SUPRA-ETHNIC UNIVERSALITY OF ISLAM AND THE ETHNOCENTRISM OF AFRICAN CULTURE: QUESTIONS OF ASSIMILATION AND RESILIENCE

Abstract

A cursory glance at the historical development of Islam in Africa reveals that it made itself present and expanded through trade and migration. While Islam was introduced into North Africa through the movements and activities of the Arabs, in West Africa, it was introduced from North Africa by the Berbers through the Trans-Saharan Trade as early as the ninth century. Trading among local African groups which extended to Senegal and the Northern part of Nigeria helped the diffusion of Islam to penetrate peacefully beyond the Sahel—the semi-arid region of Africa, between the Sahara and the Savannah—into the Savannah area. In the coastal areas, the process of interaction between the immigrant Arabians and the dominant African groups created a new urban ethos in which Islam blended with the indigenous local culture to produce an indigenous Islamic religion, like the Swahili Islam. In this way, a balance was established between local ritual prescriptions and those of universal Islam. The present work on schedule is an effort in religio-cultural studies to understand the extent of religio-cultural interaction between Islam and African Culture: to what degree the Islamic religion assimilated the African culture and to what extent the African culture found a home in Islam. To arrive at the shores of the objectives of this study, the historical and hermeneutic method of inquiry would be patronized. This piece, however, discovered that the contact between Islam and African culture was an interaction in which there was a reciprocal assimilation.