-
Hajj ‘Umar (185 4-64) in western Sudan and ‘Abdallah al-Ta‘aishi
in Nilotic Sudan (1885-98).
The great change introduced by the nineteenth-century re-
formers lay in the stress placed on the uniqueness and exclusive-
ness of Islam and its incompatibility with worship within the old
cults. These reformers brought an intensity into the former un-
challenging Islam, so Africanized as to be at the point of losing
its identity, which drove Islam into the centre of life as a trans-
forming factor, whereby the very equilibrium of society was
changed. Although under their successors this exclusive ref-
erence waned, yet sufficient had been done to bring Islam forward
as the supreme arbiter of life and dominant in spite of all the
accommodation with non-Muslim practices which was in fact
allowed in life.
The conquests of the reformers resulted in a great expansion of
nominal allegiance to Islam,! but their greatest contribution to
the implanting of Islam came from the way they broke up social
and ethnic groups (prisoners, slave-villages, forcible removals)
and destroyed organized cults, leaving Islam as the sole cement
for new or reconstituted organizations. This process was accele-
rated during the next phase, when all these territories came under
European occupation.

4. The Colonial Period to the Present Day

The latter part of the last period coincided with the occupation
of Africa by European powers with all its accompaniments:
penetration of new forces, economic, ideological, and religious
(Christianity). This period witnessed the continued expansion
of Islam at an accelerated pace and over regions which had
1 Many groups in the north with different types of organization remained
uninfluenced until the period of European occupation loosened bonds. These
included the centralized Mossi states, which were never conquered, Bambara
(village state structures), and primitive palaeonegritics of the southern Sudan
belt. Even in the northern Sudan belt there are few exclusively Muslim zones.
 |
Io|2
\
Special Studies
previously been closed to Islamic propaganda. It was only during
this period (especially between 1890 and 1930) that Islam spread
from the East African coast among the Bantu of the interior.
Although the nineteenth-century era of militant Islam was that
of its greatest expansion in area, the subsequent period of Euro-
pean tule, while it stopped forcible conversions, facilitated its
expansion in other ways. Peaceful conditions after years of war-
fare and slave-raiding, combined with new facilities for com-
munication, enabled traders and clerics to circulate everywhere
and spread the ways of their religion. In addition, the Muslim
conquests of the previous century, followed by the impact of
Western civilization, weakened the religious-social structures of
many animist societies. Add to these, the migration of villagers to
towns, plantations, and mines, the pressure of new ways of life,
the weakening of respect for elders, traditional customs and
social sanctions, all these opened the way for the penetration of
a religious culture like that of Islam, which could provide a new
centre for communal life and help to maintain social stability.
In parts where Muslim states had been established (even
though overthrown as in French territory) Islam’s spread and
‘the nature of its adoption followed the old fashion. But other
parts have witnessed the secular diffusion of Islam and the creation
of neo-Islamic communities where Islam’s position is much like
that of Christianity in Western countries. This is due to the fact
that the diffusion of Western influences accompanied the diffusion
of Islam.
These four historical stages correspond to four different degrees
or types of Islam found in Africa:

(a) The Islam of the first phase of expansion among Hami-

tes. Two culture zones (Egypt and the Maghrib) where Islam
is integrated into every aspect of life.
(4) Traditional African Islam, where Islam is fitted into the
indigenous system and embraces many grades of allegiance.
Religious dualism and tolerance are characteristic; chiefs
recognizing all the religious usages of their peoples.
(c) The basic Sudan pattern, where Islamic law is incor-
 The Phases of Islamic Expansion 103
porated into the pattern of social life. Intolerance and at the
same time parallelism,
(d) The secularized Islam of neo-Islamic communities,
where Western penetration accompanied the adoption of
Islam.
II. THE RESULTANT ISLAMIC CULTURE ZONES
Islam spread through the accidents of historical necessity. We
do not find the same pattern exactly reproduced throughout the
Islamic world, for the formation of a new Muslim community
like the Swahili or, and this is the more general and normal
pattern of change, the transformation of an existing community
through its adoption of Islam, comes about through the inter-
play of the aggressive culture, as expressed by Muslims from
particular culture areas, upon people who have been moulded
in very different ways.
In the meeting of Islamic and African cultures two currents
of attraction and repulsion are set up; their interaction, the play
of the various elements of the two cultures upon each other,
eventually leads to a synthesis. One current is moving towards
differentiation and the other towards homogeneity. From this
interaction derives the actual state of Muslim peoples until the
impact of Western secular culture.
Regional diversity derives from both internal and external
factors of differentiation: (i) geographical and ethnic factors and
the pre-Islamic religio-social substratum, and (ii) external in-
fluences, the nature, and differences in the historical penetration
of Islam. Thus, East African Islam shows the strong influence of
the Hadramaut, while West African Islam’s characteristics link
it with the Maghrib.
‘These factors operate to develop a culture along regional lines.
On the other hand, Islam has acted towards unifying African
culture. It is a strong cultural influence, and once it has been
adopted by an African community it becomes eventually domi-
nant. Certain Islamic institutions are universally adopted, and
these elements not merely create a bond of understanding be-
tween peoples but develop common attitudes and patterns of
104 Special Studies
behaviour. A distinctive outlook on life is created and a new
religio-social pattern is woven.
Although the regional differences are clear, the dynamic
tension between Islam and African culture finds expression in a
remarkable unity of African Islamic culture. In spite of the fact
that Islam normally penetrated integrated communities (excep-
tions are artificially formed groups such as the Swahili communi-
ties and slave villages), thereby transforming them, the Islamic
aspects of the resultant culture are much the same everywhere.
This is due to the fact that Islam brings the same institutions
which modified African life, and it was around the Islamic in-
stitutions that the retained or kindred African institutions
coagulated. The culture areas may therefore be regarded as having
a common Islamic heritage.
However, since the integration of African and Islamic cultures
is not complete (for Islam was only able to preserve its uniqueness
by parallelism), African Islam may often have to be understood
and studied in a double aspect as the local African manifestation
of world Islam, and as Islamic variants of African culture.
In discussing the spread and historical role of Islam in Africa,
as well as differences in the form that Islamic institutions even-
tually took, we need to divide Africa into various zones or
Islamic culture areas. Such zones have no absolute values, the
agreements are more important than the variants, but they are a
useful method of treatment. There are three main Islamic culture
zones: Egyptian, Maghribi, and Negro, each differentiated by
the degree to which it has absorbed and been moulded by Islam
and to the underlying cultural differences. The distinctions
between the Negro African zones are due more to differences
in the African cultural basis than to Islam. The culture zones
ares

Egyptian: Basic Near Eastern Islamic culture, with Egyptian

Nilotic culture showing itself in the village culture of the
fallahin.
Maghrib: North African Mediterranean culture, though
with Berber regional basis.
 The Phases of Islamic Expansion To5
In the intermediary Saharan-Sahilian desert area the Moors and
Tuareg belong to the Maghribi cycle and the Teda to the Central
Sudan cycle.

Western Sudan: Negro Islam.

Central Sudan: Negro Islam.
Eastern or Nilotic Sudan: Hamitic-Negro.
North-eastern Hamitic (Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia).
The Islam of the nomads of the Eastern Horn.
Coastal East African: Swahili Islam.

Egypt and the Maghrib. The first two cultural regions, Egypt
and the Maghrib, are those into which Islam spread from an early
date and became so deeply implanted as to influence all subse-
quent history and every aspect of life. The two regions are,
however, clearly differentiated. This derives from the fact that
their basic (pre-Islamic) cultures were quite different, and each
followed distinctive trends of historical development. Egypt
formed a world in itself, and, though brought out of cultural
isolation and subject to profound cultural change through ad-
herence to monotheistic religions, it has always displayed dis-
tinctive political and social characteristics. Yet Egypt was, viewed
in its Islamic orientation, almost entirely undifferentiated, be-
longing wholly to Arab Islam. Regional differences, however,
show themselves especially in the folk (fal/ah) culture.
The other North African regions, the Maghrib to use the
Arabic term, formed another historical and cultural entity, al-
though politically distinguished for disunity. Berbers gave this
region a definite individuality. Today the majority (more than
two-thirds) are Arabized, while the rest have preserved their
language, especially in Morocco. Maghribi Islam is Berber Islam
—the result of the Berbers’ assimilation of Islamic culture, and
this type of Islam is present on the borderland with Negro
West Africa. In this essay no attempt will be made to trace
the relations of Egypt and the Maghrib with the rest of Africa,
but simply to distinguish the two regions.
Three cycles of Islamic civilization can be distinguished in
106 Spectal Studies
acterizes more
West Africa. The first, the Saharan—Sahilian, char
to this cycle,
especially the Moorish tribes. The Tuareg belong
ral Sudan.
but not the Teda, who belong to that of the Cent
h African
The Islam of this cycle is characterized by the Nort
smitted to
form of the saint cult, a feature which was not tran
Muridiyya).
Negro Islam except to a limited degree (e.g. the
oods with
Similarly with the tariga-ta’ifas, the religious brotherh
cult in
their multi-function zawiyas inseparable from the saint
towards
North Africa, are different in psychological attitudes
deriving
leaders from those of Negroes. Another characteristic,
warrior
from the religious apathy of nomads and particularly
to perform
clans, is the formation of clerical (maraboutic) clans
m has in-
religious functions in their stead. This type of Isla
uktu,
Auenced the Sahilian zone, including towns like Timb
and Negro slaves.
ans
Though Islam came to West Africa through North Afric
nctive
and Moors, Negro peoples have given it their own disti
e of
stamp. While the Saharan—Sahilian cycle belongs to the spher
North African Islamic culture, the Islam of the Sudan displays
distinctive African aspects.
-
Three main cycles of Sudan Islamic culture may be distin
s
guished: West, Central, and East or Nilotic. The difference
e
between the Western and Central cycles are so little perceptibl
re,
that it is possible to speak of one West African Islamic cultu
That
whereas the Eastern Sudan culture is distinctly different.
there is a difference between the first two is the sort of thing we
acquire by direct contact, which we claim to know by intuitive
insight, but which it is difficult to formulate or work out as a dis-
tinctive pattern by means of which we may explain what we feel.
Western Sudan. Tokolor and Soninke, the first Sudanese
converted to Islam, have left their mark upon it. In certain ways
West Sudan clergy have had a deeper influence than those of the
central cycle in spite of the excessive worship of the Law in the
latter. The difference can be seen if their effect upon newly
Islamized areas is contrasted; for instance, the effect of Tokolor
and Mande clergy upon animists in western Guinea and the effect
of Hausa upon animists in the northern territories of Ghana, Togo,
 The Phases of Islamic Expansion: 107
Benin, and Nigeria. The primary influence upon Tokolor and
Soninke was from North Africa, which established a distinctive
type of Islamic consciousness and forms of observance. The
agents of diffusion today are mainly Tokolor, Soninke, and other
Mande teachers and traders.
Characteristics distinguishing it from the parent culture and
the central cycle include a pattern of family festivals (e.g. at the
eighth-day ceremony—the simultaneous pronouncing of the
name, slaughtering of the victim, shaving, and, in Guinea,
pounding of grain) at which the stress is on the wzte rice (or
other staple food) ‘sacrifice’, rather than upon the offering of a
victim. Spirit practices follow a distinctive Mande pattern. They
believe in the ‘crossing of the river’ after death, and the place of
waiting of departed spirits is called arafo. The cycle has its
distinctive Islamic legends (e.g. the Prophet and the pig). The
primary state structure is that of the village.
The Central Sudan Cycle, east of the Niger, has been subject to
Islamic radiation from the Nile Valley (both Egypt and the
Nilotic Sudan) as well as the middle Maghrib. The transition zone
is roughly between the occupational caste system of the western
cycle and the class system characteristic of the Kanuri-Hausa
cycle, with its wide categories of grades and titles in the state
system. Social mobility saved the peoples of the central cycle
from developing any rigid caste system. Kanembu and Kanuri
were the first people to be converted and gave a distinctive stamp
to Chadian Islam, though they have never been active mission-
aries, regarding Islam as the cult of the city and aristocracy, and
as a specialized occupation cult. The Songhay of the middle
Niger, though so different from the Kanuri, belong to this cycle
rather than midway, primarily because of the strength of the
Paleo-Negritic foundation and the type of organized possessive-
spirit cult which persists in flourishing, though no longer the
folk cult, in spite of the disapproval of established Islamic
authority. While dowry in the western cycle is given by the
husband to the wife, in the central it is brought by the wife to the
marriage. The city state, with its elaborate hierarchy of function-
aries, contrasts with the village state organization of the Mande
108 Special Studies
peoples before the formation of theocratic states. The failure of
the attempt to found a theocracy in Hausaland was due to the
power of this aristocratic state structure, which captured the
clerical reformers, the Islamic religious hierarchy being incor-
porated into it. In the west, on the contrary, the reformers did not
carry on the previous organization in any true sense, but formed
a new type of state more clearly based upon the precepts of
Islam.
Other West African Culture Areas (Western Guinea, Southern
Sudan belt, Voltaic, and South Guinean) were not influenced
by Islam until the nineteenth century. Islam spread rapidly in
western Guinea, its type of Islam being derived primarily from
Futa Jalon. The Voltaic peoples have remained relatively un-
influenced. In the southern Sudan belt many chiefs (e.g. Middle
belt of Nigeria) have accepted it, but it has made relatively little
impression upon their peoples. In the South Guinean region it
has made significant gains only among the Yoruba. In many of
these areas the penetration of Islamic and Western influences
coincided, and this has affected their type of Islam. The inter-
action of the old heritage, Islamic and Western secular attitudes
to life, is leading to a more secular religious attitude and outlook
upon life.
The Eastern or Nilotic Sudan Cycle. The foundation so far as
Islam is concerned was Eastern Hamitic, both riverain Nubians
and rainland cultivators (Hamitic Negro) and nomads (Beja).
Its geographical position in the Nile valley has made it a zone
of interaction between Hamitic, Negro, and Arab Africa. Because
Arabic spread along with Islam the Nilotic Sudan is, like the
Maghrib, culturally part of the Near East as well as Africa,
while the other regions of the Sudan belt (Mauritania being re-
garded as culturally belonging to the Maghrib) are not. This
great cultural distinction is due to Arabic rather than to Islam.
The penetration of Islam, late when compared with Egypt just
to the north, came through the dispersion of nomadic Arab
tribes in the early fourteenth century. The Arabs did not seek
here, any more than in the early centuries of Islam, to consciously
spread their religion, though, of course, surface Islamization
 The Phases of Islamic Expansion — tog
went along with Arabization. Arabic became the lingua franca
and then substituted itself for the languages of the sedentary
cultivators (though not the northernmost Nubians and Beja
nomads), but Islam claimed the souls of the people through the
work of Arabized Nubians who formed an indigenous clerical
class.
The conversion of the Nubians in great numbers took place
especially between 1300 and 1320. Southwards Islamization
went along with Arabization. The widespreading of Arab
nomads from Upper Egypt was mainly responsible for the
Arabization of Hamitic-speaking peoples (e.g. Sha’igiyya and
Ja‘liyyin), but the whole-hearted adoption of Islam came after
an indigenous clerical class grew up who ‘lit the fire of ‘Abd al-
Qadir’ in one riverain community after another, and in particular
among Nubians such as the Mahas, who migrated southwards
in large numbers and Arabized in the sixteenth century. These
set the pattern of Nilotic Sudan Islam.
The most important aspect of this Islam was the harmonious
blending of figh and tasawwuf, i.e. the tempering of legalism
by mysticism. We do not find that rigidity (nor parallelism)
which is characteristic of Muslim leaders in Northern Nigeria.
The clerics were at one and the same time fugaha and fugara.
The prevalent law school (madhhab) was that of Malik, though
the Egyptian and Hijazi links—the principal external contacts—
led to some teachers (e.g. Dushain of Arbaji) adopting the
Shafi‘i code. Popular religion was based on Sufism in the form
mediated by personal and family sariga-ta’ifas and inseparable
from the cult of saints. We may note that the saint cult is charac-
teristic of what, for want of a better term, I call Arabized Hamites,
as in the Maghrib, Mauritania, and the Eastern Sudan, but not
of the Negro Muslim world.+
1 The weakness of the cult of saints and of belief in their karamat in Negro
Africa is perhaps due to the fact that belief in miracles is linked with an historical
and static view of the universe and does not accord with the Negro view of a
dynamic universe. The cult of ancestors is not bound up with their graves.
Similarly with the religious orders. Their reduced role in Negro Africa, where
they are more in the nature of an Islamic Jabel, seems to be connected with the
fact that the saint cult did not accompany their diffusion, whereas in the Nilotic
Sudan it was integral.
 110 Special Studies
The North-eastern Ethiopic Zone, the Islam of the plains
people of the Eastern Horn. This is a region which embraces
the greatest contrasts, not only geographically but in human
diversity, cultural levels, languages, and religions. The destinies
of this region have been tied indissolubly with the Red Sea much
more than with the Nile Valley, and it is from Arabia that it
received the imprint of Semitic languages and culture and later
of Islam.
The region, from the point of view of Islamic influence,
divides into three zones. (2) The plains where the nomadic
‘Afar (Danakil) and Somali live. These are wholly Muslim and
historically connected with migratory and commercial currents
across the Red Sea. (4) The northern and central plateau region,
where the Christian Ethiopian state, with deep-rooted non-
African traditions, which throughout history has arrested the
expansion of Muslim peoples or states and maintained its religious
integrity, provides the region’s only unity. The northern Oromo
of the plateau region (Yejju, Raya, and Wallo) are Muslim.
(c) South-western Ethiopia, where Islam succeeded in super-
imposing itself upon the animism of a group of Sidama and
~ Macha Oromo peoples.
In accordance with the varied types of peoples there are
considerable variations in their apprehension of, and the forms
taken by, their Islam, as, for example, between Jabarti and Oromo
of the highlands, the Oromo-Sidama of Jimma, the Oromo of the
south-east, the townspeople of Harar, and the nomadic ‘Afar
and Somali of the plains.
The Swahili Cycle. Islam penetrated into East Africa from the
Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It gained all the Hamitic nomads
of the Red Sea coast and the Eastern Horn of the last-mentioned
cycle as communities, but inland south of the Somali it did not
begin to penetrate until the nineteenth century and has spread
largely by individual conversions. Whereas in the Sudan belt
Islam claimed whole peoples and made its deepest impact upon
Africans, it hardly affected the Bantu and other peoples of East
Africa. Immigrants from overseas formed what were virtually
closed-class communities based on settlements. These insular and
 The Phases of Islamic Expansion Lit
coastal settlements led not to the spread of Islam among the
Bantu or nomads but to the formation of a new population, the
Swahili, characterized by a distinct Islamic—Bantu language and
sub-culture, who stretch from Lamu to Mozambique. The
Swahili so formed are not a homogeneous people. They consist
of Shirazi (the inhabitants of Zanzibar and Pemba islands and a
series of remnant families along the coast), Afro-Arabs who
distinguish themselves on racial grounds fram Africans, de-
scendants of slaves, and settled detribalized labourers from the
interior. They are a collection of different social classes,a stratified
society, a cultural group, following an Islamic way of life.
The dominant Islamic influence in moulding Swahili culture
came from Hadramaut (e.g. Shafi‘ite in madhhab), an influence
not only obvious in ritual and law but also in the details of
rites de passage and superstitious usages.
Not until the end of the nineteenth century did Islam spread
inland. It spread into Tanganyika in some strength, especially
among the Yao and coastal peoples. A point to be stressed is that
although all aspects of Islam which were adopted were those of
coastal Swahili Islam, the characteristic medieval attitude to
religion has not been able to establish itself. Islam in East Africa,
contrary to what prevails elsewhere, still bears many of the
characteristics of a foreign religion. Muslims form separate
communities, and while Islam has its place in local issues, it has
no wide influence upon affairs. The indigenous element which
distinguishes the Islam of Tanzania is the jando circumcision-
initiation, essentially a mainland Islamic initiation rite. The saint-
cult and sarigas in their characteristic form are limited to the
islands and coastal region.
Islam’s penetration into central and south Africa is so slight
that it may be ignored in this sketch. The proportion of Muslims
in former French Equatorial Africa (except modern Chad and
northern Cameroon which belong to the Sudan belt) and in
Zaire is insignificant; while in South Africa it is confined to
special groups like the coloured people of Malay origin.
 Il. THE PENETRATION OF ISLAM
IN THE EASTERN SUDAN

YUSUF FADL HASAN

The term Eastern Sudan is used in this paper in the restricted

sense of the Nile Valley and the region east of it, from the frontier
with Egypt at Aswan to Sennar in the South. This area includes
the three Christian Kingdoms of ‘Alwa, whose capital was Soba
on the Blue Nile, al-Mugarra, and al-Maris or Nobadia, which were
united, possibly due to Muslim pressure, in the middle of the
seventh century A.D. Henceforth this area was known as Nubia,
with its capital at Dongola. Between these kingdoms and the
Red Sea lies the Beja country, which extends from Aswan to
Massawa and which was composed of a number of principalities.
The original inhabitants of the Eastern Sudan, for the most part
of Hamitic origin, akin to the pre-dynastic Egyptians, were
diluted by successive waves of negroid people coming from the
south. The indigenous inhabitants of the Gezira were probably
more negroid than the Nubians farther to the north, while the
Beja were of purer Hamitic stock than the rest. The northern
part of the Eastern Sudan is mainly desert, while the southern
part is rich grassland: the Nile Valley, with its rather limited
amount of cultivable land, formed the heart of the country and
the centre of its civilization. This civilization was basically
Egyptian, with faint traces of Hellenic and Byzantine influences.
The cultural heritage of the riverains, perhaps as far south as
Soba, shows that they were not a backward people.
The introduction of Christianity in the second half of the
sixth century marks the beginning of a new era in the history of
the Sudan. Before this, the ‘Sudanese’ had worshipped Egyptian
gods, stones, stars, animals, and trees. The Christian faith was
adopted by the ruling class and nobility, who in the main adhered
to the monophysite doctrine, and to a lesser extent by the rest
of the population, who remained ‘mainly animistic’. Some Beja
 The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan 113
on the Egyptian border and others living in the Red Sea ports
also embraced Christianity, but it never took root to the same
extent as it had done in the Nile Valley. There, it was adopted
to such an extent that it became the state religion, and a symbol
of Nubian ‘nationality’. The new faith was closely identified
with local ruling institutions, especially that of the kingly
office. The monarch remained a focal point in religious and
political matters, and the survival of the whole political fabric
depended on him. Like the rest of his subjects, the king looked to
the Patriarch of Alexandria for religious guidance and for a
supply of bishops. As long as this bond was maintained, the
Christian faith in Nubia was in no danger.
The appearance of Islam was an event of far-reaching con-
sequence in Arab history. It gave the Arabs a bond which became
the basis of their unity and achievements. Its emergence coin-
cided with the recurrent over-population of Arabia which had
repeatedly forced the Arabs across its borders. This time, under
the aegis of Islam, Arab expansion was greater than ever before.
Soon they overran Egypt as far as Aswan, which they used as a
frontier town to ward off the raids of the Nubians and the Beja,
who since the dawn of history had been accustomed to ravage
Upper Egypt. The Nubians were particularly grieved by the
disaster that had befallen their co-religionists—the Copts—in
Egypt, and thus harassed the Egyptian border. It was this danger
that prompted ‘Amr b.al-‘As, the Arab governor of Egypt, to
order attacks to be made on Nubia. It is clear that this did not
stem from a deliberate policy of spreading Islam farther south.
Indeed, there is hardly any evidence to prove that the Muslim
governors of Egypt, with the exception of a single incident in
the Fatimid period, ever showed any missionary zeal towards the
eastern Sudan. The spread of Islam was due mainly to the peaceful
contacts of merchants and the penetration of Arabs who settled
and mixed with Sudanese people.
Muslims were able to enter the Sudan by three major routes.
The first was across the Red Sea, either via Abyssinia or directly
to Sudanese ports such as Badi, Aydhab and Suakin. Although
the Red Sea was generally difficult to navigate, it was at no time
114 | Special Studies
r, the number of
a formidable obstacle to movements. Howeve
have been as great
those who migrated by this route could not
ly by this latter
as those who entered from Egypt. It was main
mization of the
route that the process of Arabization and Isla
avoided the Nile
eastern Sudan was accomplished. Immigrants
thorized entry,
Valley, fearing the Nubians who forbade unau
the eastern desert,
and the majority of Arabs infiltrated through
and probably the
unnoticed by the Nubian authorities. The last,
t Africa, whose
least important route was from North-Wes
route was, how-
effect falls outside the scope of this paper. This
who had great
ever, frequented by a number of men of religion
eenth century.
influence in the propagation of Islam after the sixt
bian clashes are
The reports we possess of the first Muslim—Nu
there were two main
somewhat confused} but it is evident that
651-2. The skilful
invasions: the first in 641 and the second in
uerors, and the
Nubian archers bravely resisted the Muslim conq
fighting against an
Muslims were soon to discover that they were
Nubians were
extremely dangerous and disagreeable enemy. The
adaq. Muslims
henceforth called the ‘eye-smiters’ or rumat al-h
peace with those
suggested to ‘Amr b.al-‘As that he make
e is great’. “Amr
people ‘whose booty is meagre and whose spit
Muslims, led by
refused and continued his attacks. In 651-2 the
as Dongola and
‘Abdallah b.Sa‘d b.Abi Sarh, penetrated as far
resisted gallantly,
destroyed its cathedral. As usual, the Nubians
tried to seek peace.
but were probably overcome by catapults and
sively, accepted
The Muslims, failing to defeat the Nubians deci
ed, and this fact is
their offers. There was no victor or vanquish
the Muslims
clearly demonstrated by the terms of the treaty that
to put an end to
granted to the Nubians. The treaty attempted
interest.
Nubian attacks and to regulate matters of common
dealing with
It is a unique treaty in the annals of Islam. In
divide the world
international relations Muslim jurists normally
of Islam, which
into two camps: dar al-Islam or the abode
al-harb or the
would ultimately dominate the second camp, dar
of dar al-mu-
abode of war. But Nubia had the unique position
e. The treaty
‘shada or aman, that is the abode of pact or guarante
would defend
was a non-aggression pact in which neither side
 The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan 115
the other against a third party. It conferred on the subjects of
each side the right to travel and trade unhindered in the other’s
domains, but not to take up permanent residence. It is doubtful,
however, whether the Nubians could have for long prevented
the Muslims from settling in their lands. Muslim merchants soon
penetrated Nubia and laid the foundations for the future supre-
macy of Islam. Judging by what happened later, it is reasonable
to assume that they might have acted as missionaries among
pagans and Christians alike at this early stage. The treaty also
stipulated that the lives of Muslims and their allies were to be
safeguarded and that runaway slaves were to be returned to their
Muslim owners.
The most important part of the treaty is the transaction
commonly known as the Bagt, which deals with the delivery of
360 (in practice, 400) slaves to the Muslims annually. This is not
a tribute in the ordinary sense of the word, but an exchange of
mutual advantages. The Muslims—though this was not specified
in the text of the treaty—handed over provisions and textiles
whose value was actually greater than that of the slaves they
received. The practice arose from the fact that when the Nubians
delivered the Bagr they included forty extra slaves as a present
to ‘Amr b.al-‘As, who rejected them and told the superintendent
of the Bagt to give their value in provisions to the Nubians.
They also received cereals, textiles, and horses from ‘Abdallah
b.Sa‘d b.Abi Sarh, to whom the Nubian king complained of a
dearth of food. However, what began as a courtesy developed
into an established practice.
The treaty shows that the Muslims had no intention of occupy-
ing Nubia, but were genuinely concerned in putting an end
to Nubian raids. It is more likely that the Muslims wanted to
keep it as a sphere of influence to give themselves greater oppor-
tunities for trade. However, the treaty remained the cornerstone
of Muslim—Nubian relations and was kept in force with little
change for six centuries. The first important amendment was
during the caliphate of Al-Mu'‘tasim (833-42), when the Nubians
complained of their inability to pay the annual tribute; hence-
forth it was delivered once every three years. At almost the same
116 Special Studies
time the Nubian king protested to al-Ma‘mun against Arabs who
bought land from his subjects south of Aswan and north of
Bajrash, which was guarded by a Nubian governor, the “Lord
of the Mountain.’ The affair was decided in favour of the Muslims,
and their ownership was established, but it is not clear whether
they remained as absentee landlords or not. However, when Ibn
Sulaym al-Aswani (c. 969) visited that region the Muslims were
behaving as owners, and some of them did not speak Arabic.
Muslim contacts with the western coast of the Red Sea were
established in the life-time of the Prophet, when Muslim refugees
were offered protection by the Abyssinians. The caliph Abu
Bakr (a.D. 632-4) is alleged to have banished a group of Arabs to
the region of Aydhab in the Beja country, while the Umayyads
and early Abbasids deported a number of Muslims, including
poets, to the Archipelago of Dahlak opposite Massawa. Dahlak
itself was occupied by Muslims in the year 702, putting an end to
the Abyssinian pirates who endangered the safety of the Muslim
ships. Meanwhile Muslim merchants were peacefully penetrating
on the western coast and were developing trading centres. As
early as the year 640, a Muslim migrated to Badi, one of the
Sudanese ports.
On his way back from the Dongola campaign, ‘Abdallah b.Sa‘d
encountered a Beja gathering, with whom, however, he neglected
to conclude a treaty. Ibn Hawqal (c. 975) stated that ‘Abdallah
b.Sa‘d subdued the Beja in the neighbourhood of Aswan, who then
became Muslims in name. Meanwhile the Beja continued to
harass Upper Egypt unhindered until ‘Ubaydallah b.al-Habhab,
the superintendent of Egyptian finance, defeated them and forced
them to conclude a treaty. The Beja agreed to pay tribute of three
hundred camels, to enter Egypt as travellers, and not to kill a
Muslim or a dhimmi (a man of tolerated religion). This settlement
however, did not put an end to the Beja attacks on Upper Egypt,
and at the beginning of the ninth century the situation was made
worse when they killed a group of Muslims on their way to
Mecca. In reprisal the inhabitants of Qift killed some Beja who
had come to trade. Relatives of the latter followed up by attacking
Qift and capturing many Muslims. Hakam al-Nabighi of Qays
 The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan 117
‘Aylan volunteered, with a group of his people, to rescue the
captives. After raiding in the Beja country for three years he was
able to free them. Despite these efforts, the Beja continued their
ravages in Upper Egypt, and in 831 ‘Abdallah b.al-Jahm was
forced to fight them again. After defeating them in a number of
engagements he concluded a treaty with their chief, Kannun b.
‘Abd al-‘Aziz. This treaty, though drawn up in the same spirit as
previous agreements with the Nubians and Beja, shows a marked
increase in Muslim influence in this region. This is clearly reflected
in the terms of the settlement, which will be discussed at some
length.
The Beja country from Aswan to the border between Badi and
Massawa became the property of the Caliph, to be ruled by
Kannun in his name. The treaty confirmed the payment of three
hundred dinars or a hundred camels. Muslims were allowed to
enter the Beja country as travellers, traders, or residents. The
Beja agreed not to hurt Muslims or their allies, not to mention
Islam disrespectfully, and not to destroy the mosques which the
Muslims had built at Sinja (probably modern Sinkat) and Hajar.
They were to allow a representative of the Caliph to collect alms
from local Muslims. In return for these privileges, the Beja
were allowed to enter Egypt unarmed as travellers or traders.
It is clear that the Muslims had before this penetrated into
the Beja country in numbers large enough to warrant the con-
struction of mosques and the appointment of a special official
to collect alms. This conclusion is substantiated by the fact that
two Arabs translated the treaty into Bujawi languages and that
the Beja chief himself had an Arabic name.
These treaties therefore opened Eastern Sudan to the influence
of Islam along this frontier from Massawa to Aswan. Small
numbers of Arabs were able to infiltrate unnoticed, but as long
as there was contentment in Egypt this infiltration was not enough
to accelerate the spread of Islam farther south.
During the Patriarchal, Umayyad, and early Abbasid Cali-
phates the Arabs formed a privileged class of rulers and warriors.
They received generous pay, and those who owned land did not
pay the full tax. However, with the emergence of the Abbasid
 118 Special Studies
Empire, which was launched by the discontented Arabs and
Mawali, the situation began to change. Only warriors in active
service received pensions, and these were gradually replaced by
Turkish slaves or Mamluks. In 833 the Caliph Al-Mu'tasim
struck the names of Arabs off the register of pensions and re-
cruited large numbers of Mamluks, who in time became the
dominant fighting class of the Muslim world.
The impact of this change was tremendous. A bitter struggle
ensued, and an atmosphere of distrust embittered relations between
the Arab nomads and the rulers of Egypt, who after a time became
recruited predominantly from those of Turkish origin.
Failing to assert their pension-rights, some of the Arabs
became farmers, others began to drift away. For the majority of
nomads Egypt, with its limited cultivable land and scanty rainfall,
was not ideal. Undoubtedly it was Al-Mu‘tasim’s policy of
Turkification which induced the Arabs to migrate to the Eastern
Sudan. The progress of this migration was closely connected
with the degree of Turkification of both army and rulers in
Egypt, which reached its climax during the Ayyubid and Mam-
luk régimes.
However, the growing Arab resentment of the first half of
the ninth century coincided with the opening of gold-mines in
the region between Qus, Abu Hamad, and the Red Sea, to which
area many Muslims migrated. The Beja, resenting Arab inter-
ference, tried to stop them mining. In 855 Al-Qummi, after
defeating the Beja chief, ‘Ali Baba, confirmed the previous
agreement and asserted Arab rights to work the mines. This
Muslim influx led to closer contacts with the Beja. Male members
of Arab peoples who married into the ruling Beja families bene-
fited from the matrilineal succession—which was prevalent all
over the Eastern Sudan—and their children became the chiefs of
those Beja peoples. This process was repeated over a long period
of time, and thus Muslims gained prominence. A group from
Rabi‘a established the Kanz dynasty in the neighbourhood of
Aswan. By means of the above-mentioned system of succession
they extended their influence over the Nubians of al-Maris and the
Beja in the region of Wadi al-‘Allaqi, the famous mining centre,
 The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan 119
Muslim penetration was stimulated further by the rise of the
port of Aydhab, which by the twelfth century had attained im-
portance as a great trading centre. Large caravans crossed the
eastern desert between Aydhab and Qus, transporting merchan-
dise and carrying provisions to the miners. It was not long before
Suakin joined Aydhab as a trading port from which Muslims
penetrated into the interior. Arabs used their camels in this
traffic. Also for more than two hundred years, from 1058 to
1261, pilgrims from Egypt and North-West Africa on their way
to Mecca used the same route. This intensive traffic exposed the
Beja tribes to further Muslim influence.
After a time the mines fell into disuse, as they became no
longer profitable to exploit, the pilgrims reverted to the Sinai
route after the crusades, and trade caravans became less frequent.
This general economic decline left many Arabs without work, and
they therefore drifted towards the kingdom of ‘Alwa.
Up to the time of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (1172) peaceful
relations were maintained between Nubia and Egypt without
difficulty. Muslim merchants were at home in the Eastern Sudan.
Slaves were bought and sent to Egypt, where they became one of
the chief supports of the Tulunid, Ikhshidid, and Fatimid ré-
gimes. They were broughtin large numbers, male and female, and
according to one source there were 50,000 Sudanese slaves at the
time of the Fatimid Caliph, al-Mustansir (1035-94). Many of them
had adopted Islam, and some of these may have found their way
back to the Eastern Sudan after the fall of the Fatimid Empire.
Ibn Sulaym al-Aswani, a Fatimid da‘i or propagandist already
mentioned above, invited the Nubian King, George, to pay the
Bagt and embrace Islam. He records a discussion with a Sudanese
about the latter’s religion, in which Ibn Sulaym tried to in-
fluence him. This is perhaps the only recorded incident of straight-
forward missionary activity in the Eastern Sudan. He also stated
that there were many Muslim merchants at ‘Alwa and that they
had a religious centre. It would appear that the two religions had
learned to exist side by side.
In 1172 Turan Shah, Salah al-Din’s brother, penetrated as far
as Ibrim, where he stationed a Kurdish garrison. One of the
120 Special Studies
reasons for this expedition was to use Nubia as a retreating ground
in case the Ayyubids failed in their attempts to control Egypt.
Nubia was soon found to be very poor and the Nubians them-
selves drove out the garrison.
The rise of the Turkish Mamluk régime in Egypt in the middle
of the thirteenth century constituted a turning-point in Egyptian—
Sudanese relations. The repeated revolts of the Arab peoples in
Upper Egypt endangered the flow of trade, the backbone of the
Mamluk economy, from Aydhab. The ruthless suppression of the
revolts by Sultan Baybars (1260-77) angered these Arabs, many
of whom began to drift southwards. Trade was also threatened
by the Muslim rulers of Dahlak and Suakin, who from time to
time appropriated the wealth of deceased merchants. The threats
of Baybars were enough to frighten the Dahlak chief, but Suakin
had to be put under Egyptian administration as Aydhab before
it. The extension of Mamluk authority to the coast of the eastern
Sudan meant that the Christian Kingdoms were almost cut off
from the outside world. King Dawud of Nubia raided Upper
Egypt, sacked Aydhab, and captured many Muslims in 1272.
Baybars was preparing an expedition against Dawud, when a
Nubian prince, Shakanda, came to him to complain of his uncle
who had usurped the throne from him. The Mamluk troops
accompanied the Nubian prince, together with many Arab
warriors from Upper Egypt, and marched against Nubia in 1275.
Throughout their long journey the invaders were met with
resistance. King Dawud, who engaged them near Dongola, was
defeated and fled to the south. Some of his relatives were captured
and taken to Egypt. Shakanda was installed as King of Nubia
and representative of the Mamluk Sultan. He agreed to deliver
half the revenue of the country and leave northern Nubia as a
private property of the Sultan. Nubia had been for the first
time conquered by force. Its inhabitants were offered the alter-
native of adopting Islam or paying tribute. They accepted the
second alternative and agreed to paya poll-tax of two dinars for
each adult per annum. The puppet king was left in peace after he
took a public oath to honour the treaty he signed with the
Muslims.
 The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan 121
A dispute among the members of the dynasty over the succes-
sion gave the Mamluks a chance to interfere in support of one
party against another. After the murder of Shakanda in 1277
the issue was at last settled in favour of Shamamun, who soon,
however, refused to pay the tribute. Sultan al-Mansur Qala‘un
sent a large expedition in 1287 in which many Arabs from Upper
Egypt participated. It seems that the Mamluks wanted to get rid
of these undesirable Arab nomads, who were a source of sedition,
and so they encouraged them to join the expeditions. After his
defeat Shamamun fled to the south and his nephew was appointed
in his place. The new king agreed to obey his overlord, the Mam-
luk Sultan, and to pay the tribute. Sa‘d al-Din, a nephew of King
Dawud, was sent from Cairo to advise the Mamluk garrison in
Dongola. However, no sooner had the Mamluk army returned
than Shamamun reappeared and regained his throne. A large
expedition was sent against him in 1289, and the same story of
defeat, disappearance, and recapture of the throne was repeated
once more. In 1296 Shamamun pledged to obey the Sultan, and
was thus confirmed in office; but he did not honour his word.
Another Nubian prince was sent from Cairo to take his place.
The effects of these repeated military Mamluk expeditions were
of great significance. First, they weakened Nubia tremendously
and strained its resources. Secondly, they were accompanied by
large numbers of Arabs, some of whom remained in Nubia.
Thirdly, they returned with large numbers of captives, including
Nubian princes who had claims to the throne. After staying in
Egypt for some time they embraced Islam. One of these was
‘Abdallah Barshambu who accompanied an expedition in 1316
in order to become a king. When the Nubian King, Karanbas,
heard that a Muslim was to take his place he suggested his nephew,
Kanz al-Dawla of the Kanz dynasty, which had recently inter-
married with the Nubian royal family. Sultan al-Nasir objected,
however, and ‘Abdallah Barshambu was crowned in 1317, but did
not remain for long on the throne and was succeeded by a mem-
ber of the Kanz dynasty. Henceforth Christian Nubia was ruled
by Muslim Kings, who depended on Arab support and did not
discourage the movements of Arabs towards Nubia.
 122 Special Studies
The Islamization of the kingly office was probably the hardest
blow that the Christian faith had suffered until then. It had for
some time been cut off from any external stimulus or spiritual
guidance, and thus it became intellectually moribund. The king
was the only person capable of offering resistance to external
influence and inspiring his subjects. But this institution, split by
internal dissention and weakened by external attacks, was easily
captured by the Muslims in the end through the matrilineal
system of succession. This marked the end of the kingdom of
Christian Nubia. The influence of the Christian faith remained
active for some time, but then it was unable to withstand the
impact of vigorous Islam. There is no record of any compulsory
or mass conversion.
During the second half of the fourteenth century the un-
happy relations between the Mamluk authorities and Arab
peoples in Upper Egypt deteriorated further. The latter were
subjected to heavy fiscal levies and were forced to follow the path
of the previous emigrants. They found the Beja country already
occupied by Arabs, who had succeeded, after marrying with the
Beja, in spreading Islam. The new arrivals went farther into the
- interior. They wandered freely in the island of Meroe, the Gezira,
and some even crossed the Nile in search of virgin pastures in
Kordofan. The majority of these remained as nomads with their
tribal system intact; and others, in smaller groups, settled with the
riverain population and repeated the slow process of inter-
marriage and Islamization.
The end of the kingdom of ‘Alwa was also inevitable. It was
in no position to offer effective resistance to the marauding
Arab nomads. The Christian faith had already declined for the
same reasons as in Nubia. The kingdom of ‘Alwa was followed in
the early sixteenth century by an Islamized dynasty, the Fung
kingdom of Sennar. This event marked the beginning of the
supremacy of Islam over all the region under discussion.
The majority of the Muslims who entered the Sudan were
nomads who were not well versed in the teachings of Islam.
There were probably very few men of religion among them. It is
not surprising to learn that when Ghulam Allah b. ‘Ayd, the
 The Penetration of Islam in the Eastern Sudan 123
Yemenite, migrated to the Dongola region in the latter part of
the fourteenth century a.p. he found the Muslims in a state of
ignorance due to lack of teachers. Wad Dayf Allah stated in his
Tabagat that when the Fung assumed power there were neither
centres of learning nor schools for teaching the Quran. But the
Fung Kings encouraged and welcomed the migration of men of
religion who instructed both Muslims and pagans. After that
time these men came in larger numbers from the Hijaz, Egypt,
and North-West Africa and were successful in preaching Islam
on a large scale. The process of Islamization was accompanied
by a process of Arabization which left its mark on alarge part of
the country; for Arabic was not only the language of Islam but
also of trade.
Thus, with the adoption of Islam in ‘Alwa, the history of
Christianity in the Eastern Sudan comes to an end, and a new
chapter in ‘Sudanese’ history is opened: one to which the con-
clusion has not yet been written.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Al-Magrizi
(1922) Al-Mawa'iz wa’l-i‘tibar fi dhikr al-khitat wa’l-athar, Cairo.
(1961) Al-Bayan wa’l i‘rab ‘amma bi-ard Misr min al-‘arab, Cairo.
Ibn Hawaal
(1938) Surat al-Ard, Leiden.
Wad Dayf Allah
(1930) Tabagat al-awliya wa’l-salihin fi’l-Sudan, Cairo.
Mustafa M. Mus’ad
(1960) Al-Islam wa’l-Nuba fi’l-‘usur al-wusta, Cairo.
Trimingham, J. S.
(1949) Islam in the Sudan, Oxford.
 III. RELIGION AND STATE IN THE
SONGHAY EMPIRE, 1464-1591

J. O. HUNWICK
‘Depuis le XI° siécle (I’Islam) a tenté de se répandre au Songhay
avec une constance et une persévérance remarquables qui n’a
d’ailleurs de comparable que la constance et la persévérance de
ceux qui s’y sont opposés’ (J. Rouch, Religion. p. 13).
I. INTRODUCTION

The Songhay people inhabit the banks of the River Niger

and the bush country adjacent to them from the area of Jenne,
round the northward sweep of the Niger into the southern
extremity of the Sahara and downstream to near the borders of
modern Nigeria. To the north they are bounded by the inhospit-
able country of the Sahara Desert, inhabited in the main by
restless Tuareg nomads, and to the south by the almost equally
inhospitable hilly country occupied by the Mossi people.
Our knowledge of Songhay history up to the beginning of
Muslim penetration in the early eleventh century is sketchy. In
prehistoric times the area was probably peopled by two main
groups, ‘the masters of the soil’ and ‘the masters of the water’.
At some unknown date the Sorko fisherfolk entered the area
from the south-east, travelling up the Niger, having come from
perhaps as far away as Lake Chad via the Benue river. The Sorko
settled in the region of the Lebbezenga rapids and supplanted
the original ‘masters of the water’. At roughly the same period,
it is thought, the Gow hunters, who are probably related to the
Sorko, moved in to occupy the bush land not cultivated by the
‘masters of the soil’. The chief town of this Songhay nucleus
was Koukya—probably situated on the island of Bentia in the
Niger, about 100 kilometres south of present Gao and also, after
its population had expanded, occupying an area on the left bank
of the Niger.
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 125
According to Delafosse, it was around the seventh century
A.D. that an organized kingdom began to take shape, centred on
Koukya. The ruling house was the Za or Dia dynasty founded
by Dia Aliaman, to whom Islamic tradition would ascribe a
Yemenite origin. Delafosse is of the opinion that the Dia were
Lemta Berbers from Libya who, at least on arrival at Gao, were
Christians. As a result of the establishment of the Dia dynasty
the Sorko fisherfolk were pushed out of the area and went
farther upstream until their progress was finally halted by the
Bozo fishers in the lacustrine region near Mopti.
The town of Gao, which was later to become the seat of the
Songhay rulers, evidently existed as early as the ninth century
A.D. Ibn Khaldun refers to it as the birthplace of the Kharijite
Abu Yazid Makhlad b. Kaidad in a.p. 893 (én Khaldun, iii,
p- 201). Gao (Kawkaw) was evidently a trading centre at this
time in which there were numbers of Muslim Arab and Berber
merchants. It was not until after a.p. toro, when the fifteenth
Dia, Kossoi, was converted to Islam by Muslim traders, that the
royal capital was transferred from Koukya to Gao. Al-Bakri, the
Andalusian geographer, writing around A.D. 1068, tells us that
when a new ruler was installed at Gao (Kawkaw) he was given
a sword, a shield, and a copy of the Quran said to have been sent
from the Caliph at Baghdad as insignia of office (Al-Bakri, p.
342). He adds that the king was called Kanda and professed Islam,
never giving supreme power to other than a Muslim (p. 343).
Court ceremonial was clearly pagan. When the ruler ate, a drum
was beaten and women danced, shaking their heads. All work
ceased during the sovereign’s meal time, and when he had
finished, the remains of the food were thrown into the Niger with
loud cries and work was allowed to start again. This pattern of
Islam as the official royal religion with the mass of the populace
non-Muslim and with a largely traditional court ceremonial
remained the general fashion up to the end of the period examined
here and is an indication of the very delicate balance which always
existed between Islam and the indigenous Songhay religious
structure.
By the middle of the fourteenth century Ibn Battuta was able
126 Special Studies
to describe Gao as ‘one of the finest, largest and best provided
towns of the Sudan’. He stayed there for nearly a month and met
a number of the North African Muslims who were resident
there, including Muhammad al-Filali, whom he describes as
the ‘imam of the mosque of the whites’ (én Battuta, iv, pp. 435
et seg.). This would seem to imply that there was also another
mosque, used by the indigenous Songhay inhabitants. Islam
was still at this time very much a foreign religion whose chief
adherents were the Arab and Berber settlers or itinerant traders;
in addition, it had become the official religion of the Court—at
least in theory—and was gaining some ground among the local
population. This again was to remain a general pattern for some
centuries to come.
For a period in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth cen-
turies Songhay appears to have been part of the domain of the
emperor of Mali. The Ta’rikh al-Sudan states that a certain
‘Ali Golom, son of the twelfth Dia, Assibai, and a former captain
of the Mali army, freed Songhay from the Mali yoke and ruled
Songhay under a new dynastic title of Shi or Sunni, but no date
is given for this. The same work also states that Songhay passed
under Mali control while Mansa Musa the Mali ruler was away on
pilgrimage (1321-24) and that he visited Gao and Timbuktu on
his return. However, a seventeenth-century fragment of a work
which appears to be a résumé of the Ta’rtkh al-fattash states
that Mansa Musa went on pilgrimage in the reign of the Shi
Makara, who was apparently the fourth Shi after ‘Ali Golom.
This would suggest that ‘Ali Golom came to power some time
in the second half of the thirteenth century. It may well be that
Mali’s hold over Songhay was ephemeral and that dominion was
re-established a number of times, including once under Mansa
Musa. The descendants of Shi ‘Ali Golom all used the same title,
but form part of the Dia patrilineage and are not to be considered
a new dynasty. The eighteenth Shi was ‘the oppressor, the libertine,
the aggressor and tyrant’ (7/Sudan, p. 64). ‘Ali-Ber (‘Ali the
Great) known to history as Sunni ‘Ali (reg. A.D. 1464-92.)
Rouch (Contribution, p. 185), basing himself on Dubois’
paraphrase of Al-Maghili (Zombouctou, p. 122), speaks of
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 127
‘Yévolution religieuse de Sonni ‘Ali’, and concludes that Sunni
‘Ali began his reign as a Muslim and then reverted to idol worship
and magic later on. This sounds like a plausible hypothesis on
the surface, but it is unfortunately based on an inaccurate trans-
lation of Al-Maghili’s Arabic. The key passage is translated by
Dubois as follows: ‘Les premiers temps, il jetina pendant le mois
de Ramadan et fit des sacrifices et d’autres offrandes dans les
mosquées. Purs il revint aux idols et aux devins... .’ The correct
translation should simply be: ‘He fasted Ramadan and gave
abundant alms of slaughtered beasts and other things in the
mosques and like places. Jn spite of that, he used to worship
idols and believe the words of the soothsayers and magicians. . . .’
When dealing with his successor, Askia Al-Hajj Muhammad
Ture, Rouch sees the evolution the other way round and claims
that Askia Muhammad began by resting his authority on the
magic powers inherited from the Sunnis and that after the sons
of Sunni ‘Ali had removed the Korte (the seven drums which
were the symbols of magic power) the Askia began to seek other
bases for his authority and’to lean on Islam for support (Contri-
bution, p. 194). I believe both of Rouch’s assumptions to be
incorrect and that the truth of the matter may be almost the
opposite of what he has suggested.
Il. THE PROBLEM OF SUNNI‘ALI
The Muslim chroniclers all unanimously denounce Sunni
‘Ali as a ruthless and bloodthirsty tyrant, given to fits of un-
controllable rage, who persecuted the Muslims, particularly the
learned men, and wrought untold havoc in the Songhay lands.
The Ta’rikh al-fattash compares him unfavourably with Al-
Hajjaj, the notorious Umayyad governor of Iraq. Al-Maghili
had no hesitation in adjudging him a pagan. Nevertheless, the
same records also tell us that he prayed Muslim prayers, fasted
Ramadan, gave alms, and showed great favour to some of
the Muslim scholars. Both Muslim records (particularly Al-
Maghili) and oral tradition show Sunni ‘Ali as a magician who
worked in close collaboration with the Songhay magicians, sooth-
sayers, and priests. All are agreed that he was a man of immense
 128 Special Studies
energy and personal valour who, throughout the numerous
campaigns of his thirty-year reign, was never once defeated.
Various solutions have been presented to the problem of Sunni
‘Ali’s ambiguous attitude towards Islam. Delafosse, evidently
bewildered by the conflicting evidence, concludes ‘il semble que
ce conquérant avait peu de suite dans ses idées’ (H.-S.-N. ii,
pp. 82-83), which, when one considers the number of times he
condemned even some of his favourites to death ina fit of rage,
only to become bitterly remorseful in a mood of calm, may
certainly have some truth in it. It seems unlikely, however, that
he would constantly be in two minds about such a major issue
in his empire as the influence of Islam. Sunni ‘Ali was more
than merely a powerful and ruthless ruler; he was evidently a
subtle politician whose moves were carefully calculated and force-
fully executed. Trimingham (History, p. 94) proposes the un-
realistic view that he ‘treated Islam as a joke’. Sunni ‘Ali was not
a monarch noted for his humour, nor can one imagine anything
more unlikely than that such a mighty conqueror should amuse
himself by poking fun at Islam. The matter was no joke to him;
it was probably the most serious matter with which he had to
_ deal during his reign.
Let us take the case of Sunni ‘Ali first. Sunni ‘Ali had been
brought up as an adherent of traditional Songhay religion. ‘His
mother was from Fara (or Fari, which Rouch identifies with the
area of Sokoto—but without making the case for this identi-
fication); they are a people who worship idols of trees and rocks
and make sacrifices to them and ask help from them,’ (4/-Maghilt).
They had certain shrines (Ar. Buyut mu ’azzama) looked after
by custodians (Ar. Sadana). These shrines, often near sacred
rocks or trees, were the homes of gods who could be consulted
through their custodians, who interpreted their utterances.
(On the surface this sounds reminiscent of the Ifa oracle system
of the Yoruba and appears to be not the only point of comparison
between the two religious systems. Both have a very similar
cult of the god of thunder—Dango in Songhay, Shango in Yoruba.
Rouch suggests that this latter cult was spread by the Sorko
along the waterways they travelled (Religion, p. 11).) Sunni
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 129
‘Ali, throughout his youth, made constant recourse to them and
became thoroughly imbued with the beliefs and practices of their
adherents. From his father Sulaiman Dandi, he inherited the
knowledge of the magic arts handed down through the line of
magician-kings of Koukya. Tradition claims that his father
initiated him and passed on to him the ‘master-word’ (gyindize
dyine) by virtue of which all other divinities became subservient
to him. ,
On the other hand, we may note that the kingdom of Gao
had, for about five centuries, been exposed to an ever-increasing
Islamic influence and that for about three and a half centuries
the rulers of this empire had been at least nominal Muslims. Sunni
‘Ali himself ‘pronounced the two shahadas and spoke as a man
well-versed in religion’ (Fattash, p. 82). He showed favour to
some of the ‘wlama, notably to Al-Ma’mun, cousin of the
Qadi of Timbuktu, Habib (7/Sudan, p. 66) and ‘Abdallah al-
Bilbali, the first white imam of the Sankore mosque (7/Sudan,
p- §7)- On another occasion, after raiding a Fulani people he sent
a number of female captives as a gift to some of the ‘ulama of
Timbuktu (7/Sudan, p. 67).
What does this all amount to? It seems that Islam had probably
become an important element in the royal religious cult, though
not as yet the dominating element. Rouch believes that it was
during Sunni ‘Ali’s rule that for the first time a coherent synthesis
between Islam and the indigenous Songhay religion was evolved
(Religion, p. 14), and he suggests that Islam may have supplied
Songhay religion with certain elements which it lacked—
particularly belief in a future life and an ordered cosmology.
Certain facts might lead us to go further than this and to conclude
that the magico-religious system of the Songhay had, by Sunni
‘Ali’s time, begun to decay and, further, had not within itself
the necessary elements for providing a sufficient basis for author-
ity and administration in the more sophisticated and far-reaching
state which was beginning to evolve. Islam was capable of supply-
ing these elements and was beginning to grow powerful in the
kingdoms bordering on the Songhay territory, with the exception
of the south. By the time of Sunni ‘Ali there was the danger that
130 Special Studies
Islam might completely eclipse the Songhay religious system
and hence destroy the basis upon which Sunni ‘Ali built his
authority as magician-king. It was an essential element of Sunni
‘Ali’s policy, therefore, to try and contain this force, exploit it
where possible, and maintain a balance between it and the
indigenous Songhay cult.
Firstly, Sunni ‘Ali himself made some show of keeping up a
Muslim appearance by saying prayers, fasting, and slaughtering
sacrificial animals. His prayers would have been dati by the
standard of any Muslim jurist—he often said all five daily prayers
at one time in the early hours of the following morning, sitting
in the tashahhud posture and inclining his body forward to indi-
cate the ruku‘ and sujud and contenting himself merely with
repeating the name ofthe prayer he was intending to pray instead
of reciting the Faziha and other suras. He no doubt had little
or no idea of the import of his actions, but found it necessary to
pay deference to the power of this mysterious oriental cult which
had become woven into the prevailing Songhay religious system.
It seems further likely that he intended to keep this Islamic
element as part of the royal prerogative, perhaps in order to
prevent its magical properties from being acquired by the Song-
hay priests and magicians and the common people. According
to Al-Maghili, he tried to prevent his court and his household
from adopting Islamic practices, and none of them dared pray
or fast a single day of Ramadan for fear that he would punish
them. At the same time he persecuted the ‘wlama of Timbuktu
and drove them out of the town in early 1469 on the suspicion
that they were aiding the Tuareg. In 1486 he undertook a further
purge of the Timbuktu scholars. He evidently respected their
mysterious knowledge enough to fear it, and he therefore took
pains to wipe out any one whose ‘magical-religious’ powers
might prove equal or superior to his own, and thus endanger
his life and sovereignty.
It would seem, then, that Islam, during the latter half of the
fifteenth century, was rapidly gaining strength in the Songhay
empire—particularly in the western half and, while it could not
be ignored by the ruler and, indeed, had to be conceded aplace
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-15912 131
in the state cult, it was in danger of becoming too powerful to
the detriment of the indigenous religious system upon which
the rulers of Gao had traditionally rested their authority. Sunni
‘Ali, therefore, in his apparently ambivalent attitude, was but
endeavouring to maintain the equilibrium and safeguard his
own position.
This point of view seems further strengthened by the course
which events took subsequent to the death of Sunni ‘Ali, who
perished in November 1492 under rather mysterious circum-
stances while returning from an expedition against Gourma.
In January 1493 Sunni ‘Ali’s son, Abu Bakr Da‘u (Sunni Barou),
was nominated ruler of Songhay. However, he had a contender
in the person of Muhammad Ture, one of Sunni ‘Ali’s former
commanders and favourites, who made an unsuccessful prelimin-
ary attempt to gain power in February 1493.
Sunni Barou had evidently decided to rest his authority solely
on the Songhay magico-religious system and to reject the intru-
sive and increasingly powerful Islamic elements. He refused to
declare himself a Muslim, and when Muhammad Ture sent
messengers to him requiring him to declare his allegiance to
Islam he expressly rejected the notion. The Ta’rikh al-fattash
adds, rather significantly, ‘He had fears for his sovereignty, as
is natural on the part of a king.’ However, it is evident that he
and his followers had badly miscalculated the mood of the times.
By now the Islamic impulse in the Songhay empire had become
sufficiently strong to be able to provide a basis for authority
which would find popular acceptance, whereas, while the Songhay
magico-religious system might serve as the basis for a ‘coalition’
with Islam, as it had done under Sunni ‘Ali, it no longer had the
authoritarian force or the cosmopolitan appeal which was
becoming necessary in the context of the late fifteenth-century
Sudan, through which an Islamic wind of change was beginning
to blow with increasing vigour.
Muhammad Ture came to power in April 1493, after defeating
Sunni Barou in battle at Anfao—Muhammad’s pretext being
Sunni Barou’s threefold public rejection of the demand to swear
himself a Muslim. This was the critical moment for Islam in
132 Special Studies
the Songhay empire. Sunni ‘Ali had ruled by showing the Muslim
religion some deference and skilfully using it as but one of the
props of his power. Sunni Barou attempted to rule without it,
but so far from being able to eliminate it from the structure of
state power, had it turn upon him and defeat him, only to become
the chief prop of power under the Askia dynasty. This did not,
of course, mean that Islam immediately became all-powerful
under the Askias; pagan practice and ritual still continued, even
at the courts of the Askias, but the rule of Askia Muhammad
Ture certainly accelerated a process of Islamization which had
already begun gathering momentum.

III. ASKIA AL-HAJJ MUHAMMAD TURE

‘COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL’ (reg. 1493-1528)
During the latter half of the fifteenth century Islam was
evidently on the offensive in the Western Sudan, and the mood
of the times was apparently favourable to it. This was due in
part to the awe which it inspired as an occult religion with its
own powerful system of magic (charms, talismans, sand divining)
and communicable spiritual power (4araka)} and its codified and
unified system of ritual and belief. It introduced a common
literacy in Arabic which made possible the stable government
of large empires and facilitated contact—whether friendly or
otherwise—between states partaking in the same system. Equally
significant here was the combination present in Islam between
religion and politics which gives to Muslim law, and even to
its fiscal and territorial administration, much of the character
of a divine dispensation.
By the end of the fifteenth century the Songhay empire was
surrounded by areas of Islamic influence and was able to maintain
its superiority—at least for the time being—by making use of
Islam to the fullest extent. The rulers of Kano and Katsina had
become Muslims during the fourteenth century, and in the mid-
fifteenth century there was a further and more far-reaching wave
of Islamization in these areas. During the reign of Yakubu,
* There are two very interesting chapters on baraka in E. Westermarck,
Pagan Survivals in Mohammedan Civilisation, London, 1933. See pp. 87-144.
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 133
Sarkin Kano (1452-63), Fulani teachers came from Mali and
settled and taught in Hausaland. Muhammad Rimfa (1463-99)
appears to have been a strong supporter of Islam, and towards
the end of his reign took advice from the itinerant North African
theologian, Al-Maghili, on how to govern his state according to
the laws of Islam. In Kebbi the first Muslim Sultan was probably
Muhammad Kanta, who is estimated by Arnett to have reigned
c. 1454-c. 1492 (Sokoto, p. 8). To the north-east.of the Songhay
empire the Sultanate of Agades is said to date from the early
fifteenth century (Chroniques, p. 151), and by the latter part of
the century interest in Islam was sufficiently keen for the Sultan,
Muhammad b. Sottofe (reg. 1486-93), to write to the Egyptian
scholar Al-Suyuti for advice (see ‘Uthman b. Fudi, Tanbih
al-tkhwan).
On the western edge of the empire, Mali hada tradition of Islam
going back some four centuries (4/-Bakri, pp. 333-4), and Jenne
and Timbuktu had by the end of the fifteenth century become
important centres for the diffusion of Islam. The importance of
the latter in spreading and strengthening Islam in the Air region
and Hausaland is particularly significant. We know of a number
of scholars of Timbuktu who travelled in these regions in the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. For example, Ahmad
b. ‘Umar b. Muhammad Agit of Timbuktu is said to have visited
Kano on his return from the pilgrimage in or around the year
1487 (T/Sudan, p. 37). Aida Ahmad of Tazakht visited Takedda,
where he received instruction from Al-Maghili, and on_his
return from the pilgrimage, some time after 1510, settled in Kat-
sina, became gadi of the town, and died there in 1529. Even more
interesting as an example of a peripatetic scholar and teacher is
the case of Makhluf al-Bilbali. He studied first in Walata under
‘Abdallah b. ‘Umar b. Muhammad Agit, travelled to the Maghrib,
and, on his return to the Sudan, went to Kanda (possibly a mis-
print for Kano) and Katsina, back to Timbuktu, on to Morocco
for the second time, and then back to the Sudan, where he died
some time after 1533 (Wail, p. 344; T/Sudan, p. 39). Finally,
there is Al-Maghili himself, who as a North African theologian
and author of many works was received in the Sudan as an
134 Special Studies
authority on Islam; indeed, he himself writes in an authoritative
manner and rarely cites other jurists to back up his rulings.
He was from Tlemeen originally, but had taken up residence in
Tuwat, from which town he travelled to Takedda, thence to
Katsina and Kano, and finally to Gao, where he wrote his famous
‘Replies’ for Askia Al-Hajj Muhammad. This must have been
just at the turn of the sixteenth century, since he returned to
Tuwat and died there in 1503/4 (Wail, p. 331).
The effect of this movement of Islamization, however, was
still restricted mainly to the ruling dynasties and chief adminis-
trators of the various kingdoms and, as one would expect, it was
only the capital cities and other large centres where Islam had
much effect, and even in these places its influence was only
partial. From al-Maghili’s ‘Replies’ it is evident that the situation
was much the same as the situation ‘Uthman b. Fudi complained
of in Hausaland four centuries later. Most so-called Muslims were
half-hearted in their allegiance to Islam and, while making alip-
profession of the faith, still believed in other gods whom they
called upon in their shrines and at their sacred rocks and trees.
Free women walked about unveiled except in Timbuktu,
(Leo, iii, p. 824), where the wives of the clerics had been
secluded even in Sunni ‘Ali’s time (Z/Sudan, p. 66), and in
Jenne young girls customarily walked entirely naked until
marriage. Leo Africanus complains that the village population
of the ‘kingdome of Gago’ are ‘ignorant and rude people, and
you shall scarce find one learned man in the space of an hundred
miles’ (Leo, iii, p. 827). This appears to be the general situation
during the early years of Askia Muhammad’s reign and, though
he is depicted in all the written sources as the man who supported
and strengthened the faith, yet he was not able to Islamize the
whole of his kingdom, and some of his successors were certainly
lukewarm towards Islam, so that by the time of the Moroccan
invasion in 1591 there seems to have been a marked relapse into
paganism.
Askia Muhammad b. Abi Bakr Ture came to power in 1493
at the advanced age of 50 (T/fattash, p. 113) having narrowly
escaped execution at the hands of Sunni ‘Ali a number of times,
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 135
though he was one of his favourites (T/Sudan, p. 68). This title
Askia, which became the honorific of his successors, was not a
new one and had been used as a military title under the Shi
(Sunni) dynasty. (T/fattash, p. 88). His ancestors were probably
Soninke of the Silla clan. Oral tradition claims that he was the
offspring of a union between Sunni ‘Ali’s sister, Kossey, and a
jinn. The Ta’rikh al-fattash also admits that Sunni ‘Ali and Askia
Muhammad share a common origin. They, and all people
bearing the name Moi, are said to have come from the town of
Yara, long ago destroyed, the inhabitants of which were origin-
ally from west of Wakore or Wangara (TJ;[fattash, p. 94). This
would most likely mean that they were Mandinka or Soninke.
Soon after assuming power he went to Mecca to perform the
pilgrimage (1495), returning two years later in 1497. Tradition
asserts that he went to Mecca virtually a pagan and had to prove
himself a Muslim by magical acts. However, it seems unlikely
that he would have been designated Khalifa if this were true,
though the various accounts of his investiture as Caliph of
Takrur do not speak with one voice. The most authentic account
is probably that of Ta’rikh al-fattash, since the author was him-
self an eye-witness. According to this, the Sharif of Mecca gave
him a green galansuwa, a white turban, and a sword and made him
his deputy (Khalifa) over Takrur (Western Sudan) (T [fattash,
pp. 16 and 131). The incident is recounted in the words of Askia
Al-Hajj Muhammad himself later on when, in 1537, he handed
on these symbols of authority to his son, Isma‘il saying, “You are
thus the Khalifa of the Khalifa of the Sharif who is himself, the
Khalifa of the Grand Ottoman Sultan (T/fattash, pp. 161-2).
Strengthened by this authority and the ‘magical’ blessing
(daraka) which was ascribed to pilgrims, the Askia could return
to rule his kingdom without fear. Having abandoned the role
of “magician-king’ which had been the prop of Sunni ‘Ali’s
power, he had now taken on the Islamic guise of ‘pilgrim-
king’ which would give him the necessary moral strength to
tule his people. Islamic daraka had replaced Songhay magic as
the chief ritual support of kingly authority.
Although, in theory, Islam does not have a priesthood, and
136 Special Studies
imams, gadis, and learned men have no sacerdotal functions or
spiritual authority, nevertheless in practice they do tend to
assume, or have thrust upon them, a marked measure of spiritual
authority in certain times and places. In the context of sixteenth-
century Songhay this was important. Officially traditional priests,
magicians, and soothsayers were in disgrace; however, their very
necessary functions of providing supernatural sanction for the
authority of the ruler and for advising or ratifying his course
of action could not be dispensed with. These functions now fell
to the lot of the gadis, particularly the gadi of Timbuktu, and to
the other Muslim clerics of the Songhay empire. By association
with such men one could acquire some share of the baraka which
they possessed; the daraka inherent in a pilgrim who had returned
from Mecca after ‘touching the Black Stone of the Ka‘ba and
visiting the tomb of the Prophet at Medina was considered
particularly efficacious (see, for example, 7,[fattash, pp. 205-7).
This may to some extent help to explain the great popularity of
the pilgrimage throughout West Africa even in modern times.
Askia al-Hajj Muhammad, therefore, kept in constant touch
with the ‘ulama, to obtain authority for his acts and to acquire
a share of their Jaraka; he took good care to look after their
interests and to ingratiate himself with them so as to keep a
moderating hand on their influence. ‘Askia Muhammad was full
of respect for the ‘u/ama; he lavished slaves and money upon
them in order to assure the interests of the Muslims and to help
them in their submission to God and in the practice of their
religion’ (T/fattash. p. 115). The relationship between the Askia
and the Qadi is clearly brought out in the interview which Askia
Muhammad had at the beginning of his reign with the Qadi of
Timbuktu, Mahmud b. ‘Umar. When the Askia asked the Qadt
why he had expelled his messengers and beaten them, when in
former times the ruler had always been free to do as he wished
in Timbuktu, the Qadi simply recalled that Askia Muhammad
had once visited him and placed his person under the Qadt’s
protection to be a barrier between him and Hell-fire (7/faztash,
pp. 116-17). The Askia immediately recognized the legitimacy of
this reply and asked for the Qadi’s forgiveness.
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 137
Further, the Qadi was the only man in the kingdom who could
enjoin a functionary of the Askia to undertake a task for him.
The functionary did not have the right to refuse and had to serve
him as he would serve the Askia. The gadis and other men of
religion enjoyed certain other privileges. The gadis sat on a prayer
mat when in audience with the Askia; only Shurafa (descendants
of the Prophet) could sit with the Askia on his raised platform.
The Askia only rose from his seat to greet the ‘ulama, the
shurafa, the returning pilgrims, and the san, and they were the
only groups of people allowed to eat with him. This was the situ-
ation during the early years of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad’s
reign, when he was anxious to conciliate these important groups.
Later, when his power was greater and he was more sure of his
position, these privileges fell into abeyance (7/fattash, p. 14).
The other Askia who followed the same policy and leaned
heavily on the support of the ‘ulama was the only other who
enjoyed a long reign, Askia Dawud (reg. 15 49-83). Dawud even
went a step further towards establishing the sacerdotal nature of
the ‘u/ama and used them as intercessors for himself with God!
On one occasion he sent the imam of Gao twenty-seven slaves
‘in order to obtain eternal safety’ (from hell). His message was,
‘I beg the imam to ask God on my behalf for His pardon and
indulgence.’ (Z/fattash, p. 197). On another occasion he sent
a hundred slaves to Al-‘Agib, the Qadi of Timbuktu, saying,
‘Tell him to use them to buy my portion of Paradise from God;
he will be my intermediary with God to obtain this’ (7/fattash, p.
198). It was Dawud’s habit when visiting Timbuktu to call on
the Qadt. The Qadi would receive his guests at the door and
entertain them. ‘His guests, anxious to participate in the divine
favour with which the Qadi was showered, would eat with him
after addressing numerous prayers to God’ (Z/fattash, pp.
201-2). Evidently the almost ritual participation in a meal
could be a means of imbibing the daraka of a holyman.
It has already been suggested that, even though the accession
of Askia Muhammad, the pilgrim-king, might seem to have
heralded a golden age of Islam in the Songhay empire, this was
not entirely the case. Askia Muhammad himself knew how to
138 Special Studies
use Islam as a political instrument—ingratiating himself with
the ‘ulama to gain their support and blessing, at least in the
early days of his reign. Only once, near the beginning of his
reign, did he undertake a military campaign with their direct
sanction and according to the Islamic rules—that was his jihad
against the Mossi immediately after his return from Mecca in
1497-98. He made no attempt td re-form his administration
according to Islamic theories (or even the actual practice of any
Muslim country), but maintained and even enlarged the Songhay
system of titles and offices which he inherited from Sunni ‘Ali.
We do not have much knowledge of court ceremonial except that
it was the common practice for people entering the Askia’s
presence to prostrate themselves and cover their heads with dust
(Tfattash, p. 13)..The Askia evidently kept a large court with
many slaves and concubines and dealt in patriarchal fashion with
plaintiffs (Leo, iii, p. 827).
Askia Muhammad’s son and successor, Musa, (reg. 1528-31)
evidently had little time for Islam. He took over all his father’s
wives and concubines when he deposed him (7/fattash, p. 155).
He refused to give ear to the intercession of the gadi Mahmud
when he set out to fight his brother ‘Uthman Yubabo and was
not to be intimidated by the curse of a holy man (Z/Sudan, pp.
84-5). Even in the reign of Askia Dawud (1549-83), who had
the reputation of being a scholar himself and did much to aid the
pursuit of Islamic learning, the court ceremonial was clearly
non-Muslim in most respects. In spite of being a thoroughgoing
Muslim in many ways, Dawud still felt himself obliged to pay
deference to animist sentiment. Those who entered his presence
prostrated and convered their heads with dust (7/faztash, pp. 184
and 193). At his Friday audience seven hundred eunuchs stood
behind him dressed in silk. When he wanted to spit one of them
ran forward and put out his sleeve for him to spit upon. Ahmad b.
Muhammad b. Sa‘id, a celebrated Timbuktu scholar witnessed
this scene one day and afterwards said to Askia Dawud, ‘When I
entered I was constrained to think you must be mad, corrupt or
possessed.’ The Askia’s reply was full of significance and shows
how far the Askia still felt himself compelled to lean in both
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1592 139
directions—towards tradition and Islam. ‘I am not mad myself,
but I rule over mad, impious and arrogant folk. It is for this
reason that I play the madman myself and pretend to be possessed
by a demon in order to frighten them and prevent them from
harming the Muslims’ (7/fattash, pp. 208-10).
During the last ten years of the independent Songhay empire,
before the Moroccan invasion of 1591, it is clear that the empire
was falling into rapid decay as a political entity. The vitality
of the old animist empire under the ‘magician-king’ Sunni ‘Ali
and the well-organised and still expanding empire of his succes-
sor, the ‘pilgrim-king’, Askia Al-Hajj Muhammad, had crumbled
away and succession quarrels had begun to eat away the fabric
of the state. Askia Dawud leaned heavily on the ‘u/ama, especially
the gadt Al-‘Aqib, for support, and was at least able to maintain
the status quo. Although unsuccessful in his campaigns to the
south-east, he was able to contain the restless peoples on his west
and the Mossi to his south.
After Dawud’s death three sons of his ruled in quick succes-
sion. During the reign of the first, Muhammad III (1582-86),
came the first rumblings of trouble from Morocco. An embassy
was sent to Gao by Mulay Ahmad Al-Mansur of Morocco in
1584, the object being to obtain an intelligence report on the
strength of the Songhay empire. The report was evidently
favourable, as the Sultan soon afterwards sent off a large expedi-
tion to the Sudan, though most of it perished in the deserts of
Mauretania and the survivors returned to Morocco. Al-Mansur
then occupied the Saharan salt-mines of Taghaza and for a time
Askia Muhammad was obliged to abandon the mines. In 1586
the Askia was deposed by his brother, Muhammad Bani, who
ruled for less than two years and died apparently during a fit.
It was during the reign of Muhammad Bani that a civil war,
touched off by the murder ofastate official, virtually split the
empire in two. The Balama, Al-Sadiq, who had his residence
at Timbuktu, killed the Kabara-farma, Alou, in a quarrel. Askia
Muhammad Bani set out against the Balama, but died before
defeating him. In April 1588 Ishaq II was proclaimed Askia in
Gao, but when his messenger reached Timbuktu to announce his
140 Special Studies
accession he was imprisoned, as the Balama Al-Sadiq had already
been recognized as Askia by his own men and by the people of
Timbuktu (7/Sudan, p. 200). The Balama was, however, event-
ually defeated by Askia Ishaq IJ and finally put to death.
It is evident that by this time the Songhay empire no longer
had much cohesion, and as soon as the centre was attacked in
1591 by the Moroccan forces and the Askia’s army sent fleeing in
disorder, the western half of the empire was rapidly invaded by
marauding peoples at Jenne, Bara, Dirma, and Ra’s al-Ma‘ (7/fat-
tash, p. 272). The Tuareg, too, seized the first opportunity to
plunder when they descended upon Timbuktu in December
1591, while the main body of Moroccan forces were away in
pursuit of Askia Ishaq II.
The ‘u/ama were still a powerful force in politics even at
this time. For example, the Askia’s war council, which met to
decide how best to face the Moroccan attack included among
its members the gadi of Gao and one of the learned men of
Timbuktu (J/fattash, pp. 268-9). It was in fact a ‘man of reli-
gion’, the Alfa Askia Bukar Lanbar, chief secretary and apparently
chief adviser, of the Askia, who persuaded Ishaq II to abandon
the field in the first encounter with the Moroccans at Tondibi
in March 1591, and who later betrayed the Askia Muhammad
Gao and his chiefs into the hands of the Pasha Mahmud.
In Timbuktu the gadi, and the learned men of Sankoré,
particularly those of the Agit family, were still an influential
body of men (Ahmad Baba, p. 314 et passim). The house of the
gadi had, throughout the Askia dynasty, been an inviolable
place of refuge for deposed Askias, revolted governors, and
disgraced officials. The clerics of Timbuktu were evidently no
more favourable to rule by the Moroccans than they were to
direct interference from the Askias, and they maintained a cold,
though not openly hostile attitude towards them at first. This is
the impression we get from the Arabic chronicles at any rate,
though both Al-Sa‘di and Kati would have been careful not
to admit that the ‘u/ama were actually rebellious. It is probable
that the ‘u/ama were, in fact, strongly hostile to the Moroccans
and probably instigated the revolt of October-November 1591
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-2591 141
in Timbuktu (Ahmad Baba, pp. 320-1). The course of action which
the Pasha Mahmud subsequently took in arresting the Timbuktu
‘ulama en masse and later exiling a number of them to Morocco
seems to indicate that he knew where the chief source of opposi-
tion to Moroccan rule lay. It was no doubt for similar reasons that
Sunni ‘Ali, over a century before, expelled and persecuted the
learned members of this little state within a state. Furthermore, in
the case of the Moroccan army, though it represented the author-
ity of a Muslim state, its members were chiefly Spanish mercenaries
who were either non-Muslims or Muslims only through force of
circumstances and therefore had little time for the laws and pre-
cepts of the faith when they were so far away from their adopted
country. Hence the ‘ulama would no doubt have felt amply
justified in opposing their rule by all means at their disposal.
The coming of the Moroccans to the Sudan not only dealt the
final blow to the already decaying Songhay empire but also
largely sealed the fate of Timbuktu as a centre of trade and learn-
ing. After the final fall from grace under Pasha Mahmud and
the exile of some of the leading ‘wlama, the city lost much of
the intellectual and spiritual vitality which it had known through-
out the sixteenth century. Furthermore, it became the capital
of the state ruled over by the Moroccan Pashas and, being thus
under very tight control from the new rulers, was never again
able to enjoy the degree of autonomy it had had under the Askias.
Islam had, during the sixteenth century, gained ground in
the urban centres of the Songhay empire no doubt; indeed, it
had been a factor of urban life and an element of the royal
religious cult for the preceding five centuries. The peasants and
fisherfolk of the villages and hamlets seem to have remained
little influenced; Islam could hardly have seemed relevant to
such people of the soil and the water, whose cultural cycle
inevitably revolves around seasonal change and natural fertility.
If anything, by the end of the sixteenth century there appears
to have been a hardening of lines between Islam and the Songhay
indigenous religious system, exemplified in the isolation of the
Dendi region which became the centre of political resistance to
the Moroccans and which held most tenaciously to its own
142 Special Studtes
cults. All this, in spite of the encouragement given to Islam by
some of the Askias, particularly the first, Al-Hajj Muhammad
Ture, and the sixth, Dawud.
As I have tried to show, it was necessary for the Askias
throughout the sixteenth century to maintain a delicate balance
between Islam and Songhay religion in the structure of state
power. It seems equally apparent that, on the whole, Islam had
little popular support and remained largely an alien religion of
foreign and élite groups, though this is not to ignore the Islamic
elements, which may already by this time have become thorough-
ly integrated into Songhay religion itself. The coming of the
Moroccans in 1591 broke down the already crumbling political
structure of the Songhay empire and destroyed what religious
equilibrium there was. Islam was then to become identified, at
least in the early years of Moroccan rule, with a tyrannical alien
tuling group. It had not penetrated deep enough into Songhay
society to prove a rallying point in time of trouble or to hold
together a tottering empire, and its chief protagonists, the ‘ulama
of Timbuktu (a basically alien group), were among the first to
suffer from the iron hand of a new Muslim rule.

REFERENCES

Ahmad Baba
(1351 A. H.) Nail al-tbtihaj bi tatriz al-Dibaj. Cairo. (Nail)
Al-Bakri
(1913) Description del’ Afrique septentrionale (Kitab al-masalik wa’l-mamalik).
Trans. de M. de Slane, revised edn., Alger. (4/-Bakri)
Al-Maghili
(MSS.) Ajwiba ’ala as’ilat al-Amir al-Haj Abi *Abdullah Muhammad b. Abi
Bakr. (MSS. of Dakar, Paris, and Ibadan consulted.) (4/-Maghili)
Arnett, E. J.
(1922) Introduction to the history of Sokoto (at end of The Rise of the Sokoto
Fulani). Kano. (Sokoto)
Al-Sa‘di
(1898) Ta’rikh al-Sudan. Ed. and trans, by O. Houdas, Paris. (T/Sudan: page
numbers refer to Arabic text.)
Béraud-Villars, J.
(1942) L’ Empire de Gao. Paris.
Boulnois, J. and Boubou Hama
(1954) L’Empire de Gao. Paris.
Delafosse, M.
(1912) Haut-Sénégal-Niger. Paris. 3 vols. (H.-S.-N.)
 Religion and State in the Songhay Empire, 1464-1591 143
Dubois, F.
(1897) Tombouctou la Mystérieuse. Paris. (Tombouctou)
Hunwick, J.
‘Ahmad Baba and the Moroccan invasion of the Sudan (1591)’, Journal of
the Historical Society ofNigeria, vol. Il, no. 3, pp. 311-28. (Ahmad Baba)
Ibn Battuta
(1843-58) Tuhfat al-nuzzar (Voyages), ed. and trans. C. Defrémery and B.
Sanguinetti, Paris, 4 vols. (/én Battuta)
Ibn Khaldun
(1925-56) Histoire des Berbéres, trans, M.de Slane, Paris, 4 vols. Arabic text,
7 vols., Beirut, 1956-59. (Jbn Khaldun) 4
Leo Africanus
(1896) The History and Description of Africa. Pory’s translation, ed. by R.
Brown, London, 3 vols. (Leo)
Mahmud Kati
(1913) Ta’rtkh al-fattash, trans. by O. Houdas amd M. Delafosse, Paris.
(T/fattash)
Rouch, J.
(1953) Contribution a histoire des Songhay. (Mém. de l’IFAN, no. 29, pp.
137-259. (Contribution)
(1960) La Religion et la magie Songhay. Paris. (Religion)
Trimingham, J. S.
(1959) Islam in West Africa. London.
(1962) History of Islam in West Africa. London. (History)
Urvoy, Y.
(1934) ‘Chroniques d’Agades’, Journal de la Société des Africanistes, vol.
4, PP- 145-77. (Chroniques)
(1936) Histoire des populations du Soudan central. Paris.
 IV. THE POSITION OF MUSLIMS IN
METROPOLITAN ASHANTI IN THE EARLY
NINETEENTH CENTURY

IVOR WILKS

I. THE KUMASI MUSLIMS: SHAIKH BABA

From the extant writings of the West African Muslim reformers,

the mujaddidin, of the first half of the thirteenth century A.H.,
it is becoming possible to reconstruct the social and political
conditions of the times in such central regions of the revolutionary
movement as the Fulani emirates of Nigeria.! No similar body
of evidence is available, however, for the study of those peri-
pheral areas where influential Muslim communities continued
to exist under the patronage of non-Muslim kings like Da Kaba
of Segu (?1808—?1827) and Osei Tutu Kwame of Ashanti
(?1801-24). Fortunately, in the case of Ashanti, there is evidence
from a quite different source: between May 1816 and March 1820
Osei Tutu Kwame received as visitors to Kumasi no less than nine
agents of the European merchant companies trading on the Gold
Coast to the south, and of these, five left lengthy descriptions
of his capital.2 From them a detailed account of the Kumasi
Muslim community can be pieced together, of its structure and
functions, of the stresses to which it was subject, and of the
influence which it exerted, during those four years.
The Kumasi Muslims lived in the centre of the town, their
quarter lying along the avenue leading from the main market
to the king’s palace. No definite information on the size of the
community exists; like similar commercial groups elsewhere,
its membership doubtless fluctuated with seasonal and other
cycles of trade. Nevertheless, on two public occasions, his own
1 See, e.g., M. Hiskett, ‘Kitab al-farq: a work on the Habe kingdoms attributed
to ‘Uthman dan Fodio’, BSOAS, vol. XXIII, no. 3, 1960.
2 For the comparative value of these sources, see Bibliography at end.
3 Bowdich, 1819, p. 129 and map facing p. 323; Dupuis, 1824, pp. 71-72.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 145
reception and a subsequent Adae festival, Consul Dupuis esti-
mated that three hundred Muslims made their appearance.*
The total adult male resident population was probably, then,
in excess of this, and with women and children there may perhaps
have been over a thousand Muslims more or less permanently
settled in Kumasi.
The head of the community was the elderly Muhammad al-
Ghamba‘, ‘the Mamprussi’, more commonly known as Baba,
who had first settled in Kumasi in 1807.5 A man of piety and
learning, his obligations to the Kumasi faithful required the
exercise of both qualities. As imam he led them in prayer,®
and as gadi he administered justice in accordance with the Shari‘a.’
Especially close to his heart was the school which he had founded
and over which he presided, where some seventy pupils were
taught the Quran, and thereby reading, writing, and elementary
Arabic.® Shaikh Baba’s own educational attainments, however,
naturally extended farther.® Owner of a large library,1° his studies
would seem to have included not only the conventional range of
Islamic sciences—zafsir, figh, and the like—presupposed by his
liturgical and legal functions, but also ta’r:kh: he was, for example,
able to discourse interestingly on both Ashanti and Western
Sudanese history.11
As a young man, Shaikh Baba had travelled widely in the
4 Dupuis, 1824, pp. 71-72 and 142.
5 Apparently following a dispute with his relative, the King of Mamprussi
(capital Gambaga, Arabic Ghamba‘), as described in Bowdich, 1819, p. 240. See
also Dupuis, 1824, p. cxxix n.
8 Hutchison, in Bowdich, 1819, p. 405.
7 Dupuis, 1824, p. 94. Cases between Muslims and non-Muslims, however,
would be adjudicated in Ashanti courts in accordance with Ashanti customary
law, though probably in the presence of a representative of the gadi, see Dupuis,
1824, pp. 117 and 124 n.
8 Bowdich, 1819, p. 90; Dupuis, 1824, pp. 97 and 107; Hutton, 1821, p. 261.
® See Dupuis’ general comments on the Kumasi Muslims, some ‘men of
education and talent’, pp. vi et seq. 10 Bowdich, 1819, p. 144.
11 See, e.g., Dupuis, 1824, pp. 250 n., xlix, xc. It is now known that a local
tradition of ta’rikh writing had already developed in the eighteenth century.
In the Arabic collection at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana,
for example, there are eight MSS of a chronicle of Gonja history completed in
1752; see I. Wilks, ‘The Growth of Islamic learning in Ghana’, in Journal of
the Historical Society of Nigeria, 11, 4, 1963. An earlier but related work of c. 1711,
was extant in early rgth century Kumasi, and is preserved in Cod. Arab. CCCI,
it, ff. 236-7 Royal Library, Copenhagen.
146 Special Studies
regions between Ashanti and Hausaland,}? but considered himself
at this period ‘an indifferent Talb’.12 However, he describes his
subsequent reception of ‘the truth’ from his mugaddam:
God be praised, a certain Moraboth [muraéit] from the north was sent
to me by a special direction, and that learned saint taught me the truth; so
that now my beard is white, and I cannot travel as before; I am content to
seek the good of my soul ina state of future reward.14

Since this initiation occurred after Baba’s arrival in Kumasi

in 1807, it would seem possible that, with the growth of the
Qadiriyya brotherhood in Hausaland (to which tariga ‘Uthman
dan Fodio himself belonged), Qadiri shaikhs also made their
influence felt along the great trade route that led through Bussa
and Nikki-to Yendi, Salaga, and the Ashanti capital—a matter
for which there is some independent evidence.1°
II. THE KUMASI MUSLIMS: RESIDENTS AND VISITORS
Of the resident members of the Kumasi Muslim community
who, in virtue of their social standing,!® were especially promin-
ent in civic affairs, most appear to have originated from the
immediate hinterland of Ashanti, so that Dupuis often refers to
them as ‘the Moslems of Dagomba and Ghunja’.!? Thus, Muham-
mad Kama‘atay,!® who had studied Arabic in Hausaland, has a
characteristic Dyula nisba, and probably came from one of the
ancient Wangara Kamaghate groups found throughout Gonja.
Abu Bakr Turay, Shaikh Baba’s trading agent, also has a Dyula
12 Dupuis, 1824, pp. 97, 109, and cxxix n.
13 T.e, talib, student, disciple.
14 Quoted by Dupuis, 1824, p. 97.
16 Tn his Tanbih al-ikhwan, written in (?) 1811, ‘Uthman dan Fodio lists
Dagomba among the ‘lands of Unbelievers’. Since the rulers of Dagomba had
been at least nominally Muslim for almost a century, presumably the king c. 1811
was regarded as an apostate. An Arabic ta’rikh from Dagomba, however, that is
yet to be traced, is said to report the arrival in Yendi of emissaries from ‘Uthman
dan Fodio. Bowdich, 1819, p. 178, refers to an increase in Hausa settlement in
Yendi at that time, and also speaks of the ‘conversion’ of the ruler. That this
might refer to his adoption of Qadiri wird is suggested by a later reference in
Bowdich, p. 453, to the Yendi king’s ‘proverbial repute for sanctity’.
16 See, e.g., the reference to the ‘seventeen superiors’, in Bowdich, 1819, p. 37.
17 Dupuis, 1824, p. 170; see also p. xiv.
18 Dupuis, p. cxxviii, transcribes the name as Camati, but the Arabic reads
Kama‘atay. See p. 163 below.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 147
nisba—more familiar as Touré—and may have shared asimilar
background. From their /agabs, al-Hajj Mubarak al-Salghawi,
Jalal ibn Qudsi al-Burumi, and Ibrahim al-Yandi were from
Salaga in eastern Gonja, the Mbrom country to its south, and
the Dagomba capital, respectively. From a more distant place,
one Timbuktu man had been resident in Kumasi for a decade.1®
In general, however, most of the residents undoubtedly belonged
to, or to the fringes of, Dyula or Wangara society—to those
supra-ethnic trading associations, Kamaghate, Touré, Diabak-
hate, Watara, and the rest, which, over the centuries, had extended
their commercial activities across West Africa from the Senegal
to Hausaland, and from the Sahil to the Guinea coast, trans-
cending the-borders of states, languages, and peoples.?° It follows
that the Kumasi Muslims of the ‘deep south’—living in the high
forest zone, little over a hundred miles from the surf-bound
coast—were far from isolated from the greater Muslim centres
of the Western Sudan. The rich natural resources of Ashanti,
especially its gold and kola, attracted the interest of merchants
from far away, whose representatives visited, and sometimes
resided in, Kumasi. At each visit to Shaikh Baba’s house, observed
Bowdich,
I found strange Moors just arrived from different parts of the interior,
sojourning with him,??

and, doubtless with some exaggeration, he also described ‘the

hourly arrival in Coomassie of visitors, merchants, and slaves’
from the hinterland, and of ‘the daily departures of Ashantee
caravans’.22 The trade with Timbuktu through Jenne was of
19 Bowdich, 1819, p. 194.
20 For a glimpse from the northern end, see, e.g., the evidence of Muhammad
Mustafa, emissary of the king of Segu: ‘on the banks of the Niger... he met
many “‘Jullas”, trading natives, who mentioned to him that they had been to a
far-distant country called Ashantee, the king of which was a pagan’, Royal
Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser, vol. IV, 219, 10 August 1822. For the early
spread of the Dyula into Ghana, see I. Wilks, The Northern Factor in Ashanu
History, 1961; ‘The Growth of Islamic Learning in Ghana’, paper cited; ‘A
Medieval Trade-Route from the Niger to the Gulf of Guinea,’ in Journal of
African History, vol. Ill, no. 2, 1962
21 Bowdich, 1819, pp. 90-91.
22 Bowdich, 1821 (a), p. 2.
148 Special Studies
considerable importance in this period,?? and many Muslim
merchants from these towns frequented the Ashanti capital;?4
such were the Timbuktu ‘a/im, who arrived there in mid-1817
and who claimed to have witnessed the death of Mungo Park
eleven years before,5 and the elderly trader from Jenne, who arri-
ved late in 1817, who had been in Cairo and Alexandria, and had
apparently witnessed Nelson’s victory at Abukir Bay in 1798.76
From even more distant parts came the occasional traveller,
from Tripoli, Tunisia, Egypt, and even the Hijaz.?” Among them
were members of the Shurafa’, to whose presence the Ashanti
government attached great importance:
These descendants of the Prophet’s family are received at Ashantee with
hospitality unlimited in its scope; they became the honoured guests of kings
and ministers, while the population in bulk venerate them as demi-gods,
and look for an increase of wealth in proportion as they compete in tendering
respect and offers of service to their visitors.”8

An interesting representative of this group—the contribution

of which to the economic organization of West Africa has yet
to be adequately assessed—was the Sharif Ahmad al-Baghdadi,
whose travels from Baghdad had taken him to Khorasan in the
east, and Ashanti in the west.?9

Ill. THE KUMASI MUSLIMS AND THE MUJADDIDIN

The constant and close contact of the Muslims in Kumasi

with their co-religionists from all parts of the Western Sudan
pre-supposes their awareness of, and acquaintance with, the
doctrines of the mujaddidin, the ‘Revivers of Islam’; whose
*3The evidence of a Malam Muhammad of Timbuktu on the gold trade
between Ashanti and that town is on record, see Clapperton, 1829, p. 202. The
trading accounts of al-Hajj Hamad al--Wangari give some idea of the volume of
this trade ata slightly earlier period, see J. G. Jackson, An Account of Timbuctoo
and Housa, 1820, pp. 347-8. Gunpowder also appears to have been traded in
the same direction, see Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser, vol. V, 251;
15 March 1823.
24 Bowdich, 1819, p. 185. 28 Tbid., pp. 90-91.
ag Hutchison: in Bowdich, 1819, p. 407; EL: 1819, p. 186 n.
2? Dupuis, 1824, p. xiv. ® Thid.5 De XIVe
29H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in ee and Central Africa, 1857, II,
pp. 283-5.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 149
ascendancy had been established in Futa Toro and Futa Jallon
by the later eighteenth century, and in Hausaland in the years
following ‘Uthman dan Fodio’s call for jihad in 1804, and who
were, around 1820 and under the leadership of Shehu Ahmadu,
locked in struggle with the pagan Bambara for control of the
Middle Niger delta.2° There is, indeed, direct evidence of reform-
ist influence in Kumasi. It has already been noted that, some time
after 1807, Shaikh Baba of Kumasi received a wird from an
itinerant mugaddam, ‘sent by a special direction’. A comparable
figure, perhaps, was the aged Katsina shazkh, who arrived in
Kumasi early in 1820, and who
affected all the austerity of a Morabth (moraboo), among the Arabs, with
whom he claimed consanguinity, by descent, from the conquerors of the
Niger.

Another interesting person, of whom more is known since he

became the confidant of both Bowdich and Hutchison, was the
Sharif Ibrahim, whose operational base seems to have been Bussa
on the Niger? (then under Fulani control), but who arrived in
Kumasi, in or about 1815, from Arabia, with two other sharifs.33
His two companions left for Timbuktu and Tripoli in the follow-
ing year, but Ibrahim remained until early 1818, when he departed
for Mecca at the head ofa large caravan of pilgrims.*4 His stay
in Kumasi is notable for his uncompromising attitude of dis-
approval towards the Kumasi Musiims, with whom he would
have no social intercourse®> and with whom he quarrelled over
matters of status:%® he clearly regarded both their use of amulets
80 For these movements of reform, see H. F. C. Smith, ‘A Neglected Theme
of West African History: the Islamic Revolutions of the 19th century’, Journal
of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. II, no. 2, December 1961. The two latter
movements were closely related, in that Shehu Ahmadu, as Smith comments,
‘regarded the Shehu dan Fodio as his example, and consulted him on the timing
of the Macina Jihad’. The links between ‘Uthman dan Fodio and the mujahidin
of the Futas may turn out to have been closer than is usually allowed.
31 Dupuis, 1824, pp. 137 and cxxxiii.
32 Hutchison, in Bowdich, 1819, pp. 397 and 403.
33 See P. Ainé, Céte Occidentale D’ Afrique, Cote-D’ Or, 1857, p. 27, paraphras-
ing from an unidentified work of Dupuis.
34 Thid., p. 27; Dupuis, 1824, pp. xiv—xv.
35 Bowdich, 1819, p. 92.
36 Hutchison, in Bowdich, 1819, p. 403.
150 Special Studies
and their general tolerance of non-Muslim Ashanti custom as
indicative of apostasy.?’
Awareness of the doctrines of the reformers generated, for the
Kumasi Muslims, a moral dilemma, since the schoolmen of the
reform movement laid great emphasis upon the simple stark
dichotomy of dar al-Islam and dar al-harb:
The government of a country is the government of its king without
question. If the king is a Muslim, his land is Muslim; if he is an Unbeliever,
his land is a land of Unbelievers.%*

The Kumasi Muslims, therefore, were dwelling in dar al-harb,

not dar al-Islam, a fact that committed them, it would be argued,
to certain courses of conduct:
... flight (a-hijra) from the land of the heathen is obligatory by assent.
And the waging of Holy War (jihad) is obligatory by assent.
And that to make war upon the heathen king who will not say ‘There is
no God but Allah’ is obligatory by assent, and that to take the government
from him is obligatory by assent.?9
Failure to observe the twin obligations of Aura and jihad, of
withdrawal and return, could, according to the reformers, itself
constitute apostasy, since
The approval of paganism is itself paganism . . . the jihad is incumbent
on all who are able,*°

and even trading with the Unbelievers is “disgraceful’.44 Those

voluntarily remaining in heathen territories necessarily involved
themselves in ‘blameworthy customs’, for example, in the pay-
ment of uncanonical taxes:
One of the ways of their (i.e. the pagans’) governments is their imposing
on the people monies not laid down by the Shari‘a,
37 Hutchison, in Bowdich, 1819, pp. 397-8; Bowdich, 1819, p. 205. In view
of Sharif Ibrahim’s recent visit to the Hijaz, see also Bowdich, 1819, p. 92, one
might suspect that his extreme puritanism reflected in part his acquaintance with
Wahhabi doctrines.
38 ‘Uthman dan Fodio, Tanbih al-ikhwan. The doctrine is reiterated in Muham-
med Bello, Znfag al-maysur.
39 *‘Uthman dan Fodio, Wathigat ahl al-Sudan.
40 Muhammad Bello, in /nfagq al-maysur, charging Bornu—even Bornu—
with being pagan.
41 ‘Uthman dan Fodio, Tanbih al-ikhwan.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 151
and in compulsory military service:
One of the ways of their governments is to compel the people to serve
in their armies, even though they are Muslims 42.
That precisely such matters4? were of grave concern to the
Kumasi Muslims is evidenced in their complaints to Dupuis,
that the believers in Ashanti were:
compelled to pay tribute and fight the battles of heathen princes, whose
religion and whose interests are necessarily the reverse of their own.44
The second consideration, that of military service, was especially
unfortunate in two ways, so Dupuis was told:
The first is religion, which forbids that the lives and liberties of true
believers should be sacrificed to the caprice, or in the avaricious wars of
heathen monarchs; the second is an innate repugnance to contribute to the
aggrandizement of a power that is already dreaded by the Moslems in
general.*®
As gadi of the Kumasi Muslims, Shaikh Baba was necessarily
highly exercised by the implications of his community’s continued
residence in dar al-harb. Although none of his writings survives
intact, fragments quoted by Dupuis suggest that Baba and his
associates made an intellectually skilful and vigorous defence of
the position of the Muslims in Ashanti. Starting from the same—
and therefore unassailable—premise as the reformers themselves,
that the Muslims of the Western Sudan had failed to establish
a true caltphate,*® the Kumasi clerics argued for the (historical)
inevitability of their peoples’ position in Ashanti:
(i)
the absence of that political co-operation in the north is mainly the cause
why the southern believers are checked in their efforts to propagate God’s
42 ‘Uthman dan Fodio, Aztab al-farg.
43 Many of the works of the Fulani reformers quoted here are extant in Ghana,
and copies are preserved in the Arabic collection at the Institute of African
Studies, University of Ghana. It is not possible, however, to say at which date
such works came into the hands of the Ghana ‘ulama.
44 Dupuis, 1824, p. |. 45 Dupuis, 1824, p. Xxxiii n.
46 See, e.g., M. Hiskett, ‘An Islamic tradition of reform in the Western Sudan
from the sixteenth to the‘eighteenth century, BSOAS, vol. XXV, no. 3, 1962.
This failure is what J. S. Trimingham has described as the islamic stagnation
and pagan reaction’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 4 History
of Islam in West Africa, 1962, ch. 4.
152 Special Studies
worship by dint of arms; for the existing governments in the vicinity of
the great inland waters [i.e. the Niger] are supine, and devoid of that
energy which distinguished the career of the Arabs;

(ii) that, but for this,

every nation down to the sea coast itself, would have been converted to the
service of Allah, long ere this, and the Koran would have been known
throughout Africa; whereas now the idolators are strong in the south;*”
(iii) and that consequently the Muslims of Ashanti have been
obliged
to espouse the court politics in public life,
and even,
in wars religiously deplored, ... compelled to fight in the ranks of the
heathens, against their brethren in faith.*®

Although, as we shall see, Shaikh Baba did effect a limited and

revocable sort of Ayra in 1818, in general the Kumasi Muslims
would seem to have been too deeply involved in Ashanti affairs
to be able to regard the pronouncements of the reformers as
indicative of any practicable course of action.

IV. MUSLIM INVOLVEMENT IN ASHANTI AFFAIRS

The Kumasi Muslim community, numerically small, never-
theless wielded considerable economic power, having a complete
monopoly in certain spheres, e.g. the cattle industry,*? and con-
trolling a large sector of the distributive trade. The Ashanti
king, concerned to curb the growth of a native Ashanti merchant
capitalist class—which he saw as a potential force of revolution *°
—did much to encourage foreign traders to Kumasi by his
liberal economic policies:
If they come from another country to trade in Coomassy, they make
friends, and give me a present; then to be sure, I cannot tell them to give me
gold, when they buy and sell the goods. Besides, some traders are kings’
sons and brothers, and great captains: I must not say to them, give me gold,
but I must give them gold and provisions, and send them home happy and
47 Dupuis, 1824, p. L. 48 Thid., pp. xxxiii n. and 241 n.
49 Hutton, 1821, p. 330. 50 See, e.g., Bowdich, 1819, pp. 335-6.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti —_153
rich, that it may be known in other countries that I am a great king, and
know what is right.
In this way Muslim traders came to control the distribution, by
the great trade routes leading north-west to Segu and Jenne and
beyond, and north-east to Hausaland and beyond, of the primary
products of Ashanti and its provinces, of its gold, kola, slaves,
and salt. Where the Ashanti was unable to venture ‘unless under
the escort and protection of the Moslem’,5? the Muslim could
travel with every facility:
On the journey from Coomassy to Haoussa, he seldom disbursed a
mitskal of gold or cowrees (the value of ten shillings) but, on the contrary,
is frequently a gainer by the generosity of princes, and his daily wants are
moreover liberally supplied at their expense, and oftentimes with unbounded
hospitality.®%
The participation of the Kumasi Muslims in the economic life
of Ashanti led, since commerce was closely controlled by the
State, to their participation in affairs of government. Thus
Bowdich wrote of
The Moorish chiefs and dignitaries by whom the King is surrounded,
whose influence is powerful, not only from their rank but their repute.54
Dupuis similarly noted that
The character of true believers... stood very high with the king, for
he consulted them upon many important occasions, where the interests of
the nation were concerned,®5
and Hutton observed that Muslims exercise ‘the greatest influence
at Ashantee’.°6
51 Osei Tutu Kwame, reported by Dupuis, 1824, p. 167.
52 Dupuis, 1824, p. xc.
53 Thid., p. cx. Ashanti Muslim traders also spread their activities, on a more
limited scale, southwards to the coast. See, e.g., PRO, CO 267/44, Report by
Commodore Sir James Yeo of the Africa Squadron, dated 7 November 1816:
‘Whilst we were at Cape Coast Castle I saw several of the Ashantees, they
appeared shrewd, active and intelligent, not the least appearance of the common
negro countenance but very much resembling the Moors and many of them wore
turbans. Two of them said they had seen Whiteman in the back country, meaning
no doubt the shores of the Mediterranean or Red Sea.’ See also Dupuis, 1824,
pp- 10-11. 54 Bowdich, 1819, p. 53. 55 Dupuis, 1824, p. 98.
56 Hutton, 1821, p. 323. English awareness of the importance of Muslims
in Ashanti appears to date from the time of the meeting at Anomabu on the coast
in 1807 between Governor Torrane and Osei Tutu Kwame. ‘The king,’ noted
154 Special Studies
A number of the leading Muslims, including Shaikh Baba,
Muhammad Kama‘atay, and Abu Bakr Turay,
enjoyed rank at court, or were invested with administrative powers, entitling
them even to a voice in the senate.”

Baba described himself as ‘a favoured servant’ of the king and

as ‘a member of the king’s council in affairs relating to the
believers of Sarem and Dagomba,’*® and he and his associates
certainly played an important role in the negotiating of the Anglo-
Ashanti Treaty of 1820.59 The vetting of visitors to the Court
was another of their functions: Huydecoper, Bowdich, and
Dupuis were all required to testify on the Quran to their goodwill
towards the king.®°
The king’s desire to establish an Arabic chancery, remarked
on by Bowdich,® also brought Muslims into his service and led
him to send members of his household to Shaikh Baba’s school.®
The Gyaasewahene, head of the Ashanti bureaucracy, employed a
Muslim secretary (formerly of Oyo) to keep records of political
events,®§ and court proceedings were reported in Arabic.®4
Muslims were apparently responsible for keeping records of
casualties in war,®* and also served on the staffs of Ashanti
commissioners in the outlying provinces of the empire.®@
Diplomatic relations between Ashanti and northern Muslim
states were probably largely conducted by the Muslims. There
Torrane, ‘is attended with many Moors . . . in fact the Moors seem to have spread
over the whole interior of Africa’ (Report from the Committee on African Forts,
1817, letter from Torrane to the Company of Merchants dated 9 October 1807).
57 Dupuis, 1824, p. 95. See also Bowdich, 1819, pp. 49 and 146.
58 Dupuis, 1824, p. 97. 5® Tbid., pp. 147, 152, and 158.
6° Huydecoper’s Diary, 22 April 1817; Bowdich, 1819, p. 56; Dupuis, 1824,
pp. 72-3 and 179.
1 Bowdich, 1819, p. 232; Lee, 1835, p. 174.
* Dupuis, 1824, p. 107. The king was also anxious to send pupils to the English
school in Cape Coast, but was thwarted in this by his own chiefs, see Hutchison’s
dispatch from Kumasi dated 3 February 1818, in Bowdich, 1820. It is of interest
that the English school in Cape Coast at this period had the same number of
pupils as the Arabic school in Kumasi, see Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone
Advertiser, 1v, 209, 1 June 1822; Dupuis, 1824, p. 97.
83 Bowdich, 1819, p. 296. S# Lee, 1835, ps 164.
8° G. A. Robertson, Notes on Africa, 1819, p. 151.
°° Thus, the staff of Owusu Dome, Commissioner for Cape Coast in 1820,
included two Muslims from Kumasi, see Hutton, 1821, p. 324.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 155
was an ambassador from ‘Malabar’ in Kumasi in 18168? and evi-
dence of communications around 1823 with ‘a Mahommedan
Priest of Tillibo-—probably the almami of Timbo in Futa
Jallon—who,
though not a Prince, has considerable influence over many strong and war-
like tribes in the East, both Mahommedans and pagans; so that he is con-
sidered for his wisdom as a sort of oracle.®8

Diplomatic correspondence may have been at times conducted

in Arabic, as one leading member of the Kumasi community,
‘Abdallah ibn ‘Ata Suma, suggests:
Praise be to God, who created the pen for use as speech, and who made
paper that we may send it, in place of ambassadors, from country to country
and place to place.®®

Reindorf refers to Arabic treaties between Ashanti and both

Dagomba and Gyaman.”°
Military service was required of the Kumasi Muslims; indeed,
it was observed that the king ‘never engaged in any warlike
enterprise without their society’,’! a matter creating, as we have
noted, moral difficulties for them. In the capacity of ga‘id, the
head of the Kumasi Muslims had to lead the believers of metro-
politan Ashanti to war. One of Shaikh Baba’s predecessors in
office “excited some curiosity and attention’ among the Christians
who witnessed the arrival of the Ashanti armies on the Gold
Coast in 1807:
He was a tall, athletic, and rather corpulent man, of a complexion resemb-
ling an Arab, or an Egyptian... . He was a follower of the Mohammedan
religion, possessed much gravity; but was communicative, condescending,
87 Huydecoper’s Diary, 16 June and 18 September, 1816. The exact sense of
‘Malabar’, or ‘Mallowa’ as D»1puis has it, is unclear. It is the same as the ‘Murawa’
of al-Hamadhani (A.D. 903), and, in an early-nineteenth-century context, seems
to refer to the more westerly provinces of the caliphate of Sokoto.
68 Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser, V1, 319, 10 July 1824.
89 Arabic text in Dupuis, 1824, p. vii. Translation revised. See also p. 163 below.
70 C, C. Reindorf, History of the Gold Coast and Asante, 1895, pp. 140 and
174. Later in the century the British used Arabic for correspondence with
Ashanti, but around 1820 they had few qualified Arabists; they contented
themselves with sending Arabic translations of the Bible to Kumasi, see H. J.
Ricketts, Narrative of the Ashantee War, 1831, p. 142.
1 Dupuis, 1824, p. 98.
156 Special Studies
and agreeable. ... He was native of Kassina, a country that appears to be
situated to the South of East of Tombuctou. He said, he had been at Tunis,
and at Mecca; had seen many white men and ships; and described the method
of travelling over the great desert. This person commanded a body of men,
who fought with arrows, as well as muskets; ... He had many persons in
his train, who were of the same colour, but varied a little as to dress.’
Shaikh Baba likewise, at the launching of the Ashanti invasion of
Gyaman in 1818, found himself in command of seven thousand
Muslim fighting men.”* The king also kept a personal bodyguard
which would seem to have been drawn from Muslim Malinke
cavalry whose fighting qualities were highly respected by the
Ashanti.74

V. THE MUSLIM IMPACT ON ASHANTI SOCIETY

In virtue of their important réles in commerce and govern-
ment—as ‘traders and courtiers’ as Dupuis has it?>—the Kumasi
Muslims also came to exercise considerable influence over the
social and religious life of the capital. Bowdich, for example, was
able to remark:
although the Moorish dignitaries are not yet so omnipotent as to abolish
human sacrifices, yet they are certainly powerful enough, from the super-
stitious veneration they have excited, to prevent this becoming more frequent
or more extensive. . . .78
The king extended his protection ‘to Talbs or priests of all
nations, but more especially those who came from Egypt, or
any part of the Holy Land’; even prisoners taken in war,
if Moslems, were never put to death, like infidels; on the contrary, they were
well used, and generally transferred to the eastern division of the Volta.?7
Thus the king was, for the Muslims, ‘a friend on whom they could
always rely for protection’.’ Proselytization was permitted, and
7 H. Meredith, -4n Account of the Gold Coast of Africa, 1812, pp. 157-8.
3 Dupuis, 1824, p. xxxviii. These were drawn, presumably, from Kumasi
and the other large towns of central Ashanti. Muslim communities in the pro-
vinces were under their own amirs, for example those of the north-west, esti-
mated at 80,000, who were governed, on behalf of the king, by the ‘bashaw’
of Kherabi, see Dupuis, 1824, p. cviii.
"4 For the basis of this view, see: Bowdich, 1821 (4), p. 52: Dupuis 1824,
pp. 124 n. and xxxvii. *© Dupuis, 1824, p. cxxix n.
76 Bowdich, 1821 (c), p. 19. 77 Dupuis, 1824, p. 99 n. %8 Thid., p. 97.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 157
every believer gained merit by adopting infidels into his house-
hold—each according to his means—and bringing them up in
the faith.”9
While only a limited number of conversions were achieved
through such orthodox educational processes, Islam nevertheless
made an impact upon all levels of Ashanti society in its magical
aspects, rugya. The production of protective amulets®® was a
highly organized (and lucrative) affair: ,
When a charm was applied for, one of the oldest [of the ta/aba] wrote
the body of it, and gave it Baba, who added asort of cabalistic mark, and gave
it a mysterious fold; the credulous native snatched it eagerly as it was held
out to him, paid the gold, and hurried away to enclose it in the richest case
he could afford.
Such amulets were especially valued for the protection they
afforded the soldier, and Torrane noted of the forces on the coast
in 1807, that
every Ashantee man has a gregory, or fetish, which is a little square cloth,
inclosing some sentences of the Alcoran: some have many.®2

A six-line amulet might cost almost half an ounce of gold (some-

what under £2), so that ‘a sheet of paper would support an in-
ferior Moor in Coomassie for a month’.®3 For a complete amulet-
covered war coat the king was known to have paid the value of
thirty slaves,®4 and
a few lines written by Baba [commented Hutton] is believed to
possess the power of turning aside the balls of the enemy in battle, and is
purchased at an enormous price; writing paper is consequently very valuable
at Ashantee.8>

Arising from their confidence in the efficacy of Islamic magic,

the Ashantis became ‘by no means tenacious of their pagan
doctrines.’®® Thus, value came to be placed upon prayer:
8 Dupuis, 1824, pp. 98, 107, and 163.
8° The Twi terms for such amulets, safe or sebe, are both borrowings from
the Mande, and perhaps ultimately from Arabic.
81 Bowdich, 1819, p. 90. See also Dupuis, 1824, p. xi.
82 'Torrane, letter of 9 October 1807 cited above.
88 Bowdich, 1819, p. 272. SA bids psaa714
85 Hutton, 1821, p. 323. 86 Bowdich, 1821 (4), p. 24.
19S! Special Studies
The Ashantees believe that the constant prayers of the Moors... in-
vigorate themselves, and gradually waste the spirit and strength of their
enemies. Their faith is no less impulsive than that which achieved the
Arabian conquest.®?
And similarly on the Quran:
The Ashantees without knowing the content of the Koran, are equally
persuaded that it is a volume of divine creation, and consequently that it
contains ordinances and prohibitions, which are most congenial to the
happiness of mankind in general.®8
The matter was summed up, curiously yet revealingly, by
Shaikh Baba: “The king, and all his idolatrous subjects believed
in it [the Quran] too.’
In court circles Islamic influences were especially noticeable:
side by side with the traditional state cults, that of Islam was
being introduced. Thus, for example, the ritual preparations in
late 1817 for the projected invasion of Gyaman included both
pagan and Muslim observances:
2 November, 1817:
The king has been busy for the last twelve days making fetish, etc. for
the success of the war; the Moors going every morning to the palace for
prayer and sacrifice.

8 November 1817:
The king has been making human sacrifices for the success of the war,
at Bantama, Assafoo, and Aduma, in the evenings and the Moors make
their offerings of sheep in the palace according to the Moslem ritual.%°

Muslim diviners were employed by the king, and it was thought

possible to win the intercession of the Prophet Muhammad in
the interests of Ashanti. The Sharif Ibrahim left Kumasi for Mecca
in 1818,
entrusted with offering to the manes of the Prophet special gifts which the
king and the chiefs had given him.
8? Bowdich, 1819, p. 272. 88 Dupuis, 1824, p. 247 n. 89 Tbid, p. 180.
°0 Hutchison, in Bowdich, 1819, pp. 393-4. ‘The friends of humanity,’
added Hutchison, ‘will rejoice that the King favours the Moors, as many lives
have been saved that would otherwise have been destroyed at the present crisis.’
is Ainé, op. cit., p. 27. R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, 1923, p. 227 n., also reports
this,
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 159
In the overt behaviour of the king himself there were signs
of his leanings towards Islam, in, for example, his use on some
occasions of Muslim greetings,®? in the Quranic charms hanging
around his bed-chamber,*? and in his public appearance from time
to time in a cloth ‘studded all over with Arabic writing in various
coloured inks’.** Fortunately his own views in this matter are
on record.
I know [he is reported as saying] that book (the Koran) is strong, and I
like it because it is the book of the great God; it does good for me, and there-
fore I love all the people that read it.
Whereupon, Dupuis adds:
The Moslems instantly prostrated themselves, and prayed aloud: the
king too extended his arms, looking upwards as if to receive a blessing.
The king also developed his position in a reported exchange with
his senior spokesman, Adusei.
What have you to fear? [asked Adusei.] The great God of the Moslems,
who is the same as the white men worship, is your guardian. He defends
your dominions on the land side, where the believers live; and he protects
you on the sea coast, for he gives you a great name in the land of white men,
and turns their king’s heart to do you good. ‘Yes,’ answered the sovereign,
spreading out his hands and looking up towards heaven, as the Moslems
do in prayer, ‘I am a thankful slave of the God of all gods and men—I
am not ungrateful, I am not proud and ignorant. . . .’%8
and went on to agree in attributing the successes of his reign to
God’s espousal of the Ashanti cause. It was in his role of a humble
servant of God that the king took possession of Sharif Ibrahim’s
Quran. Hutchison ruefully notes that Ibrahim:
had a beautiful copy of the Koran which he intended to leave me, but the
king had told him he must have it, that when any trouble came he might
hold it up to God, and beg his mercy and pardon.”
The king’s syncretizing tendencies—his readiness to recognize
the God of Islam not as the only God but at least as the greatest
of all gods—were well summarized by Dupuis:
8 Dupuis, 1824, p, 109. 88 Bowdich, 1819, p. 308.
®4 Dupuis, 1824, p. 142. 95 Thid., p. 161; see also p. 163.
8 [bid:, p. 243. 97 Hutchison, in Bowdich, 1819, p. 308.
 160 Special Studies
That monarch is somewhat religiously inclined towards the followers
of Mohammad, from a reverential awe of the universal God... . Notwith-
standing this sovereign chooses to adhere faithfully to his Pagan rites in all
their manifold horrors and enormities, he does not neglect to supplicate
the Moslems for their prayers, particularly when oppressed with anxiety,
when the state council is convened on business of emergency, or when the
national priests or necromancers are unable to solve any problem to the
satisfaction of majesty.°® ;
The king’s attitude was regarded by the Kumasi Muslims as
conferring some merit upon him. Since he ‘would sometimes give
ear to the law (of Mohammed)’, he was to be considered, although
a ‘misguided infidel’, nevertheless,
superior by far, to many other sovereigns, and particularly to the king
of Dahomey, his eastern neighbour, who was an infidel of infidels (Kaffar
ben al Koufar).®? .

VI. THE KUMASI MUSLIMS: PROSPECTS

The great West African Muslim reformers of the early nine-
teenth century, preoccupied with their vision of establishing
there a true Caliphate with a central imamate exercising authority
based on the Quran, the Custom (Sunna), and the Law (Shart‘a,)
_ would no doubt have regarded the Kumasi Muslim community
as in a state of virtual apostasy, and the Kumasi ‘u/ama as
‘ulama al-su’i, venal malams.19 To Shaikh Baba and his asso-
ciates in Kumasi, on the other hand, the views of the mujaddidin,
the reformers, must have appeared doctrinaire in the extreme, and
of doubtful relevance to their position. For, as Baba saw it, ‘the
Prophet’s cause was not neglected in these regions of
ignorance’,! and the possibility of the Ashanti king’s conversion
to Islam was ever present. Only twenty years earlier the king’s
kinsman and forerunner on the throne, Osei Kwame (1777-
c.1801), had been ‘a believer at heart’, so Baba maintained, and
because of his general ‘attachment to the Moslems’ had been
dethroned by his chiefs on three specific grounds:
(a) ‘the Moslem religion, which they well knew levels all ranks and orders
of men, and places them at the arbitrary discretion of the sovereign, might be
introduced’;
88 Dupuis, 1824, pp. x-xi. °° Ibid., pp. 97-98.
100 For the ‘venal malams’, see Hiskett, op. cit. 101 Dupuis, 1824, p. 97.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 161
(4) the king’s ‘inclination to establish the Korannic law for the civil code
of the empire’,}° and
(c) his prohibition of ‘many festivals at which it was usual to spill the
blood of victims devoted to the customs’.!®
Furthermore, the dethronement provoked revolts in Osei
Kwame’s favour in the more Islamized parts of the Ashanti
empire, which, although lacking the character of jihad, never-
theless took several years to put down.!4
To the Kumasi Muslims around 1820, then, there appeared
good reason to believe that internal forces within Ashanti were
working in their favour. Externally, the jzhad initiated by ‘Uthman
dan Fodio had extended the reformist power almost to the north-
eastern limits of Ashanti dominion in Dagomba, while to the
north-west Shehu Ahmadu of Massina was preparing the way
for the overthrow of the pagan Bambara kingdom of Segu.
And, underlying all, by their presence in Kumasi the Muslim
traders were playing a vital role in the distribution of commodi-
ties to the northern Muslim powers essential for their continued
expansion: gold, slaves, and gunpowder. In such circumstances
the insistence of the reformers upon withdrawal (Aijra) from the
land of the heathen, and upon even the cessation of trade, must
have seemed quite unrealistic.
Nevertheless, the Kumasi Muslims were impelled to one act of
protest, a limited sort of Azjra, on the issue of being required to
fight in the Ashanti armies. In 1818 Shaikh Baba, at the head
of seven thousand Muslims, took his place with the king in the
invasion of Gyaman to the north-west. Finding the Ashanti
armies opposed by Muslim forces not only from Bonduku, the
Gyaman capital, but also from Kong and western Gonja, Baba
withdrew his troops and returned to Kumasi. The Ashanti king
102 For the part that the introduction of Muslim law might play in the early
stages of transition to Islam, see for comparison Mungo Park, Travels in the
Intericr Districts of Africa, 1799, pp. 15-21.
103 See Dupuis, 1824, p. 245. For independent evidence of the king’s. conver-
sion, see J. Gros, Voyages, Aventures et Captivité de J. Bonnat chez les Achantis,
Paris, 1884, p. 169.
104 For these revolts see I. Wilks, The Northern Factor in Ashanti History
19GI, pp. 22-25.
108 Note the problems presented to Muhammad ‘Ali in Egypt by his shortages
in gold and slaves.
162 Special Studtes
subsequently ‘swore that had he not been a holy man, he would
have put him to death’, but Baba, arguing that he could not have
acted ‘so contrary to the tenets of his religion,’ asked:
What would it have booted him in the world to come, had it pleased God
to have him destroyed in the ranks of the infidels, when he was not fighting
for the faith, but against it?1°6
Hutton (early in 1820) observed that ‘it was a long time before
the king would be friends with him’, and maintained that as a
result of Shaikh Baba’s action,
The Moors [who] have hitherto exercised the greatest influence at
Ashantee . . . do not still possess this influence to so great an extent as they
formerly did.107
Unfortunately, with tthe departure of Dupuis from Kumasi
in March 1820, our sources come to an end, and not until half
a century later does it become possible to form once more a clear
picture of the position of the Muslims in Kumasi. By 1870 one
significant development had occurred: an imam al-bilad, or
personal imam to the king, had been appointed,!°8 a position
distinct from that of the imam al-jum‘a who presided—as Shaikh
‘Baba had done—over the Friday prayer and whose responsibility
was to the Kumasi Muslim community as a whole. Otherwise
little change in the relations of the Muslims to the court, on the
one hand, or to the populace, on the other, seems to have occurred
between 1820 and 1870. It is arguable that the failure of the Mus-
lims to advance their cause was in part at least a consequence of
the application of reformist doctrines to their position as residents
in dar al-harb, the land of the enemy.1©

POSUERESE

Since the above paper was written, Mr. N. Levtzion has been
able to examine the Cod. Arab. CCC/I manuscripts in the Royal
106 For this episode, see Dupuis, p. 98.
10? Hutton, 1821, pp. 323-4.
108 The new imamate was vested in a Wangara group from Daboya in central
Gonja, and has so far passed from father to son. By contrast, the older imamate
is not vested in any particular group.
109 T wish to acknowledge the assistance of my colleague, Mr. P. C. Gibbons, in
the preparation of this paper.
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 163
Library, Copenhagen, and has found that these include early
nineteenth-century correspondence between Kumasi and_ its
northern provinces. There can be no doubt that the court of
Kumasi maintained constant written communication with the
northern chiefs and imams: the dozen or so letters that survive
are concerned largely with the affairs of Osei Bonsu, ‘the honest
king, the saviour of the Muslims’. These letters also supply
further biographical detail on the leading members of the Kumasi
Muslim community: Baba himself, for example, was a son of
the /mam of Gambaga, and Muhammad Kama‘atay son or
nephew of the mam of Gonja. Mr. Levtzion’s report on these
MSS. appears in the Transactions of the Historical Society of
Ghana, Vol. VIII, 1965.

REFERENCES

PRINCIPAL PRIMARY SOURCES QUOTED

I. Christian
(a) W. Huydecoper
Of Dutch-Fanti extraction, Huydecoper stayed in Kumasi from May 1816
to April, 1817 as representative of the Dutch governor, General Daendels. The
nature of Dutch interest in the Muslims of the interior is revealed in Daendels’
Instructions to Huydecoper, State Archives, The Hague: papers of the Dutch
Possessions on the Coast of Guinea, 349—Instructions dated 25 April 1816:
Article 23. That trade will not be confined to the Kingdom of Ashantee,
but that the Ashantee caravans would carry European goods over the great
Kong mountain-range, and replace the caravans of the Moors, who now
take merchandise more than a thousand hours through sandy deserts on
camels and horses.
Article 24. The General has himself constructed in Asia a road Go feet
broad at least, which was 260 hours in length: thus with the help of the
King of Ashanti he could very easily build good roads to Kachna, Tombuctou,
and Houssa, and let the King ride in carriages as comfortable as the safest
beds.
Huydecoper lacked the vision of his superior, and his Journal ofa Visit to Kumasi
is of limited interest. It is in the same series as the instructions cited above, and I
have used a provisional translation prepared by Professor G. W. Irwin.

(b) T. E. Bowdich
Bowdich was in Kurnasi from May to September 1817, where he superseded
F. James as Conductor of the Mission sponsored by the African Company.
By a commission of 19 April 1817 the mission was instructed, inter alia, to find
out,
 164 Special Studies
of what nation are the Moors that frequent the Ashantee country, and for
what purpose do they go there?
Bowdich, who considered the Muslims hostile to the objects of the mission,
nevertheless established friendly relations with them, and his information is of
great interest. The following works have been cited:
(1819) Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, London.
(1820) A Reply to the Quarterly Review, Paris.
(1821(a)) Essay on the Geography of North-western Africa, Paris.
(1821(4)) An Essay on the Superstitions, Customs and Arts common to the Ancient
Egyptians, Abyssinians, and Ashantees, Paris.
(1821(c)) British and Foreign Expeditions to Teembo, Paris.
In addition Bowdich’s widow used his notes in:
R. Lee: Stories of Strange Lands, London, 1835.
(c). W. Hutchison
A member of the James-Bowdich mission, who remained in Kumasi as
Resident until February 1818. He developed a close association with the Muslims,
and was learning Arabic’ from them. His complete diary has not been located,
but a section of it forms chapter XII of Bowdich’s Mission, 1819.

(d) J. Dupuis
Dupuis was appointed British Consul for Ashanti in 1818, but was resident in
Kumasi only in February and March 1820. In his Instructions it was observed:
... his royal highness the Prince Regent has been pleased to appoint you
(your long residence at Mogadore, and acquaintance with the Moorish lan-
guage peculiarly qualifying you for the situation), to be His Majesty’s Consul!
at Coomassie.
Through his command of Arabic he established very close relations with the
Kumasi Muslims, and his sympathy with Islam is apparent in his writings.
Indeed, he was accepted in Kumasi as a believer, and ‘for political reasons’,
he writes, he did not undeceive them, but ‘thought it proper to return evasive
answers’. His evidence is of the utmost value, and is cited from:
Journal ofa Residence in Ashantee, London, 1824.
(e) W. Hutton
Hutton was a member of Dupuis’ mission. In contrast with Dupuis, Hutton
was strongly anti-Muslim:
I have always had a bad opinion of their character, which my late acquain-
tance with them at Ashantee has not at all tended to remove.
Because of its plagiarism his work is of little independent value:
Voyage to Africa, London, 1821.

IT. Muslim
(a) ‘Uthman dan Fodio
1. Wathigat ahl al-sudan, wa man sha‘ Allah min al-ikhwan, ‘Dispatch to
the folk of the Sudan and to whomso Allah wills among the brethren.’ See
 The Position of Muslims in Metropolitan Ashanti 165
text, translation, and notes by A. D. H. Bivar in Journal of African History,
vol. II, no. 2, 196r.
2. Kitab al-farg bayn wilayat ahl al-Islam wa bayn wilayat ahl al-kufr, ‘The
book of the difference between the Governments of the Muslims and the
Governments of the Unbelievers.’ See text, translations, and notes by M.
Hiskett in BSOAS, vol. XXIII, no. 3, 1960.
3- Tanbih al-ikhwan, ‘Advice to the Brethren’, translated by H. R. Palmer
in Journal of the African Society, vol. XIII, 1913-14, and vol. XIV, 1914-15.

(b) Muhammad Bello

Infaq al-maysur, part-translation in E. J. Arnett, The Rise of the Sokoto Fulani
Kano, n.d.
VoOLAT-DY ORY DAMEL ‘OF KAYOR (rs43—86)
AND THE ISLAMIZATION OF THE
WOLOF OF SENEGAL
VINCENT MONTEIL
The history of Lat-Dyor, Damel (King) of Kayor (1842-86),
who was converted to Islam in 1864, demonstrates the factors
which have determined the introduction and acceptance of Islam
in Senegal, as well as the effects of Islamization on economic and
political values and on the social structure. It throws light on the
problem of contacts between Muslims and non-Muslims; it
illustrates the confrontation between Islam and colonialism at the
end of the nineteenth century; it shows the dialectical relationship
between Islam and nationalism.
I. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND IN KAYOR

Kayor is a province of Senegal, 200 kilometres from south-

west to north-east and 120 kilometres from north to south. Its
inhabitants, almost all Wolof, are called “adyor (the word dyor
meaning the dry, red plain). Its history is known largely through
oral tradition, which has remained remarkably unchanged over
the last century: the chronology given by Yoro Dyao in the
(ioniteur du Sénégal in 1864 was recited to me, almost word for
word, by the griot El-Hadj Assane Marokhaya ‘Samb’ at Dakar in
1963.
According to these traditions, Kayor was tributary to the
Dyolof (Jolof) Empire from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
centuries when it gained its independence. Some thirty rulers
(Damel) reigned from then until the end of the nineteenth century.
The Damel was selected by a college of ‘grand electors’, from
within one chosen matrilineage (kheet or meen): there were thus
seven royal families (garmz), of which the most important was
that of the Geedy. The Damel used his mother’s name after his
own first name and then the ‘honorific’ (sanz) of his father (thus:
 Lat-Dyor and Wolof Islamization 167
Lat-Dyor Ngone-Latir Dyop). Since the sixteenth century traces
of Muslim influence have intermingled with ‘animist’ beliefs and
practices. A Moorish marabout introduced the ‘ritual washing’
which marks the enthronement of a Damel, alongside the ‘fetishist’
retreat to a sacred grove (sixteenth century). The site of the
capital, Mbul, was chosen by reference to a talisman devised
by a marabout. In the seventeenth century, the Aadyor went to
greet their king (a non-Muslim), on the day of the Muslim feast
of the Sacrifices (Tabaski). Increasing numbers of religious
personages, more or less literate—marabouts or sériny—filtered
in from Fouta and Mali. At the end of the seventeenth century,
the Muslims of Kayor rebelled at the instigation of their gadi.
They did so again a century later, and the Damel sold them as
slaves and won a victory over the Almamy (Jmam) of Fouta,
who wanted to wage a holy war (jihad) in Kayor (1790). By the
beginning of the ninteenth century, the Dameds were consistently
opposed to Islam. The explanation of these historical vicissitudes
must be sought in the social structure of Kayor.
Ii]. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF KAYOR

The social classes were structured as a pyramid. At the top were

the nobles (garmi), followed by the dyaambur: marabouts and
ordinary villagers. All were free men (geer). After them came
members of castes (nyenyoo) and, at the very bottom of the scale,
slaves (dyaam).
The Damel was above all (like the Mansa of Mali) a formidable
magician. His close matrilineal relatives bore (as among all Wolof)
the title Jinger and it was through them that the royal blood was
transmitted. Among the courtiers (dag) and dignitaries (Langam)
the Chief of the Slaves of the Crown, the Farba, was pre-eminent.
The Dyaambur were free men, the majority of them villagers
(4aadolo) whose life, as proverbs show, revolved around the
three agricultural activities: sowing, harvesting, eating. Their
villages often had a marabout as chief, who was at the same time
a ‘settler’ farmer. Like the monks of medieval Europe, the
marabout of Senegal was a great clearer of new land. Since 1876
the so-called Dyambour Province has been composed exclusively
168 Special Studies
of Muslim farmers. These marabouts entered the councils of the
non-Muslim rulers, where they played atriple role as arbiter,
healer and secretary: thanks to them Wolof was written down in
Arabic script. As for the Damels, they were concerned to have
on their side the marabouts’ prestige and ‘charisma’ (6araka).
The nyenoo were members of castes (hereditary, endogamous
professional hierarchies)—metalworkers, woodcarvers, leather-
workers, tailors. One caste, the griots (géwe/)—undoubtedly from
the Moorish iggid—served as ‘keepers of tradition’ to the great
and standard-bearers in combat. The base of the social pyramid
in Kayor was, as elsewhere, made up of slaves (dyzam): captives
bought in the market-place, slaves by birth or prisoners of war.
In 1825 ‘household captives’ accounted for 12,300 of the 16,000
inhabitants of Saint-Louis and Gorée. This category was in
general well treated. In 1880 a horse was worth two captives;
slaves ‘took the place of money’. Slaves who belonged to the
State were called the ‘Slaves of the Crown’ (dyaam-u Buur-i).
Those belonging to the Geedy lineage were numerous enough to
live in sixteen villages: these were the Dyaam-Geedy-i, who made
and unmade Damels, won and lost battles, and controlled the
exercise of power. They constituted the stable element in Kayor
politics and did not, in the main, revolt.
It was from amongst the Slaves of the Crown that the warriors
(tyeddo) were recruited: drunkards and pillagers whose exactions
were undoubtedly a cause of the ‘Marabout Wars’ at the end of
the seventeenth century. There were several thousand of them
and they left behind them a great reputation for bravery. They
were all-powerful because, although they belonged to the Damed,
in reality the Damel belonged to them.
IMsTtHE LIFE -AND: LEGEND) OF LAT-DYOR

Lat-Dyor is a national hero in Senegal today, where the

majority of the population is Muslim. The stages in his career are
well known. He was a noble (garmi), of a Geedy mother and a
Dyop father. As such, he was a claimant to the crown of Kayor.
He was born, about 1842, in a non-Muslim environment (with
historical ‘traces’ of Islamization) and the Slaves of the Crown
 Lat-Dyor and W olof Islamization - 169
attached to the Geedy branch (Dyaam-Geedy-i) chose him as
their candidate for the throne. At the age of 19 he asked to be
‘made adult’ (mag), that is, to be circumcised—not in the Muslim
fashion but according to the traditional ‘fetishist’ rite. He managed
to supplant the reigning Damel (1862), but was forced to spend
four years in exile in Saloum (1864-8). At this time he was
converted to Islam by the Toucouleur marabout Ma-Ba Dyakhou,
then ruler of Saloum, who made Lat-Dyor his main lieutenant.
After the death of Ma-Ba, in the battle of Somb (1867), Lat-Dyor
had no option but to make his ‘submission’ to the French—who
sent an expeditionary column against him. As, in the end, his
return to power appeared to be a guarantee of peace, Lat-Dyor
once again became Damel of Kayor, from 1871 to 1882. In 1875,
he allied himself with the French to defeat the marabout of Fouta,
Amadou Sekou, and, in 1877, he extended his rule also over Baol
whose king he had conquered. But, in 1882, he opposed the
Dakar—Saint-Louis railway and had to flee. He was killed on 26
October 1886 at Dyaqlé by French troops.
An examination of the-Senegalese archives shows that Lat-
Dyor, Damel of Kayor, came into conflict with the social structure
of his kingdom because of the contradictions raised, for his
household slaves and the Slaves of the Crown, by his new
behaviour as an ‘oriental’ Islamized monarch, that is, the represen-
tative of an egalitarian theocracy. His captives and concubines
ran away. The Slaves of the Crown from 1879 onwards wanted
to depose him and replace him with his nephew, Samba Laobé.
The Damel ruined their chief, the powerful Demba- Waar—who
was later to cause his own downfall. He was accused by his
nobles of ‘maltreating the chiefs, holding to ransom foreigners,
the poor, herdsmen, farmers, bringing about the depopulation of
the villages’. In fact, when he became a Muslim, he continued to
let the Z'yeddo pillage at will, even though his conversion ought
to have guaranteed theirs. On the other hand, he considered
himself to have the powers of an absolute despot and refused
to make use of the traditional councils.
The railway affair, from 1877, is a good example of the conflict
between, on the one side, Islam and nationalism, and, on the other,
170 Special Studies
colonialism. The line from Dakar to Saint-Louis, crossing Kayor
(which was to be opened in 1885) would allow the French to
control the trade in groundnuts, to protect commerce, to establish
their occupation of the territory, to intervene quickly everywhere.
Lat-Dyor immediately understood that this was the end of his
independence. His correspondence (in Arabic) with the Governor
contains no arguments ofa religious nature, but only: “You are
taking away my country and stripping me of all I possess.’ He
hesitated, considered the situation, but finally succumbed, because
his fight was an anachronism: it was too late to maintain the old
order (the ‘established disorder’), but too early for the emanci-
pation of Africa.
The legend of Lat-Dyor, his “Chanson de geste’ epic poem,
handed down by the griots, praises in the Damel the military
qualities of a skilful tactician: his tenacity, pride and courage. His
death, in oral tradition, is steeped in animist mystique: a talisman
rendered him invulnerable (zu/); it took a golden bullet to kill
him. Islam is hardly mentioned in the griots’ recitations about this
Muslim ruler.
IV. THE ISLAMIZATION. OF THE WOLOF

It is generally admitted, perhaps too readily, that Islam in

Senegal began among the peoples of the Fleuve Province today
called “T’oucouleurs’—a distortion of the ancient Tekrour—in
the eleventh century. Then the first European travellers (Mosto,
in the fifteenth century) testify to the beginning of Islamization in
Walo and among the Manding in the south-east. The bulk of the
Wolof seem to have remained animist until the middle of the
ninteenth century, apart from numerous village marabouts, the
Islamized province of Dyambour and the majority of Muslim
inhabitants in Saint-Louis. It certainly seems as if the conversion
of Lat-Dyor in 1864 triggered the conversion of his people.
In fact, as a dethroned refugee in Saloum, Lat-Dyor had no
choice. If he wanted to retrieve his kingdom he had only Ma-Ba
Dyakhou, the ruler of Saloum, to rely on. But Ma-Ba was a
militant marabout who waged holy war on the infidel. He
imposed conditions: Lat-Dyor and his warriors (tyeddo) would
 Lat-Dyor and Wolof Istamization: 171
be converted to Islam. It was thus a conversion of convenience
(at the same time, Al-Buri Ndyay, the king of Dyolof, did like-
wise). However, on his return to Kayor in 1869, the claimant to
the throne presented himself as a good Muslim. Once reinstated
as Damel, he called himself ‘Commander of the Faithful’. As a
sign of humility, he began to beg in order to feed his soldiers,
which, according to custom, earned him the surname of si/makha
beggar; blind man). If he had nineteen wives and thirty-nine
children, this was just the custom then (and still today to some
extent) for persons of rank. In his letters to the Governor, he
seems preoccupied with respecting at least the letter and the
code of Islam. He fought against other Muslims but such practice
was then commonplace (El-Hadj Omar in the French Sudan [now
Mali] is another example). He was illiterate but dictated in Wolof
to his marabout secretaries who transcribed his words in Arabic
script. A French and Arabic seal authenticated his letters. He had
gadis. The first, in 1869, was Momar Anta-Sali, the father of the
celebrated Amadou-Bamba Mbaké (1850-1927), founder of the
Mouride Brotherhood (which today has nearly a million adepts
of both sexes). Later, up until his death in 1886, Lat-Dyor had as
gadi (khaali) Ma-Dyakhaté Kala, a famous man of letters. Lat-
Dyor’s grandson, whose first name was Amadou-Bamba, swears
that on the eve of Dyaqlé (26 October 1886), the Damel an-
nounced his imminent death, predicting that he would go ‘to say
the evening prayer (takkusaan) with Ma-Ba’ (his sérimy who
had been dead since 1867); he said his farewells to the marabout
Amadou-Bamba Mbaké, who gave him a robe in which he died.
Thus the family tradition has Islamized the griots’ animist legend.
Whatever the truth, even if it is not certain that Lat-Dyor on
his return to Kayor in 1869 suppressed pillage (moyal) and
Islamized the villages by persuasion, and even if we cannot be
sure that he envisaged a profound social reformation, based on
Islam, it remains certain that he influenced part of the group of
tyeddo by his example and that the villagers, in a natural reaction
against the warriors—their oppressors—and the ‘great men’—
their exploiters—eagerly followed him. The villagers had for a
long time had no recourse other than their marabouts. Now that
172 Special Studies
their Damel had become Muslim, the development of class
conflict accelerated and Islamization, in the social sense, became
massive. Today the Wolof—who number more than a million—
are almost all Muslim.
 VI. ISLAM IN MOSSI SOCIETY
ELLIOTT P. SKINNER

The spread of Islam, like that of any cultural system, is influenced

not only by its specific characteristics but also by the conditions it
encounters. Islam first appeared in the western Sudan some time
in the eighth century and reached its climax there in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. During that period many of the rulers
and peoples of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay became Muslims, and
tried to spread their religion by peaceful means as well as by the
sword, Nevertheless, a few Sudanese societies resisted the spread
of Islam. Delafosse tells us that
certain populations seem particularly hostile to Islamization, which does
not appear to have made any progress among them since the Hegira. It is
the case, for example, of the very populous Voltaic family, and of the prin-
cipal one among these peoples, the Mossi. These latter have been in contact
with Muslims very close to ten centuries, they count among them an appre-
ciable number of Mohammedan strangers (the Yarsés), and yet they have
remained totally pagan.?
Unfortunately, Delafosse did not explain why the Mossi resisted
Islam; nor did he report that the Mossi were subjected to jthads;
that they were proselytized by traders; and subsequently propa-
gandized by refugees. In 1912, when he wrote, the Mossi were
still resisting Islam, but subsequently many of them did become
Muslims. Today Islam is a growing religion among the Mossi.
Largely because of their strong political organization, the
Mossi were able to preserve their ethnic identity and political
autonomy throughout all the vicissitudes of Sudanic history.3
Their society developed in the Upper Volta region as a result of
the northward expansion of the Dagomba people of the Gold
Coast (modern Ghana), who conquered and partially assimilated
* Bovill, 1958, p. 68; Oliver and Fage, 1963, pp. 80 ff.; Trimingham, 1959,
Pp. 45-6.
2 Delafosse, 1912, Vol. III, p. 187.
3 Cf. Marc, 1909, pp. 166-7.
174 Special Studies
the autochthonous peoples such as the Ninisi, Foulsé, and Habé.
The resulting population, the Mossi, developed four important
kingdoms and lesser principalities under rulers called Naba
(pl. Manamsé). All of these rulers, and most of their subordinates
in the provinces, districts, and villages, were members of the
royal lineage, and were linked by bonds of kinship, ritual, and
military power. The important Mossi political units developed
complex hierarchical administrative structures which extended
the power of the Mogho Naba (king of the world) into the smallest
villages and funnelled goods and services back to them.*
The village populations in Mossi country during pre-colonial
times were divided into noble, commoner, serf, and slave, seg-
mentary patrilineal groups who lived in polygynous, extended
family households. The Mossi marriage system was based on the
exchange of women between lineages linked by long-term reci-
procal relations. However, since the older men were the ones
who controlled most of their lineages’ resources, they were the
ones who obtained most of the wives. The young men either
had to wait until their elders died to inherit wives or sought
wives (pughsiudse) from chiefs against the promise of providing
goods and services to their benefactors and giving them their
first daughters to serve as future pughsiudse.® Lineage heads also
supervised the economic activities of the people under their
charge. These activities included the cultivation of several
varieties of millet, sorghum, maize, rice, okra, sweet potatoes,
cotton, and indigo; the herding of livestock; and trade, both
local and to Timbuktu and the forest zones.®
The traditional religion of the Mossi people did not differ
too greatly from that of other Sudanese groups. They acknow-
ledged an otiose deity called Winnam, Winde, or Naba Zid‘-
Winde. Associated with Winnam was a deity called Tenga,
whose local manifestations and propitiatory agencies were
Tengkouga (sing. Tengkougre) which took the form of clumps of
trees, mountains, rocks, or rivers and were served by sprites
called kinkirsé. Earth priests or Tengsobadamba (sing. Tengsoba)
4 Skinner, 1957. 5 Skinner, 196o0a.
® Skinner, 1962.
 Islam in Mossi Society 175
appealed to the Tengkouga on behalf of the local populations for
help in sickness, for rain and good crops, and for children.
The Mossi had several concepts concerning the spiritual
essences or animating principles of man: First of all they believed
that there was the seega (pl. seesé), an entity which left the body
during sleep and which if captured and destroyed by sorcerers
during its nocturnal wanderings or in places where large crowds
congregated, such as the markets, resulted in’ the death of its
owner. Associated with the seega was the shadow (sulensuka).
Persons about to die were believed not to have had shadows,
since their seesé had either been stolen or had left of their own
accord. The Mossi called a dead person keema (a person’s breath,
called vousem, was believed to leave the body through the nose
when the body died). The connexion between seega and keema
is not clear. Some people said that the seega remained about the
haunts of human beings; others believed it went to a mountain
called Plimpikou and disappeared for ever into a cavern. Still
others believed that the seega became the keema and then went
into Plimpikou. If this is the case, then Plimpikou and Keemsé-
tenga (land of the ancestors) are the same place.
Mossi beliefs about the keema (keemsé or ancestors) were more
specific, ancestor veneration being the core of their traditional
religious system. The ubiquitous and omniscient keemsé took
a vital interest in their descendants and were believed to punish
the wicked with disease and death, and reward the righteous with
health, wealth, happiness, and large families. These ancestors
were often propitiated by means of the seesé of sacrificed animals
(animals do not have keemsé). Annual sacrifices joined all the
Mossi, rulers and subjects alike, in prayers of supplication to the
royal ancestors, the sustainers of the group.
The Mossi people first came into contact with Islam when
some time between a.D. 1328 and 1333 the Mossi of Yatenga
attacked, sacked, and burned Timbuktu. The author of the
Ta’rikh al-Sudan reported that:
Seized with fright the people of Mali fled and abandoned the city to its
assailants. The Mossi ruler entered the city, and after killing all the people
he found there and seizing all the goods he could, he burned the city and
176 Special Studies
returned to his own country. Afterwards, the peoples of Mali returned to
Timbuktu and remained there for the next hundred years.’

The Mossi continued to pursue a rather turbulent and aggressive

policy in the region of the Niger bend, attacking Walata and
Banku.® They were finally defeated and routed by Sunni ‘Ali
of Songhay in 1477. The tables being turned, the Mossi came
under attack from subsequent Songhay rulers. In a.p. 1498 Askia
the Great, filled with religious zeal derived from his pilgrimage
to Mecca, launched a jihad on them because they had rejected his
ultimatum to adopt Islam. The Mossi army was beaten and a
number of the people were captured, but the rulers continued
to resist Islam.? The Mossi rulers felt that they had to retain
7 Sa‘di, 1900, pp. 16-17.
8 Ibid., pp. 45-46; cf. Delafosse, op. cit., vol. II. p. 141.
® Sa‘di, op. cit., pp. 121-3. In the words of the Ta‘rikh:
‘During the year 903 (August 1497 to August 1498), he [Askia Muhammad]
undertook an expedition against Na‘asira the king of the Mossi. He took with him
the holy seyyid, Mour Salih Djaaura, inviting him to give the necessary indica-
tions so that the expedition would truly be a holy war made in the name of God.
Mour did not refuse this request, and explained to the prince all the rules relating
to the holy war. The prince of the faithful, Askia Muhammad, then asked the
seyyid to be his envoy to the Mossi king. The learned holyman accepted this
mission; he went to the country of the Mossi and delivered the letter of his
master which called upon the king to embrace Islam. The Mossi ruler declared
that he wished first to consult his ancestors who were in the other world before
replying. Accompanied by his ministers, he went to the temple of the idol of
the country. The learned holyman accompanied them to ascertain how one
went about consulting the dead. They began by making the customary offerings;
then a very old man appeared. At his appearance everyone prostrated himself
and then the king announced the object of his visit. Calling upon the names of
the ancestors, the old man said: “I will never agree to this step for you. On the
contrary, you must fight until you or they die to the last man.”
‘Then Na‘asira gave his reply to the malam: “Return to your master and tell
him that between him and us there will be only war and combat.” Remaining
alone in the temple with the personage who had shown himself in the form of
an old man, the malam questioned him in these terms: “In the name of God
Almighty I ask you to declare who you are.” “I am Iblis (Satan),” replied the
deceiving old man. “I have led them astray in order that they will all die ina state
of disbelief.”
‘Mour returned to prince Askia al-Haj Muhammad and reported all which
had transpired. “Now,” he added, “your duty is to fight them.” Straightaway
he launched his war against them killing a number of their men, devastated their
fields, plundered their habitations, and took their children into captivity. All
of these, men and women, who were taken away as captives, were made the
object of divine benediction [converted to Islam]. In all the country, no other
expedition except this one had the character of a holy war made in the name of
God.’
 Islam in Mossi Society ey
their ritual connexions with their royal ancestors, without whose
help their people would be reduced to suffering and their polities
destroyed. The Muslim Songhay did not respect the beliefs of
the Mossi rulers and only ceased their jihads to convert them to
Islam when they in turn were conquered by the Moroccans.
After 1591 Muslims made no further concerted attempt to
convert the Mossi people by force. Islam now entered Mossi
country by peaceful means, carried by merchants and emigrants
from Mandingo cities, such as Timbuktu and Djenne, who sought
refuge there. Beginning with Mogho Naba Ouaraga (c. 1684),
many rulers granted Yarsé refugees permission to enter the
country and allowed them to establish Muslim communities.
Around 1780 Mogho Naba Kom, the son of Moro Naba Zombre
and a Yarsé mother, permitted the Yarsé to live in villages
throughout the country. About three subsequent Mogho
Nanamsé ignored their ancestral beliefs and even became Muslims.
Nevertheless, none of these rulers wished their heirs to adopt
Islam.
It was during the reign of Mogho Naba Doulougou, grandson
of Mogho Naba Sagha I, that Yarsé proselytizing increased
throughout the kingdom of Ouagadougou. Mosques were
built in the capital and in villages; many Quranic schools were
founded; and Doulougou reportedly was the first Mogho Naba
to appoint a Muslim mam to his Court in imitation of his kingly
relative, the Gambaga Naba, ruler of the Dagomba. Paradoxi-
cally enough, however, Doulougou objected to his eldest son,
Sawadogo, being a devout Muslim. The young man persisted
in his religion and was ultimately named Mogho Naba. He also
encouraged the spread of Islam. Subsequently Mogho Nanamsé
reverted to paganism until the reign of Koutou (c. 1850-71).
This man is credited by Dim Delobson as being the ‘only Mogho
Naba who was truly a Muslim. ...He was sent to the Koranic
schools at Sagabtenga and is said to have made acreditable record
there.’1° Nevertheless, even Koutou tried to safeguard the royal
relationship with the kingly ancestors. ‘All [his children] except
his eldest son, who succeeded him as Naba Sanum, were sent to
10 Dim Delobson, 1959, p. 105.
178 Special Studies
Koranic schools, although none did any serious work there since
they were more interested in becoming naba.’'4 With Koutou’s
death, Muslim influence declined and, while learned Muslims
continued to serve at Court, they were circumscribed in their
ability to propagate their religion. The first Europeans to reach
Mossi country reported that the Muslims there were living under
many restrictions. For example, they were enjoined by the
Mogho Nanamsé not to recite their prayers in public places.”
a oce cit.
12 Tauxier, 1912, pp. 585-G. On the other hand, we do have an excellent
report of the celebration of Ramadan at Sagabtenga in Mossi country in 1888
by Binger. He found that, ‘Moslem or not, all the blacks celebrate this feast.’ His
description of this festival and the role played in it by Boukary Koutou, the future
Mogho Naba Wobogo of Ouagadougou, is significant for an understanding of
Islam in pre-colonial Upper Volta:
‘From the start Boukary sent to tell me that he would like me to accompany
him to Sakhaboutenga where he is accustomed to go on the day of the festival.
During the whole day the entourage of the chief occupy themselves with pre-
paration: they distribute powder, clean guns, try on the harnesses, and polish
the copper like they do in France on the eve ofa great review. . . . It isan occason
for them to revel, and they do not allow it to pass. They eat as much as they
can, drink a great deal of beer, and shoot off many rounds of ammunition... .
‘In the evening there is a moment of consternation: no one has seen the
crescent; however, they console themselves in repeating that, if we do not
sight it here, it has certainly shown itself elsewhere, and they sat down to drink
beer all night long... .
‘Monday, June 11: Early this morning Boukary sent a horseman to Saghabout-
enga to consult the marabouts. The messenger soon returned and assured the
chief that this evening he will see the moon. “‘All the marabouts have said so.”
The much desired crescent appeared for a few moments this evening; the powder
speaks for half the night, and beer runs in floods... .
“Tuesday, June 12: From four o’clock in the morning the tam-tams resound
everywhere, everyone is busy; one will really believe that this is the eve of an
important event. .. . One half-hour after our departure we arrive at Sakhabout-
enga. We dismount and camp under the trees at the entrance of the village. Some
Muslims from the neighbourhood come and greet Boukary and offer him some
kola nuts in lots varying from five to eight fruits. But they always presented
them in the corner of their robes [it being forbidden for a commoner to hand a
gift directly to a chief]. A village nearby sends twelve large jars of beer.
‘From afar and from all directions long files of Moslems emerge from the village
on their way to congregate together at the Imam for the prayers. Some curious
people coming from the surrounding country are riding donkeys. The religious
ceremony takes place on a plain to the east of the village. It is an imposing
spectacle. There reigned a great silence in that assembly. The faithful, ranged in
ranks about 20 feet deep, prostrate themselves and rise again with perfect harmony
and with imposing langour. From time to time the voice of the Imam raised
itself, and in the most profound reverence one heard an amina (amen) pro-
nounced by that priest:
‘There were about three thousand persons of both sexes there, almost all of
 Islam in Mossi Society 179
The Mossi Muslims were the persons who showed the greatest
hostility to the first Europeans who arrived in the country. The
Imam of Yako, influenced by his son (a member of the Tijaniyya
Order and a former pilgrim to Mecca) refused to have any rela-
tions with the visiting Europeans. Furthermore, he is reported
to have convinced the Mogho Naba Wobogo that death awaited
any ruler who ever granted audience to a European.!3 When the
French attacked the Mossi in 1896 an Jmam from Béré, also a
former pilgrim, told the ruler to flee and not depend on his ill-
equipped soldiers to defeat the gun-bearing invaders. When the
Mossi officials ignored this warning and were defeated in battle
the Muslims reportedly went about telling the demoralized people
that, “As soon as all the blacks become Muslims, the whites will
leave.’14
The French administrators would have liked to institute direct
rule among the conquered Mossi people, but owing to the lack of
sufficient administrators—they had one for every 60,000 inhabi-
tants—they were forced to practise a form of indirect rule using
the Mossi chiefs as instruments of their policy. The chiefs still
retained enough power to slow down the spread of Islam, but as
their power weakened, new communication networks were
opened, and the rigours of colonialism grew among the Mossi,
Islam started to spread.
There is no information as to the exact number of Muslims
among the Mossi of Ouagadougou when the French arrived.
Delafosse records that at the turn of the century there were
approximately 42 Quranic schools with 230 students in and around
Ouagadougou.”* Tauxier, writing about the same period, states
whom were dressed in white. The ournous, the red tarboosh, and that assembly
of black faces gave to that ceremony the grandiose character of an oriental fete.
As soon as the prayers were finished, Boukary Naba, to the accompaniment of
the sound of tam-tams, advanced to the Imam of Sakhaboutenga in order to
receive his blessing, as well as the vows of the Muslims who wished on my
illustrious host many horses and warriors. Boukary Naba ordered several sheep
skins full of cowries. It is a present that he makes every year to the Imam and to
Karamakho Isa, for whom he has a great veneration. These are old and reflective
men who cannot help but give him excellent counsel.’
Binger, 1887-1889, vol. I, pp. 452 ff.
13 Crozat, 1891, p. 4822. 14 'Tauxier, op. cit., p. 792.
15 Delafosse, op. cit., vol. III, p. 193.
 180 Special Studies
that there were 33 Quranic schools with about 358 students in
the same area.16 In 1926 there were 70 Quranic schools and 4,000
Muslims in Ouagadougou, with 7 per cent of the Muslims being
non-Mossi. By 1944 there were about 240 schools and approxi-
mately 25,000 Muslims. The census of 1954 did not record the
number of Quranic schools in Ouagadougou, but reported that
there were 60,000 Muslims there. Today there are some 600,000
Muslims in all the cercles of the Republic of Upper Volta. Thus,
over the past sixty years there appears to have been a substantial
increase in the number of Muslims among the Mossi people. What
follows is an attempt to analyse the diffusion of Islam and Islamic
practices in the Kombissiri region of Ouagadougou, especially
in Nobéré district, where I conducted field-work from November
1956 to January 1957.
The subdivision of Kombissiri, at the time of this study, was
composed of about seventeen cantons grouping together some
177,661 people, of whom the majority were Mossi. There were
small numbers of Silimi-Mossi, Fulani, Yarsé, Gurunsi, and
Busansi in the region. Of this population, about 151,667 were
pagans, 22,994 Muslims, and 3,000 Christians (most of whom were
f Catholics).2”
_ The numbers and percentages of Muslims in the districts of
Kombissiri varied quite widely (see table).1® However, a compari-
son of the census of the Muslim population in 1954 with the
rather sketchy figures for 1941 shows that while in some districts
Islam gained a large number of converts, in other districts the
percentage of Muslims remained static. For example, the number
of Muslims in Manga had remained almost static over the
preceding ten years, rising from 1,230 in 1941 to 1,557 in
1954, with the percentage remaining about the same. Similarly,
the percentage of Muslims in Toudou remained the same, with a
slight rise in number from 80 to 118. On the other hand, the
number and percentage of Muslims in Koubry, the smallest
canton of the subdivision, increased eight times over the same
ten-year period, rising from 53 to 410. Of great interest, however,
is the fact that in the two districts with the largest number of
16 Tauxier, op. cit., p. 793. 17 Skinner, 1958. 18 See Table I.
 Islam in Mossi Society ; 181
Muslims, Kombissiri and Nobéré, about 65 per cent of the
Muslims there were converted to Islam during the preceding
five years.
Table I
Breakdown of the Number of Muslims in Some of the Cantons in the Subdivisi
on
as of the Census of 1954
Muslim
Canton Number percentage
Kombissiri (canton) 55718 < 37.2
Nobéré 3,387 42°0
Djiba 2,654 16°5
Doulougou 2,260 131
Manga 13557 74
Barama 1,382 13°4
Bindé 1,064 130
Béré 943 II‘o
Guirgo 851 9°3
Konsilga 627 63
Toece 626 69
Sapone 582 Bir
Mandie 465 150
Koubry 410 T2577
Kayao 233 2°9
Toudou 118 a2
Tuili Gy 2°8
The history of Islamic conversions in the subdivision reflects
the history of the relationship between the Mossi and the Muslims.
The first propagators of Islam in the area were those Yarsé who
had been given permission by Mogho Naba Ouaraga to live in
Guirgo, Rakay, and Sarabtenga. Yarsé Muslims also came into
the area with Naba Tougma (a son of Mogho Naba Ouaraga)
when he founded the Kombissiri district. Mogho Naba Kom I
is remembered in the subdivision for having helped Islam by
permitting Muslim Yarsé from Kombissiri to attend Quranic
schools in Northern Gold Coast. Mogho Naba Sagha I, who suc-
ceeded Kom I, similarly permitted Muslim Yarsé to accompany
those cadet sons of his, like Naba Ngado, chief of Nobéré district,
who were sent out to replace district heads cashiered after a civil
war.
It appears that the largest number of Mossi conversions to
Islam occurred during the reigns of Kom I and Sagha I. The
people of Nobéré, Manga, and Djiba date the first converts to
182 Special Studies
Islam from this period. When Doulougou followed Sagha I as
Mogho Naba he permitted additional Muslims to settle in the
districts of Kombissiri and Béré. Mogho Naba Sawadogo, the
son of Doulougou, is credited with encouraging the Islamization
of the village of Nyoida in Nobéré by a Muslim from Rakay.
Muslim Yarsé, under the patronage of Mossi rulers and their
sons, were thus mainly responsible for propagating Islam in
Kombissiri. Nevertheless, the spread of Islam in the region was
controlled and even hampered by other Mossi rulers.19 One of the
reasons for the small percentage of Muslims in Toudou district
was that its chiefs were usually hostile to Islam. Similarly, Islam
did not gain many adherents in Manga because prior to the con-
quest the chiefs there were hostile to it, and after the conquest
the chiefs favoured Catholicism. Thus, over time and until quite
recently the Mossi chiefs largely determined whether Islam
succeeded in their districts or not. Let us now look more closely
at the status of Islam in the Nobéré district of Kombissiri, bearing
in mind the importance of the Mossi chiefs in facilitating or
hindering its spread.
The Nobéré chief, like many of the ruling heirs of Naba
Ngado, was animist until he embraced Islam a short time ago
in gratitude to a Hausa Muslim who had cured his illness. How-
ever, the descendants of the cadet sons of Ngado remained Mus-
lims and lived as members of noble lineages in many of the
villages of the district ruled by animist chiefs related to the man
displaced by Ngado. The fact that the noble lineages of Nobéré
were Muslims and the district chiefs, while not Muslim, were
related to Muslim nobles, was a very important factor in the
spread of Islam in the district. The reason for this was that the
Nobéré chief, like most Mossi chiefs, was at the centre of the
social, economic, political, and religious nexuses of his district.
Muslim nobles shared his superior status and used their prestige
to encourage the spread of Islam. For example, the animist chiefs
of villages where many Muslim nobles lived invariably delineated
1° It appears that many nakomce (nobles or children of chiefs) who became
chiefs in their own right gave up Islam in order to follow the traditional religious
prescriptions of the chieftaincy.
 Lslam in Mossi Society , 183
circles of stones (missir2) outside their compounds where visiting
nobles could retire to pray when and if the time arrived. The
animist chiefs and their followers remained quiet during the Mus-
lim prayers, thus becoming symbolically part of the congrega-
tion. In time, many influential animists were persuaded to join in
the prayers they had learned without realizing it.
Those animist village chiefs and family heads who engaged in
marriage partnerships with Muslim nobles often contributed to
the growth of the Muslim population by giving the prestigeful
noblemen more wives than they received from them. The result-
ing children increased the Muslim community.”° Another advant-
age that the Muslims, especially the nobles, had over non-Muslims
as far as marriage and the family was concerned was that they
did not have to surrender daughters of wives given them as
pughstudse by the chief. Both parties considered the pughsiudse as
alms and the Muslims kept their daughters.
Tronically enough, the anxiety of all Mossi, whether nobles or
commoners, Muslims or not, to have children, was often instru-
mental in leading many animists to Islam. When a Nobéré
woman was feared barren, or her young children died, she con-
sulted a diviner (arga) in the hope of discovering the reasons
for her misfortunes. They sometimes told her that her 7:engkougre
benefactor was not amply rewarded and either had not given her
children or had called them back, i.e., they died soon after birth.
At other times she was told that she should consult a ‘marabout’
or that her ‘Muslim’ children (children who wished to become
Muslims) had been angry and had died because they were given
local names. In the latter case she was advised to give a gift to a
Muslim, any Muslim, and to ask her husband to build a Muslim
*0 There was one interesting case in the district where a commoner who had
becomea Muslim tried to force his marriage partner, a chief, to become a Muslim
in order to receive the hoped-for wife. The Muslim told his partner that he could
not give his daughter to a non-Muslim, even a chief, since she might become
a non-Muslim. The chief replied that his traditional obligations prevented him
from adopting Islam and pointed out, with some justification, that since non-
Muslim girlsadopted the religion of their Muslim husbands,itwould only be fair
for Muslim girls to do the same. The Muslim communityin Nobéré felt, however,
that their religion was superior to that of the non-Muslims,and it was unthinkable
thata Muslim girl should become one.
184 Special Studies
prayer citcle outside his hut so that when her children ‘returned’
(were born again) they would see it. Furthermore, she was ad-
vised to give all her subsequent children Muslim names and rear
them as Muslims, or they would die. I could discover no apparent
reasons why animist diviners advised anxious parents to adopt
Islam, except that they hoped that very difficult prescriptions
would be more efficacious. Nevertheless, so effective was this
technique for gaining converts to Islam that even the members of
the family of the chief animist priest of Nobéré were not immune
from it.2! This old man viewed the birth of ‘Muslim’ grand-
children with resignation.
The French administrators and Christian missionaries around
Nobéré believed that Mossi youths embraced Islam because they
liked the beautiful robes and red fezes of the Muslims. This is
indeed a naive explanation for the conduct of a highly sophisti-
cated people. Most of the young men in Nobéré wore Muslim-
type clothes because such clothes were the mode. When sun
helmets, dark glasses, and women’s plastic raincoats with hoods
came into vogue non-Muslims as well as the Muslims wore them.
What is noteworthy is that when people became Muslims they
became even more polite than the normally polite Mossi. They
consciously tried to show by their behaviour that Islam had
changed their lives. Undoubtedly they hoped that by so doing
others might follow their way.
The belief among former colonial administrators and mission-
aries that a large number of those Mossi who had fled their home-
land to escape forced labour (travail obligatoire), or military
service, or who migrated seasonally to work in the mines and
plantations of the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast (Ghana) were
converted to Islam while away from home was a simplistic view
of a complex phenomenon.” Of course, some labour migrants did
become Muslims while at work in foreign areas. For example, the
first person in Koubry district to become a Muslim was converted
2? Animist parents with all Muslim children were caught in a dilemma. Either
they adopted Islam before they died, or they ran the risk of causing anguish
to their Muslim children who would have had to participate in traditional funerals
against their will or even refrain from participating in them.
22 Skinner, 1960b.
 Islam in Mossi Society 185
when he worked as a migrant labourer in the Gold Coas
t
some forty years ago. Similarly, out of the forty-two Muslims
in
Toece in 1954, three were converted to Islam while away
in the
Ivory Coast, and six while in the Gold Coast. Nevertheless,
as
far as I was able to discover, most migrants hesitated to aliena
te
their relations by adopting Islam while away from home. They
waited until they returned home before becoming Muslims. The
reasons for this are interesting. Most migrants’ who left their
villages for foreign lands had the opportunity to see the value in
becoming a Muslim. The average Mossi who left on migration
was surrounded by Muslims as soon as he started out. The chauf
-
feurs and passengers on the trucks they rode were often Hausa,
Songhay, or Mandingo Muslims. These Muslims all prayed to-
gether during the frequent stops on the roads, and shared food
and water with each other, but not with the pagan ‘kaffirs’. When
the migrants arrived at their destination they often worked with
or were supervised by Muslims who favoured their co-religionists.
The Muslims often ate together with their supervisors and atten-
ded Friday prayer with them. Many animist migrants from
Nobéré reported that they felt left out and discriminated against
when this occurred. Other migrants reported that while Muslims
and even Christians took care of their sick or dead fellows, sick
animists were often ignored or unceremoniously dumped into a
grave if they died. These experiences inclined men towards Islam,
and after they informed their relatives of their reason for convert-
ing to Islam they felt free to do so. Many migrants not only
became Muslims when they returned home but also encouraged
their relatives to do the same.
There is no doubt that there were rewards for those Mossi in
Nobéré and other districts who embraced Islam. Besides such
tangible rewards as getting wives and children, there were such
intangible ones as upward social mobility and the gain of greater
prestige. It is important to note that almost all the liberated slaves
and serfs in Nobéré had become Muslims. Those among them
who made the pilgrimage bore the proud title of Haji, and even
challenged the authority of district chiefs. In 1956, during a
ceremony on the night before the ‘id al-kabir which marked the
186 Special Studies
end of Ramadan, a haji belonging to a former serf group chided
the Nobéré chief for his impiety, and voiced the hope that the
next chief would be a ‘true Muslim’. He begged the chief to
accept the censure and regard it as coming not from a former
serf but from the heart of a servant of Nadiyama (the Prophet).
This same man had refused to pay homage to the chief at the
annual animist sacrifice to the ancestors held earlier that year.
When admonished by the chief at that time he returned the
daughter which the chief had given him as a wife. Of course,
no Mossi district chief would have accepted such behaviour from
any serf, whatever his religion, had the French not been there.
Islam was fairly well institutionalized in the subdivision,
especially in Kombissiri and Nobéré districts, in 1956. There were
various tarigas, mosques, and Quranic schools. The largest
religious order in the subdivision was the Tijaniyya, which re-
garded Al Haj ‘Omar its patron. The second largest movement
in Kombissiri was the Qadiriyya, whose members revered Alma
Maliki (Al-Maghili). There were several hundred members of
the very orthodox ‘eleven grains’ Hamalliste (Mamisguesma)
sect in the subdivision, especially in Béré district. There were
only two members of the Ahmadiyya (Hamadyya) in the sub-
division, and they were non-Mossi who lived in Nobéré district.
With the exception of the Hamallistes, however, most Muslims
in the subdivision worshipped together irrespective of their
tariga. They felt that the bonds of Islam over-rode all other
considerations.
The 250 or more Quranic schools in the subdivision were
affiliated with the various zarigas."3 The Quranic students (karem-
bisst or karem-camba or garibous) were primarily boys ranging in
age from eight to fifteen, although several girls also attended
schools in Nobéré. Some of these schools drew boys from the
villages or districts where they were located; others were attended
by boys who came from other subdivisions and even from Bol-
gatanga in Northern Ghana. Foreign Quranic students often
*8 Kombissiri district had 28 schools, of which 15 were Tijaniyya, 11 Qadiriyya,
and two of unknown affiliation, and varied in size and quality. Only one of the
32 schools in Nobéré had more than 20 students, 10 schools had 8 students apiece,
and the others had even fewer.
 Islam in Mossi Society ; 187
worked for their teachers and supplemented their keep by begging
for alms. Students learned to read and write Arabic with varying
amounts of skill, but all of them learned to recite from the Quran.
Clever graduates often visited the district chiefs to display their
educational skills.
There were a number of eminent Muslim scholars in the sub-
division. One of them, Souleymane Kafande of Bindé district
and a member of the Qadariyya was considered-a wali (Saint) of
the prophet, and was credited with the miraculous feeding of
several hundred persons for a whole day with a single calabash
of milk. His Quranic schools included in their curricula higher
studies in Islamic laws, and attracted Muslim scholars from as far
away as Quahigouya (north Upper Volta) and Bawku in Northern
Ghana. Souleymane Diarra of the Tijaniyya sect was the other
important scholar in the subdivision. This man attended a series
of Quranic schools in Bawku around 1943 and was considered to
be a brilliant Arabist. He left Bawku after a dispute with his
teacher and tried to establish an Islamic centre in Manga district
but was prohibited from doing so by the Catholic Manga Naba.
The Doulougou Naba reluctantly gave him permission to
establish a Quranic centre in his district. There were other
‘marabouts’ and Jmams in the subdivision, but none of them
approached the stature of these two men.
As far as the lay Muslims in Nobéré and in Kombissiri were
concerned, they were recognizable as such, since they wore long
robes and fezes, possessed phylacteries and used religious saluta-
tions. ‘They differed quite markedly in their knowledge of, and
adherence to, the tenets of Islam, even though most of them
knew the five articles of Islamic belief and tried to observe the
Amal or five practical duties of Islam. The Muslims of Kombissiri,
like Muslims everywhere, prayed five times a day and, as in
Nobéré, most adult males were able to lead in prayer. The Mossi
Muslims called their five prayer periods: ‘fasirt’, ‘zarafe’, ‘lasa’,
‘magrima’, and ‘sanfo’, respectively. These Mossi Muslims prayed
anywhere, but many tried to build prayer circles of stones
(missirt) Or miniature mosques near their compounds so that
their families could pray together. The six large mosques in the
188 Special Studies
subdivision were seldom used by people from outside the local
areas. During important holy days prayers were held in the open,
usually near the tomb of the founders of local Muslim
communities.?4
The Caréme, or month-long fast, was attempted by most adult
Muslims in the subdivision, with the exception of invalids and
working men. However, while tle ‘Muslims of the Mouth’
secretly broke the fast, the ‘Muslims of the Heart’ fasted through-
out Ramadan. All Muslims, whether of the ‘Mouth’ or of the
‘Heart’, joined the joyous celebration at the end of Ramadan.
The sighting of the crescent moon was greeted with shouts and
gun-shots, and the district chief and even pagans took part in
the festivities.
The Muslims in the subdivision seldom gave regular alms or
zakat to their [mams. However, most of them attended cere-
monies called sadagas at the homes of other Muslims and placed
articles, such as money, food, and goods, into a common pool
from which all assembled persons received a share. Moreover,
most Muslims fulfilled their obligations by giving presents to the
young and often indigent students at the Quranic schools.
Few of the Muslims in the subdivision had any hope of going
to Mecca on pilgrimage, even though many of them would have
liked to do so. Most Muslims were too poor to pay for the trip
and, although those who went were aided by their co-religionists,
the initial outlay was just too much for the average Mossi. In the
1954 census seven men from the subdivision were listed as being
on various stages of the pilgrimage—a not inconsiderable num-
ber when it is realized that even today not more than 100 Voltaics
go to Mecca in the course ofa year. My own field-work coincided
with the pilgrimages of three Muslims from Nobéré. One of them
died near the Red Sea, and most people believed that he would
receive special dispensation from God for this effort. Another
pilgrim was still away; and the third had completed the round trip
24 For example, the Muslims of Nobéré held their prayers during Ramadan
in a field near the tomb of Naba Ngado, the first Muslim district chief. However,
in 1956 there arose some opposition among the Muslim Aayis to the prayer site,
because they claimed that for many superstitious Muslims Ngado’s tomb had
become a Tengkougre, or earth shrine.
 Islam in Mossi Society 189
to Mecca in an aeroplane, the mode of transport which most
pilgrims now use. When this last pilgrim left, a great crowd
gathered at his house to pray for his safe journey. Some of his
friends even accompanied him to Ouagadougou and remained
there until he left. While he was away the district chief encouraged
the Muslims and even others to cultivate his fields. When the
new Aaj: finally returned a large crowd accompanied him to his
house with cries of joy. There he killed a sheep in thanksgiving,
sprinkled the crowd with holy water from Mecca, and recounted
his experiences. His listeners were impressed by his aeroplane
flight and by his description of Mecca, but they showed the
greatest interest when he said that the Meccan women covered
their faces and that most Meccan men were monogamous.
Despite the fact that the Muslims of Kombissiri were proud
to be followers of Islam and tried to honour its tenets, they re-
tained the major values of Mossi culture. They still valued children
and, while they no longer believed in the cult of the ancestors and
did not ‘kill chickens’ to the ancestors, they still felt that a man
should have children to succeed him and that the best guarantee
for this was polygyny. Mossi Muslims justified polygyny by
saying that the Prophet Muhammad himself decreed that his
followers might keep four wives, provided that they were all
treated with the same degree of kindness and consideration.
However, even those Muslims who, in contrast to the average
Mossi who were monogamous, were able to obtain more than
four wives did not appear overly concerned about transgressing
the tenets of their faith. On the other hand, many Mossi Muslims
had abandoned the practice of marrying their father’s widows,
holding that it was against Islamic rules to do so. They criticized
this type of marriage among their animist brothers, and suggested
that the levirate be used instead.
Mossi Muslims had not changed their attitudes about the posi-
tion of women in Mossi society. Women were segregated behind
the men at the open-air prayers during festivals and were not
permitted within the mosques, in the missiri, or at sadagas. The
Muslims felt that the presence of women at prayers distracted
the men from their devotion to God. Some Muslims in Nobéré,
190 Special Studies
especially those who had been to Mecca, had started to place
their wives in a kind of purdah. They refused to permit their
wives to go to market for fear they would come into contact with
‘ungodly’ non-Muslim men. Some of the women who attended
a reception for a returned haji were even seen to cover their faces
with their headkerchiefs, but whether this represented an attempt
at veiling or was a reaction to the presence of so many men was
not quite clear.
The Muslims of Kombissiri did possess many other culture
traits which, while shared by the non-Muslim populations, were
of ultimate Islamic origin or syncretisms of Islamic and traditional
culture. For example, the weekly calendar used among the Mossi
is of Islamic origin; Mossi associated local spirits called Ainkirse
with jinns; and many persons believed in the efficacy of Quranic
recitals as remedies for ill health. Some Mossi even considered an
infusion prepared by soaking paper on which Quranic verses
were written in water to be a cure for illness. However, one
Muslim Mossi chief refused to accept the plea of a Christian liti-
gant to permit the Christian and Muslim parties to a dispute to
kiss and swear upon the Bible and Quran respectively. He refused
to permit this blending of Christian, Islamic, and purely western
legal traits in a Mossi court.
The drive for independence which had started in the Upper
Volta during the period of my field work did lead to the emer-
gence of latent conflict between the traditionalist, Muslim, and
Catholic Mossi groups in the districts of the subdivision. The
missionaries of the White Fathers had long conducted a school in
one of the canzons and had used this institution as a means of re-
cruiting converts. The Muslims had for some time refused to send
their children to this school, and, in the absence of public schools,
their children did not receive western education. The Muslims
apparently voiced no complaints while there were no politicians,
but as soon as elected representatives appeared they began to
press them for a state-supported school. This demand caused
some ill-feeling among the Catholics, who insisted that the
mission school was large enough for all the district’s children.
But the Muslims were adamant in their demands that a secular
 Islam in Mossi Society IOI
school be built to open the road to social mobility, through edu-
cation, for traditionalists, Muslims, and Christians alike. The
Muslims and a few Christians also objected to the Government’s
paying substandard teachers to teach in the Catholic schools,
while stating that even such teachers were unavailable for state
schools.
A number of Mossi politicians also found that they had to
appeal to Islam to gain the votes of Muslims. Qne such politician
found himself caught between the Muslims and their chief, who,
although a Muslim himself, was at odds with the Muslim com-
munity, which had decided to support a predominantly Muslim
party. This politician was heard to tell a predominantly Muslim
audience that he had even attended a Quranic school. This story
was indeed true, because the man had gone to a Muslim zongo, or
circumcision school, but it is not known how many Muslim votes
he received for this admission. He did carry the district, because
he was backed by the chief and the traditionalists.
Religion did not play a major role in the competition for
political power which preceded Independence of the Upper
Volta. There was a predominantly Muslim political party, but
the real struggle for power was between the traditional Mossi
chiefs and the young Catholic-trained Mossi politicians. The chiefs
lost, and subsequently the Mogho Naba of Ouagadougou, the
most important Mossi chief, became a Muslim. Whether this
conversion was the result of internal conviction or a reaction to
defeat by Christian commoners is still a moot question. However,
for what it is worth, the Muslims had the satisfaction of seeing the
conversion of the paramount Mossi chief coincide with the
‘departure’ of the Europeans (see above, p. 179).
The first government after Independence, presided over by
a Mossi Christian, was composed of people of all religious per-
suasions. On Independence Day the President visited the major
edifices of all the ‘cults’ in the capital of Ouagadougou, and asked
all religious groups to pray for the success of the State. The desire
that religious differences should not enter the political realm might
be seen in the fact that there was no mention of any religious
groups or religions in the handbook, published for Independence,
192 Special Studies
describing the Upper Volta and its peoples. The Government was
committed to the idea of a secular state, but there was some feeling
that there was a pro-Catholic bias in official circles. Nevertheless,
government officials still supported the Muslim community. For
example, the President’s brother, Denis Yameogo, Joseph
Conombo, Mayor of Ouagadougou, and the Mogho Naba joined
with El Haj Raghian in prayer during the celebration of ‘id al-
kabir at the end of Ramadan in 1963. Madame Yameogo, the wife
of the President, joined the folk-dancing Muslim women that
afternoon.?°
The problem for the Mossi Muslims, like that of Muslims
throughout Africa, was that they had to modernize their practices,
if not their tenets, to cope with a rapidly changing world. The
Upper Volta appeared determined to modernize itself, and in
so doing change the status of the Mossi woman by giving her
more freedom than she then enjoyed in animist, Muslim, and
even Christian homes. Whether or not the Muslims and the
animists would agree to these changes remained to be seen. There
was evidence, however, that the Mossi Muslims were prepared to
co-operate with their government in developing their country. In
response to complaints raised by the Ouagadougou community
that Quranic students or ‘garibous’ were running wild in the
town, the President of the Muslim community declared:
It is not necessary to point out that, especially during the rainy season,
all worthy Voltaics should mobilize their energy for the economic develop-
ment of our country.
Why then do the masters of Koranic schools remain indifferent to the
vagabondage of their pupils instead of employing them in the noble task of
cultivating the life-giving soil?
There is a possibility that all the vagabond children are not Koranic
pupils, but we believe that a general measure should be taken to repress
all of them in order to preserve our national prestige.?®
The Muslims’ President vowed to enlist the help of the local
authorities to end what he called the ‘vagabondage of the
25 ‘La Communauté Musulmane’, Carrefour Africaine, 3 année, no. 46, 3 mars,
1963.
#6 ‘Déclaration du Président de la Communauté Musulmane’, Carrefour
Africaine, 3 année, no. 12, 8 juillet 1962.
 Islam in Mossi Society 193
“garibous” in our Republic’. In so doing he hoped to take one
step towards adjusting the Muslim community to the require-
ments of modern life.

REFERENCES

Binger, Capt. Louis G.

(1887-89) Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée par le pays Kong et le Mossi. Paris.
Bovill, E.
(1958) The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Crozat, (Dr.)
(1891) ‘Rapport sur une mission au Mossi’, Journal Officiel de la République
Frangaise, 5-9 octobre.
Delafosse, Maurice
(1912) Haut-Sénégal-Niger. Paris: Larose.
Dim Delobson, A. A.
(1959) The Empire of the Mogho-Naba, trans. Kathryn A. Looney. Human
Relations Area Files, New Haven.
Lucien, Marc
(1909) Le Pays Mossi. Paris: Larose.
Oliver, R. and Fage, J. D.
(1963) A Short History of Africa. New York University Press.
Sa‘di, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-,
(1900) Ta’rikh al-Sudan, trans. O. Houdas. Paris.
Skinner, Elliott P.
(1957) ‘An Analysis of the Political System of the Mossi’, Transactions of the
New York Academy of Sciences, ser. II, vol. 19, no. 8, June, pp. 740-50.
(1958) ‘Christianity and Islam among the Mossi’, American Anthropologist,
Menasha, Wisconsin, vol. LX, no. 6.
(1960a) ‘The Mossi “‘Pogsioure” ’, Man, vol. LX, no. 28, February, pp. 20-22.
(1960b) ‘Labour Migration and its Relationship to Socio-Cultural Change
in Mossi Society’, Africa, vol. XXX, no. 4, October, pp. 375-401.
(1962) ‘Trade and Markets among the Mossi People’, in Markets in Africa, ed.
Paul Bohannan and George Dalton. Evanston: Northwestern University
Press, pp. 237-78.
Tauxier, Louis
(1912) Le Noir du Soudan. Paris: Larose.
Trimingham, J. Spencer
(1959) Islam in West Africa. London: Oxford University Press.
 VII. CATTLE VALUES, AND ASLAMIG VALUES
IN A PASTORAL POPULATION

D. J. STENNING

I. INTRODUCTION
This paper is about the place of Islamic observance in the cere-
monial and ritual life of the Wodaabe pastoral Fulani of Bornu
in Northern Nigeria. It attempts to arrange the cycles of cere-
mony and ritual so as to make clearer the Wodaabe view of their
place in the world of Islam as they see it. This seems to me to bea
necessary task in Afrita today, where many of the populations are
assimilating Islamic social ideas and religious practices.
II. DUALISM
The case of the Wodaabe is perhaps interesting, since there is
a marked dualism in the social organization and value-system of
this population, which I have tried to bring out in an earlier
publication,! but which may be recapitulated here. This dualism
arises directly from the economic structure of Wodaabe pastoral
groupings, and from their historical role in the politics of north-
eastern Nigeria.
There is a structure of close-knit small groups, of which the
simple or compound family and the limited agnatic descent group
are the most important units. The subsistence and wealth of these
groups derive solely from their herds of cattle. These are main-
tained by a system of transhumance in which agnatic descent
groups congregate in northerly pastures which are free from
tsetse fly in the wet season; these groups disperse southwards and
split (often into their constituent families) as the dry season pro-
ceeds. The interests of the Wodaabe are narrowly circumscribed
by the demands of this mode of pastoralism, which involves con-
tinual but conservative adjustment to subtle ecological changes.
Their property, other than cattle, is exiguous. The system of
*D. J. Stenning, Savannah Nomads. London, 1959.
 Cattle Values and Islamic Values - 195
values associated with these circumstances, and its expression
in ritual, is directed towards the ordering of relations between
family and herd, and is concerned particularly with the fecundity
of both animals and humans. Right conduct is the exercise of
familial virtues, the fulfilment of duties towards elders, spouses,
and coevals. In this way, good cattle husbandry is promoted,
and the survival and wealth of future generations can be assured.
The cattle themselves are in some ways seen as the arbiters in this
situation. While they are manipulated, now ‘rationally’, now by
magical means, they nevertheless possess sanctions on human
conduct which a Bodaado cannot afford to ignore. Wodaabe, like
pastoral Fulani in general, equate this distinctive way of life with
their own ethnic origin and ideal physical characteristics, so that
running through all the institutions implied in this sketch there
is a strong attachment to the idea of ethnic exclusiveness and
superior moral standing. The characteristics of this way of life
may be summed up by the words familial, egalitarian, peaceful,
conservative.
Pastoral life is familial. Itdepends ona family division of labour,
on a family consumption of its products. Each herd is attached
to, or rather one with, a family, and grows imperceptibly out of
the dissolution of another family in the previous generation. In
general, pastoral ritual has the function of marking the stages of
family growth and dissolution. Pastoral life is egalitarian. A man
who is wealthy in cattle is so because of his expertise, but exper-
tise cannot be acquired, or brought into play, without reciprocity
of many kinds with kinsfolk. He is wealthy because of his kin and
not in spite of them, and his obligations are greater because of his
wealth. Pastoral life is peaceful. While it would not be accurate
to say that this kind of life does not permit conflict, it is revealing
to observe that conflict of many kinds is minimized and often
resolved by removal. A scolded child runs into the bush. The
slighted wife takes herself off to her guardian. The deviant is
banished. Herd-owners peacefully agree to separate, but only
after interminable discussion, and when they go it is not known
whether for a week, a season, or for ever. Pastoral life is con-
servative. Nomadism conveys a sense of insouciance, and the
 196 Special Studies
drawings of its migration arcs have an air of abandon. Nothing
is further from the truth. Each step in the movement is planned
with careful weighing of the evidence: there is cautious experi-
mentation so that as far as possible the habitat is familiar and, as
the Wodaabe say, ‘like a house to us’.
This kind of configuration of values is common enough in
anthropological literature. But its occurrence in Wodaabe society
has added interest when we reflect that historically, and indeed
today, they are maintained in circumstances which are patently
hostile to them. The pastoral Wodaabe are an interstitial popula-
tion. The formation of large groups with well-defined and specifi-
cally territorial rights to water and grazing has not occurred.
Consequently, there is no past or present institution concerned
with the acquisition or defence of territory for its own sake in
perpetuity. At whatever period or time-span we care to choose
we find Wodaabe negotiating, with aliens and in languages not
their own, for temporary rights to pasture and water; usually
doing so at the personal level. Again, we find that the domestic
economy depends daily on small-scale market and barter rela-
tions, in which the Wodaabe exchange their milk for the cereal
_ foods of the non-Fulani agriculturalists. Deeply committed to
the world of the bush, with all it holds for the maintenance of
their herds, the Wodaabe need, and move freely in, the networks
of agricultural villages, market towns, and, occasionally, capital
cities of north-eastern Nigeria. In Wodaabe thinking a continual
distinction is made between these two worlds, but also a certain
ambivalence of sentiment is expressed.
The interaction of the Wodaabe with what for the moment
we may call—conveniently but somewhat inaccurately—‘the
outside world’ takes place in a cultural and historical context
which is plainly Islamic, and is phrased by Wodaabe in these
terms. Their traditions tell us that the Wodaabe participated in
the Holy War in north-eastern Nigeria from perhaps about 1820,
and certainly from the 1850s, onwards. They did so opportunisti-
cally, now seizing the chance to aid an Emir’s forces, now holding
back. This kind of political calculation persisted in their dealings
with the Islamic state down to the Mahdist incursion, and in a
 Cattle Values and Islamic Values 197
different form, into the Protectorate period. They gave tribute
to Emirs, and they profited from the wars by acquiring slaves
and horses. The growth of one or another Islamic state afforded
them opportunities for acquiring general rights to pasture and
water over wide tracts of country, which then had to be made good
by more detailed arrangements. These relations with the Islamic
State promoted a re-definition of the notion of leadership and a
reorganization of the Wodaabe groups concerned. Wider
groupings based on putative genealogical connexions began to
assume a coherence vis-d-vis the State under the leadership of the
Laamibe, whose political functions exceeded those of the ardo’en
who led the small pastoral groupings. In these new circumstances
the followings of the Laamibe became more heterogeneous, and
this process was accelerated in the Protectorate period by the
establishment of village headships, which put more precise duties
towards the State on to the Wodaabe in general. Over the same
period the politico-ritual relations which were a feature of the
wider groupings diminished in importance and effectiveness, and
the ritual office of maudo laawol pulaaku became more and more
esoteric. This latter development was due mainly to changed
political circumstances. It was partly due to the disruptive
effects of the great rinderpest epidemic of the 1890s. But we
cannot discount the effects of the dissemination of Islamic ideas
and observances. The Wodaabe have no interest in describing
a period when they did not ‘know Islam’. They must have made
at least a token gesture of support for the religious aims of the
Holy War, although it may be that their ethnic solidarity was a
stronger ideological force. But by the 1850s their leaders were
‘praying the ‘/d’ at Kukawa, the Bornu capital, and holymen
were coming back to West Bornu with them. Today we can
describe the Wodaabe as Muslims. They profess the Faith. They
carry out daily prayers punctiliously, with one significant excep-
tion, which will be noted later. They observe the Fast, but in
intention rather than fact, for many concessions are made to the
rigours oftheir life in the bush. They are circumcised, where there
seems to have been no ‘traditional’ institution involving cir-
cumcision. They give alms. They recognize a brotherhood with
198 . Special Studies
non-Fulani, although this is qualified by their sentiments of
ethnic exclusiveness. They help the pilgrim on the way to Mecca,
and a few Wodaabe are known to have started the pilgrimage.
They trace tenuous descent from Shehu dan Fodio. It should be
added that among the Wodaabe it is not possible to identify
either segments or individuals who do not count themselves
Muslims. Islamic observance is gerieral, and varies only as be-
tween individuals who practise it.
This involvement of the Wodaabe with the State, and more
generally with the Islamic culture of Northern Nigeria, gives rise
to values which, as I have suggested, are antithetical to those
of their pastoral life. These may be summed up by the words
public, status conscious, martial, and opportunistic.
Wodaabe identify themselves with the world outside their
camps by means of the legends of history. Their heroes in this
context were men of war, but they were men who also sought their
aims by duplicity and guile. These men, the first Laamibe, not
only brought their pecple into the orbit of the state but divided
them, since the perquisites of war were not only rights to pasture
(which Wodaabe utilize in an egalitarian manner) but the status
symbols of the society of which they now became a part. Titles,
horses, slaves gave men status, and the force of the State was at
times called in not to arbitrate conflicting claims, but to support
one or another faction. These values are carried forward to the
present day. Non-Fulani are arranged in a simplified form of the
status-order evident, at least ten years ago, in Northern Nigerian
society. While equals—that is to say their counterparts in the
agricultural communities—are regarded as inferior on ethnic
grounds, there is a continual aspiration to high status on the
ladder afforded by the title system. At the same time the Wodaabe
exact from their communities of ex-slaves the kind of servility
they give their superiors, and the slaves themselves seek to
emulate their Wodaabe lords.
Wodaabe know that these two sets of values are comple-
mentary and yet conflicting, and there are many examples of this
in behaviour and linguistic usage, particularly of that well-known
‘man of two worlds’, the minor chief. Advantage in the outside
 Cattle Values and Islamic Values ~ 199
world can be pursued, and success is acclaimed, since it may mean
an advantage to the Wodaabe community. But it can be pursued
only so far without detriment to family and kin—and herd.
III. CEREMONIES AND RITUALS
The antithesis I have tried to sketch here has its parallel in the
formal structure of Wodaabe feasts. All Wodaabe ceremonies
and rituals are marked by the slaughter and consumption of a
feast-animal (usually a bull). The manner in which the beast’s
carcass is divided signifies which of two types of occasion is
being celebrated.
The first known as homtu or homturu (the etymological root
signifying ‘appeasement’, ‘reconciliation’) consists of the pastoral
ceremonies of the Wodaabe—all those events having to do with
the internal life of the clan, its constituent families, and its herds.
In these feasts the whole carcass is divided for consumption
according to principles of age and sex, and such strangers as have
to be present are accorded astatus of this kind for their part in
the feast.
The second type of ceremony is known as hirsu (root signify-
ing ‘to slaughter’ by cutting the throat in the Islamic manner).
These ceremonies have to do with the external relations of the
Wodaabe group. In these events the carcass is divided longitudi-
nally, one half being retained by the Wodaabe donors, the other
going to the non-Fulani guests.
There are additional distinctions between these categories of
feast. In pastoral ceremonies the meat is distributed raw; in
public ceremonies it is cooked, in two separate halves, before
distribution. In public ceremonies it is a point of honour to select
a good prime beast; insome, but notall, of the pastoral ceremonies,
the beast is selected for convenience, and may turn out to be an
ailing cow. In public ceremonies milk may be drunk by the hosts,
and offered to guests, but is consumed casually by all partici-
pants; an integral part of pastoral ceremonies consists of ritual
milk-drinking by the men. In public ceremonies there are usually
many exchanges of kola-nuts between individuals, and these
demonstrate the status or aspirations of participants. While kola-
200 Special Studies
nuts ate consumed at pastoral ceremonies, they are not a man-
datory part of the feast, and no matter who supplies them, their
distribution is in the hands of the donor or convenor of the feast.
Public ceremonies are marked, wherever possible, by the horse-
gallops (the Hausa ja/f), and in this competition and reciprocity
are in evidence in much the same way as in kola-nut exchange.
Pastoral feasts do not, in principle, include this feature. Finally,
the venues of the two categories of feast are somewhat different.
A pastoral feast takes place with a single family homestead as its
base, and indeed one part of the homestead is a focal point for the
ritual. The disposition of the participants is made in accordance
with the age and sex rules pertaining to family life. In a public
ceremony the guests are given their own quasi-domestic area,
including sleeping-shelters, which lies outside the Wodaabe
camp: The action of the public ceremony takes place between this
and the homestead of the donor, but never penetrates the domestic
ground of the camp.
The public feasts are addressed to those whom Wodaabe
regard as superiors, as equals, or as inferiors. The first of these
may be called ‘tribute’ ceremonies, in which an important non-
Fulani official of the State is present as a guest. The ceremony
marks whatever business he has to transact (to check cattle-tax,
promulgate a new regulation, install certain orders of chief);
but also the social distance, competition, and status-reciprocity
elements in evidence in public feasts are present here in full
measure. The major characteristic of tribute ceremonies is that
the visitors’ retinue provides all the more obvious ceremonial
elements—the drummers and praise singers; and, significantly,
the malam who records the business of the day but may also act
as the imam for public prayers. The Wodaabe contribution on
this side is deliberately limited so as to be eclipsed by the visitors’,
but is correspondingly, and overtly, generous in provision of
food for men and horses.
An important variant occurs when the tribute ceremony occurs
between principals who are themselves Wodaabe. Examples of
this are where a Wodaabe chief goes to collect cattle tax from his
pastoral kinsmen; or where he installs a kinsman as chief. The
 Cattle Values and Islamic Values - 201
feasts on these occasions take the public form, and status differen-
tiation is marked in the appropriate way. But there is a point at
which the kinship of the visitor with his hosts is demonstrated.
He eats from their portion of the feast meat as well as from the
guests’, may be asked to distribute kola-nuts, and drinks milk at
evening time with them in the pastoral fashion.
The feast for ‘equals’ is that which goes with the successful
establishment of local pasture rights, particularly, in West
Bornu, in the dry season. In the dry season I was there relations
between the pastoralists and the District Heads of the dry-season
areas were strained by the imposition of an illegal ‘grass tax’
and no tribute feasts of this kind took place. But the pastoral
leaders made a point of giving sheep as sadaga to the villagers in
whose vicinity they camped, and because of milk shortages and
considerable splitting of camps, the occasion for this was com-
bined with (in one case) a name-giving feast, which falls into the
‘pastoral’ category. On this occasion representatives of the village
were invited, given a separate feast area, consumed appropriate
portions of the homtu beast, and a suitable share of the kola-nuts
distributed by the donor, and joined in the prayers, for which they
had provided the malam. There was no gallop, and the visitors did
not get milk. They took their sheep away with them.
The feast for inferiors is the slave dance (daddo). This is a wet
season feast in which the slave communities of the Wodaabe
dance for their masters, who provide meat and kola-nuts for
them. While unmistakably a public feast in all essentials, the
daddo is not, as it were, the reverse of the chiefs’ feast. The visiting
party is itself a group of praise-singers, dancers, and drummers,
and its activity is directed one way, towards the adulation of the
Wodaabe; whereas in the chiefs’ feasts the praise-singers, etc.,
draw attention to both parties with nice discrimination. Further-
more, this is not an occasion for prayers, and no imam is provided
by either side. While the slaves profess Islam, and on other
occasions pray together with Wodaabe, there is no atmosphere
of brotherhood in the daddo. The prescribed Fulani behaviour
on these occasions is ill-concealed derision of the slaves’ antics,
while the slaves’ laudatory songs can turn into ribald lampoons.
202 Special Studies
The Wodaabe conduct of these feasts, which are their only
formal contact with the outside world on their own ground,
exhibits quite clearly a sense of social separation, of status-
consciousness, of competition, and of tacit antagonism. The
culture symbols of West African Islam are present, but are
employed outside the domestic setting against which the cere-
monies have to take place. Note that each event, except one, in-
cludes the necessity of prayers; and the exception itself arises
from an historical (although at the present day unrealistic) view
of the Wodaabe place in Islam in North-eastern Nigeria.
Let us turn now to the cycle of pastoral or ‘internal’ ceremonies.
Each of these, as I have indicated, is familial, involving a rite de
passage of an individual and the consequent adjustment of
families and herds. But it is possible, without over-analysing, to
see two types of event here. The first type is that in which the
primary aim of the ritual is to deal with a person. The second is
that in which the primary aim of the ritual is to deal with cattle.
Into the first group fall, for purposes of this paper, naming,
certain aspects of marriage, and mortuary ceremonies. The second
group includes the establishment of the nucleus of a herd for a
boy who has reached herding age; the establishment of a family
herd; the cattle-increase ritual accompanying the slaughter of a
lead-bull of a herd; and the administration of an estate.
The Wodaabe name-giving ceremony (innde) has been de-
scribed elsewhere.2 We need only note here that Wodaabe
regard this important ceremony as an Islamic one and, apart
from some elasticity in the time after the birth at which it is
carried out, perform it in accordance with Islamic canons.
The child is given an Islamic name; its head is shaved; an animal
is sacrificed and the meat eaten within the family circle, alms are
given;® the blood of the feast animal is not smeared on the head
of the child, nor is circumcision carried out at this stage. There is
no ‘traditional’ version of this ceremony: and, as far as can be
gathered from Wodaabe names and other verbal evidence, all
2 Sterning, op. cit., pp. 117-119.
3 Note the concurrence of this with the establishment of pasture rights in one
observed case.
 Cattle Values and Islamic Values - 203
Wodaabe children undergo it. In genealogies, evidence of non-
Islamic naming begins to occur in the third ascending generation
from present-day elders.
In marriage the use of Islamic ceremonies is somewhat more
selective. There are five forms of marital union current in Wodaabe
society: betrothal marriage; contract marriage; gift marriage;
widow inheritance; and cicisbean unions. Apart from the last
form, an Islamic wedding ceremony is part of the proceedings;
and, where the bride has been married before, so is the obser-
vance of ‘idda.
Cicisbean unions are of short duration, and include none of
the prestations or ceremonies associated with the other types of
marriage. Where feast cattle have been transferred for a betrothed
girl who engages in one of these liaisons, there is a claim on the
male partner for the return of their equivalent; but this can
rarely be made good, certainly not in an a/kaali’s court. Indeed,
throughout Wodaabe society there have been strong moves to
prevent cicisbean unions, which flout both the traditional
expectations of betrothal marriage and the norms of contract
implied in gift marriage, contract marriage, and widow inheri-
tance. Nowadays they occur mainly as a result of breakdown in
one of the early stages of betrothal marriage.
While in contract marriage, gift marriage and widow in-
heritance the Islamic ceremony is the only ritual to mark the
occasion, including the transfer of other prestations, betrothal
marriage is a series of rituals, of which the Islamic ceremony is
not the most important. It starts, in fact, with the ceremony at
which the herd boy is taken into his father’s cattle-corral and is
shown the beasts which will be the nucleus of his own herd.
A homtu feast marks this occasion. But it should be noted that a
boy ‘qualifies’ for this, as it were, by having been circumcised.
Circumcision is carried out on groups oflads aged from seven to
ten years of age by a junior elder, and no special rituals of a
didactic or symbolic nature are attached to this. The ‘first
betrothal’ or preliminary discussions between the intending parties
to the match is the next stage; and this, again, is marked by a
homtu ceremony. The next stage is the betrothal proper, which
204 Special Studies
occurs when the girl begins to menstruate. This ceremony in-
cludes a homtu feast, and also the Islamic wedding ceremony.
Then, after an interval, follow the ceremonies of bride-removal,
at which the couple are first expected to sleep together; this, again,
is marked by a Aomtu feast. The final stage is the home-making,
which occurs after the weaning of the couple’s first-born. In this,
the homestead of the couple is constructed by the co-operative
effort of the parties to the marriage, and the herd of the husband
is ritually transferred to him by laying down his new calf rope
and attaching his calves to it, so that the dams and, perhaps, his
stock bull will return from pasture to their new corral.
In the course of a betrothal marriage, which sets up a new
family unit, all the stages are marked by Aomzu feasts. But an
Islamic ceremony is\performed at what may well be regarded as
an unimportant stage, the ceremony at which intentions are
announced. The other stages all have to do with associating the
couple (or in the first instance, the future male herd owner) with
the family herd, or in ritually disassociating them from it in the
parts which involve procreation and child-bearing.
A similar form of selectivity is evident in mortuary ceremonies.
In Wodaabe society there is no ancestor cult, and no ritual
designed to install ancestors or re-align their descendants in
relation to them. Rights in the principal form of property—
cattle—are allocated progressively to heirs throughout the owner's
adult lifetime, so that on his death there is usually only a small
residuum. Today the dead are disposed of by burial, and great
importance is attached to the performance of the rite by a malam.
But, in the exigencies of the pastoral life, the ceremony is per-
functory and may include only the dead person’s immediate
family. No cattle are killed, and there is no ceremonial accompani-
ment to the visits of condolence which take place, sometimes for
weeks after the funeral has taken place. When the whole round
of such visits has been performed, and nowadays when the
period of continence of widows has elapsed, the lineage group of
the dead man congregate to witness the distribution of his residual
estate. This is definitely not an occasion when any representative
of the State or any Islamic religious functionary should be
 Cattle Values and Islamic Values © 205
present, so as to avoid exaction of death-duties. The disposal of
the dead, and of their cattle, are kept rigidly separate.
The pastoral ceremony which had to do primarily with the
welfare of cattle was the increase-ceremony, at which the lead
bulls which had served their time were killed and eaten by the
herd owners ofa clan. This ritual no longer takes place in Wodaabe
society, but formerly it was part of the wet-season ceremonial
cycles at which the politico-ritual relations of wider groupings
in Wodaabe society were validated. The authority of the ritual
leaders has now been superseded by that of the Laamibe in their
relations with the Islamic state.

IV. CONCLUSION
This analysis suggests that while the values of their ‘internal’
and ‘external’ relations may be antithetical and yet complemen-
tary to the Wodaabe, they do not see ‘external’ relations as
Islamic and ‘internal’ relations as non-Islamic solely. In the range
of ceremonies which have to do primarily with the individual
in his passage through life, there is a readiness and a desire to
hallow the occasion with Islamic prayers and observances.
Although they lie at the periphery of the Islamic world, this
desire does not seem to the observer to be feigned or half-
hearted. But where changes in the rights over cattle are concerned,
no Islamic ceremony is countenanced, even in respect of the
individual whose change of status is implicit in the event.
Wodaabe explanations of this tend to turn on the interest which
the State has in despoiling their herds by its exactions and penal-
ties. But this is not the whole story, for Wodaabe herds are
continuous objects of magico-religious observances in their own
right, and no Islamic rite is allowed to impinge upon these. Some
indication of this separation is given in the location and timing of
birsufeasts. But it is better exemplified in the relation of cattle ritual
to prayers. Evening prayers do not conflict with either the ritual
lighting of the corral-fire or the ritual co-operation of man and
wife at the calf-rope at milking time. But dawn prayers are invari-
ably missed, because this is the time when the herd owner should
be seated at his corral-fire in the closest contact with his beasts.
VIII. ISLAM AMONG THE FULBE OF ADAMAWA

P. F. LACROIX

The sedentary and semi-sedentary Fulbe living in Adamawa’ are

without exception Muslim; the same goes for the minority of
semi-nomadic Fulbe (dororo’en) based there, although all the
indications are that among them Islamization is more recent and,
on the whole, more superficial than among their sedentary
cousins. Among the latter religious faith runs deep and sincere,
is accompanied by no more superstitious practices or beliefs than
subsist among the majority of the Muslims of the Middle East or
the Maghrib, and moreover harbours no typically ‘African’ traits.
This faith—of a ‘quality’, dare one say it, which is rather rare in
black West Africa—has never been ground down, among the
majority of those concerned, by its contact with economic
conditions or modern politics, and even seems to have been
refined in certain respects in the last few decades (witness, for
example, the abandonment of non-Muslim rites of circumcision).
This faith may be considered a characteristic element of this
society and has endowed it with a rich written literature (in
Arabic and Fula) that still flourishes and reflects the society’s
preoccupations and conflicts.
II

The introduction of Islam among the Fulbe of Adamawa

cannot be fixed at a precise historical time; but it is certain that at
the beginning of the nineteenth century the majority of those called
Fulbe established in what was to become Adamawa unleashed a
jihad against the ‘pagan’ host populations. This suggests an
already fairly extensive and, at least in some cases, deep-rooted
Islamization, since the occasion threw up religious personalities
like the moodibbo ’aadama and others whose memory is still green
1 The territory of the precolonial lamidate of Adamawa comprises the modern
Gongola State of Nigeria and the majority of the northern region of Cameroon.
 Islam among the Adamawa Fulbe © 207
among their descendants. This jihad, which was undertaken at the
behest of Uthman dan Fodio, nevertheless took on a perceptibly
different character here from that in the Hausa states. In Adamawa
the war was against non-Muslims and not against Muslims
accused, rightly or wrongly, of half-heartedness or ‘apostasy’. It
should therefore logically have led to the widespread Islamization
of the conquered autochthonous peoples. Nothing of the sort
happened, however, or very little: these peoples were subdued
politically but no determined effort seems to have been made to
convert them.
Fulbe motives for such an attitude may be reduced to two. The
first is economic: the Islamization of the vanquished, which would
have made them truly members of the community of the Faithful,
was distinctly less advantageous for the conquerors than their
subjection, in which case, since they were ‘pagans’, the Malikite
Law left the conditions under which they were ruled to the
discretion of their Muslim masters. A simple comparison of what
a Fulbe ruler used to get, not so long ago, from his ‘pagans’ with
the resources he could levy from his Muslim subjects proves the
point eloquently. The second is psychological; for the Fulbe,
especially those of Nigeria and Cameroon, who are descendants
and heirs of the great tradition of Uthman dan Fodio, being
Muslim is easily confused with being Fulbe. Islam justifies and
explains in their eyes the social and political system which they
have initiated (at least in Adamawa) and which they benefit from;
it reinforces their sense of being ‘different’ from the peoples that
surround them. In this context one might say they appropriate
Islam to themselves, which partly explains their lack of in-
clination to proselytize. It is true that their domestic slaves have
been Islamized, but this Islamization has remained very superficial
and the efforts of those from this social category who have striven
to deepen their religious knowledge have more often roused
sarcasm than interest among their masters.
III

Viewed from within, the Islam of Adamawa prompts certain

comments.
208 Special Studies
Just as the Fulbe people, as we have seen, have shown a distinct
tendency to monopolize this religion to their own advantage,
there has been a parallel attempt to monopolize Islam, at least as
far as its spiritual leadership is concerned, by the Fulbe rulers
(Jaamiibe, sing. laamiido) who wield political authority. A number
of factors have aided and still continue to aid and abet this
confusion of powers: on the theological level, the very teachings
of the Muslim Law and Tradition; on the historical level, as well
as the lessons of Islamic history, the example of the founders of
the Fulbe hegemony in this region of Africa, for whom religious
action was intimately connected with political action. Neither is
there anything extraordinary in the fact that the /aamiido, political
head of a territorially defined state, should also be the head of the
community of the Faithful living within the confines of that state,
their religious as well as their political leader. It is striking, how-
ever, to find that, far from considering this spiritual leadership
secondary, all /aamiibe are, on the contrary, determined to
exercise it unambiguously and to assert it to the maximum,
relegating to the shadows or keeping in strict subjection their
religious representative, the /imam, and taking care that the men
of letters (moodibbe, mallum’en) established on their land are not
allowed to acquire too much independence or influence.
It is perhaps to this anxiety of the /aamiibe to brook no other
religious authority but their own that we should attribute the
weakness of the ‘brotherhoods’ (twruug) in this region, a sur-
prising phenomenon in view of the role they play in other parts
of West Africa. Although a certain number of men of letters have
received the Tijaniyya or Qadiriyya wird (sometimes both), many
others—apart from the Mahdists whom we shall mention below—
are affiliated to no brotherhood. In addition and above all, their
moggadems, are few and, as such, enjoy neither great prestige nor
great notoriety. Quite clearly, the authority of the /aamiibe
could hardly accommodate the proximity of strong religious
personalities comparable, for example, to those found in Senegal.
Perhaps historical differences may be able to give an explanation.
In fact, the brotherhoods played no role at all in the jihad of
Uthman dan Fodio (whose affiliation to the Qadiriyya is still
 Islam among the Adamawa Fulbe . 209
doubtful and may have been concocted a posteriori by his direct
successors for political ends), nor, with more reason, in its
offshoots to the east. It should be remembered in this context
that the brotherhoods have only attained a certain importance in
northern Nigeria in the relatively recent past.
The merging of temporal and spiritual powers in the hands of
the rulers in the southern lamidates, where the Fulbe element is,
or was until recently, relatively small, also had the effect of making
the /aamiido appear, in the eyes of still non-Muslim or super-
ficially Islamized tributary populations, a being quite out of the
ordinary, an intercessor between God and his subjects. The
extreme case of this identification of the Fulbe Muslim ruler with
a divine, or at least essentially supra-human, ruler occurred in the
lamidate of Rey-Buba (Bénoué Department, Cameroon). There,
the /aamiido is reputed to pray and fast ‘for all his slaves’, is
thought not to die but to live after death on the summit of the
Tcholliré mountain, from which he watches over his people and
where up until recently two slaves were buried alive with him
to accompany him on his last journey. Such beliefs and practices
might suggest possible connections with those described for
geographically close non-Muslim societies (notably the Mbum
and Jukun).
IV

The evident lack of enthusiasm of the Fulbe for bringing Islam

to the subjugated populations and their reluctance to convert
their slave entourage except superficially have certainly been
effective in restricting the number of conversions among the
former and maintaining among the majority of the latter a mere
facade of Islam, widely impregnated with heterodox practices.
But this attitude has not been able to halt entirely the progress of
the religion. Conversion appears to the more enterprising non-
Fulbe an effective means of social mobility which allows them,
if not to be fully accepted into, at least to enter the highest
echelons of Fulbe society. Among the Fulbe’s subject non-
Muslim populations or neighbouring peoples, conversion is
certainly attended by serious risk of conflict between the convert
210 Special Studies
and his environment. Thus, in general, Islamized people remain
few in number in northern Adamawa, where traditional cultural
structures are solidly established. By contrast, conversion presents
nothing but advantages for people belonging to groups where
these structures have become enfeebled or for those who have
become isolated from their original social context. Such tensions
between the newly Islamized convert and his surroundings did
not apply for former slaves whose diverse origins have clearly
facilitated their adherence to the religion of their masters. How-
ever imperfect their knowledge of dogma is, as a general rule, and
however heretical much of their behaviour may appear, these
servile groups show a definite attachment to their religion, an
attachment which is reinforced when they can vest in one man
their spiritual aspirations and trust to him the burden of guiding
them in the “True Path’.
Vv

All the same, former slaves are not the only ones to feel this
need for a religious guide and a number of pious Fulbe freemen,
particularly those whose Islamization is not very far advanced,
feel this too, which explains the ease with which the spiritual
authority of the /eamiibe has been accepted. But the frequently
rather unedifying life of many of the rulers, the compliance and
subservience towards them manifested by the ‘doctors’ of their
entourage, not infrequently disappoint the ideal that the more
demanding of the Faithful, and particularly the poorer among
them, have of such a guide. Pious and willing to believe in the
reign of a sort of ‘Master of Justice’, many of these common
people suffer at least as much as many of the tributary populations
' from the exactions and abuses stemming from the social order, or
at least from the influence on it of the greed of some of those at
the top.
This sincere faith, in association with the resentment felt by
the lower strata of society towards the politico-religious hierarchy,
explains, in our view, the reception that has greeted the ‘Mahdis’
or ‘Envoys of the Mahdi’ who have appeared in Adamawa over
the past three-quarters of a century. There have been, to our
 Islam among the Adamawa Fulbe - 211
knowledge, six of them in the Yola Division of Nigeria or in
Cameroon, the earliest being the moodibbo Abdullahi (near Yola,
c. 1890) and the most recent, Ahmadu de Tourningal (near
Ngaoundéré in 1952). Whether of high birth, like Prince Hayatu,
a descendant of Uthman dan Fodio, or commoners, like Ahmadu,
whether originating in Adamawa or foreigners (like ‘Goni
Waday’ in 1910/11), all essentially found their Fulbe adepts
among the common people and tributary populations. All, too,
put in the first rank of the ‘Enemies of God’ the ‘Bad Chiefs’ and
the ‘doctors’ devoted to them, and denounced not only the
heresies of which they accused them, but also their rapacity and
the abuses it led to, thus externalizing the conflicts latent in the
society.
These attempts were always checked by the response of their
adversaries and, in the event, first the /aamiibe and then, after the
colonial conquest, the European authorities, alerted by the
traditional rulers (and worried by certain aspects of Mahdist
preaching, notably the refusal to pay tax), rapidly broke the
Mahdist movements with or without bloodshed.? Nevertheless,
all over Adamawa, cells of faithful followers remain who reject
any other ‘Path’ and proclaim themselves true to the Mahdiyya.
Some of them believe that the Mahdi has already come and that
the return of Isa and the end of the world, due 1,400 years after
the death of Muhammad, are nigh. The majority, however, wait
and hope for the coming of the ‘true’ Mahdi. They are not very
active and have been made prudent by earlier events; their
presence is hardly noticeable as far as overt acts are concerned
but they nevertheless contribute towards strengthening belief in
the reality of the ‘Guided One’.
An expression of a faith which is not satisfied by the existing
religious establishment, Mahdist movements have up to now
always been suppressed by that establishment. Yet the hopes that
they have raised remain, in a society where tensions, far from
1 With the exception of the movement of Hayatu, whose followers were
rendered impotent when Hayatu was put to death on the order of Rabah (1899).
The bloodiest suppression of a Mahdist movement in Adamawa was conducted
in 1911 by the German authorities against the supporters of Malam Jime (‘Goni
Waday’).
212 Special Studies
diminishing, have rather been aggravated by recent changes and
where those whom the tensions affect are always ready to pin
their hopes with great confidence on the man who will, in his
turn, assume the role of the Mahdi and show himself willing to
accomplish the tasks expected of him.
 IX. THE JIHAD OF SHEHU DAN FODIO:
SOME PROBLEMS

M. G. SMITH

Among universalistic religions, Islam is distinguished by its

emphasis on war as a means of spreading the Faith. Where likely
to succeed, such war is a duty for the Faithful, and it was largely
due to the zealous prosecution of this profitable duty by its
adherents that Islam spread as far and fast as it did. During the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Western Sudan ex-
perienced a succession of these jihads. Beginning in 1725 at Futa
Toro, this wave of militant Islam was halted only by the French
occupation. T’he leaders of all these recent West African jihads
were Torodbe clerics from Futa Toro, who are usually classed
as Fulani. Perhaps the most successful of these Torodbe jihads
was that which Shehu Usumanu dan Fodio (also called Shaikh
‘Uthman ibn Fodiye) launched against the Hausa chiefs of
Gobir, Kano, Katsina, Zaria, Daura, their allies and congeners, in
1804. In six years of hard fighting the Shehu’s followers overran
these ancient states and passed beyond to carve out new chief-
doms in areas where no states had previously existed. Thereafter
the north-western segment of what is now Nigeria has remained
under the control of the Shehu’s successors and their lieutenants.
This dar al-Islam has been ruled mainly by Fulani Muslims.
By 1840 it extended from Adamawa in the North Cameroons to
Illo on the Niger, from Adar in the North to Ilorin on the borders
of Yorubaland.
Assessments of this jihad have always varied. According to
J. S. Trimingham, dan Fodio ‘from 1786 preached the jihad
in such a way that it became a racial as well as a religious war;
(it)... differs from the other jihads on account of the number of
nomads who joined in’.? For S. J. Hogben:
* Levy, 1957, P- 254:
2 Trimingham, 1962, p. 162.
214 Special Studies
Religion was often made the pretext for the acquisition of worldly
power. ... [The jihad] had as its confessed object the purification of the
Muslim religion, and it was directed against the corrupt rulers of Hausaland,
who had been supposedly oppressing or ignoring the rights of their Muslim
subjects. In reality, it was originally a national fight of the Fulani, both
Muslim and pagan, against the forces of Yunfa, the king of Gobir, who had
decreed their extermination. Only after the victory, when the pagan Fulani,
who had borne more than their full share in order to achieve it, had retired
to their flocks and herds, did the malams who had been the leaders, exploit
the opportunity under the cloak of religion to oust the native rulers and put
themselves into their places, with Usuman dan Fodio at their head. Hence-
forth the movement was no longer confined to a particular race; yet from its
very nature it appealed more strongly to the fanatical and more highly-
strung element in the Fulani clans.®
For W. F. Gowers, on the other hand:
The jihad was the raising of the standard of revolt by Othman dan Fodio
against the tyranny of the non-Moslem rulers of Gobir, in defence of his
co-religionists, whether Hausa or Fulani. It was not in any sense a conquest
of the Hausa race by the Fulani; indeed, the Hausa adherents of Othman were
probably as numerous as his Fulani followers. Even the leaders were not,
strictly speaking, Fulanis. The Torabbe or Toronkawa (the tribe from which
Shehu dan Fodio came) owe their origin to a mixture of the Jolof...
element. They are blacker in colour than most Fulanis... they originally
spoke the Wa-Kore language and are connected with the Suleibawa, who,
like the Torabbe, are not Fulani—if there is any such thing as a pure Fulani
race.*
Trimingham observes that Torodbe or Tokolor and Suleibawa
are ‘regarded as rimbe, assimilated free groups, but not as Fulbe
proper’.®
Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto, the late Premier of
Northern Nigeria and a descendant of Shehu dan Fodio, has
recently affirmed the ‘official’ Fulani view.
The Shehu Usumanu was a Fulani leader... a great preacher and man
of the utmost piety . . . he was among a people who were nominally Muham-
madan;. . . the religion had become very corrupt, and many pagan practices
had crept in and had taken firm hold even in the highest quarters. The Shehu
Usuman declared a Holy War against the polluters of the Faith. In 1804 he
started by attacking the Chief of Gobir, one of the worst offenders, in whose
3 Hogben, 1930, p, 73. + Gowers, 1921, p. 10.
> Trimingham, op. cit., p. 195, note 2; see also Arnett, 1922, pp. 137-9.
 The Jihad of Shehu Dan Fodio — 215
territory he was living... Meanwhile, to cleanse the religion, the Shehu
had organised revolts in allthe great Fan states; the Fulani living in them
rose and overthrew the Hausa kings. The Sheba appointed new rulers,
either from among the victorious generals, or from among otheriimportant
Fulani.®
There are also other popular interpretations, radical and dissident.
In one view the jihad was a political revolution against oppression
and misrule; in another it was a cloak for racial conquest and
Peer iets
These differing interpretations raise some important problems
which can only be treated allusively here. As Trimingham ob-
serves, ‘the history of the jihad of ‘Uthman dan Fodio and of the
Fulani states has yet to be written’.” Until this is done, and perhaps
even afterwards, it may be wiser to suspend judgement between
these conflicting views. They are in any case fully intelligible only
in context. The late Sardauna saw himself as heir and custodian of
a great and vital tradition derived from Shehu Usumanu. In 1959
those young Muslims who stressed the radical view of Shehu’s
jthad also advocated radical reforms in the Emirates of Northern
Nigeria which were founded by this jihad. Others, with a dissi-
dent view of the jthad, preferred the wholesale elimination of the
old régime and of the traditional Fulani ruling stratum. As we
have seen, assessments of the Shehu’s jihad made by British
administrators who have worked in this area are very similar to
these Nigerian views. Such divergent opinions might well
reflect differing personal appraisals of the Fulani performance as
a ruling stratum, since the jzhad, and especially during this century.
Despite such contextualization, these differing viewpoints
present important problems. Together, they obstruct and might
well deny that an impartial historical account of these events is
possible; yet the viewpoints are so opposed that instinctively
one suspects the truth—that is, the historical reality of the
jthad—to lie somewhere in between. What remains problematic is
whether such ‘historical truth’ can be discovered at this stage,
or would get a fair hearing if it were. Clearly, an individual’s
6 Ahmadu Bello, 1962, pp. 10-11.
7 Trimingham, 1962, p. 195, note 1. [But now see, e.g., M. Last, The Sokoto
Caliphate, 1967; M. Hiskett, The Sword of Truth, 1973—ed.]
216 Special Studies
view of this jihad is closely related to his ideological preference
and his personal experience of recent Fulani administration.
Traditionalists, Muslim or British, have tended to see the jihad
as a genuine attempt to purify and spread Islam in this region.
While admitting many subsequent lapses by its supporters and
custodians, they argue thatits historical effect was overwhelmingly
beneficent in various ways; and that fairly moderate reforms,
which will preserve and realize the spirit and aims of the jihad
more effectively, are all that is necessary. Radicals and dissidents,
who view the jihad as a revolutionary or imperialist war, derive
quite different consequences which correspond with their ideo-
logy and personal experience. The British parallels to these
Nigerian views strongly suggest that political involvement in
North Nigerian affairs underlies all these conflicting interpreta-
tions. If so, this also seems to reduce the likelihood of an impartial
historical account and assessment of the jihad, since this pre-
supposes such knowledge and experience of the area that some
sense of personal commitment is likely. Indeed, it may be un-
avoidable, since the jihad, whatever its merits or demerits, has
had a decisive political impact on the region, and still exercises
a predominant influence on current policy.
It is clearly unsound to seek an understanding of the course
of this struggle, or the motives of its actors, in events which
occurred long after the conflict had ended, but one suspects this
retrospective interpretation to be rather common. Since the
events of 1804-10 are fundamental to the present political order,
there is scant hope that they will escape such ideological inter-
pretation, or even that their presentation will proceed unaffected
by political considerations, future and present as well as past.
There is no doubt that the ruling Fulani, particularly in Sokoto
Province, have actively nourished and reinterpreted the memory
of this jihad, and especially the charisma of Shehu dan Fodio, in
ways politically serviceable to their rule. The Shehu’s books and
writings, some of which might well be politically explosive, even
today, have long been difficult. for commoners and subjects,
especially Habe, to come by. In their new independence and
Federal political context the Northern rulers might now see fit
 The Jihad of Shehu Dan Fodio 217
to distribute these widely. Early British administrators, such as
H. G. Harris, F. Edgar, Major Burdon, E. J. Arnett, and Sir
H. R. Palmer, had access to various writings of primarily his-
torical interest, such as Taz yin al-waragat, by ‘Abdullahi dan
Fodio, the Tandih al-ikhwan, by Shehu Usumanu, and the
Infag al-maysur by Sultan Mamman Bello. The great majority
of free subjects in the Fulani empire were illiterate, and may hardly
have known these titles, much less their contents. As late as 1959,
Hausa Arabists in Northern Nigeria were surprised to learn
of Shehu Usumanu’s Kitab al-farg and Bayan wujub al-hijra
‘ala al-‘ibad. Yet it is clear from internal evidence that the Shehu
intended these books for a wide public. No accurate assessment of
Usumanu’s jihad can ignore these critical documents. As political
testaments, they rank with Lugard’s Political Memoranda.
A further problem which these conflicting viewpoints raise
concerns the nature of this jihad and of the jihad as a general
form of Islamic expansion. Jihads fall into two main classes:
revolts by Muslims against their non-Muslim rulers; and attacks
by Muslims organized in autonomous political units against non-
Muslims. The historically notable jihads are those which suc-
ceeded; but providing that other conditions are fulfilled, unsuccess-
ful attacks might well be included.
The character of the Fulani jihad of Northern Nigeria is
disputed mainly because it was launched against rulers who
claimed to be Muslim, although undoubtedly lax in their ob-
servances. As the Sardauna put it, ‘the Shehu Usumanu declared
a Holy War against the polluters of the Faith’; that is, an armed
rebellion aimed at enforcing correct observance of Islamic ritual
and law. Much of the debate about the legitimacy of this jihad
derives from the fact that it was a revolt against chiefs who were
formally Muslim.
This problem receives extensive treatment in Shehu Usumanu’s
Bayan wujub al-hijra, especially section 1, 4-6, 12, 16,31, 46-7.
Citing a wide range of Muslim authorities, Koranic texts and
traditions, the Shehu carefully distinguishes the various con-
texts in which jihad is obligatory or unlawful, and the rules which
regulate it. He begins by discussing the obligation of Agjra—
218 Special Studies
that is, for Muslims to withdraw from the lands of the heathen.
Except for the physically disabled, this obligation is shown to be
unconditional. Shehu argues that:
Withdrawal from the towns of the heathen is an essential duty, both in the
Koran and the Traditions, and in the consensus of the learned... . Now the
capital cities of the Sudan are included in the towns of the ecient
these cities fall into three classes... In one class of these towns, cheinien
predominates and Islam is very yea; for instance... Mossi, Gurma,
Bussa, Borgu, Dagomba, Yoruba... Bee Gombe... . . The rules of these
countries are all heathen, and so too... their subjects. ... Another class
of towns are those in which Islam is dominant and there is little paganism;
but the countries of Bornu, Kano, Katsina, Songhai and Malle, as Ahmed
Baba shows, ... all these are heathen states without any doubt, since the
chiefs . . . are heathens like the first group, although they practise religion
of Islam, because they are polytheists also. They have obstructed the way
of Islam, and have put worldly standards before the Faith. In the view of all
the ‘ulama, all this is simply heathen.®
With these arguments, Shehu justifies his flight of 21 February
1804 from Degel in Gobir territory to Gudu near Kwonni just
over the boundary, and also his summons to other Muslims to
withdraw from the (heathen) Hausa states. In the J/nfag al-
maysur, Sultan Mamman Bello, the Shehu’s son and successor,
devotes more space to the documentation of heathen practices
among the rulers of Hausaland and Bornu, and also reproduces
the correspondence between the Shehu and himself, on the one
hand, and the Shaikh Alhaji Aminu al-Kanemi, who defended
Bornu, concerning this charge of heathenism and the counter-
charge of an illegitimate ‘j7had’ on the other.®
The charge of heathenism seems crucial to the legitimacy of
this jzhad, since the general weight of Muslim authorities prohibits
rebellions against unjust or tyrannous chiefs, provided they
observe Islam. The Shehu writes that:
The Prophet said... ‘he who obeys my Representative undoubtedly
obeys me also; he who disobeys my Representative undoubtedly disobeys
me also’. . . Subki says ‘it is unlawful to withdraw allegiance from the ruler.
All agree on this if the ruler is righteous, and even when he is not righteous
this is the better opinion, that is, unless he becomes a heretic (muntazil).’
8 Smith and Kumasi, 1959, Section r.
° Arnett, op. cit., pp. 6-8, 21, 24-26, 47-48, and 99-120.
 Lhe Jihad of Shehu Dan Fodio 219
Ahmadu Zaruk says . . . ‘It is forbidden to withdraw allegiance from aruler,
either in speech or in deed, and this consensus extends to praying under all
rulers and their officials, good and bad alike.’1°
For the classification of heathen, the Shehu relies on Muhammad
al-Maghili’s Epistle to the Askia:
There are three classes of heathen; first those who are clearly heathen
by descent;... second... the man who has been a Muslim, and then
openly apostasized, returning to heathendom and abafdoning Islam. His
apostasy is quite open and he declares it with his own mouth;.. . third,
there is the one who claims he is a Muslim while we for our part classify
him as a heathen because that which does not occur apart from heathenism
occurs with him openly.4
It was the substance of Shehu’s and Bello’s charges that the Hausa
rulers of their day fell into this third category; that for this reason
the withdrawal of Muslims from their kingdoms was obligatory,
since ‘the Prophet said . . . “he who associates with the heathen or
lives with them is just like them” ’;!2 and thus, that a Holy War
against them was obligatory as well as legitimate.
Besides the evidence which Shehu and Mamman Bello cite
themselves, observations by Landeroin in the Hausa successor-
states of Tsibiri (Gobir), Maradi, and Tasawa (Katsina), and
the recent account of Abuja, to which the Zaria Hausa retired,
tend to support this charge of heathenism, while emphasizing
that the Hausa rulers were formally Muslim.1*
Shehu argues also that:
Holy War becomes obligatory under three conditions. Firstly, on the
orders of the (Muslim) ruler . . . Secondly, if the enemy launch a sudden
attack on Muslim territory ... Thirdly, to rescue captured Muslims from
the hands of the heathen.14

The relevance of these doctrinal points is shown by the follow-

ing outline of events which precipitated the jihad of 1804. For
some years previously an uneasy situation had prevailed in the
dominions of Gobir, where Shehu lived and taught, and where
there were also many Fulani, some Muslim and sedentary, others
10 Smith and Kumasi, op. cit., Section 6. 11 Tbid., Section 46.
12 Thid., Section 1. 13 Mission Tilho, 1906-9, vol. 2, pp. 528-37.
14 Smith and Kumasi, op. cit., Section 13.
220 Special Studies
pagan and nomad. Some time around 1802 the Sarkin (Chief of)
Gobir, Nafata, proclaimed that no one should be a Muslim unless
his father had been one; and that without permission no man
could wear a turban nor any woman a veil.!® Bello says, ‘Nothing
. . caused us so much fear as this proclamation.’1® When Shehu
‘saw the number of his assemblies and their desire to withdraw
from the infidels and to begin the jihad, he began to urge them to
prepare weapons for one year; and we set to to prepare it’.1”
Nafata died shortly after, and was succeeded by Yunfa, who
pressed the anti-Muslim policy. In December 1803, at the request
of his officials, Yunfa sent a force against a group of Arewa
watriors who had accepted Shehu’s teaching and leadership,
under their head, ‘Abdusallami. Following Nafata’s proclamation
and Gobir harassments, these non-Fulani converts had already
withdrawn from Gobir territory to Gimbana, a site in the Kebbi
chiefdom from which they originally came. They were ordered
by Yunfa to return to Gobir, but refused unless the Shehu
expressly required this. Gimbana was then overrun by Yunfa’s
troops during the Fast of Ramadan; its surviving occupants were
captured and escorted towards Alkalawa, the capital of Gobir.
‘Abdusallami, the Gimbana leader, escaped with some of his
closest aides to a Fulani settlement near by.
The Sheikh ordered them (the Fulani) not to deliver him (Abdusallami)
up to his enemy, and the enemy sent to them saying ‘Hand over to us the
remnant of the Muslim fugitives.’ But the enemy was afraid to prove them
and matters were adjusted for them, so they (the pursuers) returned, and
as they returned they passed by the settlement of the Sheikh (at Degel); and
they (the Gobirawa) began to mock at the Muslims and say ‘You are the
only ones left and you shall see us again soon.’ And our foolish ones opposed
them and took from them some of the treasures (booty from Gimbana) and
let them (the Gimbana captives) go. The Gobir people fled. And when
news of this reached their chief, he sent word to the Sheikh, ‘Come out,
thou and thy sons and thy brethren, from the village, for I propose to make
an attack on the rest.’ And the Sheikh made him refrain until he had emigrated
with his company; and he fled from out of their country to a district called
Gudu, and he bade the Muslims flee from the land of the infidels to the region
to which he had removed. So the people emigrated to him steadily, until

15 Arnett, op. cit., p. 105. 18 Ibid., p. 48. !” Harris, n.d. (a); Hiskett, 1963, p. 105.
 The Jihad of Shehu Dan Fodio 221
the infidels prevented the Muslims from further emigration, and his followers
swore allegiance to the Sheikh on the Koran and the Law.!8

The Sarkin Gobir then sent a messenger to recall Shehu. Even

before the Shehu’s messenger could set out with his reply to
Alkalawa:
When the Sarkin Gobir blocked the roads to those who were fleeing to
us, our people rose up on a Thursday and fell upon the Sudanese who were
in the district and slew and captured and plundered and caught slaves. When
God brought us to Friday, Shehu rose up and preached to his people. He
commanded them to release those whom they had captured and to restore
what they had taken away. Thereupon they released their captives and re-
stored the property they had taken. It also happened before the journey of
our messenger that the chiefs of Gobir were making war on us and harry-
ing us. They were expelling our people and making captives of them.
Shehu protested against this.19

While the Shehu’s emissary to Yunfa was at Alkalawa, a force of

Gobir horsemen attacked. The Shehu’s followers defeated them
at Matankare. The Shehu was also attacked three times by the
chief of Kwonni near Gudu.?° By then the situation was quite
out of hand and war was inevitable. ‘The prince of Gobir (with
Tuareg allies) came out against us and met us ina place called
(Tabkin) Kwotto, and God routed them.’?! This was in June 1804.
To celebrate the victory the Shehu’s brother, ‘Abdullahi, wrote
a poem in which he says:
Now the different races among us Mohammedans were first the Toron-
kawa (Torodbe): they are our kindred; then our Fulani and our Hausas.
There were also some of other races who assembled and aided us in the ser-
vice of God.”*

In July 1804 the Shehu withdrew from Gudu to Nagabci and

wrote circular letters to ‘the chiefs of Sudan’ relating the cause
and course of his dispute with the chief of Gobir, enjoining their
observance of Islam and its Law, and calling on them to assist
him against Gobir, or at least to desist from assisting Gobir.”
The Sarkin Gobir also
18 Harris, n.d. (4). 19 Arnett, op. cit., p. 52.
20 Mission Tilho..., vol. 2, pp. 473-4, 485-6.
21 Harris, n.d. (6). 22 Arnett, op. cit., p. 58. 23 Thid., pp. 62-63.
oa, Special Studies
sent messages to his brother chiefs, the Sarkin Katsina, the Sarkin Kano,
Sarkin Zazzau, Sarkin Daura, and Sarkin Adar. He informed them that he
had left a small fire in his country and it had grown until... now it had
burnt him. He warned them to be careful lest a fire like this burnt them also.
Thereupon each one of them rose up and attacked all those who allied
themselves with Shehu; they slew them and captured them. They (Shehu’s
supporters) fled and took refuge in certain towns ... till they became very
numerous. Then they rose up, and in self-defence drove away the forces
sent against them.4

This is Bello’s version of the way the conflict spread; but when
the chief of Gobir received help from other Hausa chiefs as well
as the Tuareg, the Shehu also organized this general revolt. In
this way the conflict spread from Gobir throughout and beyond
Hausaland. This general spread was perhaps inevitable, but so
were the alignments and composition of the opposing groups.
Some Fulani assisted the Hausa chiefs openly; others secretly;
others remained neutral, and yet other Fulani groups sought to
assist both parties in order to profit, whichever won.” But in
most areas.as well as Katsina ‘some of their Fulani kindred (the
non-Muslim nomads) joined our folk, the followers of the Faith’.®
From Futa Toro, Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti, the Qadiriyya suf,
sent others, Fulani and Torodbe, to swell the Shehu’s jthad.
Probably most Fulani who engaged in the struggle sided with
dan Fodio’s party irrespective of faith. For generations the
nomads had suffered oppression and contumely from the Hausa
rulers, and they had old scores to repay.?’ They were also tempted
by the prospects of plunder and politically privileged positions,
such as they received in eastern Katsina in return for their
support. With only one known exception, the Chief of Zaria, the
Hausa rulers uniformly declared against the Shehu and his
followers and tried to help one another in certain campaigns,
without much effect. In Bornu the Alhaji Shaikh Aminu, to
whom this state owed its continued independence, like the nomad
Fulani and Hausa warriors, took the side of the Kanuri ethnic
group nearest his own Kanembu. The opposition between Mus-
lims and non-Muslims was thus confused from the very start of
24 Arnett, Op. Cit., p. 105. 25 Smith, 1958-59.
26 Arnett, Op. cit., ps 77. 27 Smith, op. cit.
 The Jihad of Shehu Dan Fodio — 223
the conflict by other ties and alignments, such as kinship, ethnic
identity, secular political resentments and loyalties, calculations
of advantage, communal solidarities and antagonisms, etc.
Given this coalescence of very diverse interests among their
followers, the control exercised by leaders on either side was un-
certain and incomplete. As can be seen from the events just related,
the initial conflicts developed inevitably, but were not under the
direction of Yunfa or Shehu. Party followers ’took matters into
their own hands. The Shehu’s chief lieutenants, his brother
‘Abdullahi and his son Bello, exercised a tenuous control over their
undisciplined warriors.?8 In Kano, Katsina, and Zazzau the Shehu’s
supporters disputed precedence and political claims with one
another, even before the struggle was over, and often to their
adversaries’ advantage.
Especially in Western Hausaland, there was a large and widely
dispersed Fulani population, pastoral nomads being non-Muslim,
the sedentary Fulani mainly Muslim. Both divisions were for
different reasons dissatisfied with their lot under the Hausa chiefs;
before the Shehu’s jihad there had been a number of clashes
between Fulani and Hausa throughout this area from Zaria to
Zamfara. The processes of polarization brought to a head by the
Shehu’s declaration of jihad would probably have generated
conflicts, even without this; but when Shehu and Yunfa came to
blows these latent hostilities and cleavages between Muslim and
heathen, pastoralist and farmer, immigrant and native people,
Fulani and Hausa, all poured themselves into this conflict, with
the result that the critical principles for which the Shehu stood
were often obscured. Perhaps it was his recognition of the need
to clarify this situation, and to regulate conduct according to
Islam, that led the Shehu to devote himself to writing political
and religious tracts such as the Kitab al-farg and the Bayan
wiujub al-hijra, for the guidance and enlightenment of his
followers. Moreover, once this conflict had come to a head at
Tabkin Kwotto, it could not be localized within a single Hausa
state; inevitably it spread to the limits of the social field in which
this combination of forces and cleavages was general. For the
28 Arnett, op. cit., pp. 53, 77-8, 82, 107; see also Whitting, n.d., p. 4.
224 Special Studies
Muslim leaders, this multiplied the problems of directing and
regulating their jihad in accord with the rules of religion and of
good policy. But perhaps this need to pursue political advantage
while observing the Law and religion is a general feature of all
those jihads which originate as revolts against ‘heathen’ rulers.
The results are always liable to differing interpretations. Where
religious scruples obstruct effective political action, the jihad
will normally fail; where political action of a secular, instrumental
type disguises its nature under religious banners, its religious
claims are easily discredited; but no one who has studied the
Shehu’s writings or life can doubt his primary religious commit-
ment. His jihad was successful through a skilful combination of
religious and political factors; yet it is precisely this combination
which lends it an ambiguous character. As I have tried to show,
the Shehu and his closest supporters, having identified them-
selves as the focus of opposition to Gobir government, were very
largely governed by the circumstances of their situation and had
to adjust, within the limits their religion permitted, to its re-
quirements. This pattern is a general characteristic of Islam, en-
shrined in the doctrine of yma‘, by which consensus legitimates
necessary changes. As Weber pointed out, Islam is one of the very
few major religions which has a practical orientation to the
affairs of this world, ‘an essentially political character’,?® as seen
in the injunction of jzhad. The ambiguous character of Shehu dan
Fodio’s jihad derives from the ambiguous character of jihad
itself.

REFERENCES

Ahmadu Bello, Alhaji Sir,

(1962) My Life. Cambridge.
Arnett, E. J.
(1922) The Rise of the Sokoto Fulani, being a paraphrase and in some parts a
translation of the Infaku‘l Maisuri of Sultan Mohammed Bello. Kano.
Gowers, W. F.
(1921) Gazetteer of Kano Province. London: Waterlow.
Harris, H. G.
(n.d.(a)) A Précis and Translation of the Tazyin al-warakat, by ‘Abdullahi
dan Fodio, first Sarkin Gwandu. (Unpublished.)
29 Weber, 1963, p. 263.
 The Jihad of Shehu Dan Fodio 225
(n.d.(4)) A History of the Rebellion of Abdusallami, being a translation of
the Sardu‘l Kalami by Sultan Muhammad Bello. (Unpublished.)
Heath, F.
(1952) A Chronicle of Abuja, being a translation of Hassan and Shu'‘aibu:
Makau, Sarkin Zazzau na Habe, and Tarihi de Al‘adun Habe na Abuja.
Ibadan University Press.
Hiskett, M. (1963) Tazyin al-waragat by Abdullah Ibn Muhammad. Ibadan
University Press.
Hogben S. F.
(1930) The Muhammadan Emirates of Nigeria. Oxford.
Levy, Reuben 4

(1957) The Social Structure of Islam. Cambridge.

Mission Tilho...
(1906-9) Documents Scientifiques de la Mission Tilho, 1906-1909. Paris.
(Ministére des Colonies, République Frangaise, 1911.)
Smith, M. G.
(1958-59) Field Notes.
Smith, M. G. and Kumasi, M. Muntaka
(1959) An Account of the Obligations of Withdrawal, being a translation of
the Bayan Wujub al-Hijra alal Ibad of Shehu Usumanu dan Fodio. (Un-
published.)
Trimingham, J. Spencer
(1962) A History of Islam in West Africa. London.
Weber, Max
(1963) The Sociology of Religion, transl. Ephraim Fischoff. Boston: Beacon Press.
Whitting, E. J.
(n.d.) History of Sokoto, being a translation of the Tadhkiratu ‘Inisian by Hajji
Sa‘id. Kano: Ife-Olu Printing Works.
 X. THE SUDANESE MAHDIYYA
AND THE NIGER-CHAD REGION

SABURI BIOBAKU and MUHAMMAD AL-HAJJ

The idea of the ‘expected Mahdi’ or the ‘awaited deliverer’, who

will appear at the end of time and ‘fill the earth with equity and
justice after it has been filled with tyranny and oppression’, is
well known in the history of Islam. Nevertheless, it may be worth-
while to begin this paper with a brief account on the origins and
historical development of Mahdism.
The term Mahdi (the guided one) occurs neither in the Quran
nor in the Prophetic traditions of Muslim and Al-Bukhari which
had been acclaimed as authoritative by the consensus of the
Muslim community. It does occur, however, in other traditions of
doubtful authenticity, ie. Ibn Maja, Al-Tirmidhi, Abu Da’ud,
and others. In these traditions the Mahdi is described as a de-
scendant of the Prophet who will appear at the end of time and
rule the world with equity and justice, ie. “The world shall not
pass away until my nation be governed by one of my house whose
name agrees with mine.’! A number of early Muslim scholars
have questioned the authenticity of such traditions and rejected
the idea of a Mahdi as false and unsupported by either the Quran
or the Sunna.* Nevertheless, the idea developed into a popular
belief which has been held with great tenacity up to the present
day. During times of religious degeneration or political up-
heaval, a devout person may assume the office of the ‘expected
Mahdi’ and take upon himself the duty of rectifying the Faith
and re-organizing the State by force of arms if necessary. In-
stances of such manifestations are numerous in the history of
Islam.
The historical origins of Mahdism could be sought in the civil
wars which followed the death of ‘Uthman, the third Caliph
1 Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. VIII, p. 336.
* Ibn Khaldun, 1958, vol. II, p. 725.
 The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-Chad Region 227
(644-55). It appears that the perturbed condition of Islam at the
time led the Muslim Community to look forward to a saviour
similar to the ‘expected Messiah’ of the Jews and the Christians.
The idea was first adopted by the Shi‘a when their hopes for suc-
cession to the Caliphate were shattered by the Umayyad supre-
macy. It was soon, however, absorbed by the Sunnites as well.
The main point of difference between the Shi‘as and the Sunnis
as to the idea of the Mahdi is that among the former it is an
article of faith, while among the latter it is little more than a
popular notion. Again, to the Shi‘as, the Mahdi is equated with the
‘hidden imam’ who is absolute and infallible and whose return
(raj‘a) is awaited to restore the leadership of the Muslim Com-
munity to the “4Al al-Bayr’ (the Prophet’s house). To the Sunnis,
on the other hand, the Mahdi is simply areformer who will restore
the Faith to its original purity of the early days as it had been
during the times of ‘al-Khulafa‘ al-Rashidun’ (the ‘Four Rightly
Guided Caliphs’).
For the purposes of this paper, we need not be detained by the
Shi‘a concept of the Mahdi, since there is no evidence of any
connexion between Shi‘ism and Islam in the Sudan or the Niger-
Chad region.3 The purpose of this paper is to discuss the inter-
relation between the reformist movements in the Niger—Chad
region in the early years of the nineteenth century and the
Sudanese Mahdia at the close of the century. We will attempt to
show that the Fulani jzhads* gave rise to the Sudanese Mahdia® and
that the latter sought support and expansion (outside the Sudan)
mainly in the Niger—Chad region.
3 The term ‘the Sudan’ refers to the ‘Nile-Sudan’ or the present ‘Republic of
the Sudan’ as distinct from the larger Sudan of the Medieval Arab geographers.
“The Niger—Chad region’ refers to the Savannah Land of West Africa extending
from Darfur westwards through the old kingdoms of Wadai, Bagirmi, Bornu
(Kanem), the Hausa states, Melle, and so on up to the Atlantic.
4 The Fulani jihads of the nineteenth century are connected with the names
of Shehu Usuman dan Fodio (d. 1817) in the Hausa states; Seku Ahmadu
(d. 1843) in Masina; and al-Hajj ‘Umar (d. 1864) in the Bambara states of Nioro
and Segu. For a brief account, see Smith, 1961, pp. 169f.
5 Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi rose against the Turko-Egyptian régime in
the Sudan in 1881. He achieved enormous victories, and by 1885 the Egyptian
régime virtually ended after the death of General Gordon. The Mahdi himself
soon died and was succeeded by the Khalifa ‘Abdullahi who ruled the Sudan
until he was defeated and killed by Lord Kitchener in 1898. See Holt, 1958a.
228 Special Studies
The major movement among the Fulani jihads was that under
the leadership of Shehu Usuman dan Fodio. In 1804 the Shehu
called for a jihad against the Hausa state of Gobir. This was soon
followed by local Fulani risings throughout Hausaland and
Bornu. By 1831 the Fulani succeeded in establishing an Empire
comprising: ‘Some fifteen Muslim emirates controlling a total
area of some 180,000 square miles, ‘and owing allegiance to an
“amir al-mu’minin’’ in the newly founded town of Sokoto.’é
The most effective resistance against the Fulani came from Bornu
under the leadership of Shaikh Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi,
who was himself a learned Muslim reformer, but he could not
see any justification for the Fulani jihad besides political ambi-
tion. The Sokoto Empire, however, included parts of Bornu
and managed to survive until the British occupation in 1902-3.
The influence of the Sokoto Empire on the rise of the Sudanese
Mahdia was mainly intellectual. The leaders of the Fulani jihad,
Shehu Usuman, his brother ‘Abdullahi, and his son Muhammad
Bello, were well read in Arabic literature, and they all possessed
a vast knowledge of the classical Islamic sciences. This learning
showed itself in their writings, which reached the total of ‘258
books and pamphlets’.? Among this literary output we find
extensive material dealing with the subject of the ‘expected
Mahdi’.8
In his book Tahdhir al-ikhwan, the Shehu says:
know, O my Brethren, that I am not the imam al-Mahdi, and that I never
claimed the Mahdtyya—even though that is heard from the tongues of other
people. Indeed, I have striven beyond measure in warning them to desist
from that, and declared its refutation in some of my writings, both in
Arabic and ‘Ajami.°

The Shehu, then, declined the office of Mahdi in the most

emphatic terms, though it was widely believed that he was the
6 Smith, op. cit., p. 175. ? Tbid., p. 176.
® For example: Shehu Usuman, al-Mahdi fil-muntazar; Tahdhir al-ikhwan
min Viddi‘a’ al-mahdiyya al-mau‘uda akhir al-zaman (Arabic MSS., Ibadan
‘University Library); Muhammad Bello, a/-gawl al-mukhtasar fi amr al-imam
al-muntazar (Sokoto Native Authority Collection—Divisional Library).
* Tahdhir al-ikhwan, op. cit., fol. 2. ‘Ajami is the vernacular language: in
this case, Fulani and probably Hausa.
 The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-Chad Region 229
‘awaited deliverer’. He argued that he did not fulfil the require-
ments of the office as described in the classical Islamic traditions.
First, the Mahdi should be a descendant of Fatima, the Prophet’s
daughter, and the Shehu had no claim to such pedigree. Secondly,
the Mahdi should be born at Medina while the Shehu was born
at Marata in ‘Bilad al-Sudan’10
But while the Shehu refused to assume the office himself, he
contributed to the current prophecies regarding the appearance
of the expected Mahdi. Muhammad Bello relates the following:
The Shehu sent me to all his followers in the east among the people of
Zanfara, Katsina, Kano and Daura.... I conveyed to them his good
tidings about the approaching appearance of the Mahdi, that the Shehu’s
followers are his vanguard and that this Jihad will not end, by God’s permis-
sion, until it gets to the Mahdi. They listened and welcomed the good
news.
It is clear, then, that as early as the Shehuw’s life-time (d. 1817)
there was a strong tradition about the approaching end of time
preceded by the Mahdi’s appearance. Manifestations of Mahdism
appeared here and there in the Niger—-Chad region, but it seems
that none of the claimants succeeded. We are told of a certain
Hamma who proclaimed himself Mahdi among the Taureg in
1813 and gained some success before he was defeated and cruci-
fied by the Shehu’s orders.!2 The fact remains, however, that the
Shehu’s statement linking the Fulani jihad with the Mahdi’s
appearance had inspired prophecies, written and oral, about the
appointed day. Classical books of Islamic eschatology were
extensively read and copiously quoted by the Shehu’s companions,
and their successors, in their literary output about Mahdism.!8
The central point in these prophecies is that the Mahdi will
appear in the East, and that his advent will be preceded by a
period of drought, civil strife, and general turmoil in the Maghrib
10 Tahdhir al-ikhwan, op. cit., fol. 2.
11 Infaq al-maysur (Arabic MS., Ibadan University Library, uncatalogued),
fol. 129; Whitting’s edition, pp. 104~5.
™ Tahdhir al-ikhwan, op. cit., fol. 3; see also, ‘Abd al-Qadir b. Mustafa,
Akhbar al-bilad al-Hausiyya (Ibadan Arabic MS. 82/18), fol. 10.
18 Muhammad Bello, Tanbih al-‘Afham ‘ala anna ’l-mahdi huwa l-khitam
(mentioned by Gidado in al-Kashf wa’l bayan). Khidir b. Jibril al-Fallati,
Muntakhab al-kalamfi ‘amr al-mahdi al-imam (Kano N. A. Collection).
230 Special Studies
and the Niger—Chad region. The outcome would be the migra-
tion of hordes of people from the Maghrib and the Niger—
Chad region to the ‘Nile and Makka’. As early as the time of
amir al-mu‘minin’ Abu Bakar Atiku (1837-42)—probably owing
to the perturbed conditions within the Sokoto Empire—a number
of people started to migrate from Hausaland to the Nile valley
in anticipation of meeting the ‘expected Mahdi’. This created so
much unrest and agitation that the Sultan had to issue proclama-
tions declaring that the time of the exodus had not yet come,
‘since there is still some good remaining among us’.1* It appears,
however, that the unrest continued throughout the second half
of the nineteenth century, causing the migration of many people
from the Sokoto Empire to the Sudan and Hijaz.
At this juncture‘we may turn to discuss the early contacts
between the Niger-Chad region and the Sudan. The distinction
between the two regions is, of course, modern, because to the
early Arab geographers, ‘Bilad al-Sudan’ extended from the
Red Sea and the Horn of Africa in the East to the shore of the
Atlantic in the West.) Divisions within this extensive territory
were genealogical and geographical rather than political. We are
concerned here with the Zaghawa group, who seem to have
controlled communications between the Niger-Chad region and
the Sudan. Al-Ya‘qubi says about them:
As for the ‘Sudanese’ who sought the west, they traversed the land and
established many kingdoms. The first of their kingdoms is that of the
Zaghawa who settled at a place which is called Kanem."®

Yaqut’s account runs as follows:

The Kingdom of the Zaghawa is said to be a great kingdom among the
kingdoms of the ‘Sudan’. On their eastern boundary is the kingdom of the
Nubians who are above upper Egypt. Between them there is a distance of
ten days journey. They are many tribes and the length of their land is a
fifteen days journey through habitations and cultivations all the way... .!”

14 Abu Bakar Atiku, Wathiga to the people of Gwando (Arabic Ms. Ibadan,
uncatalogued.)
15 See Al-Mas‘udi, Muruj al-dhahab, Paris edition, vol. III, pp. 1-2.
16 Tarikh, Beirut, 1960, vol. 1, p. 193.
17 Quoted by Oliver and Fage, 1962, p. 47.
 The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-Chad Region 231
Leo Africanus is probably referring to the Zaghawa when he
speaks about ‘Zingani’:
The king of Nubia maintaineth continual warre partly against the people
of Goran (who being descended of the people called Zingani, inhabite the
deserts and speak a kind of language that no nation understandeth) and
partly against certaine other people.!8
It may be reasonable to maintain, from the above quotations,
that during the Middle Ages the Zaghawa dominated all the land
from Lake Chad through Darfur northwards up to the desert.
They controlled the caravan routes to Nubia, Tripoli, and Egypt,
as the statement of Leo Africanus seems to suggest. What is
important, however, is the fact that contacts and communications
between the Niger—Chad region and the Sudan can be traced
back to medieval times and probably farther back to classical
antiquity. As late as the nineteenth century Darfur was considered,
geographically, part of the Niger—Chad region, i.e. Sultan Bello
includes Darfur among Bilad al-Takrur.19 Denham and Clapper-
ton, who visited Bornu between 1822 and 1824, reported a
tradition that Darfur, as well as Wadai, had been ‘at no very
distant period, tributary to the Sultans of Bornu’.?°
Islam became the official religion in Darfur in the sixteenth
century during the reign of Sulayman Solong (1596-1637).
It had a tradition of several centuries in Bornu by that time.
If we therefore consider the long-standing connexion between
the two regions we may say with some degree of probability
that Islam came to Darfur from the West rather than from the
Fast. It is highly probable that Islam was introduced to Darfur
from the Lake Chad region through the annual traffic to Mecca.
The road to Mecca through Darfur has been frequented by
pilgrims from the Chad region from ancient times up to the
present day. It appears that it had been much preferred to the
Trans-Saharan route from the Chad region to Tripoli and Egypt.
This latter route was taken only by those who could afford to
buy or hire a camel for the long journey across the desert.
18 Tne History and Description of Africa, bk. VII, p. 826.
19 Infaq al-maysur, op. cit., fols. 3-4.
20 7826, vol. II, p. 178 (3rd ed.).
232 Special Studies
The majority of pilgrims, however, set out on foot through
Darfur and the eastern Sudan, stopping from one place to an-
other to earn by their labour the necessary provisions to continue
the journey. Burckhardt, who made the journey from the Nile
valley to Hijaz in 1814, gives a detailed description of the
routes followed by these pilgrims through the Sudan.” The major
ones were from Darfur through Kordofan to Sennar and then
either through the interior of Abyssinia to Massawa or through
Shandi to Suakin. He estimated the number of those who
followed the Sennar-Massawa road as between 150 and 200
annually, and those who travelled from Sennar via Shandi to
Suakin as soo annually. A considerable number of the ‘Takruri’
pilgrims used to settle in the Sudan on their return from
Mecca, with the résult that at the present day there are large
settlements, especially in the Gezira, Gadarif, and Kasala.?2
With this rather long digression, we have endeavoured to
establish the constant traffic between the Niger—-Chad region and
the Sudan from the distant past up to the present day. We can
safely assume therefore that much of the Mahdist literature
current in the Niger-Chad region in the nineteenth century
found its way to the Sudan. There is also more direct evidence
to show that the Sudanese Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, was
influenced by ideas from the Niger-Chad region. In the first
place, we know that Muhammad Ahmad did not declare himself
the ‘expected Mahdi’ until his famous meeting with ‘Abdullahi
b. Muhammad (later the Khalifa) at Masallamiya in 1881. Before
this meeting Muhammad Ahmad had already acquired some
fame for his asceticism which enabled him to become head of the
Sammaniyya order. But there is no evidence that he contem-
plated the idea of assuming the office of Mahdi until his meeting
with ‘Abdullahi. Tradition has it that at the first encounter
‘Abdullahi ‘twice swooning at the sight of Muhammad Ahmad,
greeted the latter as the expected Mahdi’. It was not long after
chis meeting before Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed his mission
and declared a jihad.
21 1819, pp. 406-414. 22 See, Isam Hassan, 1952, pp. 60-112.
23 Holt, op. cit., p. 43.
 The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-~Chad Region 24%
Now ‘Abdullahi, who soon became the Mahdi’s right-hand
man and later his successor, came from a family which originated
somewhere in the Niger-Chad region. His great-grandfather,
‘Ali al-Karrar, came from the Niger—Chad region on his way to
Mecca. He, however, settled among the Ta‘aisha in Southern
Darfur and married a local woman. He soon acquired con-
siderable reputation as a holyman, and his amulets and medicines
were widely sought. ‘Abdullahi’s father, Muhammad Adam
(nicknamed Tawr Shayn—‘the ugly bull’), continued the tradition
in the family with much success as well. When his father became
old, ‘Abdullahi succeeded him as soothsayer and diviner among
the Ta‘aisha people. On the authority of his divinations, Ta‘aisha
used to plan warfare and raids. In 1873, when fighting broke
out between Al-Zubayr and the Rizaygat, ‘Abdullahi went and
gave his services to the latter. He was, however, captured and
only escaped execution through the intervention of some holy-
men among Al-Zubayr’s followers. Al-Zubayr granted him
pardon, probably in the hope of making use of his services,
and made him settle at al-Kalaka, south of Nyala. Then ‘Abdullahi
wrote to Al-Zubayr saying:
I saw in a dream that you are the expected Mahdi and I am one of your
followers; so tell me if you are the Mahdi of the Age, so that I may follow
you.4
Al-Zubayr rejected the offer and the correspondence ceased.
‘Abdullahi then left Darfur, accompanied by his father in-
tending to go to pilgrimage. When they reached the territory
of the Jimi‘ people (on the white Nile, north-east of the Nuba
mountains) they were persuaded by their chief, ‘Asakir Abu
Kalam to abandon the idea of pilgrimage and settle there. Here
Muhammad Tawr Shayn died, not before advising his son to seek
out the ‘expected Mahdi’ and help him. It was from here too that
‘Abdullahi proceeded to Masallamiya, where he met Muham-
mad Ahmad and hailed him as the ‘expected Mahdi’, as described
above.
We can hardly doubt therefore that Muhammad Ahmad
assumed the role of the ‘expected Mahdi’ at the invitation of ‘Ab-
Holt; op. cit, pi 44.
234 Special Studies
dullahi. This explains why ‘Abdullahi soon rose to pre-eminence
in the Mahdi’s retinue. He was appointed the ‘Khalifa designate’
in spite of strong protest from the Mahdi’s own kindred, the
Ashraf. His supremacy was absolute, and when it was questioned
the Mahdi issued a proclamation in his favour in the most
emphatic words:
He whom we have mentioned is our Khalifa and his Khilafa is by a com-
mand from the Prophet. Whoever of you believes in God and the last
day and has faith in my Mahdiship, let him submit to the Khalifa ‘Abdullahi,
both outwardly and inwardly. If you see him apparently transgressing in a
matter, leave it to be judged by the knowledge of God and a good inter-
pretation—the Khalifa is the leader of the Muslims and our Khalifa, and
our representative in all matters of Faith. Beware of murmuring against
his right, thinking evil or failing to obey hime 2°
Such, then, was the high position to which ‘Abdullahi, the
faki?® of Darfur, was elevated under the Mahdia. His supremacy
soon brought peoples from Kordofan and Darfur to a position
of leadership, and so it was not long before the Mahdia came to be
known as the régime of ‘westerners’ as distinct from the ‘riverain’
people of the Sudan. In fact, from the beginning the Mahdi
sought support in the west by performing the Ayra to Jabal
Qadir in Kordofan. Later hordes of peoples were transported
from Darfur to the capital, Omdurman, to guard the régime and
protect the Faith. Taking into account the early career of the
Khalifa ‘Abdullahi, his first meeting with the Mahdi, and the
subsequent role played by him and western peoples in the estab-
lishment of the Mahdist State, we can safely maintain therefore
that the Sudanese Mahdia came as a fulfilment of current expec-
tations prevailing in Darfur and the Niger—Chad region at large.
It is significant that immediately after the fall of El Obeid
(January 1883) the Mahdi opened correspondence with the rulers
of the Niger—Chad region demanding recognition and support.??
This created a state of unrest, particularly within Bornu and the
Sokoto Empire.
The Mahdi sent a letter to Shehu Bakr of Bornu (1881-84)
25 Holt, op. cit., extract from pp. 106-7.
26 Baki is the Sudanese version of Fagih (jurist).
27 Holt, 1958b, pp. 276-90.
 The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-Chad Region 233
setting forth his claims.?® The Shehu referred the letter to the
local holymen, who pronounced against the Mahdi’s pretensions,
and consequently no reply was sent back. Mahdism, however,
found its way to Bornu through the conquests of Rabih. This
Rabih was by origin a slave brought up in the family of Al-
Zubayr Pasha. At an early age he showed great military ability,
which placed him as one of the commanders of Al-Zubayr’s army.
When, in 1879, Al-Zubayr was deported to Cairo his son Sulay-
man assisted by Rabih raised a revolt at Bahr al-Ghazal against
the Egyptian régime. They were defeated by Gessi, and Sulay-
man was killed. Rabih collected the remnants of the army and
proceeded towards Bornu through Dar Runga and Bagirmi.
After a host of adventures and constant fighting he crossed the
Shari river and sacked Kukawa, the capital, in 1894. He then
established himself in Dikwa and ruled the whole of Bornu until
1900, when he was defeated and killed by the French.
During the early years of his régime (1882-85) the Mahdi
sought unsuccessfully to communicate with Rabih. But although
Rabih did not answer the Mahdi’s letters, he carried his conquests
in the name of the Mahdia, His army wore the Mahdist uniform,
read the Ratib, and fought under a Mahdist flag. Yet he was more
of a military adventurer than a genuine Mahdist. What is im-
portant, however, is that between 1894 and 1900 Bornu was to all
appearances a Mahdist state.
In the Sokoto Empire the Mahdi found support in the person
of Hayatu b. Sa‘id, a grandson of Sultan Bello. From him the
Mahdi received aletter of glowing devotion:
I and my father and all that belong to me swore allegiance to you before
your manifestation was perceived. ... Shaikh Usuman dan Fodio, recom-
mended us to emigrate to you, to assist you and to help you when you were
made manifest.?®
In recognition of this unqualified support, the Mahdi appointed
Hayatu as his agent and ruler ‘of all the people of Sokoto who
were subjects of your great-grandfather, Usuman dan Fodio’.3°
Proclamations to this effect were sent to Hayatu to distribute to
28 Tomlinson, and Lethem, pt. I, p. 8- 29 Holt, 1958b, p. 286.
30 MS., Sudan Government Archives, Khartoum, Mahdiyya, bk. V, p. 6.
 236 Special Studies
all the ruling emirs of the Sokoto Empire. In the meantime a
certain Muhammad al-Amin Ahmad was appointed as sub-agent
of Melle under Hayatu b. Sa‘id.
Armed with this authority, Hayatu declared a jihad and gained
a large following in Adamawa and the Mandara region. When
Rabih conquered Bornu, Hayatu thought it worthwhile to
attach himself to him. He married Rabih’s daughter, Hawwa,
and the two men continued to wage a jihad in the name of the
Mahdia. It appears, however, that Hayatu soon found himself
completely overshadowed by Rabih, th emilitary man who was
more interested in conquests than in the Mahdist cause. So, when
Rabih was engaged against the French in 1900, Hayatu attempted
to flee from Dikwa, but he was captured and killed by Rabih’s
son Fadlallah. Later, Fadlallah himself was killed by the French at
Gujba.
Thus, Hayatu b. Sa‘id, a member of the ruling Fulani aristoc-
racy, had shaken the solidarity of the Sokoto Empire by accepting
the Sudanese Mahdia and fighting for it. He argued that the
jihad of Usuman dan Fodio had precipitated the Mahdia and that
the Shehu’s prophecy about the appearance of the Mahdi had
~ been fulfilled.34 The Sokoto Sultans, on the other hand, although
recognizing the validity of the Shehu’s prophecy, maintained
that its manifestations had not yet appeared. They held that the
Mahdi’s appearance should be preceded by strife, general disorder,
and complete anarchy, and the Sokoto Empire had not yet
reached that stage of decay.
Later, however, the European occupation was interpreted
as the expected crisis, and there was a general cry to evacuate the
land to the ‘infidels’ and emigrate to the east. When the British
approached Sokoto, Sultan Attahiru I (1902-3) left before their
arrival, summoned whom he could, and marched eastwards on the
pretext of going on pilgrimage. He was followed by numerous
people, and they all assembled at Burmi, in Gombe emirate. The
Burmi region was under the Mahdists, followers of Malam
Jibrella, a Fulani of Katagum, who was admitted to Mahdism by
Hayatu b. Sa‘id. In 1902 Malam Jibrella was captured by the
31 Sudan Government Archives, Khartoum, M/S. Nujumi, pp. 58-59.
 The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-Chad Region 237
British and deported to Lokoja, where he died. His followers,
however, continued to resist the British occupation, and when
Sultan Attahiru arrived with his followers at Burmi they joined
hands and resolved to fight. They were defeated and the Sultan
himself was killed.
The Battle of Burmi (1903) was the climax of the British
occupation of Hausaland. It was also a landmark in the history
of the Fulani Empire. Its importance is indicated by the number of
dignitaries who were present at the battle. Besides the Sultan
and his sons, there were the Emir Bashir of the Melle Fulani, who
evacuated his land for the French, Alfa Hashim, the well-known
Tijani leader, Abu Bakr, emir of Nupe, Bello, brother of the emir
of Kontagora, Ahmadu, the emir of Misau, and the Magaji of
Keffi.?? By many Fulani the whole affair is spoken of as the jihad,
Sultan Attahiru as a shahid (martyr), and the exodus as the
Aijra.*3 After Burmi a large number of Fulani (estimated at 25,000)
gathered round Attahiru’s son, Mai Wurno, and Ahmadu of
Misau and migrated to the Sudan. Both Mai Wurno and Ahmadu
settled on the Blue Nile and provided a focus for Fallata settle-
ment, which has continued to the present day.
The events related above give an indication that the spread of
Mahdism in the Niger-Chad region was checked at the close of
the nineteenth century by European intervention. This was
almost simultaneous with the defeat of the Mahdists in the Sudan
in 1898. When the Mahdists in the Sudan were again allowed to
function under the leadership of the Mahdi’s son, al-Sayyid ‘Abd
al-Rahman, there was almost an automatic revival of Mahdism
in Nigeria under the leadership of Malam Sa‘id, son of Hayatu.
Malam Sa‘id communicated with al-Sayyid ‘Abd ar-Rahman and
acted as his agent in Nigeria. By 1923 he had collected a large
following from the Fulani of Bornu and Gombe regions. Unlike
the Sudan Government, which worked in harmony with the
Mahdists, the British Administration in Nigeria was alarmed and
decided to ‘nip the movement in the bud as soon as possible’.34
32 Tomlinson and Lethem op. cit., pt. II, p. 28. Seiad eps 20%
34 The Governor of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria in his speech to the
Governor-General-in-Council when the proposal for the deportation of Malam
Sa‘id was being discussed.
238 Special Studies
So Malam Sa‘id was arrested in 1923 and deported to Buea in
the Cameroons, where he remained until 1945. In 1945 he was
removed to Kano, where he remained under house detention
until 1959, when he finally regained his freedom. Now an old
man, Malam Sa‘id is still a devout Mahdist, but he can hardly
claim any followers.
The story of Mahdism in Nigeria is but one example of the
stream of Mahdist traditions which prevailed in the Niger—
Chad region during the nineteenth century and the early years
of the twentieth century. In Senegal the jzhads of Seku Ahmadu
(d. 1843) and al-Hajj ‘Umar (d. 1864) were also considered pre-
ludes to the advent of the Mahdi. In fact, throughout the French-
speaking territories of the Savannahland of West Africa, Mah-
dist manifestations appeared here and there, and from time to time,
causing much unrest and agitation.36 Here again, the Imperial
Government acted in a decisive manner and successfully checked
the spread of Mahdism.

REFERENCES

Al-Masudi Murwj al-dhahab. Paris edition.

Al-Ya‘qubi
(1960) Tartkh. Beirut.
Burckhardt, J. L.
(1819) Travels in Nubia. London.
Denham, D. and Clapperton, H.
(1826) Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa,
in the years 1822, 1823, and 2824. London.
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
Holt, P. M.
(1958a) The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881-1898. Oxford.
(1958b) “The Sudanese Mahdia and the Outside World’, Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies, pp. 276-90.
Ibn Khaldun
(1958) Mugaddima. Cairo.
Isam Hassan
(1952) ‘Western Migration and Settlement in the Gezira’, Sudan Notes and
Records, vol. 33, pp. 60-112.
Le Grip, A.
(1952) ‘Le Mahdisme en Afrique Noire’, L’ Afrique et L’ Asie, No. 18, pp. 3-16.
35 Seku Ahmadu is described as the forerunner of the Mahdi (Alledhi
yalihu ’l-Mahdi), Nuh b. al-Tahir b. Abu Bakr b. Musa, Arabic Ms., Biblio-
theque Nationale, vol. 6759, fol. 31. Al-Hajj ‘Umar is called ‘the Wazir of the
Mahdi’, Martin, 1963, p. 53. 36 See Le Grip, 1952, pp. 3-16.
 The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-Chad Region 239
Leo Africanus
(1896) The History and Description of Africa, ed. R. Brown. London: Hakluyt
Society.
Martin, B. G.
(1963) ‘A Mahdist document from Futa Jallon’, Bulletin de l’I.F.A.N., vol.
XXV, Ser. B, nos. 1-2, pp. 47-65.
Oliver, R. and Fage, J. D.
(1962) A Short History of Africa. London.
Smith, H. F. C.
(1961) ‘A neglected theme of West African History: the Islamic Revolutions
of the r9th Century’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. II,
no. 1, December.
Tomlinson, G. J. F. and Lethem, G. J.
(n.d.) History of Islamic Propaganda in Nigeria. Reports. London: Waterlow.
Arabic MS. Sources: cited in footnotes.
 XI. CONFORMITY AND CONTRAST IN
SOMALI ISLAM

I. M. LEWIS

I. INTRODUCTION

In discussion of social change in Africa it is often forgotten

that some of the most pervasive and sociologically arresting
examples of cultural adoption and adaptation have occurred under
the impact of Islam. Like other world religions, and perhaps
more than most, Islam indeed offers a particularly rich field—so
far quite inadequately exploited—for the systematic study of
the ways in which different social systems and cultures react
to a common external stimulus. This field of research is all the
more important, since it offers a unique opportunity for confirm-
ing and enhancing the synchronic sociological analysis of tradi-
tional institutions. For if traditional institutions have the forms
and functions attributed to them by sociologists it must be
possible to explain, at least in part, the patterns of assimilation
which arise with the adoption of Islam. There must be some
logical correspondence between the traditional structure of a
society and the manner in which it interprets Islam. Here,
surely, is a significant field for comparative sociological analysis.
With this in view, in this paper I seek to show how within
the broadly integral Muslim culture area of the Somali of North-
East Africa salient differences in traditional social organization
are reflected in correspondingly different patterns of Islamic
assimilation. The variations in this common culture area on which
I wish to focus attention are those which distinguish the pattern
of life and social system of the northern nomadic Somali from
those of their southern and part-cultivating kinsmen. These
differences are accompanied by and, as I shall argue, intimately
connected with corresponding variations in Muslim religious
organization.
 Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam 241

Il. THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL SETTING

The northern nomadic Somali who make up the bulk of the
total Somali population of about three million people extend
southwards from French Somaliland, through the Somali
Republic and Ogaden region of Ethiopia into the arid plains of
Northern Kenya. In this relatively barren environment the
nomadic husbandry of camels, sheep, and goats, and sometimes
cattle, is the dominant pattern of life, with cultivation restricted
to a few areas of high rainfall, mainly in the north-west. Within
this overwhelmingly pastoral world, with its characteristic
nomadic ethos, the southern Sab Somali, consisting of two main
tribal confederacies (the Digil and Rahanweyn), occupy the
wedge of relatively rich arable land between the Shebelle and
Juba Rivers in the south of the Republic. Although the Sab
still practice animal husbandry extensively, their main interests lie
in their fields, where they grow sorghum and a variety of other
crops. Unlike the pastoralists, they occupy stable village settle-
ments set in the centre of their arable lands.
This difference in economy and way of life, keenly felt by
both groups, is accompanied by a variety of cultural differences,
of which the most immediately striking is the possession by the
Sab of a separate and quite distinct Somali dialect which differs
from the speech of the northern Somali to much the same extent
as Spanish does from Portuguese. And in the genealogical idiom
in which social relationships are phrased throughout the Somali
culture area, this division between the northern nomads and
southern cultivators is reflected in the national Somali pedigree,
where each division is attributed to a separate founding ancestor.
These distinguishing features and others to be noted presently
are the outcome of distinctive historical processes in the two
regions. Over the last thousand years or so the Somali people as
a whole have been engaged in a large-scale, but unco-ordinated
movement of expansion from the north. In the course of this tide
of migration, in which clans and lineages, often in conflict,
jostled each other forward, a wide variety of groups settled in
the arable lands between the Shebelle and Juba and mingled
242 Special Studies
there with other ethnic groups, particularly with parties of Galla
and North-East Coastal Bantu. Out of this amalgam—which is
restricted to this area—the Sab clans emerged with their distine-
tive characteristics and with a sense of separate identity within
Somali culture as a whole, which is matched by the northern
nomads’ traditional contempt for cultivation. This process is
well reflected in the derivation ‘large-crowd’ popularly given to
the Sab clan-name ‘Rahanweyn’.
Both these areas appear to have been exposed to Islamic
influence for a similar period, for both the northern and southern
Somali coasts have unquestionably been in extensive contact
with the Muslim world for almost a thousand years. The ancient
trading stations, developed, if not founded, by Arab and Persian
Muslims about the tenth century, along both coast-lines are a
testimony to this. Moreover, from the little that is at present
known of the history of Muslim contact, there appears to have
been no salient difference in either the source or nature of Islamic
penetration between north and south. Certainly, today all the
Somali are Sunnis of the Shafi‘i rite; and the two main zarigas,
the Qadiriyya and Ahmadiyya, are similarly represented in both
the north and south. Indeed, the Somali as a whole, and this
should be emphasized, are highly orthodox and incline to
a fervent and deep attachment to their faith. The introduction
of Islam can thus, I think, be assumed to be a fairly constant
factor rather than a crucial variable in the present situation,
and certainly there are no wide or systematic doctrinal differences
between north and south.
In interpreting the different patterns of Islamic assimilation
which have arisen in the two areas, therefore, we are forced to
consider the effect of the differences in social structure and culture
which distinguish these two segments of the Somali nation. In
the following sections I outline briefly what seem the most
significant variations in relation to the different patterns of Muslim
assimilation which have resulted. I concentrate particularly on
structural features, because they seem the most significant in
the present context.
 Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam 243

III. NORTHERN SOMALI SOCIAL STRUCTURE

While the entire Somali nation is embraced within a single
national genealogy and Somali society as a whole is divided into
groups on a basis of agnatic descent, there are important differ-
ences in lineage organization between the north and the south.
In the north the widest political units are clans with populations
of the order of 100,000 individuals. As befits a nomadic people,
these units are not strictly localized; and without reference to
locality clans are highly segmented internally into a wide array of
subsidiary lineage groups. Of these segments within a clan, the
most stable political grouping is represented by the so-called
‘dia-paying group’. This unit, with a male population rarely
exceeding a few thousand persons—and sometimes considerably
smaller—consists of closely related agnatic kinsmen united not
only by the bond of descent but also by an explicit contractual
treaty laying down the extent of their common obligations. The
most characteristic assertion of common interests relates to homi-
cide, the group as a whole being responsible for the security of
its members’ persons and property. Damages and indemnities
for injury or death (dia, commonly 100 camels for a man’s life)
are paid and received collectively by the group, which, in default,
is also responsible for pursuing the blood-feud.
Within the dia-paying group, which is the primary locus of
the individual’s jural and political allegiance, disputes are settled,
forcibly if necessary, by the intervention of the group elders.
Between dia-paying groups, however, there is traditionally no
machinery in northern Somali society for enforcing settlements.
Although acknowledging a common set of moral assumptions
and a generally common tariff of damages for injuries, groups in
the past could only resort to arbitration, and conciliation depend-
ed upon the willingness of the parties to a dispute to compose
their differences. Failing this, self-help was the only resort.
In such circumstances, as will be obvious, the respective numerical
and fighting strengths of groups was, and to a certain extent
under modern administration still is, all-important.
Despite the extent to which the loyalties of the individual
244 Special Studies
stock-herder are bound tightly to his dia-paying group, the group
has no formal organization of authority. Generally, there is no
single ‘headman’ with any authoritative functions, and all adult
men have in principle an equal say in decision- and policy-making.
Indeed, the situation is such that lack of formally instituted
political authority is a key-note of northern pastoral society.
Moreover, with the premium which naturally attaches to force as
the ultimate sanction in group relations, strongly developed
lineages are at a distinct advantage and enjoy a superior political
status in relation to weaker collateral segments. Hence, the order
of seniority by birth is not a factor of direct political significance
in lineage relations, although first-born (‘urad) lineage segments
retain certain ceremonial duties in the veneration of common
founding ancestors.»
Although northern Somali political relations thus depend upon
a combination of contractual with agnatic principles, and lineages
provide the primary referents by which the individual identifies
himself in relation to others, lineages are not normally corporate
groups in a geographical sense. The pastures of northern Somali-
land are regarded as a common gift to Somali nomads in general
and are not conceived of as divided out among specific groups.
Consequently, while lineages tend to exercise proprietary rights
to specific wells and trading centres, pastoral movement is wide-
ranging and it is only extremely rarely that agnatic kinsmen live
for any length of time together in a circumscribed territory.
Generally, in the pastures camps of nomads and livestock
belonging to different and often potentially hostile lineages
intermingle, and prescriptive rights to territory are not asserted.
At the same time, with the widespread use which is made of
contractual alliance as a basis for political and legal collaboration
at all levels of lineage structure, and not merely at the level of
the most stable political aggregate which I have called ‘dia-
paying group’,! the combination of lineages by genealogical
assimilation and manipulation which is so prominent a feature of
1 For a fuller discussion of the role of dia-paying groups in northern Somali
society and their highly relative and fluctuating character, see Lewis, 1961, pp.
161 ff.
 Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam 245
other segmentary lineage societies is rare in northern Somaliland.
The actual form of lineage pedigrees is thus apparently very
largely a product of actual generation growth.? For the lineage
identity which a person acquires at birth remains of vital signifi-
cance throughout his life, and there is hardly any ambiguity
about the genealogical (and hence social and political) placement
of individuals or groups. And with the extreme emphasis which
is thus given to agnatic descent as a basis for unfailing, though
elastic and variable social bonds, marriage is viewed as a subsid-
lary source of social and quasi-political ties. Hence, ideally, one
marries where one has already no strong agnatic ties, and marriage
is preferentially directed outside the close circle of agnatic kin.
Thus, marriage never takes place within the dia-paying groups;
and the customary preferential Islamic patrilateral parallel cousin
marriage is not practised by northern Arab nomads. In keeping
with the social distance between affines, high bride-wealths and
correspondingly high dowries are regularly exchanged. Never-
theless, marriage is unstable and divorce extremely frequent.3
The preceding is, of course, necessarily a very cursory sum-
mary of northern Somali social structure, but it will, I hope,
serve to bring out the points of difference which I wish to empha-
size in relation to the southern Sab, to whom I now turn.

IV. SOUTHERN SOMALI SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Southern Somali social structure exhibits a number of signifi-
cant differences which can be summarized quickly, though
inadequately, as follows. First, with their history of mixed
origins, the southern Somali have a somewhat amorphous and
certainly highly heterogeneous lineage structure. The maximum
socio-political units here are essentially confederations of line-
ages—usually of disparate clan origin—united according to
the stock explanation by a kind of act of union or ‘promise’
(alan) on the part of the original founding segments. These
southern territorially based units, corresponding in size to the
2 This is discussed in detail in Lewis, 1961 and 1962a.
3 For a more detailed discussion of Somali marriage and the factors affecting
its stability, see Lewis, 1962b.
246 Special Studies
‘clans’ of the north, differ again from the latter in also representing
generally the standard locus of dia-paying solidarity in the south.
They are not, as in the north, normally divided internally into
a number of separate and autonomous dia-paying groups. These
southern ‘clans’4 are, however, internally segmented on a
putatively lineage pattern, and under the clan chief each internal
section has a representative headman, the structure of authority
paralleling that of internal subdivision. Externally, southern
clans are loosely linked together, again on a putative genealogical
basis, in wider federations, but these larger associations do not
act as corporate political groups.
This southern equivalent to the northern Somali clan is essen-
tially a land-based unit, and frequently the names in its shallow
quasi-genealogical framework refer directly to territorial sections
rather than to genealogical segments in a true sense. The clan’s
arable resources are clearly demarcated from those of other
similar units and distributed internally among its sections.
Acquisition of rights to arable land in the south thus requires,
if a person is not already a member of a land-holding group, that
he should seek admission as an adopted client in the clan of his
choice. In return for receiving a grant of land for cultivation,
the client has formally to undertake to accept joint responsibility
with other members in the payment and receipt of all damages
involving his clan of adoption. Normally clients are thus admitted
after giving these undertakings ard paying nominal gifts to the
headman and clan chief.
Generally three classes of residents are distinguished: (@)
descendants of the groups which were party to the original clan
treaty; (4) long-standing accretions of diverse origin; and (c)
recently adopted aliens. In addition, there were in the past often
attached serfs of Galla and Bantu origin, who performed much of
the actual labour of cultivation. These last, however, have in
the last few generations been progressively assimilated and appear
today to enjoy rights to land similar to those held by other
4 For a number of reasons, particularly their territorial basis, it would be
preferable to use the term ‘tribe’ here, but I have retained ‘clan’ to emphasize
that the units under discussionrepresent the same level of grouping as northern
Somali clans.
 Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam 247
adopted clients, although a certain stigma still attaches to them.
In practice, the present situation indeed is that although the dialect
spoken by the southern Somali is that of the founding groups, it is
virtually impossible to find any living Somali who can produce
an authentic genealogy tracing descent from them. Thus, in
reality, these cultivating clans consist of layer upon layer of
adopted clients in varying degrees of assimilation to an original
founding core, which, over the generations, has been swamped
by subsequent accretions. So varied are these that there is no
Somali clan or lineage of any size which is not represented among
them. Some clans have something approaching what might be
called a ‘dominant lineage structure’, but in general this is a very
approximate and over-simplified way of characterizing the
situation: and in keeping with this genealogies are of very shallow
depth compared with the north.
Yet in every one of these mixed units there is one section
putatively associated with the original founders and referred to
like the first-born segments of northern lineages as ‘urad. These
segments playa special part.in clan ritual, usually having the task
of slaughtering animals killed in sacrifice, and invariably are
those containing the most authentic stocks in each clan. They
are not, however, ‘first-born’ in aliteral sense—as is generally
recognized—and among the southern Somali in general the
division of groups is not, as in the north, the outcome of lineage
growth in a historical sense, but merely a putative idiom in terms
of which people and groups are associated. And, apparently in
keeping with this loose-form organization, with its lack of any
firm fabric of agnatic kinship, marriage most frequently takes
place within the bounds of dia-paying solidarity. Indeed, since
marriage is here regarded as a means of strengthening weak
existing ties, rather than as in the north of supplementing strong
agnation, there is no objection to the characteristic pattern of
Muslim patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage which, with
matrilateral cross-cousin marriage, is practised preferentially.
Bride-wealth and dowry, however, are small in comparison with
the north, although there seems to be little difference in the high
degree of marriage instability.
248 Special Studies

V. CULTIC VARIATIONS
A prominent aspect of Somali Islam generally is the power of
intercession ascribed to Muslim saints as intermediaries between
man and the Prophet and God. Here three main categories of
saints are recognized. There are first those great saints of Islam,
particularly the founders of the Qadiriyya and Ahmadiyya tarigas,
who enjoy universal respect and veneration for the quality and
strength of their daraka (mystical power) and karamat (miracu-
lous works). Secondly, there are a large number of local Somali
saints who are venerated for their own personal piety and works
and the prominent part they have played in Somali Islam. The
third and final group of saints consists of those Somalis who are
venerated not, as in the previous category, for their known piety
and blessing, but simply as the founders of lineage segments.
These last are lineage ancestors who have in effect been canonized
within Islam.®
Saints vary, of course, in the charismatic status accorded to
them, and the most powerful, respected, and best-known saints
in the lineage ancestor class are the founders of large groups of
clans. Typical of these are Shaikhs Darod and Isaq, founders of
the Darod and Isaq families of clans in the north; and Shaikh Digil,
putative founder of the southern Digil and Rahanweyn Somali.
Here the degree of mystical power attributed to these saints cor-
responds directly to the numerical size of the groups which they
represent, but varies inversely with the extent of social and politi-
cal cohesion, which, at this high level of grouping, is minimal.
At a lower level of grouping immediate differences are evident
between the north and the south. In keeping with the strength
of lineage ties among the northern nomads and the highly
ramified character of their lineage system, every ancestor in the
genealogies is in principle regarded as a saint and so venerated
at periodical ceremonies in his honour. Among the southern
Somali, however, where lineages have less vital functions, in
place of the northern hierarchy of lineage saints one finds a
proliferation of local saints honoured for their particular mystical
° This is dealt with more fully in Lewis, 1955/6 and 1962.
 Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam 249
powers. Typical of, and outstanding among these is Shaikh
Mumin, whom most of the Rahanweyn clans regard as the pro-
tector of their crops from attack by birds and other pests. Other
similar saints, who also have no special lineage status, provide
general security and blessing in all departments of life at the
many shrines in the country occupied by the Sab.
Here, then, clearly a degree of selection as between north and
south occurs in the categories of saints who are most widely
venerated, a selection which conforms to the differences in lineage
organization already noted. But the effect of the differences in
social structure between the northern nomads and their southern
kinsmen extends beyond this. Among the northern pastoralists
the characteristic religious expression of social identity at the
level of the clan takes the form of an annual celebration (siyaro)
in praise of the clan ancestor. This is a typical memorial service
performed regularly by other groups, larger and smaller, at other
levels of lineage division.
In the south, however, the corresponding rite of clan identity
is not a similar ceremony in honour of the putative group ances-
tor, but a collective rain-making ritual (roobdoon) held annually
at a traditional sacred centre. Here petitions are addressed directly
to God, through the Prophet, without the intermediacy of ances-
tors, and in a definite order the several main subsections of the
clan make animal offerings, praying for rain and prosperity
in the coming year. Characteristically, the privilege of making
the first offerings belongs to the so-called ‘wrad and genealogically
most authentic clan section. Rain-making in the north, by con-
trast, is not a collective clan rite in which the several divisions
of a clan assert their corporate identity, but a generally ad hoc
affair in which small groups of nomads encamped in the pastures
pray to God to bring them rain as they see the clouds massing
before the onset of the wet seasons.
These differences in corporate cult life clearly reflect the
prevailing distinctions in lineage structure and ecological concern
between north and south. But to avoid misunderstanding, it
must again be emphasized that these distinctions in the character-
istic forms of religious activity associated with northern and
250 Special Studies
southern Somali social structure are essentially variations which
exist within a common framework of orthodox Muslim assump-
tions, beliefs and practices. In the south, as in the north, the same
or similar saints in other categories are venerated in the same
fashion, and neither region asks more of its saints or imputes
more power to them, thus leaving in both areas the unique
position of God and his Prophet unchallenged. And this overall
assimilation of Islam seems, as I have suggested elsewhere, to
accord with the common Cushitic pre-Islamic substratum of
beliefs, for the former existence of which there is evidence in
both the north and south.
But what is perhaps more striking, though less easy to
characterize accurately, is a wider division of emphasis between
the two groups of Somali which seems again to conform to the
underlying differences of their socio-ecological circumstances.
In the north especially there is a very clear-cut ideal distinction
between the spiritual and secular order which assumes concrete
expression in the division which is made between ‘men of God’
(wadaad, the Somali equivalent of the Arabic Shaikh) and ‘men
of the spear’ or ‘warriors’ (waranleh). All those who devote
their lives to religion and practise as priests, whatever other
resources they depend upon fora livelihood, belong to the first
category, while the remainder and larger part of mankind
consists simply of ‘warriors’. In practice, ‘warriors’ and priests
rub shoulders together in the same lineages; and because of the
exigencies of the nomadic life and social system, religious settle-
ments of priests fully independent of the all-encompassing
nomadic world have rarely been able to establish themselves.
In reality, all men—men of God included, however reluctantly—
remain finally subject to the bonds of common dia-paying group
allegiance which afford the only sure source of security for person
and property. In practice therefore, while the distinction between
the two orders is theoretically maintained and is buttressed by the
mystical power which is generally attributed to priests, the
pastoral social system is in effect all-pervasive.®
® For more detailed consideration of the special features of northern Somali
Islam and the distinction between ‘priests’ and ‘warriors’, see Lewis, 1963.
 Conformity and Contrast in Somali Islam 251
In the south the situation is rather different. Here separate and
autonomous, and often powerful, religious communities of
priests have been able to establish themselves in the arable
regions and have played an important role in southern local
politics. Here, moreover, even at an ideal level, the distinction
between ‘warriors’ and priests is not so clearly defined, and
priests are certainly allowed greater influence in clan politics than
is the rule in the north. Indeed, some priestly sections have
infiltrated into clan confederacies, where they have established
themselves as priestly dynasties and the Arabic title ‘Shaikh’ is
in some cases applied in the south with a political as well as
religious connotation. This has led to the involvement of the
mystical powers of shaikhs in the political life of the southern
Somali, especially in wars between clans, to an extent which is
foreign to northern Somali.
Southern Somali society thus conveys the impression that in
secular affairs, and inter-clan politics particularly, Muslim in-
fluence is more pervasive than it is in the north. Hence, the
possibilities of wider agricultural settlement and the accompany-
ing distinctive features of social organization appear to offer
more receptive conditions for Islamic assimilation, such at least
as to make the social conditions of the south conform in some
respects more closely to those in other African Muslim societies
than is the case in the north. Here surely it is significant that in
southern Somali society the favoured form of preferential
parallel-cousin marriage is practised extensively in contrast to
the position in the north. This tentative conclusion, however,
is in no sense intended to suggest that the depth of Muslim piety
is greater in the south than the north. This is something which
is very hard to estimate objectively, and my own impression, for
what it is worth, is that the northern Somali are as devoted and
fervid adherents of Islam as their southern countrymen.

REFERENCES
Lewis, I. M. ;
(1955/56) ‘Sufism in Somaliland: a Study in Tribal Islam’, Bulletin School of
Oriental and African Studies, vol. XVII, pp. 581-Go2; vol. XVIII, pp.
145—Go.
252 Special Studies
(1961) A Pastoral Democracy. London.
(1962a) ‘Historical Aspects of Genealogies in Northern Somali Social Struct-
ure’, Journal of African History, vol. I, no. 1, pp. 35-48.
(1962b) Marriage and the Family in Northern Somaliland. East African
Studies, No. 15. Kampala.
(1963) ‘Dualism in Somali Notions of Power’, Journal of the Royal Anthro-
pological Institute, vol. XCIII, pp. 113-15.
 XII. THE JUMBE OF KOTA KOTA AND SOME
ASPECTS OF THE HISTORY OF.ISLAM
IN MALAWI

GEORGE SHEPPERSON

I
The Arabs in central Africa, wrote David Livingstone on 10
August 1866, ‘cannot form a state or independent kingdom:
slavery and the slave trade are insuperable obstacles to any per-
manence inland . . . all therefore that the Arabs do is to collect as
much money as they can...and then leave the country’
Thirty years later, however, a British Officer in the employ of
King Leopold’s forces in the Eastern Congo, writing of the
fierceness of the Arab campaign against the consolidation of
European power in that area, claimed that if the attempt of the
Arabs had succeeded, ‘it is probable that the (Congo) Free State
would have been replaced by a Muhammadan Empire analogous
to that of the Khalifa in the Soudan’. Unless, therefore, such
statements are wild generalizations, profound changes must have
taken place in the Arab attitude to central African politics during
the period from the 1860s to the 1890s. Professor Roland Oliver,
in noting that this occurred ‘abruptly’ between 1884 and 1888,
concludes that ‘the Arabs were now aiming at political power’. 3
If this thesis is correct the destruction of Arab ambitions in
British, Belgian, and German central Africa during the Scramble
for Africa had important consequences for Islam in these parts—
nothing less, in fact, than the overthrow of a potential Islamic
State or States. Thought on the spread of Islam in central Africa
in the last half of the nineteenth century is too often influenced
by the observation that the Arab traders did not proselytize.
Had they achieved political power, this would not have been
necessary, if Ibn Khaldun’s assertion that ‘The vanquished always
1 Livingstone, 1874, vol. I, p. 92. ® Hinde, 1897, p. 19.
SOliverss195'1) ps\52.
254 Special Studies
seek to imitate their victors in their dress, insignia, belief, and
other customs and usages’ is to be believed. Indeed this
process had begun long before the threat of Arab political power
in central Africa, as Livingstone noticed when, in 1866, he met
the Yao chief, Mataka, to the east of Lake Nyasa, commented
on his Arab dress, and noticed of the square house in which
he was lodged that ‘indeed most of the houses here are square,
for the Arabs are imitated in everything’.®
To add to the complications of the study of the spread of
Islam in central Africa—and leaving aside the complex and cryptic
question of its existence there in the pre-European period®—one
must note the levels at which, during the nineteenth century, it
was introduced. ‘In Central Africa,’ noted a Scottish participant
in the British battles against the Arabs at the northern end of
Lake Nyasa in the mid-1880s, ‘we meet with three classes of
Arabs—first, the Muscat, or white Arab, who is the true species
...3; second, the Mswahili, or coast Arab, who is black, but is
strictly Muhammadan in religion ...; and third, any upcountry
native who adopts the manners and customs of the Moslem.’?
Out of the shifting alliances of these groups (among themselves,
with the indigenous central African peoples, and with European
power, missionary as well as secular) came the first substantial
patterns of Islamic penetration into the regions around Lake
Nyasa.

II
In the nineteenth century the main agency of the spread of
Islam into these parts was the Yao. Although this inland people,
through their trade with the coast, appears to have entered into
commercial competition with the Arabs of the littoral as early as
the beginning of the century (if not earlier), one authority claims
that they did not adopt Islam on any large scale until about the
4 Issawi (ed.), 1950, p. 53. 5 Livingstone, op. cit., p. 73.
6 Cf. Ntara, p. 3; he speaks of one Hasan bin ‘Ali who tried to make himself
chief over the Malawi in the sixteenth century. I am grateful to Mr. T. Price for
this reference; see also Price, 1954, pp. 31-37, for other stimulating speculations
on Muslim influence in central Africa about this time.
” Fotheringham, 1891, p. 12.
 The Jumbe of Kota Kota 255
1870s, when numbers of coastal Arabs came to live among the
Yao or to trade in Yao country.8 If this assertion is correct it
suggests that, until a powerful foreign standard of comparison
(the Arabs) was available in the interior, the Yao had no social
incentive to follow Islamic practices.
According to the first African historian of this people, it was
the Amasaninga Yao who were mainly responsible for the spread
of Islam in the Nyasa regions.® Certainly, one’of their chiefs,
Makanjila, by the 1870s, impressed British observers as an estab-
lished Muslim and the head of a well-ordered township. Visiting
him in 1877, the consul from Mozambique noted that his court
was ‘better than many of the Zanzibar tumble-down mansions’,
remarked on his raiment of ‘checked Muscat cloth of silk... with
a gold fringe’; and observed that he had a ‘ “mwalimu” who
teaches reading and the Koran’.!° Eight years later the British
consul for Nyasa added that ‘Muhammad Makanjira’ had a‘large
school-house’ and that the children were taught Swahili as well
as the Quran.1! A Christian missionary, however, who visited
him in this same year claimed that Makanjila ‘was a mere puppet
of the Swahili and Arabs who were about his court’!2—an im-
pression which does not accord easily with the traditional picture
of the fierce figure who stripped and whipped the British Vice-
Consul in 1888.
This Yao chief’s headquarters were on the other side of Lake
Nyasa to Kota Kota (an Arab corruption of Ngotangota), with
whose ruler, in spite of a common religion, Makanjila competed
for the lion’s share of the slave trade from the Congo to the
east coast, and with whom he was in frequent armed conflict.

III
The rulers of Kota Kota, on the eve of the British occupation
of Nyasaland (now Malawi), were aline of Jumbes, owing, as their
name suggests,!* an allegiance to the Sultan of Zanzibar.
* Rangeley, 1963, p. 25. ® Abdallah, 1919, p. 44. 1° Elton, -1879, pp. 288-9,
11 Public Record Office, London: F.O. 84, 1702, No. 2, 19 March 1885.
12 Nyasa News (Likoma), August 1893, p. 31.
18 Freeman-Grenville, 1962, p. 116.
256 Special Studies
The origins of the first Jumbe, Salim bin ‘Abdallah, are
obscure.!4 He probably came to Lake oe he Zanzibar,

political power over the peoples around ae ee not only

through his possession of firearms but also by acting as a protector
against the Ngoni; and built dhows to trade in ivory and slaves
from west to east across Lake Nyasa. After his conquest of
Marenga, chief of the Marimba country near Kota Kota, he set
himself up as the ‘Sultan of Marimba’ and later assumed the title
of Jumbe. Like the British after him, as his power increased, he
employed a policy of indirect rule. Although Livingstone, when
he visited the first Jumbe in 1863 and 1866, was not impressed
by him as an agency for Islam among a pagan people, it is to
Salim bin ‘Abdallah that the effective beginnings of the faith in
Kota Kota, traditionally the most important Islamic centre in
Nyasaland, must be attributed.
He died in the 1860s and was succeeded by Mwinyi-Mguzo,
who was also from the east coast. Like his predecessor, this
Jumbe does not appear to have been noted for his proselytizing
piety; although, when the Scottish missionary, Laws, met him,
he saw that he was having three boys taught Arabic.!> The British
Consul from Mozambique, who visited the second Jumbe in
1877, noticed that he observed Ramadan himself, although he
did not force it on others.1® More important, the Consul saw
that he was flying the Sultan of Zanzibar’s flag.l” If, when he died
(about 1875-79), Mwinyi-Mguzo was not styled the wali of the
Sultan of Zanzibar it is clear that his period as Jumbe of Kota
Kota marks the transition to a complete representative of the
Sultan on Lake Nyasa.
This was the third Jumbe: Mwinyi Kisutu, ‘the scion of a good
Zanzibar family’. It is this Jumbe whom the accounts of the final
14 There is considerable confusion as to dates and names by various European
witnesses of the Jumbes of Kota Kota. The dispatch by Major C. A. Edwards to
Commissioner Johnston, Kota Kota, 17 July 1894, gives what is probably the
most reliable short history (Confidential Print, North Zambezi, No. 2., in F.O.
ae ee 1894). Unless otherwise stated, all references to the Jumbes are taken

15 W/, P. Livingstone, pp. 126-7.

16 Elton, op. cit., p. 298. 7 Thid., p. 294.
 The Jumbe of Kota Kota 257
stages of the British occupation of Nyasaland call ‘the Jumbe of
Kota Kota’. He, indeed, of all the Jumbes, deserves the appelation
of walt of the Sultan of Zanzibar.!8 An English visitor’s impres-
sions of 1876 indicate the growth of the Jumbe of Kota Kota’s
power: “The town extends a considerable length along the shore.
Many square houses, so closely packed one can scarcely make
one’s way through the place. .. Many oil palms’; and then, signi-
ficantly, ‘Jumbe has the red flag (of the Sultan of-Zanzibar) flying
over his house.’29
The third Jumbe’s political importance was soon appreciated
by the British Commissioner and Consul General for Central
Africa, Harry Johnston. Johnston first heard of Mwinyi Kisutu
(to whom he usually referred as ‘Tawakali Sudi’°) in Zanzibar
from the Sultan,?4 who gave him letters to the Jumbe of Kota
Kota. Between 1889, when Johnston first visited him, and 1895,
when Arab power in Nyasaland was finally broken, the British
Commissioner had no doubt that the Jumbe, as representative
of the Sultan of Zanzibar, had done more than any other to pre-
vent the Arabs at the north end of the Lake, with their Yao and
other African allies to the south, from combining successfully
to drive the British from the region.22 Johnston was qualified to
speak of Muslim power, for he had been interested in Islam since
he had first visited North Africa in 1879. He realized from the first
that Jumbe, whose rule he described in terms of a ‘Swahili
merchant prince’ with his ‘feudatories’,23 was something more
than a simple slave-trader—an impression which other Europeans
in the area were prone to receive. At Kota Kota, said Johnston,
there were to be seen ‘real white Arabs, men with the com-
plexions and features of Europeans and Persians’ from Muscat
or Aden: ‘I found them very potent allies in enabling
me to win Jumbe’s friendship and confidence. They spoke

*8 Cf. F.0.2.88, C.A. No.57, 19 May 1895. Johnston.

'® Cotterill, 1878, p. 239.
70 Johnston, 1898, p. 92, and for photograph of Jumbe III.
21 Johnston, 1923, p. 260.
* Cf. Ibid., pp. 260-5, Johnston, 1898, p. 76, etc.; F.0.84.1969, Africa, 26
October 1889; Swann, 1910, p.291; Fotheringham, op. cit., pp. 275-82, etc.
*? F.0.84.2051, No. 14, Africa; Johnston, 17 March 1890, p. 131.
258 Special Studies
vauntingly of the power of the British at Aden and in the Persian
Gulf.'"4
Johnston went so far as to claim that Jumbe’s support of the
British cause ‘turned the whole tide of Arab feeling in Nyasa and
Tanganyika in our favour’.2® Whatever is the truth of this asser-
tion, there is no doubt that, after some wavering, the defection
of the Jumbe of Kota from the Arab cause around Lake Nyasa
prevented the emergence of any sort of Muslim political domi-
nance in British Central Africa. And that the Arabs of Nyasa were
threatening this, ideologically as well as militarily, is clear from
such remarks attributed to a group of them at Bandawe in 1885
as ‘Don’t pray to the white man’s god, but pray to the Arab’s god.
He is the God of all black men.’26 Furthermore, as Johnston
noted, there was novcolour prejudice among the Nyasa Muslims:
‘a black Mohammedan is thought quite as much of as a white
one:.27
Although the Jumbe of Kota Kota was persuaded that political
realities compelled him to throw in his lot with the British by
accepting a subsidy from them, he seems to have determined not
to be swallowed up ideologically by them. Johnson called him ‘a
very strict Mohammedan’.® More than once the Scots from Liv-
ingstonia tried to establish a Christian mission at Kota Kota.
But ‘Jumbe expressed his very decided wish not to have a Mission
at his town. He said... that they (the Muhammadans) were not
heathens, they had their own religion.’ ® It is not clear whether he
read Arabic; but he certainly signed his name in it; and he could
read and apparently write Swahili in Arabic script. Swahili, in
fact, was something of a status symbol with him, as it doubtless
was with the other Arabs in the Nyasa area. When, at last, he
consented to have a teacher from a Christian mission at Kota
Kota he accepted one from the Universities Mission to Central
Africa (with its headquarters at Zanzibar) and not from the
24 F.0.84.2051, No. 14, Africa; Johnston, 17 March 1890, p. 131.
25 F.O.84.2061, Africa, No. 7, 1 February 1890.
26 Livingstonia Papers: William Harkness, Katunga’s, 12 January 1885.
27 F.0.84.2051, No. 14, Africa; Johnston, 17 March 1890, p. 196.
8 Johnston, 1898, p. 92.
229 F.O.2.54. No.3 Central Africa, Sharpe, 2 January, 1893.
 The Jumbe of Kota Kota 259
Livingstonia missionaries. It is possible that the Jumbe had some
grudge against them for not intervening on his side in his battles
with the Tonga and the Ngoni.®° But it is more likely that his
preference for the U.M.C.A. missionaries—he referred to their
Bishop respectfully as ‘Askaf’!—was because at least one of them
(W. P. Johnson)*? could read the Quran in Arabic and that all of
them were more familiar with Swahili than the Scottish mission-
aries, who concentrated on the local African tongues—‘the
language of my slaves’,?3 in the Jumbe’s words. Of these local
languages, however, he seems to have made an exception of Yao,
probably because it was spoken by a partly Muslim people who
were his trading intermediaries; certainly, when Johnston read
to him in Yao a letter from Queen Victoria soliciting his friend-
ship he appears to have understood it and to have given Johnston,
in consequence, a cordial reception.*4
In spite of the Jumbe’s complicity in the slave-trade—and even
after he had accepted a subsidy from the British and was aiding
them against his co-religionists at Karonga at the north end of
Lake Nyasa, he engaged in the trade—he was regarded with
affection by white and black alike. Some of this may have been
due, after his death on 8 July 1894, to the ineffectiveness of his
successor. Most of it, however, was probably the result of his
personal qualities and policy. He ‘was very liberal with his reven-
ues, dividing one-third amongst his Chiefs and Headmen and
subjects. This action of his caused him to have much influence
and to be liked by his people.’ Even his U.M.C.A. critics, who
had been very harsh in their judgement of his slave-trading,
spoke of him with affection. One of them wrote a few months
after his death that the Jumbe ‘was never known to turn even a
little child from his baraza (council) if he had any complaint to
make’.35 Another noted that he was spoken of as ‘Jumbe Mare-
30 ‘Tumbe talks as if we were responsible for all the actions of the Atonga and
the Angoni’; Livingstonia Papers: William Harkness, Cape Maclear, 11 Septem-
ber 1882.
31 F.O.84.2051. No 14, Africa, Johnston, 17 March 1890, p. 1313 cf. also
Johnston, 1898, p. 93.
32 Barnes, 1933, pp. 126-7. 33 Hine, 1924, p. 152.
34 F.0.84.2115, Central Africa, No. 12, 17 March 1891.
35 Nyasa News, No. 6, November 1894, p. 202.
260 Special Studies
hemu, the Jumbe who found mercy’.3® In spite of the unpopu-
larity and the subsequent deposition by the British of his succes-
sor, it seems to have been the reputation of Mwinyi Kisutu which
ensured that, as late as 1905, if not later, the graves of the Jumbes
at Kota Kota were being looked after in ‘a rather better class of
house’;3? and that during the Second World War Nyasaland
soldiers included among their marching songs a nostalgic tune
about the Jumbes of Kota Kota, whose rule—apparently when
contrasted with the British—was not oppressive (‘aJumbe tili
nawo; aJumbe akana kulemera’).
Yet, in spite of the reputation and power of the third Jumbe
of Kota Kota, Commissioner Johnston, his greatest friend in the
new Administration, declared in his report for 1894 that the ‘Arab
traders in Central Africa are far too much attached to the pleasure
of the life on the coast to look upon themselves as permanent
settlers in the interior’.*8 Indeed, shortly before his death it was
reported that Mwinyi Kisutu had sent his sons to Zanzibar and
was thinking of retiring himself. His reasons seem to have been
disputes with his akida. But even if he had not died before this
became possible, there is nothing to suggest that he contem-
plated the extinction of the office of the Jumbe of Kota Kota,
although, with the extension of British Protectorates over
Central and East Africa in 1891, the position of wali of the Sultan
of Zanzibar was no longer possible in anything more than a
ceremonial sense. Nevertheless, Jumbes could have continued
at Kota Kota, entering, on a smaller scale, into a similar relation-
ship with the British to that provided for the emirates in northern
Nigeria.
When the fourth and final Jumbe, Mwinyi Kheiri (or Heri),
son of Jumbe’s predecesser, was sworn in on 7 September 1894
his inauguration was conducted with appropriate Muslim cere-
mony.®® The British representative at Kota Kota had reported
shortly after the old Jumbe’s death that the people wanted
38 Central Africa (London), vol. XIEI, 1895, p. 52.
3? Farrar, 1905.
88 Report... of the... first three years Administration of... British Central
Africa... 1894, (c. 7504), vol. LVII, 741, p. 26.
39 F.0.2.68, Africa, Nicoll to Johnston, 23 September 1894, pp. 310-11.
 The Jumbe of Kota Kota 261
‘Sheikh Mbwana, the coastman living at Ngombe, to come here
to place the new Sultan on the throne, as he is a Mullah, or
priest’. As was customary with the British at this time, when cir-
cumstances permitted, the religious feelings of their Muslim
subjects were taken into consideration; and Shaikh Mbwana was
brought across the Lake to officiate spiritually.
The presence of a British official representative at the installa-
tion of the new Jumbe indicates that the new Administration
looked forward to some form of indirect rule. But Mwinyi
Kheiri had other ideas. In spite of the old Jumbe’s last words
that they should obey the British, Mwinyi Kheiri, with a group
of local Arabs and Yaos, plotted to kill all the headmen of the old
Jumbe and to overthrow the new Administration. By May 1895
he was deposed and deported to Zanzibar.
The deposition of the fourth Jumbe brought to an end half a
century of a unique experiment in the creation of a Muslim in-
stitution in central Africa. The Arabs, first from Karonga, then
from Kota Kota, were driven from Nyasaland. But, as was
reported in 1912, they had ‘left Kota Kota and the surrounding
district a heritage of Mohammedanism which stubbornly resists
all the advances of Christian missionaries’.4° By 1927 the Muslims
of Kota Kota still numbered as many as an eleventh of its popula-
tion.“t And some followers of the Jumbe continued, as late as
1935, to oppose the Chief whom the British had set up in his
place: first Chigwe and then Msusa. Religion added to political
complexities in the area, as the Provincial Commissioner saw
when he noted in his report that ‘the visit of an Arab Sherifu who
sided entirely with the Jumbe’s followers did not help to increase
Msusa’s authority’.4?
IV
In these words there is, perhaps, an echo of the old British
fear that Islam would unite the peoples in central Africa against
them; a fear which Sudanese and Somali Mahdism, German
intrigues with Islamic elements in Africa during the 1914-18
4° Hofmeyr, 1912, p. 3. 41 Hetherwick, 1927, p. 185.
* Nyasaland, Annual Reports ... 1935, p: 58.
262 Special Studies
hostilities, and a vague but none the less real unease about an
imagined Pan-Islamic movement kept alive until well after the
First World War.‘ It was clearly expressed in 1912 by a South
African missionary in Nyasaland when he wrote:
Islam may be particularly acceptable to the natives because it is a black
man’s religion and not one acquired from the whites. Undoubtedly there is
already among the natives a dislike and distrust of the white man as such.
And the more this feeling grows—as grow it will—the more will anything
that is totally apart from the white man appeal to the native. Another cause
may be the direct or indirect encouragement and assistance given to them
(the Muslims) by Government officials and others who help them build
their mosques, and show a preference for Mohammedan askaris and
servants.44 Apart from anything else this question has its serious political
side which should cause such men to think twice before in any way encour-
aging Mohammedanism. When the time comes—and who that knows
South African history will deny that it ever will come—that the blacks seek
to drive the whites out of the country, it may be in Mohammedanism that
they will find the common rallying point which at present they lack, and it
may be in these Yao askari they will find the leaders they need to bring them
to the point of facing the white man.*®

Forty years later, however, an authority could state that Islam

in Nyasaland is ‘making little or no progress...and even
among the Yao appears to be only skin-deep’.*6 If the existence,
noted in the 1950s, of Islamic sectarianism as a distinguishing
mark between different groups of Yao chiefdoms,*’ suggests
that there may be some exaggeration in this statement its general
tenor is undisputed. After the coming of the British Administra-
tion some Muslims in Nyasaland may have gone as far afield as
Cairo to learn Arabic, but the major result appears to have been
to turn them into clerks in the villages, writing the vernaculars in
Arabic characters*’—and even this practice was not widespread.
And few, if any, African Muslims from Nyasaland have made the
Pilgrimage to Mecca.
Islam, of course, claims the allegiance of sections of the Asian
43 See Shepperson and Price, 1958, pp. 405-9.
44 That this was also a fear of missionaries in German East Africa is clear from
Moslem World, vol. Il, 1912, pp. 409-10; cf. also pp. 221, 424, 439.
*S Hofmeyr, op. cit., pp. 6-7. 46 Anderson, 1954, p. 170.
4? Mitchell, 1956, p. 51. 48 Barnes, op. cit., pp. 126—7.
 The Jumbe of Kota Kota. 263
community in Malawi, but has never become a major force
with them as with some of the Asians in East Africa. Thus, even
here, it continues to maintain that epiphenomenal character it has
always had in Malawi.
Its failure to achieve substantial roots among the African
peoples of Malawi is not difficult to understand. The destruc-
tion of Arab and Yao political power by the British is probably
the foremost reason. If Islam had been firmly based among these
peoples, and if the different groups of Muslims in Nyasaland had
not been divided against each other, Islam would doubtless have
survived and probably increased in influence. But it was not
securely rooted among them. Furthermore, its main adherents
after the coming of the British administration were the Yao
chiefs.4° They were a group that looked nostalgically to the past—
a past, for many of them, of the slave-trade and domination over
the local peoples. Ata time when the power of the chiefs was being
threatened by literate and nationalistically conscious Africans,
Islam had few attractions. Although during the period of the
beginnings of African nationalism in Nyasaland (1900-16) the
Turkish and Egyptian independence movements were in the air,
and promised modern types of Islamic culture, for aspiring
Africans who had seen something of the possibilities of the new
ways of life, either at the technically conscious Scottish Christian
missions or in the mines and industries of South Africa, Islam
was identified with a non-industrial civilization which offered
nothing of the power of the Christian West.
By the time Malawi became independent, the industrialization
and autonomy of the States of the Middle East was so far ad-
vanced that this impression could no longer be maintained.
Independent forms of African Christianity (in control or cult),
the excitements and fresh allegiances of the new nationalism
engendered by the struggle against the Federation of 1953, and
sheer secularism made an Islamic revival impossible. Pan-
Islamism had been replaced by Pan-Africanism. The Jumbe of
Kota Kota, as a symbol of a new way of life and an alternative to
European domination, was replaced by one of the Cewa, with
49 Rangeley, op. cit., p. 25.
264 Special Studies
whose chief, Mwase of Kasungu, he was in continual friction.
And that son of the Cewa was Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda.

REFERENCES
Abdallah, Yohanna B.
(1919) The Yaos. Zomba.
Anderson, J. N. D.
(1954) Islamic Law in Africa. London.
Barnes, Bertram H.
(1933) Johnson of Nyasaland. London.
Cotterill, H. B.
(1878) ‘On the Nyassa and a Journey from the North End to Zanzibar’,
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (London), Vol. XXII.
Elton, J. F.
(1879) Travels and Researches ... East and Central Africa. London.
Farrar, N. \
(1905) Three Weeks Trip in British Central Africa, 1905. (Copy in Common-
wealth Relations Office Library, Central Africa Pamphlet No. 6.)
Fotheringham, L. Monteith
(1891) Adventures in Nyasaland. London.
Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P.
(1962) The Medieval History of the Coast of Tanganyika. Oxford.
Hetherwick, A.
(1927) ‘Islam and Christianity in Nyasaland’, The Moslem World (Hartford,
Conn.), vol. XVII.
‘Hinde, Sidney L.
(1897) Fall of the Congo Arabs. London.
Hine, J. E.
(1924) Days Gone By. London.
Hofmeyr, A. L.
(1912) ‘Islam in Nyasaland’, The Moslem World (Hartford, Conn.), vol. II.
Issawi, Charles (ed.)
(1950) An Arab Philosophy of History. London.
Johnston, Sir Harry H.
(1898) British Central Africa. London.
(1923) The Story of My Life. London.
Livingstone, D.
(1874) Last Journals. London.
Livingstone, W. P.
-(n.d.) Laws of Livingstonia. London.
Livingstonia Papers: National Library of Scotland.
Mitchell, J. Clyde
(1956) The Yao Village. Manchester.
Ntara, S. Y.
(n.d.) Mbiri ya Acewa. Lusaka (Publications Bureau of Rhodesia and Nyasa-
land, 2nd edition).
Nyasaland
(1935) Annual Reports of the Provincial Commissioners. Lomba.
 The Jumbe of Kota Kota | 265
Oliver, Roland
(1951) ‘Some Factors in the British Occupation of East Africa 1884-1894,"
Uganda Journal (Kampala), vol. XV
Price, Thomas
(1954) “The “Arabs” of the Zambezi’, Muslim World (Hartford, Conn.),
vol. XLIV.
Rangeley, W. H. J.
(1963) ‘The aYao’, Nyasaland Journal (Blantyre), vol. XV.
Shepperson, George, and Price, Thomas
(1958) Independent African. Edinburgh.
Swann, Alfred J. 7
(1910) Fighting the Slave Hunters. London.
XII SOCIOLOGICAL FACTORS IN THE CONTACT
OF THE GOGO OF CENTRAL TANZANIA
WITH ISLAM ?

P. J. A. RIGBY
I. INTRODUCTION

Studies of the spread of Islam in many parts of Africa have

concerned themselves mainly with the problems of ‘culture
contact’ or ‘acculturation’, because the introduction of Islamic
beliefs into a large number of African societies involved radical
political and social changes, apart from the more personal aspects
of conversion. It is by now a commonplace in the study of religion
that it cannot be carried out satisfactorily without a full apprecia-
tion of the social institutions in which it is embedded, both as an
observable aspect of social action and as an integral part of the
sociological models arising from the structural analysis of
societies.
In this paper I shall examine Islamic contact with the Gogo
people and their non-acceptance of Islamic influences upon three
levels. Firstly, a brief sketch of the historical evidence for contact
will be presented, with reference to different kinds of interaction
between societies in Africa and Islam. Then follows a dis-
of Gogo society and
cussion of the relevant structural aspects
their relation to the adoption of Islam, and I conclude witha brief
comparison of Gogo religious, cosmological, and spirit beliefs
with Islamic doctrines and the possibilities of their syncretism.
It is not possible in a paper of this length to go into the details
needed for careful comparison, but the broad outlines are drawn,
from which some conclusions about Gogo social structure and
1 The fieldwork on which this paper is based was carried out from September
1961 until the middle of 1963. The early part of fieldwork was supported by the
then Colonial Social Science Research Council. I continued fieldwork as a Re-
search Fellow of the East African Institute for Social Research. For this I am
indebted to both these organizations. The conclusions and ideas expressed in
this paper are, of course, entirely my responsibility.
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam - 267
the role of Islamic religion in other social structures may be
adduced.
A considerable number of works on the traditional religions of
African societies have included discussions of Islamic influence
upon them, in varying degrees of length, detail, and theoretical
insight. It is necessary to refer at least to some of these in order
to set a background against which Gogo contact with Islam and
its social and cultural associations can be explored. But first
it must be established whether or not there zs a problem to exam-
ine: that is, has there been sufficient contact between the Gogo
people and Muslims so that the problem of the acceptance or
rejection of Islam can be postulated? This is, of course, a primar-
ily historical question, and it is therefore relevant to reiterate
some fairly well-known facts about the penetration of Islam in
East Africa generally and central Tanzania in particular.

Il. HISTORICAL CONTACT WITH ISLAM

The country of the Gogo people lies some 300 miles from the
coast of East Africa at Dares Salaam and Bagamoyo. This part
of the coast has been strongly influenced by Islam since the
seventh century, when it came under the Caliph ‘Omar ibn
al-Khattab.” In fact, the port of Mogadishu and others on the
Somali coast were Islamic soon after the Aijra in 622; but the
coastal areas of Tanzania did not become an integral part of
Islam until the thirteenth century, when Islam was a major
element in the contact of the East African coast with the Indian
Ocean trading area.* Islam was established on the coast not
primarily by the emigration of Arabs but by the Islamization of
African states. Mathew maintains that:°
African kingships which had become Mohammedan progressively
acquired the techniques and organization of Islamic states.
I shall discuss the concepts of ‘state’ and ‘kingships’ in relation
to Islam later. But there is no doubt that these coastal states,
whether Arab or African, had very limited contact with the inland
2 Mathew, in Oliver and Mathew (eds.), 1963, p. 102.
3 Lewis, 1955/56, and discussion below; also Levy, 1957, P. 2.
4 Mathew. op. cit, p. 110. > Ibid,
 268 Special Studies
areas of Tanzania, although in the fourteenth century Ibn
Battuta found that Maldive cowries were used as currency
throughout large parts of Africa, and beads had a continuous
popularity in East Africa from medieval times on. There are
suggestions that there may have been a trade route from Kilwa,
on the coast south of Dar es Salaam, to the state of Mali in West
Africa, and it is not known why the Islamic states on the East
African coast had so little contact and influence farther inland
during this period of several hundred years. In his analysis of
Islam in Somaliland, Lewis emphasizes that the coastal sultanates
had a profound influence upon the early spread of Islam in
Somaliland.®
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the trade from the
interior to the coast was mainly in ivory and slaves, but the export
of slaves did not become important until the nineteenth century.’
Also until then it is fairly certain that caravans did not move
westwards to the interior, but the peoples of inland Tanzania,
mainly the Nyamwezi, who live to the west of the Gogo, came
to the coast to trade. Some of the routes used by the Nyamwezi
lay through Gogo country, and it is certain that the route used
- in the middle and late nineteenth century by Arabs, missionaries,
and others to reach Uganda and the lakes lay through the centre
of Ugogo. The earliest reference to this route is for just after
1763, when the King of Buganda (Kabaka Kyabagu) imported
cups and plates from the coast and his son Semakokiro (who was
Kabaka from 1797 to 1814) exchanged ivory for Indian kaniki
cloth from the coast.8 Hence it is fairly certain that Muslim traders
and Arabs were operating on routes through Gogo country from
the second half of the eighteenth century onwards. This was
probably more a hand-to-hand trading through local contacts.
The organization of caravans on the route through Ugogo be-
longs to the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth cen-
tury. Arab settlements in Nyamwezi to the west of Ugogo did not
appear until the 1820s at the earliest,9 and by 1870 there were
6 Lewis, 1961, p. 209.
7 Mathew, op. cit., p. 117. Freeman-Grenville, in Oliver and Mathew, op. cit.,
p- 152. 8 Freeman-Grenville, op. cit., p. 153.
® R. G. Abrahams, personal communication.
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam 269
Arab settlements at Kagei, Tabora, and Ujiji on Lake Tangan-
yika. But Arab penetration was even then very limited in size and
concentrated in areas which would be immediately of political
or economic advantage to them, as in Buganda when Kabaka
Mutesa adopted Islam in 1867 and observed Ramadan for ten
years. West of Lake Tanganyika, Tippo Tip (Muhammad bin
Hamid) defeated the Bemba and established an ivory trade in
1867 and 1868. In order to transport his ivory to the coast, he
made an alliance with the Nyamwezi leader Mirambo, and the
route he used is almost certainly the one already described as
lying through the heart of Ugogo. The number of Arabs in the
interior, however, was very small; but most of the traders on
the route through Ugogo from Tabora to the coast were probably
Muslims.
It is fair to say, then, that considerable numbers of Gogo have
had continuous contact with Arabs and other Muslims at least
from the middle of the nineteenth century until the present day.
The part of the caravan route which lay through Ugogo was
considered hostile by all travellers, both from the point of view
of its physical hardships (drought and lack of food supplies)
and the hostility of the Gogo people. The Arabs did establish
a post on the south-eastern boundary of Ugogo at Mpwapwa
(Mhamvwa), and this later became more important under the
Germans and by the siting of a mission station there. There were
in fact Nyamwezi settlements along the trade route in Ugogo,
as there were in Ukaguru to the east. But there appears to have
been limited contact between them and the Gogo, and they had
little influence upon the surrounding Gogo community, other
than the adoption by the Gogo of certain names for places and
people.!° Ivory was not available in large quantities in Ugogo,
and both Ugogo and Ukaguru to the east were politically too
uncentralized to allow of large-scale slaving. Beidelman states
in his history of Ukaguru:14
The Arabs appear to have found the larger and more effective political
systems of the Nyamwezi and the central lakes region to be admirably
organized for the securing of . . . (slaves and ivory).
10 See Beidelman, 1962, p. 18. 11 Tbid., pp. 14 and 18 and 25.
270 Special Studies
Moffet!? suggests a further historical reason for Nyamwezi
acceptance and Gogo rejection of Islam:
By virtue of Arab penetration, greatly assisted by the Nyamwezi capacity
for porterage (at which work they excelled), Islamic religion has a firm hold
in the west, whereas the still largely pagan Gogo were little affected.

Relations between the Muslim traders and the Gogo were mainly
concerned with the right of passage through Ugogo and the
provision of supplies for the caravans. Gogo taxed Arab (and
later missionary and other) caravans very heavily.!8 There is no
doubt that had it been possible the Muslim traders would have
established more settlements in Ugogo and spread Islam as they
had done in Nyamwezi country to the west. Nearly 150 miles
of their most important inland trade route lay through Ugogo.
We may then legitimately consider the question as to why
Muslim settlements did not grow up to any extent in Ugogo
and why the influence of Islam on the Gogo was not greater.
Admittedly, the time depth of contact was limited, as I have
already described; but studies from West Africa have shown that
time is not the major single factor in the Islamization of an
African society. There are more important structural reasons why
Islam (and later Christianity to some extent) did not penetrate
Gogo society to a greater degree in spite of external political
pressures and the built-in proselytizing nature of the faith
itself.14 Related to these are theological and cosmological dis-
crepancies between animist religions and Islamic ideas. Gogo did
profit to some extent from the Muslim-run trade through their
country, and it is reasonable to assume that Islam would have
12 Moffet, 1958 (ed.), p. 290.
18 In the historical accounts of Gogo contact with caravans, both Muslim and
Christian, no mention is made of the fact that Gogo have little surplus of food
and water at the best of times during the dry season, the time chosen for most
of the early journeys. Gogo must have suffered considerable difficulties in finding
enough to supply caravans. The high taxes they extracted probably went towards
buying food and livestock from surrounding areas. Caravans to Uganda used
this route, rather than the northern route through Masailand, because they could
obtain at least some food, water, and shelter, and not only because the Masai
were militarily hostile.
14 There is no evidence that Muslim traders did actually proselytize in Ugogo
during this period.
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam — 271
spread if there had been a political and social basis for it to
do so.15
I do not wish to suggest that the Gogo displayed any organized
reaction to Islam or any other outside influence; this would not
have been likely with their non-centralized political organization.
Nevertheless it was the very form of their social system, and
the fact that it is still intact, that inhibited the penetration of Islam
in Ugogo. It is to some of these structural considerations that I
now wish to turn.
II. SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND THE SPREAD OF ISLAM

The absorption of Islam in several African societies has been

interpreted in terms of: (a) the theory of the Muslim military
conquerors and the creation of Islamic states; (4) the peaceful
absorption of Islam into pre-existing state structures where it
has modified those structures and been modified by them; and
(c) the theory of historical accident and cultural diffusion. For
the purposes of this paper we shall ignore this last interpretation.
Both theories (a) and (4), those of military expansion of Islam
and its adoption by pre-Islamic African states, can, however,
lead to facile ‘structural’ generalizations that Islam can only be
absorbed within politically centralized systems and state struct-
ures, and that where traditional ‘stateless’ polities still exist, Islam
is tpso facto excluded. The origin of this idea is most likely attri-
butable to the fact that much of the work published on the in-
fluence of Islam in African societies has been concerned with West
Africa, where centralized political systems are characteristic
and date from very early times. The very important analysis
by Lewis of Islam in Somaliland has corrected this error and
shown that there are much more complex structural factors
involved than this level of generalization permits of.16
18 Greenberg, discussing the Islamization of the Hausa communities in Kano,
emphasizes the role of trade in this process. He says: ‘Here, as everywhere in
the history of Islam, the avenue of trade was the avenue of the propagation of
religion.’ (Greenberg, 1946, p. 4.)
16 Lewis, 1955/56. Also, Nadel, in his analysis of Islam in Nupe religion,
discusses it, to some extent, in terms of its political functions in a state organi-
zation. But the real value of his analysis lies in the fact that he did not suggest
this to be a condition of its assimilation. He takes the analysis much deeper and
272 Special Studies
Trimingham subscribes to the theory of the ‘unifying’ role of
Islam, which is important, but goes on to assume that this auto-
matically means that stateless societies cannot absorb Islamic
elements without change. Speaking of the Galla of southern
Ethiopia, he says:1?
They remained nomadic herdsmen under their own republican form of
government and because of this they remained pagan. ... We can follow
the evolution of many Galla tribes from the stage of pastoral nomadism
to cultivation, with the parallel process in the political sphere of evolution
from a democratic to an aristocratic system, and in the religious sphere from
paganism to Islam or Christianity.

Islam, however, is much more flexible than this interpretation

suggests, and Lewis has shown that among the nomadic, pastoral
northern Somali, who are highly ‘republican’, the Sufi Islamic
orders (tariga) are more closely integrated in the segmentary
lineage and non-centralized political structure than among the
more sedentary, agricultural communities of the south, where
state-like types of political organization appear.!®
I have given this example to illustrate that superficial correla-
tions between broad ‘structural’ generalizations and the absorp-
tion of Islam are misleading and unfruitful. What must be demon-
strated is the compatibility (or incompatibility) of specific
structural relations and the accompanying religious and cosmo-
logical ideas within a society, with the basic elements of Islamic
religion and its cultural correlates. Careful analyses have been
published which refer to these questions in relation to many
West African states, such as the Nupe, Fulani, Hausa, and so on
(see bibliography at the end of this paper for some). For example,
the studies of Stenning and Smith!® have described the role of war
and political expansion in Fulani Islamic states, and Nadel has
examines the complex processes of the adaptation of Islam and social change and
relates its assimilation to specific Nupe institutions. See Nadel, 1954.
17 Trimingham, 1952, p. 189.
18 Lewis also suggests that although the integration of Somali and Sufi genea-
logies is more effective in the north, where lineage organization is still the basis
for political action, the Islamic law (shari‘a) finds broader application in the
southern settled communities, where territorial proximity no longer implies
genealogical propinquity. (See Lewis, 1955/56, p. 587-)
19 Stenning, 1959, and Smith, 1960.
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam 274
demonstrated the peaceful assimilation and modification of Islam
in the pre-existing Nupe state. These studies have not only
demonstrated the detailed and logical ‘fitting together’ of Islamic
and traditional institutions and ideas but also the frequency of
the rejection of individual elements of Islamic culture and law,
even where their adoption appeared logically acceptable at first
sight. But as Gogo society in no way resembles these state struct-
ures and military conquest organizations, it is relevant to look
in more detail at the analyses of Islam in non-centralized political
systems for closer parallels.
In spite of my earlier criticism of applying too generally the
theory of a correlation between stateless societies in contact with
Islam and their non-acceptance of it, there is some evidence to
show that pastoral or semi-pastoral peoples with non-centralized
political organizations resist Islam (and other doctrines based
upon mysticism) more than others. Thus, Stenning says of the
Pastoral Fulani:?°
(The Pastoral Fulani) . . . speak the purest Fulfulde, and in general have
been least amenable to conversion to Islam.
This suggests that for such peoples to assimilate Islamic religion
and cultural elements there must necessarily be other structural
prerequisites, if I may use the term. Lewis points these out
admirably in his analysis of Somali Sufism. He concedes that the
close interdependence of social structure and religion is very
clear in Muslim szates, where the Islamic law can be widely
applied, but goes on to say:*2
... the conformity of social and religious structure is equally far-reaching
in a tribal Muslim society although it may not at first sight appear so.
He shows how Sufi (Muslim) genealogies and Somali genealogies
perform the same functions in the social structure and, as I have
already mentioned, how the Islamic Orders are integrated with
the Somali lineage system. The knowledge of these genealogies
is confined to elders and religious men who have recorded, or
can recite, the total genealogies. Lewis sums this up:
20 Stenning, op cit., p. 14. 21 Lewis, 1955/56 and 1961.
22 Lewis 1955, p. 602.
274 Special Studies
Sociologically it is apparent that this claim of descent from the Quraysh
(Mohamed’s lineage) is the necessary outcome of the application of the Som-
ali lineage principle to the part played by Islam generally, and Sufism in
particular, in the social structure. This consistency is made possible by the
parallel functions of Sufi and Somali genealogies.

On the broader impact of Islam on Somali society, he concludes:?8

... in a very real sense Islam is the mainspring of Somali culture. Thus in
a religious context the Muslim profession of faith has almost the force of an
initiation rite into their society.

The pre-Islamic conception of the Cushitic Sky God (Waaq)

had many elements in common with the Islamic idea of Allah,
so much so that Somali call Allah by the words formerly used
for the Cushitic God, with the same connotations. The principal
bases on which Islam became incorporated into Somali society
were thus: (a) the parallel roles of Somali and Sufi genealogies
resulting in (4) the genealogical canalization of divine grace
(daraka) from the Qurayshitic lineage through the Somali lineage
genealogies (abtirsiinyo), and (c) the underlying similarities of
the Cushitic (pre-Islamic) and Sufi religious concepts associated
with the lineage structure and genealogies. In this way the tombs
formerly venerated for their Cushitic power now became
shrines venerated for their Muslim daraka.*4 It may be said of
the Somali absorption of Islam that all the features of Somali social
structure whose interaction with Islam is important were related
to pre-Islamic Cushitic religious institutions.”
A further organizational element was the Somali Islamic
communities (jama‘a), which produced wandering teachers
(wadaad), who moved from camp to camp teaching Arabic and
the Quran. They also acted as unofficial repositories of Islamic
law (gadz), performing much the same functions as the mallams
in West Africa,2® or their equivalents. It is through the literacy
in Arabic of these teachers that Islam propagates its juridical
elements, although the Shari‘a is not as widely applicable
in Somali society as are many of the more purely religious aspects
23 Lewis, 1961, p. 26. 24 Lewis, 1955, p. 587. 25 Lewis, 1955, p. 582.
26 See Greenberg, op. cit., p. 10. Also Nadel, op. cit.
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam 275
of Islam.?” Wadaad also act as unofficial arbitrators in disputes
between lineages, and this is their main structural role. They are
admirably suited to this, as they stand for pan-Islamic values
outside those of lineages and compensation-paying groups,
although they cannot entirely free themselves from these ties.
They have no authority, but act as mediators. Their importance,
and that of literacy and communities which can produce religious
specialists, is summed up by Lewis:%8 4

It is probably through the wadaad who issue from the jama‘a com-
munities that Sufism exerts its greatest influence in Somali social structure.

Greenberg also emphasizes the role of Islamic teachers and literacy

in Arabic for the spread of Islam among the Kano Hausa in the
Sudan.” In fact, he makes this aspect fundamental to the adoption
of Islam by them, suggesting that the role of Arab traders and their
contacts was very limited.3°
I have dwelt rather on this material from other societies, as I
wish to suggest in what follows that this kind of analysis delimits
the structural prerequisites for the acceptance of Islam in semi-
pastoral non-centralized societies. I shall now discuss some aspects
of Gogo social structure, religious and cosmological beliefs in
their relations to external influences, in particular, Islam.

IV. GOGO SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ISLAM

As I have already hinted, traditional Gogo political organi-

zation was not that of a centralized state structure. Neither did
they have, as I shall demonstrate, a segmentary lineage organi-
zation in which agnatic descent combined them into ‘tribes’ or
other local and political units.
The Gogo are a patrilineal ‘Bantu’ people who inhabit that
part of the eastern Rift Valley where it spreads out to form part
of the dry plains of central Tanzania. They subsist mainly
upon agriculture, and may be said to be a sedentary population,
but the area is economically marginal and subject to frequent
27 Nadel also makes this point for the Nupe acceptance of Islam.
*8 Lewis, 1955, P 594- ;
29 Greenberg, op. cit., pp. 10 and-69. WAT bids, py 10.
276s Special Studies
droughts and famine. The population is comparatively mobile
spatially for agriculturalists, and many Gogo have large herds
of cattle, sheep, and goats, about which most of their values are
centred. Gogo do not inherit land, and it would be true to say
that in spite of present-day changes, decisions about cattle and
livestock generally are more important to Gogo than those
concerning crops and land.
Gogo live in large homesteads (kaya) spread out across the
thorn-scrub plain, which comprises most of their country, and
although there are scarcely any geographically discrete units
which may be called villages, homesteads are grouped into
sociologically defined neighbourhoods called matumbi. These
fall within the boundaries of small ritual areas which we may call
‘countries’ (yist). These units have definite boundaries, but lack
secular political significance for reasons which will appear.
During the period I was in the field the population of one of
these ritual areas (which are not known or considered significant
by government in local administration) rarely exceeded four to
five thousand people.
Every person belongs to one of well over a hundred patrilineal
clans (mbeyu), some of which are exogamous and others not,
although the norm is that they should be so. These categories
of people are again subdivided into sub-clans with praise-names
(milongo) which are associated with avoidance objects (mizilo).
These may not be touched, killed, or eaten. Each ritual area is
linked with one clan by the latter’s possession of the rain-stones,
stool, and other ritual objects used in rain-making and fertility
rites for the country. These are inherited theoretically within the
clan by the rule of patrilineal primogeniture. But these clans have
little more than statistical preponderances in their own ritual
areas, and there has always been a great deal of mobility between
them. The member of the clan who is the current possessor of
the rainstones is called the mutemi (or munyaligoda: literally,
‘the owner of the stool’), and he controls ritual activity, agri-
cultural phases, rain, and fertility in the area. Any homestead
owner and his dependants coming to live within the boundaries
(mimbi) of this area must accept the ritual leadership and pre-
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam 277
cedence of the mutemi and other members of his clan. But the
secular, political, military, and judicial powers of the ritual
leaders are severely limited, and the office hardly resembles that
of a chieftainship. Even in ritual matters the mutemi is to some
extent dependent upon a diviner who usually lives in another
ritual area, often at some considerable distance. He must be
consulted before the initiation of most ceremonies and rituals
and provides medicines for fertility and protection.
The Gogo have an ideology of patrilineal descent which is
usually adhered to in inheritance and succession, but genealogies
are not remembered to any depth, except in the case of the clans
with ritual power. There are no localized lineages of any size,
and they are not corporate. The heads of adjacent homesteads are
often father and sons (the latter living with their mothers) at
one stage of the family cycle, and by groups of full brothers with
their mothers after the death of the father. Sets of full brothers
may live within easy reach of each other due to the necessity for
communal rituals at the gravestone (citenjelo) of their father, but
the composition of homesteads is far from being based upon
groups of agnatic relatives and their spouses and offspring. At
funerals and other ritual occasions agnatic ties are used to group
people and clan and sub-clan membership becomes important;
but in most situations a great variety of individual kin and
affinal ties on a ‘network’ basis are in operation.
Gogo clans are not linked to each other by any comprehensive
genealogy or mythology, and each traces its origins to one of a
large number of neighbouring peoples, including the Hehe,
Nyamwezi, Masai, Kaguru, Sagara, Sandawi, Burungi, and so on.
The remembered generations to this derivative origin are usually
very few, seldom more than three or four; and there are historical
and mythological tales of the reasons for which the clans’ founders
left their people and areas of origin, and came to settle in Ugogo.
Each clan is, however, linked with one or more other clans in a
complex of joking-relationship ties (wutani) whose origin is
remembered in the clan histories. Some of these joking relation-
ship links explicitly have their origin in a theory of a remote
kinship relationship, but in no way do Gogo trace genealogies
278 Special Studies
to a common origin and historical migration which could in any
way link them with Islamic or Arabian origins.
Political power and status were largely associated with wealth
in livestock, personal ability, and witchcraft power, and there
was no hierarchy of secular political offices to which one could
attach oneself. By virtue of their control of ritual and fertility,
ritual leaders exercised a measure of control also over the natural
products of their countries, in the sense that they could prohibit
ritually the exploitation of any one of them if it became necessary
to do so; but there was no form of tribute (except in the case of
the hunting of some animals, notably the pangolin: nyamung’umt),
and the ritual leader did not allocate the usufruct of land or
any other resources. His ritual authority also enabled him to
arbitrate in cases of witchcraft accusation and homicide, but
he had no more judicial authority in the settlement of disputes
than any other elder, and no military power. Some wazemi
accumulated large herds, many wives and dependants, and had
a monopoly over slaves taken in war, but the prestige and status
thus attained could equally be acquired by anyone with a large
herd and homestead. There are no provisions in Gogo society
for the legitimate exercise of greater political power or adminis-
trative authority.
In some ways the Gogo ritual leaders do resemble the Somali
‘chiefs’ (called sultans), who also had rain-making functions and
to whom religious powers attached. But in Somaliland a chief
was the head of a kinship group (a ‘tribe’) tracing common
agnatic descent, and although he did not wield authority over a
centralized state, his most important function was to preside at
ceremonies held at the tombs of the eponymous tribal ancestors.
He was thus the closest living person to God within that kinship
group, and with God he had aspecial relationship. The chief, in a
sense, was sacred. The ritual leader in Ugogo was not the head
of a kinship group which was also a congregation; he simply
held ritual precedence in a particular geographical area inhabited
by members of a great many kinship affiliations. He was in no
sense closer to a divine power than anyone else.
In Ugogo contact with Arabs and other Muslim traders in
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam - 279
the early days of Islamic penetration was usually on the basis
of individual initiative, and in fact the ritual leaders deliberately
kept away from strangers lest some physical harm be done them
and the ritual peace of the country be endangered. They had no
monopoly over the limited sources of ivory or other tradable
goods, and no military power which would have enabled them
to enter the business of slaving.?! Even if political power could
have been gained by association with the Muslim traders and
Islam, there was no legitimate means of exercising this power
within the limits of the structure of Gogo society.®* In fact, it
is clear that the role of the ritual leader and the premises upon
which it rested were entirely incompatible with conversion to
Islam and genealogical connexions with Arabian or any Muslim
groups. For the justification of the ritual authority of certain
Gogo clans does not rest upon their association with the areas
from which they came, or the people there from whom they are
descended. Rather it rests upon that part of the history which
tells how they gained ritual control of their specific area, either by
coming with the rain-stones-to a virtually empty place or by the
acquisition of the rain-stones from a group already there by some
‘justifiable’ method.
Gogo clans thus had no means or reasons for linking them-
selves historically with any powerful group of outsiders, Muslim
or otherwise, and there was no basis fora fictional genealogy
supporting lineage authority. Clans or individuals could thus not
be invested with divine grace by rules of descent, except in re-
lation to the areas in which they had ritual leadership. That is, it
was the locality in association with the clan that conferred ritual
authority; not descent from an ultimate source of divine grace.
31 Gogo had age groups of warriors which cut across ritual boundaries and
which were mobilized in defence against enemies, including the Masai and the
Hehe. But these groups seldom embraced large parts of Ugogo in their actual
organization, and ritual leaders were not in control of them.
32 Tt will be shown in a forthcoming paper that the creation of government
chiefs in Ugogo by the British administration, in keeping with the policy of
indirect rule, did not have the effect intended of fully integrating roles of secular
political authority with Gogo social structure. They always remained external;
an addition, an imposition from outside. (See my paper, “Politics and Modern
Leadership Roles in Ugogo’, in V. Turner (ed.), Colonialism in Africa, vol. II,
1970.)
280 Special Studies
We have seen, then, that in Ugogo there were no politically
dominant groups or clans which could take over Islam to their
own political advantage as there were in the West African States.3%
Neither could Gogo clans or kin groups adapt to a new myth of
origin which would bind them to the Prophet’s lineage and so
ensure the flow of divine grace which was so important among
the Somali.84 The very concept of divine grace is foreign to
Gogo cosmology and, in keeping with their kinship organization
and non-segmentary lineage system, Gogo religious and cosmo-
logical concepts bear no relation to Islamic theological doctrine.
Gogo do not think of the spirits of the dead as being in any
hierarchy of proximity to God, as I have already mentioned;
nor do they think of living senior kin as any more endowed with
spiritual power. The elders are simply closer to the spirits of the
dead because they knew most of them when alive, and their age
seniority gives them more wisdom, both secular and religious.
But before I examine in more detail Gogo religious ideas and
cosmology and their significance to the non-acceptance of Islam,
I shall consider one more structural problem: the lack of any
group or community of specialists in Gogo society who could
have taken on the functions of religious teachers, the agents of
the spread of Islamic religion and culture. The importance of
this role in the spread of Islam in West Africa and Somaliland
has already been mentioned. In the West African states there was
often sufficient specialization to allow the growth of such a
group; in Somaliland they emanated from the religious communi-
ties and had a very definite function outside of the purveying of
33 Nadel says of Islam in Nupe, ‘The King first adopted Islam. .. . From the
beginning, then, Islamization in Nupe was bound up with political interests and
represented a “change from above” ’ (op. cit., p. 233).
°4 The importance of a theory of descent from origins close to the Prophet
is shown in many Islamic African societies. Trimingham (1952, op. cit., p. 193)
says of a group of Islamic Galla, ‘The ruling families of the Wallo (Galla) were the
only Muslim Galla who have ever made any pretensions of Arab descent.’
Greenberg, op. cit., p. 12, says of the Hausa Muslims, ‘All the Islamized tribes
of the Sudan seek to establish a traditional connection with Mecca—or, if their
history does not take them back to the time of the Prophet—with Baghdad, the
seat in later times of the Abbasid Caliphate.’ It is likely that many other Islamized
groups in East and North-East Africa trace descent ultimately to Muhammad’s
lineage or other Arabian lineages. Trimingham (1962, p. 19) confirms this for
the Bajun people of the north Kenya coast.
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam 281
Islamic doctrine and law. There was no group or category of
people within Gogo society which could take on these functions,
and I have already shown that the small Muslim communities
which did grow up along the trade routes through Ugogo had
little influence upon the Gogo themselves. All Gogo specialists,
such as smiths, diviners, potters, and basket-makers and others,
continue to participate in the basic economic, social, and political
activities of the community common to all. Only a few diviners
specialize and are successful to the extent that they take part in
no other economic activities, and this is the only role internal to
Gogo society which could have taken on novel functions.35
But again there is no community or cult-group of diviners, and
the skill of divination is passed down through dreams, thus
ensuring the choice of the spirits of the dead, and not through
apprenticeship and ‘learning the trade’.36 However, literacy and
the literary dissemination of doctrine, though important, have
not always been essential for the spread of Islam. There is
evidence that the majority of the population of the medieval
Islamic states on the East African coast were not literate, as there
is a conspicuous lack of inscriptions in the remains of their
towns.3?
In concluding this section it should be noted that there are a
number of cultural elements in Gogo society which could in
some respects be said to correspond with some aspects of Islamic
culture. Among these are circumcision and initiation into adult
society, which have been absorbed from local institutions in
many parts of West Africa and accepted as a part of Muslim
35 Nadel has shown how Islamic ideas influenced divination techniques in
Nupe. One Gogo diviner I came across used the novel method of ‘reading’
a book during a consultation and flipping the pages rapidly.. Whether he could
actually read or not was considered irrelevant, however, as he ‘saw’ what he
wanted through his powers as a diviner, not as a reader. But I have seen no
evidence of Islamic influence on Gogo divination, and Gogo do not use Islamic
texts as charms or medicine. Rather, Gogo divination techniques and the social
context in which they operate are entirely bound up with Gogo values. If there
is influence from external sources it is from the Nilo-Hamitic Masai and Baraguyu
peoples, and sometimes from the Taturu (Tatoga) in the north-west of Gogo
country.
36 This is equally true of the skill of smithing (wutyani).
37 Mathew, in Oliver and Mathew (eds.), 1963, p. 116.
282 Special Studies
doctrine. The importance of initiation into Islamic orders in
Somaliland has been discussed by Lewis. But circumcision in
Gogo thought does not involve initiation into a religious com-
munity and a setting out on the path to God. There could be
no Islamic influence upon Gogo circumcision in any of its reli-
gious, cultural, or functional aspects without radical change in
the premises upon which it is based} and it is still entirely bound
up with Gogo religious ideas and the fertility of the country,
under the influence of the ritual leaders.
V. GOGO RELIGION AND ISLAM
Gogo believe in the spirits of the dead (milungu) and their
power to influence the living. A great number of occurrences,
good and bad, are attributed to the intervention of the spirits
of the dead, but death is never caused by them and is always the
result of witchcraft. The spirits of the dead are propitiated in a
number of ways and at fairly frequent intervals. But the only
regular rites of propitiation are connected with the spirits of
the ritual leaders of the country, at yearly rituals for fertility,
rain, and protection from sickness and natural catastrophe. Most
family spirits are propitiated only irregularly, upon the insti-
gation of a diviner.
The spirits which can and do affect a person and interfere in
his affairs are not only those of his lineal ancestors. They are of
a wide range of paternal and maternal kin, and even close affines
and other kin of one’s wife. It is up to a diviner to decide which
spirits should be approached upon specific occasions, but the
participants in the ritual usually call out the names of all the dead
kin they can remember at the particular moment. Any of the
spirits can be approached through the gravestone of one’s father,
for all the spirits are in the same ‘place’. It is seldom necessary
to know where the graves of one’s grandfathers are, and indeed
they are often very far away. Some minor rites of propitiation
can be performed in the house about one of the roof poles of
the outer room.
Gogo draw strong, if only implicit, associations between
cattle and the spirits of the dead, and the best way to propitiate
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam — 283
the latter is the sacrifice of a beast. It is also essential that all
propitiatory rituals must take place early in the morning, before
the herd has gone out to pasture, or ‘the spirits will disperse and
not come to listen when you call’. Another indication of this
association is that at beer sacrifices or libations (misambwa) a ring
of mud or beer lees is made around the correct roof pole and beer
poured into it. This trough is called mulambo, which is also
the drinking trough made for cattle at the wells during the dry
season. At the end of the ceremony abreach is made in the ritual
trough and the beer allowed to flow out in the direction from
which the clan came. This opening is called ideha, which is the
gate to the cattle byre (and thus also to the homestead).
Although in serious cases cattle must be sacrificed to the
spirits of the dead, showing their considerable power, this is the
case usually only for the communal rituals for the country, to
the spirits of the ritual head. But the spirits of the dead are in no
way held in awe and are in fact addressed in everyday tones
during the ceremony, and sometimes positively rudely.3° Al-
though the oldest male member cf the family should be present,
a great variety of people participate and address the spirits
during most rites, and a person is chosen to do this as much
because of generation position and age as any association with
spiritual power. Members of the senior generation ‘remember
the names of the dead’ and so can perform the ceremony more
adequately than others.
There is another manner in which the spirits of the dead may
contact the living, and vice versa. This is through spirit pos-
session (Autowa macist); but anyone may be possessed by the
spirits and there is no cult group associated with spirit possession.
Mediums do not form a specialized group with specifically
religious functions.
Thus, although there is the conception that the dead can inter-
fere with the living, there is no idea that they are in closer
association with any other source of supernatural power, and
they are not, as I have said, held in any particular awe. They may
38 T know of one elderly lady who was said to address the spirits in the most
abusive tones and language and gain excellent results every time.
284. * Special Studies
be offended if neglected, but are not intermediaries for any
other divinity. In fact, the name of the clan founder is seldom
mentioned in propitiation. Gogo say that he is included in the
term wakuku zetu (our ‘ancestors’ of all kinds), and that is as far
as one should go. There is no hierarchy of spirits, and no neces-
sity for the spirits to intercede on behalf of the living. There are
no eponymous lineage ancestors whose spirits must be ap-
proached, although maximal lineage groups (who can trace their
patrilineal descent) may be named in some contexts after the
apical ancestor. But he is not specially approached and has no
more spiritual power than any other spirits. Usually his grave
would probably be unknown. The only exception to this is
again in the case of the ritual leaders’ clans, who claim to know
the graves of all their ‘lineal’ ancestors from the founding of the
country.
It is apparent that although Gogo have religious leaders with
considerable ritual power, they are not in any way the heads of
religious groups and do not have links with a specific set of spirit-
ual beings whom only they may approach. They simply hold
ritual sway over an area and the people within it at any point
in time, who are not a kin group tied in a congregation to one
set of ancestor spirits. And even within these limits, religious
leaders in Ugogo have little power to enforce their authority.
Neither are they particularly powerful when they die, except
in so far as the dichotomy exists between the spirits of the clan
with ritual precedence, and others in the one area. The grave-
stones of the watemi religious leaders have no communal group
reference outside their local context, within which they may be
said to have more ritual influence than those of individuals of
other clans in that area. This is not, however, because they are
in any way genealogically senior to others; I have already shown
that they do not have to be the spirits of lineal ancestors, but
may be those of a great variety of dead kin. The Muslim concept
of daraka and its inheritance could thus not be integrated into
the role of Gogo religious leaders and the spirit world they have
to deal with.
Before concluding with a brief exploration of Gogo ideas of a
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam 285
high god, I must make some mention of one more category of
spirits in Gogo belief which are wholly evil to all except those who
control them. These evil spirits are called masoce (singular isoce)
and are acquired by people who dig up the bodies of those recently
buried and ‘resuscitate’ them. Some of these evil spirits live in
the bush, others are controlled by people who use them to their
own (mainly economic) advantage. Into this concept could
possibly be absorbed the Islamic one of malignant spirits or
jinn. But in Gogo thought these evil spirits do not have wills
and a domain of their own; they do not possess people. Instead
people possess them as an adjunct to their evil and avaricious
designs, They are essentially a part of human activity.
Gogo do talk of a remote female being (Maduwo) who is
sometimes credited with creation in general but is more often
associated with dust-devils (mankhundi). The word is used to
frighten children, and there is a story of how Maduwo comes
and snatches away bad and disobedient children. The power
of Maduwo is considerable but not specified, and she is not so
interested in human affairs as to be held responsible for death
or other misfortune. She is said to make appearances, always
in some other part of the country, and Gogo cynically say that
the reported appearances are always elsewhere: you never meet
a person who has actually seen or experienced Maduwo. Other-
wise the concept is of a vague and evil power, otiose and un-
approachable. It would be inconceivable to address prayers to
this power, and adults stand in no fear of it.
It can be seen from this brief sketch of Gogo spirit beliefs and
religious ideas that they do not conceive of religious activity as
an approach to a final all-powerful divinity, or even a remote
ancestor near to a divinity. And neither is there any logical
reason that there should be such a concept in Gogo belief when
Gogo religious ideas are viewed in terms of their ideology of
descent and kinship, and their concepts of history. There is no
structural hierarchy of segmentary lineages which could be sub-
sumed eventually under one major genealogical. myth linking
all to a common set of spirits and, through them, to a source of
divine grace and power. If Gogo clans are linked at all it is
286 Special Studies
through historical accident or remote non-lineal kinship links.
In terms of Gogo society and belief then, there is no room for
a concept of divine authority and power into which it would
be advantageous to be finally absorbed, parallel with the Islamic
concept of final absorption in God (gnosis). Consequently, no
external or internal group can claim any more divine authority
than any other and provide for its justification in terms of Gogo
social institutions and religious beliefs. As a result of this, most
external religious influences are absorbed by individuals as a way
out of their society and cannot be internalized. This applies
also to Christian conversion. Until recently, when there are
other motivations, Gogo did not easily accept any external
or novel religious affiliation; although not because of the strength
of Gogo religious beliefs, which are very tolerant and amorphous.
But conversion, meant a complete break with Gogo social values
and institutions and a move to the outside of them. If Islam
could have provided some Gogo with reasons for accepting
conversion, it would have had also to provide somewhere for
the faithful to go; not physically, but as a social category. Their
new way of life and religious belief could in no way be integrated
with Gogo society itself.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In a paper of this scope it is obviously not possible to give
a systematic analysis of Gogo religion and social structure and
their incompatibility with Islamic religion and culture. This would
entail a detailed examination of Gogo cosmology, witch beliefs,
divination, and so on, and a wide range of cultural elements,
relating each to the processes of the absorption of Islam as seen
in other societies. What I have tried to do is demonstrate in
general terms why, although the historical circumstances existed
for the peaceful assimilation of Islam into Gogo society, this did
not occur. I have suggested that this is at least partly a result of
the existence of certain structural elements in Gogo society
unfavourable to such assimilation, and the lack of certain other
structural prerequisites for the absorption of Islam into non-
centralized tribal societies. In spite of the flexibility of Islam in
 The Contact of the Gogo with Islam | 287
adaptation to local conditions (amply demonstrated for many
parts of Africa), in all Islamic communities there is a basic unity
of religious practice and theological belief, and these common
elements demand certain structural prerequisites, depending
upon the form of the pre-Islamic society.39 In Ugogo these
prerequisites were not present, and instead there were others of
a negative nature.
Consistent with the structural incompatibilities of Gogo
society for Islamic syncretism, I have tried to show that Gogo
concepts of spirits of the dead, spiritual power, and divinity are
also incompatible with the main Islamic theological notions;
or, for that matter, with those of any religion based upon mystical
concepts. This interpretation may have served to highlight some
of the conditions for the acceptance of Islam in African societies.

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°° Greenberg (1946, p. 11) describes this basic underlying unity of Islamic

culture and says that although Islam reached the Hausa‘... through such
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coherent process.’
288 Special Studies
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(1959) Savannah Nomads, O.U.P. for I.A.1., London.
Trimingham, J. S.
(1949) Islam in the Sudan, O.U.P., London.
(1952) Islam in Ethiopia, O.U.P., London.
(1962) Islam in East Africa, C.W.M.E. Research Pamphlet, Edinburgh House
Press.
 XIV. A CONTROVERSY OVER ISLAMIC
CUSTOM IN KILWA KIVINJE, TANZANIA

PETER LIENHARDT

Under the names ‘adah and ‘urf; Islamic legal authorities have
long recognized the existence of local custom which can some-
times run counter to details of the Shari‘a . Traditional customs
hallowed with age in particular Muslim communities may be at
variance with what members of these communities find recom-
mended in the Arabic legal text-books if and when they learn to
read them. The divergence between the strict prescriptions of the
scholars and the custom of the community is not, however, to be
attributed simply to difficulties of acquiring the books and reading
them. Customary procedures have their own positive content,
and even in Arab communities and the centres of Arab civilization
local custom has continued to assert itself side by side with the
scholarly law. But where Arabic is not the daily language of the
community one may expect to find more people doubtful of the
ways in which their own popular Islam differs from the pre-
scriptions of the Shari‘a, and here arise differences of opinion
within one and the same community.
What is a man to do if his studies suggest that the custom of
his community is at variance with what the text-books say? In an
Arabic phrase, ‘Religious learning is like the sea’: there may exist
other books he does not know of that give authoritative support
to local practices. Not all would copy those of the extremist
tkhwan of the Wahhabi movement, who, with a passion for re-
form greater than their learning, held as forbidden or disapproved
local practices which the consensus of learned opinion allowed.
Even if a man is convinced that some of his people’s customs are
unsupported by scholarly authority, he may decide that there is
little he can do about it. What if they are supported by local men
whose reputation for holiness is greater than his own? Or what if
taking action would involve a change in the society which most
290 | Special Studies
would think out of proportion to the seriousness of the issue
involved? I remember one religious leader in Tanganyika com-
menting regretfully on women inaparticular village who, with all
good intentions, would pick up and suckle any infant they saw
crying if they had the milk to give it. Strictly speaking, all the
children so suckled by the same woman probably entered into the
prohibited degrees of kinship with one another as a result of this
solicitude, and no one knew who as a child had been suckled at one
time or another by whom. This cast some doubt on the strict
validity of marriages in the village when the children grew up, but
the man who knew this could scarcely suggest that the whole
village should avoid the dangers of this anomaly by becoming
exogamous.
This case, however, was simply one of neglecting the strict
law. In other instances the action is positive, and it is argued that
since the community is traditionally Muslim, its customs must be
so likewise. Thus, there exist customs which, though unsupported
in the books, are still for particular communities their own relig-
ious orthodoxy. They have been handed down, it is said, from
the great men of the past; and were not the people of olden times
more pious and more learned than the backsliders and oppor-
tunists of nowadays? Nevertheless, the improvement of com-
munications and the increase of literacy in recent years have
produced various influences working upon the local scene and
modifying the system of values in which local custom operates.
There has been contact with the Christianity, the agnosticism,
and the social doctrines which have spread out from the west, and
also contact with Islamic thought from other Muslim countries
which have been less isolated before.
In East Africa changes brought about through the introduc-
tion of missions and colonial rule have also altered the situation
by modifying the relative status of the people of the interior and
the coast. Not very long ago the coastal people could look upon
themselves as the truly cultured and civilized people of East
Africa, for those were days when the only literate education was
an Islamic one and the only religion with claims to universality
was Islam. Colonial rule brought with it a slow change. Many
 Controversy over Islamic Custom in Kilwa Kivinje 291
pagans of the interior were converted to Christianity, a religion
which also carried with it a claim to universality and a body of
learning, while the Muslims of the coast naturally resisted any
change of faith. The Christian mission schools, largely rejected
on religious grounds by the coastal people, provided an educa-
tion more in tune with the forces of the European society from
which they came than did the old teaching of the Quran schools
and the mosques, and it was these European forces that were
changing the political and economic organization of the country.
Pupils of such schools acquired better qualifications for govern-
ment and commercial employment than could be obtained under
the existing Islamic system. This disadvantage of the coastal
people was not easily made up by government schools: many of
the religious leaders and ordinary Muslims of the coast for long
distrusted government schools, because even if they were not
specifically Christian neither were they Muslim in the traditional
sense. It was feared that Muslims attending them might receive
teaching that conflicted with their faith. Following from this
state of affairs, many people of the coast, by experience, are now
made conscious that disadvantages have followed from con-
servatism. Some look for progress to a more modern organization
within the Islamic system. In this roundabout way the reformers
of local custom come to have a number of extraneous forces on
their side.
The controversy I speak of here was closely connected with
these matters, though it has little directly to do with education.
It arose over the question of how to pray for rain. This confron-
tation between local orthodoxy and the orthodoxy of the religious
text-books took place in the little town of Kilwa Kivinje in 1959.
Kilwa Kivinje lies on the coast of southern Tanganyika and has a
population of just under three thousand, almost all of whom are
born Muslims adhering to the Shafi‘i school of law. Most of them
fast Ramadan and many pray the five daily prayers, though apart
from those who are unwilling to do this, there are some who do
not know the words and once they have grown up are embarrassed
to admit it, so cannot ask to be taught. Many of the people have
attended Quran schools and so learned to read the Arabic letters
292 Special Studies
and to write their own language, Swahili, in Arabic script. But
as for the Arabic language, although Arabic is the language of
prayers, of sermons, and of law books, there are not many people
in Kilwa who have any knowledge of it.
In the early months of 1959 there was general distress in Kilwa
because of the lack of rain. The situation was not so bad as in the
year before, but the rain that had fallen had come inconveniently
in heavy showers, with periods of hot sun from a clear sky in
between. The sun had killed the rice before it could get established.
This was before the time of independence, and some of the people
remarked that the German colonial government and the earlier
government of the Sultans of Zanzibar had been much more
effective in matters of rain than were the British. The earlier
governments used‘to give an animal to be slaughtered in a
ceremony called zinguo myt, ‘ridding the town of evil’, a cere-
mony used in praying for rain and also in times of war and epi-
demic. It was said that when the Ngoni were threatening Kilwa
during the period just before the Germans came, the people had
consulted an augury to find out what they could do and had
learned that they should ‘rid the town of evil’ according to
custom. So they had taken a black bull round the town in pro-
cession—the word zinguo, which occurs in the name of the
ceremony, is connected with the idea of going around or un-
wrapping. But on that occasion they simply released the bull into
the bush like a scapegoat instead of sacrificing it. It was said that
when freed this bull had become very ferocious and had come to
the outskirts of the town digging up and eating corpses in the
graveyard (a kind of behaviour attributed to sorcerers). The
ceremony had succeeded. The Ngoni approaching Kilwa saw the
shadows of palm trees and thought they were shadows of a great
army which they dared not face. They left Kilwa in search of
easier game.
It is not, of course, possible to know everything that was said
about the lack of rain at the time of the dispute in 1959: I can
only report what was said to me and what I overheard. One
opinion I heard attributed the lack of rain to God’s displeasure
with the people for having left off their pious and wholesome
 Controversy over Islamic Custom in Kilwa Kivinje 293
old ways. In the past, it was said, they were generous with each
other and used to share out their harvests among their families
and neighbours. Thus, they acquired blessing (6araka). Now the
blessing was withdrawn, for every man was filled with self-
interest, eager to cultivate for himself and sell his produce in the
market for money. Some of the personal misgivings which
followed from social change and the moving of a subsistence to-
wards a cash economy were thus expressed in relation to the
divine control of weather.
There was no widespread certainty that anything done would
necessarily produce more rain. It was said that rain might or
might not come as a result of prayers, but that there was no point
in people’s thinking that they could just pray once and get what
they wanted. Only constant perseverance made prayers fruitful.
The example of the Prophet was quoted in this connexion, for
God had at first laid down that the set prayers must be prayed
fifty times a day. The Prophet had interceded on behalf of man-
kind and asked God to reduce the obligation to five, but even he
had had to beg God three times to do this before the favour was
granted. (According to the religious commentators, the Prophet
Muhammad was advised by the Prophet Moses to ask for this
mercy during his visit to heaven.)
Many people in Kilwa are adherents of the Qadiriyya religious
order, whose Shaikh there has a high reputation for holiness.
(At the time of the 1959 elections, when there was a slight doubt
about the relations of Muslims and Christians in Tanganyika,
the now President made his first visit during his election tour to
Kilwa to this remarkable man.) One of the members of the
Qadiriyya order said that the best way to bring rain was to fast
for one to three days and make a vow to the saint who founded
the Qadiriyya, Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani. To him many
miracles were attributed. One of the Qadiriyya songs sung at
funerals refers to how Shaikh ‘Abd al-Qadir used to preach
sitting on a dead palm trunk, and how, when he departed, this
dead trunk went on repeating his sermons—Gogo limesema
maneno yake: ‘The tree trunk spoke his words.’
The opinion that was to prevail, in as far as any did, since in
294 Special Studies
the long run it was largely ignored, was that of a man who was
probably the most learned in religious books in Kilwa. In spite
of this superior learning, he did not hold the highest position
there in religious precedence, since religious appointments tend
to go in families and there were others from families longer
established in the town who were closer to these mosque livings.
At a meeting called to discuss the question of praying for rain
he stated that the religious authorities said nothing about making
sacrifices in this connexion: what the people should do was to
fast for four days and then to gather with their flocks and herds
outside the town and pray for rain. The meeting agreed to do
this, but with little enthusiasm. Most people still seemed inclined
to think that if anything was to be done effectively it was by the
zinguo mji, the cetemony that had proved successful in the past.
The zinguo mji is a ceremony that has been very widespread in
the East African coastal area, though it now seems to be passing
out of use. It has been performed in slightly different forms, to
my knowledge, from Lamu to the Kilwa area, beyond which
points my inquiries did not reach. Some said in Kilwa that the
zinguo mjt should begin with a three-day fast. Others said fasting
had nothing to do with it. Since it did not occur on this occasion,
I cannot say which opinion corresponded better to the actual
performance of the ceremony, but I have not heard of a fast
preceding the zinguo mji elsewhere, and so am inclined to think
that the talk of fasting may have followed from the other opinions
about fasting expressed on this occasion. The victim, it was said,
should be a black he goat or a black bull which was led round the
town in procession before being sacrificed, the banner of the
Qadiriyya order being carried along with it in Kilwa. Three
rounds of bread made from millet flour and called mofa were
contributed by each household. This is a special sort of bread
used for ceremonies and has the alternative name of mikate ya
sadaga, ‘charity loaves’. The meal is made up of the flesh of a
sacrificial victim, and this bread is spoken of here and in other
places as fulfilling the Islamic duty of dispensing charity.
After taking it round the town the men led the victim out to a
place in the bush called Kwa Bwana Fundi, where there was a
 Controversy over Islamic Custom in Kilwa Kivinje 295
little spring. Bwana Fundi—‘Mr. Technician’—was a German of
the colonial period who lived near the place. The word kwa usually
occurs in names of places associated with spirits. The men kept
the bull there in the bush with them for the night. Meanwhile
the women were spending the night just outside the town at a
place where there are two baobab trees. The older of them has
fallen on its side and is called mbwyu kiwete, ‘the lame baobab’,
while the younger is mbuyu mkuta, ‘the skipping-rope baobab’.
Both of them have a great many ship’s nails hammered into them
where people have tried to return sorcery to those they suspected of
directing it against them. Here the women spent the night
skipping with a rope tied to one of the baobab trees. Before the
skipping-rope baobab grew to full size they used the other bao-
bab, and in those days they used to wear plain clothes, as in
mourning, but on changing over to the skipping-rope baobab
they altered their custom and began to dress in their best clothes
for the ceremony.
The next day the bull was sacrificed in the bush. There was a
particular man whose job it was to kill it, and his two assistants
helped him to cook it later, but this was not a matter of any great
significance in Kilwa, and the jobs were not hereditary. In the
village of Pande, about twenty miles from Kilwa, where the
zinguo myi has been performed more frequently in recent years
(the headman there said it had taken place three times within the
last twelve years) any man might kill the bull, and of course in
Islam in general it is not significant who actually performs a
sacrifice so long as it is a Muslim man. Before the bull was
slaughtered there were little Arabic prayers in rhyme, each
repeated seven times over. The men, or such as could, wore two
white cloths, one round the waist and the other over the shoulders
(a style of dress reminiscent of the thram costume of the pil-
grimage when the pilgrims are in a state of purification). At each
repetition of the prayer they would invert the cloth that lay over
the shoulders and bring it over the forehead. The first prayer
ran:
Marhaba bi-’l-nabi, al-nabi wa-’l-sahabah
Wa aminna bihi wa bima jabah.
296 Special Studies
Welcome to the Prophet, the Prophet and his Companions,
We believe in him and in what he brought (i.e. the revelation).
The second prayer was:
Ya Allaha jid (sc. Allahumma jud) amtara
Ghaithan wa-’l-mann min dtrarah.

O God bring copious rain

In the clouds, favour lies in heavy rainclouds.
Men laid their hands on the back of the bull (so one informant
said) and then it was slaughtered with the usual Islamic expression,
Allah akbar, ‘God is most great’. The skin of the victim was cut
up to make it useless and was left in the bush, where it would
be eaten by hyenas. The meat was taken back into the town to be
cooked and was eaten at the Friday mosque with the charity
bread. (In this respect the ceremony at Kilwa Kivinje was un-
like that at Kilwa Kisiwani seventeen miles away, where the meat
could on no account be brought back into the village.) The bones
were carefully collected to be taken back into the bush with the
hooves and other inedible parts and buried there under a particular
kapock tree, a sort of tree much associated with spirits. The food
at the mosque was set out on mats, and at the end of the meal the
people inverted the mats and repeated the prayers. This inversion
of the mats and earlier of the cloths that were on the men’s
shoulders is clearly a symbolical expression of the desire to change
circumstances. Connected with the same word zinguo is also
another ceremony, this time a personal one, to perform which is
called kuringuliwa. It is adopted by some people who find them-
selves suffering from a run of personal misfortune.
As I have said, the zinguo mjt was not carried out. A meeting
attended by the District Commissioner and the Liwali of Kilwa
decided to take the advice of the religious teachers who pro-
posed fasting and prayer according to the recommendations of
the books. But the decision was a half-hearted one, the more so
because Ramadan and the six days of super-rogatory fasting
that follow it had only just ended. People were tired of fasting
and began making excuses for avoiding it. At the meeting which
discussed the question of a special fast the District Commissioner
 Controversy over Islamic Custom in Kilwa Kivinje 297
had acted with circumspection: immediately after the meeting
began he had announced that the subject was a religious one and
that he would hand over the conduct of business to the Muslim
officers. This was a rather touchy time. Independence was
approaching, but the people did not yet know when or how it
would come.
In spite of the tact of the District Commissioner, many people
were ready to take up any attitude to excuse themselves from
standing by the decision of the meeting. A number continued to
say that a question of religion such as this should have been dis-
cussed by the Muslims in the mosque, and it was not for the
District Commissioner to teach people their religion. (In fact,
the District Commissioner had only been there at all because he
had specially been asked to come, presumably with the idea in
some quarters that the Government might be prepared to con-
tribute a bull to the zinguo mji ceremony, though when it came to
the point it was never asked to do so.) Others, in rather similar
vein, said that if any fasting was to be done the Government
officials should do it—were they not in charge of the welfare
of the country? Many just did not expect any quantity of rain
in any case. There was no idea of praying for a miracle in their
idea of praying for rain. The rainy season was near its end, and
they said that any rain that came now would be of little use—
were they to fast for drinking water? And there were quite a
number who expressed annoyance at having a change in the
customs of the past introduced. It was asked rhetorically whether
the people of the past could not be assumed to have been more
learned than those of the present day. It seemed to me that there
was some suggestion that because the men of the past were born
earlier, even though they had died, they were much older and
wiser people, fitting in with the idea of wisdom’s being associated
with seniority among the living. But probably the main cause of
lack of co-operation in the fast was what was often said too: that
Ramadan and the six super-rogatory days were enough and the
people could not face any more fasting.
I do not know how many people fasted at the time agreed, but
there were not many. Some with high religious reputations were
298 Special Studies
to be seen eating and smoking in public. Others who would have
followed their example in fasting and had even begun the fast
also followed their example in not fasting when this became plain.
And there were some who drank their tea in private until they
were quite sure that it was respectable to drink it in public. The
rain did not noticably increase, and the rainy season was soon at
an end. Nothing had happened to justify any earlier point of view,
nor had the confrontation of tradition by book learning reached
any clear conclusion in favour of either.
The material relevant to such a dispute as I have here des-
cribed is naturally extensive and varied, but out of it I will select
only one conversation, also from Kilwa. Among those present
were a Matumbi, a Yao, a reformer of custom, a religious Shaikh,
and a Muslim stranger from Mombasa. Both the Matumbi and
the Yao have shrines for ancestral spirits, and the reformer was
criticizing them for this. He announced provocatively that to
maintain these shrines was forbidden (haramu) in just the same
way as eating pork. The Yao replied that his tribe was accus-
tomed to this old traditional way of maintaining shrines dedi-
cated to ancestors whom they asked to help them in their difficulties.
The reformer told him: ‘You are all unbelievers and neither full
Muslims nor full pagans. You are just giving foreigners the
opportunity to criticize us.’ The Yao said that theirs was simply
a harmless custom; it was just a matter of remembering the
ancestors and was simply like saying the fatihah. The stranger,
playfully encouraging the controversy, asked why, if this was
forbidden, the Muslims used a prayer calling by name on those
who had fought on the Prophet’s side at the Battle of Badr:
were they not all dead people? The religious shaikh announced
that Muslims read this prayer in order to ask the people it men-
tioned to pray to God for them in accordance with their wishes.
The Matumbi and the Yao then said that if this was so, surely
they had the right to ask their ancestors to pray for them?
Another Matumbi finished off the conversation by saying that
praying to the ancestors was effective, but it was still wrong. This
was because when people went to pray at ancestral shrines there
were evil spirits there. These spirits repeated the prayers, and
 Controversy over Islamic Custom in Kilwa Kivinje 299
when they opened their mouths towards heaven their breath
stank so abominably that the angels could not endure it and asked
God to grant the prayer quickly to stop the smell. This sort of
praying was wrong therefore because it amounted to a molesta-
tion of the angels.
The details of this controversy over rain provide a glimpse
of one small Islamic community undergoing the complex pro-
cess of social change. This process includes thé questioning and
modification of values. Communications, so important in pro-
ducing social change, bring not one but manifold influences to
bear upon the values of the small locality. Here indirect influences
are just as important as the direct ones. In Kilwa, Westernization
and the more fully Shari‘a form of Islam enter together upon the
local scene. At the same time there are movements towards a
more fully cash economy, to wage labour, and to a resultant
increase in the economic independence of the young.
Because of the improvement of communications the society
changes its scale. People have wider and more frequent contacts
outside their traditional localities. They have more to compare
themselves with. This is particularly the case while the change of
scale is going on, for the more obvious differences within the
new, wider area have yet to be ironed out. It is found that what is
taken for granted in one place does not necessarily command
sympathy in another. In the comparison of values which arises,
change has already occurred in the larger centres, and there are
aspects of life there, whether of comfort or sophistication, which
excite admiration. They carry a higher prestige than the people
of the small locality can credit to themselves. The attitudes of
their inhabitants cannot be ignored. Self-consciousness increases
among the people of the small locality, particularly among the
young. The values of the local community are questioned.
Reason and will play an important part in change, for being
less satisfied with their position when they have more to compare
it with, the people want to produce change while it is producing
them, to direct themselves towards improvement, and to control
it. In the wider sphere in which they move they also wish to
guard themselves against criticisms of themselves which they
300 Special Studies
either know or suspect to be made by relative strangers, people
whose opinions they cannot disregard because they seem in some
ways to be leading a superior kind of life. One finds, for example,
younger Mawiha living away from home who congratulate
themselves on having escaped receiving the conspicuous facial
markings of that people. They find that the significance attached
to these markings at home does not apply when Mawiha are away
from home, and the markings single them out in ways they find
embarrassing.
In the general questioning of values those of religion do not
escape scrutiny. The prestige of religious practice and leadership
suffers some decline. Here those religious leaders who are ill-
equipped to justify religious practice on a basis of scholarship
are at a loss. Those who are better educated make some progress
in having their views accepted and in advancing in prestige
relative to the rest, for though they may lack the strength of
hereditary position, this disadvantage is of less account when
hereditary position itself is being questioned too. As the social
world of the small community is broadened, corporate folk
customs decline, since customs which people find difficult to
explain rationally need something more than local and personal
authority to justify them. On the other hand, it is difficult to
replace them with more orthodox and rigorous practices which
are new to the local community. This would demand an authority
which even the educated cannot easily achieve in a period of doubt.
 INDEX

Abbasid Empire, 40, 116-18 al-Mansur Qala‘un, Sultan, 121, 139

“Abd al-Qadir, Shaikh, 293; see also Al-Mu‘tasim, 115, 118
Qadiriyya al-Mustansir, Caliph, 119
‘Abdallah b. al-Jahm, 117 al-Nasir, Sultans 121
‘Abdallah b. Sa‘d b. Abi Sarh, 114, Al-Qummi, 118
116 Al-Sa‘di, 167, 140
‘Abdullahi, Khalifa, 43, 2270, 232-4 Al-Sadiq, Balama, 139-40
Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abdallah, Sharif, 9, al-Shafi‘i, see Shafi’i
28, 116 Al-Ya‘qubi, 7, 230
Abu Bakr Da‘u, 131-2 Al-Zubayr, 233, 235
Abyssinia, see Ethiopia alcohol, 45
Adamawa, 36, 38, 44; see also Fulbe Algeria, 89
Aden, 9, 28 Allah, see gods
advisers, 30-1; see also holymen; Almoravid Sect, 16
priests alms, 72-4, 188, 197
‘Afar people, 6-7, 23, 527, 110 ‘Alwa, 112, 119, 122-3
Africa, see Pan-Africa; nationalism Amadu Bamba, 74
agents of Islam, 20-31; see also trade Amal, see pillars of faith
agriculture, 33, 167-8, 174; see also Amhara people, 6, 82
pastoralism ‘Amr b. al-‘As, 113-15
Ahmad al-Baghdadi, Sharif, 148 amulets, 150, 157, 2333 see also magic
Ahmad al-Tijani, 18 ancestor cult, see dead, cult of
Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Sa‘id, 138 angels, Go, 62, 66; see also spirits
Ahmad b. ‘Umar b. Muhammad Anglo-Ashanti treaty, 154
Agit, 133 animism, 167, 170, 175, 182-5, 270;
Ahmad Bamba, 18 see also spirits
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, Shaikh, 31 Arab League, 90n
Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi, 9 Arab Radio, 88
Ahmadiyya Order, 9, 19, 81, 186, Arabic language: in commerce, 20;
242, 248 in diplomacy, 155, 171; in Kilwa,
Ahmadu, see Bello 289-92; in Kota-Kota, 258; in
Ahmadu Zaruk, 219 religion, 29, 187; status of, 88;
Al-Bakri, 16, 125 in Sudan, 4-5, 108-9
Al-Haj ‘Omar, 186 aristocracy, 36, 40; see also kings
al-Hajj ‘Umar, 39, 101, 238 army, see military service; warriors
al-Hajj, see Muhammad Ture Ashanti people, 17, 25, 31, 144-65
Al-Maghili, 126-7, 130, 133-4, 186, Askia kings, 31, 36, 124-43
219 Assiut, 21
al-Ma’mun, 116, 129 Aswan, 112-13, 118
302 Index
Aydhab, 4, 21, 116, 119-20 Ca da Mosto, 17
Azande people, 69 caldendar, 70-2, 190
caravans, see trade routes
Baba, Shaikh, 31, 144-65 passim caste, 100, 107, 168; see also social
Badi, 4, 21, 113, 116 structures
Bagamoyo, 22 cattle, see pastoralism
Bait Asgade, 6 centralized societies, 35-8; see also
Bambara, 39, 149 uncentralized
Banda, Dr, 264 ceremonies, see ritual
Bani Hilal, 99 Chad, 17, 21, 227-38
Bantu people, 7, 11-12, 110-11, 2425 charity, see alms
see also Gogo children, 56, 183-4, 189; see also
Bagt, 115, 147 family; marriage
baraka (mystical power), 27, 36, 63, Christianity: in conflict with Islam,
65, 132, 135-6, 274, 293 77-83; decline of, 122-3; and
Baybars, Sultan, 152 . education, 291; in Ethiopia, 9o,
Bedouin, 33, 397, 52 110; in Kota-Kota, 258-9, 263;
Beja people, 21, 108, 112-13, 116-18, Mossi, 182, 187, 190; in Nubia, 8,
122 112-14, 119, 122
Belgium, 14, 77, 253 circumcision, 15, 52, 68, 169, 197,
belief, Islamic, 58—67 203, 281-2; see also initiation
Bello, Ahmadu, Sir, 214-15, 231 clans, see social structure
Bello, Mamman, Sultan, 218-23 class, see caste
Bello, Muhammad, 58x, 165, 218-19, clitoridectomy, 68-9
228-9 colonialism and Islam, 76-83, 101-2,
Benadir coast, 7, 22 169-70, 253-64; see also Belgium;
Beni ‘Amir people, 6 Britain; France; Germany; Italy
Benin, 25-6, 107 conflict in religion, 77-83; see also
Berbers, 23, 397, 99-100, 125-6; Jihad; war
see also Maghribi Congo, 13-15, 69, 77; 79
betrothal, 203-4; see also marriage conversion, 156-7, 179-82; see also
blood-compensation, see Shari‘a resistance
blood-wealth see diya courts of law, 40, 43, 46, 80; see also
Boran people, 78 Schools of law
bori cult, 18 cousin marriage, 52, 247
Bornu, 16, 23, 218, 234-5 craftsmen, 25-6
Brava, 7, 11 crime, 45-8
Britain: and colonies, 77-80, 253-53 cults, see dead; spirits
in Gogo, 279n; and Hausa, 236-7; culture zones, 103-11
in Kilwa, 292, 297; and Mahdism, Cushites, 61, 274; see also Hamites
236-8; in Malawi, 255-64 customs, controversy over, 289-300
brotherhoods, see tarigas Cyrenaica, 21, 77
Buganda, 31, 38, 57, 268-9
Burmi, battle of, 237 Dagomba people, 17, 173, 218
 Index | 303
Dahlak Islands, 4, 7, 116 105, 110; jihad in, 8-9; marriage
Dahomey, see Benin in, 52; nationalism in, 85, 90;
Damel dynasty, 166-72 trade in, 22
dar al-harb, 89, 114, 150-1 expansion, Islamic, phases of, 99-103
dar al-Islam, 89, 114, 150, 213
dar al-mu-‘ahada, 114 faith, see pillars
Darfur, 4, 21, 23, 231 family, 107, 194-6; see also children;
Dawud, Askia, 137-9 marriage
Dawud, King of Nubia, 120 fasting, 294, 297+8; see also
dead: ceremonies for, 69-70, 204-5; Ramadan
cult of, 62-4, 66, 71, 73-4, 109n, feasts: calendar, 70-2; family, 107;
175—G6n, 298; damages for, 243; sacrificial, 68, 167; Wodaabe,
see also spirits 199-202, 205; see also Tabaske
delicts, 46-8 fertility, 55-6
devils, Go, 66; see also spirits France and colonies, 78-80, 84—6,
Dia dynasty, 125-6 169-70, 179, 184
Diakhanke people, 62 Fulani people, 40-2, 214-24; clerics,
Digo people, 54 27, 32; Empire, 228; jzhad, 17-18,
diplomats, 154-5 42-4, 227-8, 237; and law, 49-50;
divination, 29, 6o—1, 65-6, 158, 233, and marriage, 52, 55; as pastoralists,
281 67n, 272-3; rulers, 36, 38-44, 63,
divorce, 54; see also marriage 2133 war, 40, 272; see also Wodaabe
diya (blood-wealth), 34, 46-8, 57, Fulbe people, 38, 206—20
256, 259 funerals, 69-70; see also dead
Djenne, 28 Fung, 6, 27, 39, 122-3
doctrine, Islamic, 58-67 Futa Jallon, 39, 100, 149, 155
Dongola, 112-14, 116 Futa Toro, 39, 149, 222
dowry, 55-6, 107, 247; see also
marriage Galla Boran, 78
dualism of Wodaabe, 194-9 Galla people, 10, 61, 272; Islam in,
duties of Islam, see pillars 74; marriage in, 57; serfs, 246
Dyula people, 17-18, 24-5, §5 Gao people, 16, 21, 124-5, 129
genealogies, 243, 245, 247, 273-4,
East African Islam, 9-13, 103, 108-11 277, 280n
education: Ashanti, 145; Christian, Germans, in Tanzania, 269, 292
291; Ethiopian, 90; Mossi, 177-80, Ghadames, 21
186-92; Nubian, 112-14, 119, 122; Ghana, 11, 15-17, 21, 25, 106
and nationalism, 87-8 Ghulam Allah b.‘Ayd, 122-3
Egypt, 4, 64, 87, 90, 104-5, 108-9, Gobir people, 213-15, 219-22
146; see also Nubia; Sudan gods, 60-1, 66, 174-5, 274, 285-6;
Eritrea, 6-7, 49, 62, 64, 76-7, 105 see also religion
Ethiopia: Christianity in, 90, 110; Gogo people, 275-88
colonialism in, 82; education in, gold: mining, 118-19; trade, 21-2,
90; Islam in 1, 6-9, 64, 69, 74, 25, 147, 152-3, 161
 304 Index
Gonja people, 17 infibulation, 69
groups, see social structure inheritance, 203; see also
Guinea: coast, 17, 21, 25; genealogies; matriliny; patriliny
independence, 84-5; Islam in, 33, initiation, 68, 71, 281-23; see also
108; matriliny in, 48; as theocracy, circumcision
100 Islamic Congress, 88
gunpowder, 161 Isma‘iliyya, 81
Italy and colonies, 76-7, 80
Habe, 38-9
Ivory Coast, 33
Hadramaut, 10, 103, 111
ivory trade, 21-2, 268-9
haj, see Mecca
Haji ‘Umar, 78
Jando, 15, 68; see also circumcision
Hakam al-Nabighi, 116-17
Hamallah, Shaikh, 19 Jenne, 133-4, 140, 147-8
ithad: anti-colonial, 89; Ashanti,
Hamalliste sect, 186
149, 161; in Ethiopia, 8-9;
Hamite people, 4-6, 33-4, 102, 105,
Fulani, 17-18, 42-4, 227-8, 237;
108-10; see also Cushites
Hamite, 34; against Hausa, 228;
Hanafi School of Law, 5, 9
of Hayatu, 236; in Kayor, 167;
Harar, 8-9, 22, 26, 28
against Mossi, 138, 173, 1763 of
Hausa people, 24-5; Arabic in, 28,
Muhammad Ahmad, 232; and
275; aristocracy, 39, 42, 108, 1333
Nomads, 34; obligation to, 150;
and British, 236-7; and Islam,
rise of, 100; in Senegal, 238;
27-8, 61, 64, 73, 106, 134, 146, Somali, 9, 18, 79; Songhay, 138,
149; jihad against, 228; marriage,
176-7; in Sudan, 42—4; types,
553 Slaves, 51; traders, 24-5, 271;
2173 see also Mahdism; Uthman
women, son
dan Fodio; war
Hayatu b. Sa‘id, 2117, 235-6
jinns, 60, 62-4, 66, 190, 285
Hijaz, 5-6, 27
Jumbes of Kota-Kota, 255-64
Aijra, 7, 150-2, 161, 217-18, 23.4, 267
passim
holymen, 27-31, 78, 88
horse-gallops, 200
Kabakas, 31, 38, 268-9; see also
Hussayn Baliale, Shaikh, 22, 74
Buganda
Ibadi School of Law, 13 Kanem, 21, 24, 47
Ibn Battuta, 10, 16n, 24, 25, 125-6, Kanem-Bornu, 16, 23
268 Kanembu people, 107
Ibn Hawaal, 116 Kano, 40, 133, 213, 218, 223
Ibn Khaldun, 125, 253 Kanuri people, 55, 107
Ibn Sulam al-Aswani, 116, 119 Kanz dynasty, 118-21
Ibrahim, Sharif, 149, 158-9 karamat, 248
id al-kabir, 71, 185 Karanga, 13
Tfat, 8, 38, 43 Karimiya people, 24
imam, 162, 177-9, 227 Katsina, 133, 213, 218, 223
independence and Islam, 83-91, 190; Kayor Wolof people, 35, 166-72
see also nationalism Kenya, 8, 42, 77, 85
 Index 7 305
Khatmiyya Order, 6, 86-7 227-38; see also jihad; Muhammad
Kilwa, 7, 10-12, 38, 289-92, 296 Ahmad
Kilwa Kivinje, 289-300 Mahdiyya Order, 226-38
kinship, 47-50; see also marriage Mahmud b. ‘Umar, 136
kings: Ashanti, 153-7; Askia, 31, 36, mahr cremony, §3, 55-6
124-43; Buganda, 31, 38, 268-9; Malam Jibrella, 236-7
of centralized states, 32, 35-8, Malam Sa‘id, 237-8
271; Damel, 166-77; Fulani, 36, Malawi, 17, 254-64
38-44, 63, 2133; Gogo, 277-80; Mali: independence, 84-7; Islam in,
Kota-Kota, 255-64; Kumasi, 17, In, 15-16, 27, 1333 rulers of, 16,
21-2, 160-1; Mali, 16, 36, 126; 36, 126; trade in, 23, 25
Mossi, 174-8; Nubia, 113, 1203; Maliki Law School, 5, 9, 16, 18, 45,
patronage of, 31; Songhay, 47, 109
125-42; of uncentralized states, Malinke people, 17, 24
333 see also Leopold II Mamluks, 118-22
kola nuts, 147, 153, 199-201 Mamman, see Bello
Kota-Kota, 255-64 Mamprussi people, 17
Kotokoli people, 17, 26, 50 Mande people, 24, 106-7
Kufra, 21 Mandinka people, 55
Kumasi Muslims, 144-65 Mansa Musa, 27, 36, 126
Kunta, 27 marabout, see holymen
marriage, 54; ‘Afar, 52; ceremony,
laamiibe, 208-11 69, 203-4; cicisbean, 56n, 203;
labour, forced, 184-5 cousin, 52, 247; in Ethiopia, 52;
land tenure, 49; see also matriliny; Galla, 57; Hausa, 55; Mossi, 174,
patriliny 183; patterns of, 51-7, 107;
Lat-Dayor, Damel, 166-72 Somali, 245, 247; in Sudan, 52;
law and customary practice, 45-57; see also children; dowry, kinship;
see also courts; Schools of law polygamy; women
leaders, see kings Marya people, 6
Leopold II, king, 14, 76-7, 253 Masina, 39, 101
Liberia, 11 matriliny, 15, 36, 48, 52, 54-5, 1185
lineage, see genealogy; kings; see also genealogies; patriliny
matriliny; patriliny mawlid (prophet’s birthday), 71
Livingstone, David, 253-4, 256 Mecca: and Askias, 36, 135-6; and
Lunda people, 13 Christians, 79; and Mossi, 188-9;
obligation to, 34n, 73-5; and
Ma-Ba Dyakhow, 169-71 reformism, 88; route to, 21, 119,
Maghribi, 15, 103-5 231-2; and Wodaabe, 198
magic, 60, 65-6, 150, 157, 1673 see Mende people, 62, 70
also baraka; divination; Qadi; Mensa people, 6
witchcraft metal trade, 21-2
magician-kings, 127-30, 132, 135 militancy, 100-2; see also jihad;
Mahdism, 5, 14, 38-44, 211-12, war
306 Index
military service, 151-62 passim, Muridiyya Order, 18, 79, 86, 106
168, 184; see also jihad; war Musa, Askia, 138
mining, 118-19, 139, 184
Mirghaniyya Order, 6 name-giving ceremony, 202-3
missionaries, Islamic, 81-2; see also nationalism, 77, 83-91
Christianity; teachers Ndendeuli people, 78
mobility, social, 51, 185, 209 Negro culture zone, 104-5, 107
modern world and Islam, 76-91 Niger, 1n, 17-18, 227-38
Mogadishu: craftsmen in, 26; history Nigeria: colonization of, 77, 79;
of, 7, 11-12, 267; as state, 38; and Islam in, 11, 19, 107; land tenure
trade, 22, 24; World Islamic in, 49; Mahdism in, 237-8;
Conference in, 88”, 9on nationalism in, 85, 87; trade in,
Mogho, see Mossi 25; see also Fulbe; Sokoto;
money, 40, 43, 268 Songhay; Wodaabe
Moravids, 27 Nile valley, see Egypt; Nubia; Sudan
Morocco, 21, 99, 105, 139*41 nomads, 4, 8, 23, 33-4, 194-9,
Mossi people, 17, 29; education of, 241-8; see also pastoralism
182, 187, 190; and Islam, 61, 64, Nubia: Christianity in, 8, 112-14,
73, 173-93, 2183 jihad against, 119, 122; education in, 112-14,
138, 173, 176; and marriage, 174, 119, 1223 Islam in, 36, 108-9; as
183 kingdom, 113; wars in, 114-21
Muhammad, Askia, 31, 36, 139, 176n passim; see also Egypt
Muhammad, Prophet, see Prophet Nupe people, 49, 61, 71, 271”, 273,
Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan, Shaikh, 280-In
9, 79 Nyamwezi people, 268-70
Muhammad Ahmad, Mahdi, 6, 42-3, Nyoro, 39
227N, 232-6
Muhammad al-Amin Ahmad, 236 obligations, to jihad, 150; see also
Muhammad al-Amin al-Karemi, pillars
Sultan, 228 ‘Omar ibn al-Khattab, Caliph,
Muhammad al-Filali, 126 oracles, 65-6; see also divination; 267
Muhammad al-Ja‘ali, 28 magic
Muhammad al-Maghili, see al-Maghili Orders, see tarigas
Muhammad b. Sottofe, Sultan, 133 organization: of emirates, 40-1; of
Muhammad Baba, see Baba traders, 23-7
Muhammad Bani, Askia, 139 Oromo people, 6, 31, 33, 110
Muhammad Bello, see Bello Osei Kwame, king, 17, 160-1
Muhammad Kama‘atay, 146 Osei Tutu Kwame, King, 21-2
Muhammad Kanta, 133 Ouagadougou, 177-80, 189-91
Muhammad Rimfa, 133
Muhammad Ture, Askia Al-Hajj, paganism, see religion
31, 36, 127, 131-42, 176n Pan-Africanism, 88-9, 90n, 265
Muharram, 71-2 Pan-Islamism, 89, 91
mujaddidin, 144, 148-52, 160 pastoralism, 8, 33-4, 60, 677, 194-9,
 Index 307
244, 272-33 see also agriculture; Red Sea, 21, 24, 113-14
Gogo; nomads; Wodaabe reform, see Mahdism
paternity, 57 religion, pagan, 58-9, 128-9, 257,
patriliny,
47-50, §6—7, 244-5, 275-73 280-7; see also Christianity; gods;
see also genealogies; matriliny prayers; priests
payment, marriage, see dowry resistance to Islam, 173, 182, 208-9,
pig, sacred, 61 266-71
pilgrimage, see Mecca revival, Islamic, 39
pillars of Islamic faith, 5, 347, 587, Rhodesia, see Zirnbabwe
73-5, 187, 197; see also alms; rites de passage, 68, 111, 202; see also
Mecca; prayers; Ramadan dead; initiation
police, 40 ritual, 27-31, 35, 67-70; Gogo,
politicians, 191-2 276-9; for rain, 291-9; Somali,
polygamy, 53, 189; see also 249; Wodaabe, 199-205; see also
marriage dead; marriage
Portuguese, 12-13, 17 royalty, see kings
possession, spirit, 18, 64-5, 283
prayers, 67; Ashanti, 157-9; Mossi, Sab people, 241-2
178, 183, 185, 187; for rain, 291-8; sacrifice: Ashanti, 156, 158; and
Songhay, 130; Wodaabe, 197, 202, cults of dead, 73-4; feast of, 68,
205; see also pillars; religion 167; Gogo, 283; Mossi, 186; for
Priests, 135-6, 197, 250-1, 276-9, rain, 294-6; Somali, 247; Songhay,
284, 288; see also gadis; religion 127, 130; Sudan, 107; Wodaabe,
Prophet, the, 59n, 61, 71, 158 199, 202
prostitution, 50, 64 sadaqa, see alms
safe-conduct, 185
Qadiriyya Order: in East Africa, 9, Saho people, 6
13; and Fulani, 222; in Kilwa, saints, 60, 65—6; Ashanti, 148-51; in
293-4; in Mossi, 186-7; in East Africa, 5, 9; Mossi, 186; in
Somalia, 242, 248; weak, 208; in North Africa, 106; Somali, 248-9;
West Africa, 18-19, 27-30, 146 Songhay, 62; Sufi, 12-13, 30, 63,
gadis, 39-45 passim, 80, 136-42, 167, 109; in Tanzania, 111; in West
171, 274 Africa, 18; see also baraka
Quran, 28-9, 42, 60, 68, 125, 158-9 Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, 119
Salihiyya Order, 9
Rabih, 235-6 salt: mines, 139; trade, 21, 153
railways, 169—70 Sammaniyya Order, 6, 232
rain prayers, 291-8 Sanhaja people, 27
Ramadan: in Buganda, 269; and Sarkins, 132-3, 220-2
calendar, 70; in Kilwa, 296; in Sayyid ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, 9n
Kota-Kota, 256; and Mossi, Schools of Law, 5, 9, 16, 18
178—9n, 186, 188; and Songhay, scribes, 30-1; see also Arabic
127, 130; Wodaabe, 197; see also Segu, 39
fasting; pillars Senegal: as colony, 79; gold from, 21;
308 | Index
Islam in, 1n, 17-18, 62, 101; conformity and contrast in,
Jihad, 238; king of, 166-72; and 240-52; and Islam, 28-9, 31-4,
nationalism, 84-7; see also Wolof 61-72 passim, 10§, 110, 247-51,
Senegambia, 17, 25 271-3; jihad in, 9, 18, 79; and law,
Sennar, 23, 39, 122 48-50, 55-6; marriage in, 245, 2473
Senusi people, 77 nationalism in, 84-7, 90; Ogaden,
Shadiliyya Order, 6 333 gadis in, 274; social structure
Shafi‘i Law School, 9-10, 13, 45, in, 243-7; Sufism in, 242, 272-4;
109, 242 trade in, 23, 268
Shakanda, king, 120-1 Songhay: Islam in, 15, 23, 107,
Shamamun, king, 121 124-433 jthad in, 138, 176-7;
Shari‘a (blood compensation): and rulers of, 16, 31, 36-8, 124-43,
colonialism, 80-1; and custom, 218; slaves, 137; trade in, 23
45-7; and Fulani, 41-2; and sorcery, 60, 65; see also magic
property, 48-50; spread of, 30, 32, spirits, 62-6; Gogo, 282-4; Kilwa,
34, 63, 67, 272n, 274; and women, 298; Mossi, 190; Songhay, 128,
Daa7, 132, 134; in Sudan, 1073; see also
Shehu Ahmadu, 149, 161, 238 angels; animism; possession
Shehu Bakr, 234-5 Suakin, 4, 21, 113, 119-20
Shehu Usumann, see Uthman dan Sudan: Arabic in, 4-5, 108-9; as
Fodio colony, 77, 82, 88; culture zones
Sheku Hamada, 39 in, 105-8; Islam in, 11, 4-6, 62—4,
Shi dynasty, 126 69-73, 99-102, 107, 112-233 jihad
Shi‘a, 13, 127 in, 42-4; Mahdiyya in, 226-38;
Shirazi people, 10-11, 111 marriage in, 52; matriliny in, 118;
Shoa, 22 mining in, 118-19; nationalism in,
Sidam kingdoms, 22, 110 84~7, 90; slaves, 119; trade in, 21
sihr, 60, 65-6 Sufism, 12-13, 30, 63, 109, 242,
slaves: in army, 40; dance of, 201; 272-43 see also saints; tarigas
Hausa, 51; in Kayor, 168-9; in Sunni ‘Ali, 36, 38, 126-32, 141, 176
Kota-Kota, 259; runaway, 115; in Sunni Barou, 131-2
Songhay, 137; status of, 47, 51; Sunni Islam, 52, 227, 242
in Sudan, 119; trade in, 13, 21-2, Swahili: language, 10-12, 255, 258;
153, 161, 268-9; as tribute, marriage, 52; people, 15, 52, 111,
I15—16, 120 127, 138-9; religion, 28, 61-2, 64,
social mobility, 51, 185, 209 68—72, 105, 110-113 traders, 13
social structure, 32-8, 243-51, syncretism, 67, 159, 289
271-88; see also caste; kings
socialism, 89 tabaske (feast), 71, 1673 see also feasts
Sofala, 10, 12, 22 Tabora, 22
Sokoto Empire, 39-44, 101, 228, Tallensi people, 33
235-6 Tanganyika, 68n, 78, 111
Somalia, 6-9; Ahmadiyya in, 242; Tanzania, 1n, 14-15, §4, 267-733
Arabic in, 88; colonialism in, 77-8; see also Gogo; Kilwa
 Index 309
Ta’rikh al-fattash, 16n, 126-7, Tunisia, 21
131-43 passim Turan Shah, 119
Ta’rikh al-Sudan, 16n, 126, 175-6 Turkification, 118, 120
tarigas (religious Orders), 5-6, 9,
18-19, 29-30, 60-3, 78-9, 86-7, ‘Ubaydallah b. al-Habhab, 116
106; see also Ahmadiyya; Uganda, 1n
Isma‘iliyya; Khatmiyya; Mahdiyya; Ugogo, see Gogo
Mirghaniyya; Muridiyya; Ujiji, 22
Qadiriyya; Salihiyya; ‘ulama, 136-42 ,
Sammaniyya; Shadiliyya; Sufism; ‘Umar al-Bakkai, 27
Tijaniyya umayyads, 116
tax, 40-1, 43, 150, 200-1, 270n; umma (unity), 89
see also tithes; tribute uncentralized states, Islam in, 32-5,
teachers, 27-31, 274-5, 280 243-7, 272-82 passim; see also
Teda people, 106 centralized
Tembe people, 62 unifier, Islam as, 103-4, 272
Temne people, 63 usury, 20
theft, 45 Uthman dan Fodio, Shehu, 164-5; on
theocracies, 38-44, 100-1 government, 39-40; jihad of, 39,
Tigrina people, 6 149, 161, 207-8, 213-25,
227-9;
Tijaniyya Order, 18-19, 30, 74, 78, prophecy of, 235-7; and
86-7, 186, 208 Qadiriyya, 146; and Wodaabe,
Timbuktu, 18, 21, 27-8, 130, 133-48 198; writings of, 19, 146”, 150-1
passim, 175
tithes, 41, 72-4; see also tax villages, see social structure
Togo people, 11, 25-6, 50, 106 virginity, 69
Tokolar people, 17, 55, 106-7 vision, 42
torts, 45-8 Volta, 108; see also Mossi
Touré, Sekou, 88, 897
trade: as agent of Islam, 6-27 passim, Wadi al-‘Allaqi, 118
77, 113, 253-4, 278-9; Berber, Wadi Dayf, Allah, 123
125-6; in Ethiopia, 22; Hausa, Wagadu, 21
24-5, 271; in Kumasi, 144-65 Wagogo, 22
passim; in Mali, 23, 25; Mossi, wali, 187; see also saints
177; in Nigeria, 25; in Sudan, 21; war: Beja, 116-17; in Chad, 227-38;
routes, 7, 8, 21-4, 119, 268-707; Fulani, 40, 272; legends, 198;
in Somalia, 23, 268; see also gold; Mossi, 175-6; Nubian, 114-21
ivory; metal; slaves; weapons passim; Wodaabe, 196-7; see also
treasury, 40, 42 jihad; military service
treaties, 114-15, 117, 154-5 warriors, 114-18, 250-1
tribute, 115-16, 120-1, 200; see also wealth, 49; see also diya; money;
tax dowry; treasury
Tuareg people, 105-6, 130, 140 weapon trade, 21-2
Tuat, 21 widows, 56, 203—4
310 Index
witchcraft, 60, 65-6, 278; see also Yoruba people, 17, 61, 108, 128
magic Yusuf al-Kawneyn, Sharif, 28-9, 63,
Wodaabe people, 194-205 74
Wolof people, 17, 28, 52, 71, 166-72
women: Hausa, son; legally, 50-1; Zaghara people, 230-1
Mossi, 189-90, 192; Songhay, Zaire, 1n, 14
134; and spirit cults, 64; as Zambia, 11
victims, 47; see also marriage Zanj Empire, 12
World Islamic Conference, 88n, 90n Zanzibar, In, 9-13, 49, 77, 84, 255-7
Zazzau, 40-1, 223
Yao people, 48, 54-5, 68n, 111, 255, Zeila, 7-8, 22, 38
298; see also Kota-Kota Zeilawi culture, 7
Yaqut, 247, 230 Zimbabwe, 1”, 11, 13, 22
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Islam in Tropical Africa

Edited by I. M. Lewis
Professor of Social Anthropology, London School of Economics and
Political Science
2nd edition
Available for the first time in paperback, this book presents specialist
studies on the history and sociology of the Muslim communities of Africa
south of the Sahara. The studies cover an extensive range of time and
place, and include consideration of particular aspects of Muslim belief
and practice in such widely separated regions as Senegal and the ©
Somali Republic. The second edition is introduced by Professor Lewis's
updated review and analysis of current knowledge about the process of
Islamic penetration in the area as a whole. Attention is also drawn to the
ways in which differently organized traditional cultures and social
systems have reacted and adapted to Muslim influence in the fields of
politics, law, and ritual. This book was hailed on its first appearance as
the essential textbook on the subject; it has not been displaced since.

Reviews of the first edition

“This is a quite outstandingly good and valuable book . . . a remarkably
high level of density of ideas and material is maintained, and yet the
argument is intelligible and readable throughout. . .. The book belongs
on the shelf of every anthropologist . . . and it belongs equally to the
basic reading of African historians, and of sociologists concerned with
diffusion and change.”
Ernest Gellner in Cambridge Review
“... the broad lines of this presentation of Islam in Tropical Africa seem
to be beyond dispute, and it is most valuable to have them so clearly and
authoritatively expressed.”
Journal of African History

ISBN 0-253-28514-3

Cover photograph shows a mosque in Kano, Nigeria (Zono Publications)

Printed in Great Britain