Spread of Islam in Africa

¶ … aided the spread of Islam in Africa

Islam, like all other religions was not native to the African continent and was introduced by settlers and the spread aided by various historical events that have been recorded to have taken place within the continent, ending up in the cu current popularity of Islam religion within Africa. It is indicated that Islam is currently the largest religion being practiced in Africa. There are varied approaches to the spread of the religion with different historical scholars having slightly varying perspectives on the spread of Islam in Africa.

According to Loimeier R., (n.d: Pp11-13), Egypt (Misr) is widely viewed as the cradle of Islam as a religion and as early as 988 there was already a university established in Cairo. This attracted many students from the Sub-Saharan Africa who went to Egypt and lived there in pursuit of education. They picked the Islamic ways and religion and propagated it back to their countries of origin. The other factor was the Trans-Saharan trade that saw the Islamic Arabs from Egypt travel to the south in the Sub-Saharan regions that were not Islamic and spread the religion in these areas as the Muslim Societies were established along the trade routes. Yet another factor that helped in the spread of Islam in Ethiopia was the appearance of the Muslims as refugees from the then heathen Mecca in 615.they stayed shortly at the Ethiopian ancient capital city called Axum. Ethiopia was viewed as a neutral land by the Muslims where they stayed despite the fact that it was predominantly Christian, in 16 the Century, the Muslims combined forces in the region and inflicted significant harm to the Ethiopian Army and in this time, the Muslim armies conquered almost all of Ethiopia and spread their religion with vigor before they were defeated in 1542. The religion stuck with the people despite the defeat. The other factor that saw the spread of Islam in South Africa was the arrival of the first Muslims from India aboard Dutch ships in 1658. These Muslims interacted with the other traders in the region as well as the blacks from within the region, hence spreading their religion.

Robinson D. (2004: Pp27-35) on the other had also gives several ways through which Islam as a religion spread across Africa. One of the outstanding means of the conquest was the conquest of the Morocco region into Egypt and the capture of the main cities and agricultural areas that stretched along the Mediterranean. E also points out that the Muslims lived in Sub-Saharan region as minorities among the other religions they found, and later on their principles were adopted in the court systems and among the rulers and later on the religion spread wide to the rural regions where most people lived. The East African region is also depicted to have been Islamized through the trade that the Muslim Arabs carried out along the East African coast all the way to South Africa, in the process they had significant influence and control over the major cities in the region.