Discourses of Muslim Scholars in Colonial Ghana >
Muslim Culture in the Middle Volta Basin before the European Colonial Era
Discourses of Muslim Scholars in Colonial Ghana
by John Hanson and Muhammad al-Munir Gibrill
Muslim Culture in the Middle Volta Basin before the European Colonial Era
The first West African Muslims lived along the southern shore of the Sahara desert, well to the north of the middle Volta River basin. Conversions to Islam occurred over the centuries in the sahel or "shore" of the Saharan desert. West African merchants in the sahel often were the first to become Muslims, but some political elites adopted Islam in the early centuries. Among the first were the rulers of Kanem near Lake Chad. Later the rulers of Mali in the savanna lands of the upper Niger River valley became Muslim and supported the flourishing of Islamic scholarship in the sahelian town of Timbuktu under imperial control. Eventually Muslim influences spread throughout the West African savanna and rainforest.
The practice of Islam in West Africa was a locally-constructed religious expression connected to the broader Muslim world. In contrast to the adoption of Arabic language that occurred in much of North Africa, West Africans retained their languages and cultures as they embraced Islam. The word for Muslim scholar varied across the region, for example, in Mande languages it is karamoko (from the Arabic qara'a, "to recite, to read"), in Fulfulde it is modibbo (from the Arabic mu'addib, a "literate person"), and in Hausa it is malam (from the Arabic mu'alim, a "teacher"). The different ways of making use of Arabic to refer to "scholar" illuminates the diverse ways Islam was integrated into West African cultures: Islam is a shared heritage with a cluster of beliefs and practices that Muslims integrate in distinct ways in specific historical and social contexts.
Regional trade brought Muslims to the middle Volta basin. The first Muslims were immigrant West African Muslim merchants, the Wangara, a Mande-speaking Muslim commercial group with origins in Mali Empire. They made their way to the gold-producing regions of the middle Volta basin no later than the fourteenth century. These Muslims then began trading south into the rainforest, another source of gold in a region that came to be dominated by Akan-speakers. Portuguese ships arrived along short of today's Ghana in the fifteenth century, and it became known as the Gold Coast as Europeans diverted the gold trade to the Atlantic coast. Mande-speaking Muslims continued their commercial activities in the middle Volta basin and interacted with the Asante Empire, the rising power in the rainforest. Hausa-speaking Muslim merchants arrived in the middle Volta River basin, and a thriving trade grew in kola nuts, a rainforest crop with high concentrations of caffeine, between the rainforest and the Sokoto Caliphate in today’s northern Nigeria.
The Muslim immigrants in the middle Volta basin set down roots, adopted local languages, and provided services as scribes and counselors to political elites. Most non-Muslims in the region did not convert to Islam, but they turned to Muslim scholars for amulets made with Qur'anic verses inserted inside leather pouches that reportedly provided protection to the wearer. They also produced herbal cures ingested as washes brushed on wooden writing boards, again with Qur'anic verses. Muslim healing and other esoteric services had an appeal in the rainforest as well as the savanna. The Asantehene, ruler of the Asante Empire, extended imperial control into the middle Volta River basin through conquests that incorporated Gonja, Dagomba, and Mamprusi as tributaries. The Asantehene invited Muslim scholars from the savanna to serve as councilors in his court and to provide protective amulets for his armies.
The practice of Islam in West Africa was a locally-constructed religious expression connected to the broader Muslim world. In contrast to the adoption of Arabic language that occurred in much of North Africa, West Africans retained their languages and cultures as they embraced Islam. The word for Muslim scholar varied across the region, for example, in Mande languages it is karamoko (from the Arabic qara'a, "to recite, to read"), in Fulfulde it is modibbo (from the Arabic mu'addib, a "literate person"), and in Hausa it is malam (from the Arabic mu'alim, a "teacher"). The different ways of making use of Arabic to refer to "scholar" illuminates the diverse ways Islam was integrated into West African cultures: Islam is a shared heritage with a cluster of beliefs and practices that Muslims integrate in distinct ways in specific historical and social contexts.
Regional trade brought Muslims to the middle Volta basin. The first Muslims were immigrant West African Muslim merchants, the Wangara, a Mande-speaking Muslim commercial group with origins in Mali Empire. They made their way to the gold-producing regions of the middle Volta basin no later than the fourteenth century. These Muslims then began trading south into the rainforest, another source of gold in a region that came to be dominated by Akan-speakers. Portuguese ships arrived along short of today's Ghana in the fifteenth century, and it became known as the Gold Coast as Europeans diverted the gold trade to the Atlantic coast. Mande-speaking Muslims continued their commercial activities in the middle Volta basin and interacted with the Asante Empire, the rising power in the rainforest. Hausa-speaking Muslim merchants arrived in the middle Volta River basin, and a thriving trade grew in kola nuts, a rainforest crop with high concentrations of caffeine, between the rainforest and the Sokoto Caliphate in today’s northern Nigeria.
The Muslim immigrants in the middle Volta basin set down roots, adopted local languages, and provided services as scribes and counselors to political elites. Most non-Muslims in the region did not convert to Islam, but they turned to Muslim scholars for amulets made with Qur'anic verses inserted inside leather pouches that reportedly provided protection to the wearer. They also produced herbal cures ingested as washes brushed on wooden writing boards, again with Qur'anic verses. Muslim healing and other esoteric services had an appeal in the rainforest as well as the savanna. The Asantehene, ruler of the Asante Empire, extended imperial control into the middle Volta River basin through conquests that incorporated Gonja, Dagomba, and Mamprusi as tributaries. The Asantehene invited Muslim scholars from the savanna to serve as councilors in his court and to provide protective amulets for his armies.
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