African Connections: Archaeological Perspectives on Africa and the Wider World by Mitchell Peter

Author:Mitchell, Peter [Mitchell, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759115019
Publisher: AltaMira Press
Published: 2013-07-11T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 5.8. The main mosque (and market) at Jenné, Mali. The present building is an early twentieth century French-sponsored reconstruction of the mosque, the earliest version of which was probably founded in the thirteenth century.

Why then did West Africans convert? Genuine belief should certainly not be downplayed nor, as suggested in the following section by the cases of Takrur and Ghana, the possibility of force. Other reasons can also be suggested (Insoll 2003a). First, the opportunities of trading with Muslim North African merchants on the much more favorable terms awarded coreligionists, including, at least in theory, freedom from enslavement by fellow Muslims. Second, the attractions of using Arabic, literate Muslim officials and a fixed calendar (Goody 1971, 460) in developing state bureaucracies—al-Bakri, for example, notes that even though Ghana’s king remained pagan most of his ministers were Muslim (Levtzion and Hopkins 2000, 80). Finally, there was the increased prestige afforded by external trading contacts, the manipulation of Arabic to write charms and amulets (Green 1986), and claims to Arab ancestry or descent from learned Muslims, a phenomenon observable among Tuareg (Brett and Fentress 1996, 215), Hausa (Haour 2003), and Wandala (MacEachern 1993) alike. That Islam was often adopted first in urban settings and spread in large part along commercial networks certainly confirms the role of trade, and perhaps the faith’s assistance in integrating ethnically diverse urban communities, as key motors in its expansion (Trimingham 1968). Others, particularly rural folk, may have found less to value when set against their traditional beliefs; many now solidly Muslim areas converted only during the nineteenth century jihads, and much remains to be done to explain the differential penetration of Muslim-mediated long-distance exchange networks and Islam itself.

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