Guinea - Spread Of Islam
Islam, which was to become in time a binding force among different ethnic groups in the western Sudan, probably reached Ghana about, or not long after, the Arab conquest of North Africa in the early eighth century AD. It did not arrive as a proselytizing force, however, but as a coincidental factor in the efforts of Berber and other arabized merchants to expand trade with the Sudan. By the year A. D. 1000, Muslim traders were living in separate sections of the main trading towns. They were permitted complete freedom of worship, and some actually held important court posts. At the time Islam appears to have had little general appeal and spread principally as a class religion of the aristocracy; it had been adopted by the rulers of several small kingdoms — although the ruler of Ghana was apparently not then a Muslim. Some members of the trading class had also accepted it.
The Almoravid conquest of Ghana brought conversion of almost all of the Soninké. Ghana remained powerful for some time after the Soninké dynasty was restored, and Islam was spread among the subject peoples still within the empire. No reversion occurred when Mali succeeded Ghana, for the ruling Keita dynasty had already been Islamized before the state began its expansion. Islam was not officially spread until after establishment of the empire, when the country took on the appearance of a Muslim state. Koranic schools and mosques flourished under royal sponsorship, and several rulers made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Ambassadors were exchanged with Morocco, and that country became a center of learning for scholars from Mali.
Islam was also professed by the rulers of Songhai, and Muslim practices continued to spread. The diffusion occurred peacefully in general—during the time of the three empires the state rarely attempted to enforce conformity. In areas outside the main towns its dissemination was carried out principally through the personal efforts of those African traders who had become Muslims.
The acceptance of Islam at first appears to have been as a belief parallel to existing traditional religious beliefs, which continued to be practiced. This was in line with the African concept of social harmony and accommodation. Eventually Islam became for many a syncretic religion combining Koranic teachings and indigenous religious practice. After the decline of Mali and the destruction of Songhai, it seems likely that, although Koranic teaching remained influential at courts of some residual states, the religious practices of rulers and chiefs tended gradually to give greater emphasis to traditional observances. Many individuals nominally Muslim, mainly in agricultural areas but also in towns, apparently reverted completely to indigenous religious beliefs.
Efforts to enforce the doctrines and practices of Islam to the exclusion of other religious beliefs began in the modern Guinea region with the jihads of the Peul theocracy founded in the Fouta Djallon in the 1700s. During the following century Islam attained its greatest militancy in the jihad of Al Haj Omar in the savanna area of Guinea, which started about 1850, and from about 1880 in that of Samory, which encompassed most of eastern Guinea and continued until the French conquest in the 1890s.
The Fouta Djallon had been almost entirely converted to Islam by the time of the jihad of Al Haj Omar, which began in about 1850. In Upper Guinea and parts of the Forest Region, Samory Touré forcefully imposed Islam by destroying the symbols of indigenous religions in the jihad beginning about 1880. He forbade the drinking of fermented drinks and built mosques. In the twentieth century the growth of Islam was encouraged by French colonial administrators during a period of antagonism to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Moreover, colonial penetration favored communication and exchanges and thus helped to disseminate Islam. From then on Islam was spread along commercial routes by Malinké and Dyoula traders in salt, kola nuts, and rice. Only the forest peoples resisted Islam because they identified it with Malinké domination.
The spread of Islam was favored by the fact that it had no organized church and required no formal adherence to an elaborate system of dogma and belief. The convert needed only to assert his belief in the unity of God, the mission of the prophet, and the promise of eternal life. He did not need to break with traditional customs or upset his family structure. His social prestige was enhanced by joining a world fraternity of believers reputed to be literate, learned, and law abiding.
Sufi brotherhoods play an important role in the organization and practice of Islam. One of the oldest and most widespread of these brotherhoods is the Qadiriya, whose African branch was founded by a Maure, Sidi Ahmad al Bekkaye, in the late fifteenth century. In Guinea in the present day only the Diakhanké at or near Touba belong to the Qadiriya.
The Peul belong to the Tidjaniya brotherhood, which is more tolerant, flexible, and indiv:idualistic. Its roots go back to a dream that Si Ahmad ben Muhammad al Tidjani, a North African, had in 1781 while on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The dream revealed the rules and the path to God of a new order. It spread rapidly in the second half of the nineteenth century under the impetus of Al Haj Omar's jihad. Tidjanism guarantees more to its followers and demands less than Qadiri Islam. It does not require esoteric learning or elaborate ritual. It does, however, demand absolute loyalty. Malinké Muslims usually do not belong to brotherhoods.
The purity and fervor of Guinean Islam vary greatly among different Guinean people, diminishing from the Diakhanké to the Peul to the Malinké to the Soussou to the Baga and the forest people. Everywhere, in the process of being adopted by the great majority of Guineans, Islam has undergone important changes. Even among the Peul and Malinké — more deeply Islamized than other ethnic groups — indigenous practices and beliefs have not entirely disappeared, and Islam takes on a specifically local quality. The result of accommodating a wide range of beliefs and practices has been a synthesis of Muslim and pre-Muslim elements that is the characteristic feature of religious belief and practice in Guinea.
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