Spread Of Islam In Africa Essay

The spread of Islam transformed African societies and what survived culturally from before Islamic influence. The expansion of Islam had some key people involved in the spread of the new religion. One of the most important of the cultural effects was the change of some African states to Islam. The arrival of Europeans in the 15th century further shaped the relationship of Africa to a wider world. Between 600 A.D. and 1500 C.E., contacts between Africa and other civilizations strengthened.

Islam has had an enduring impact on African societies, affecting languages, construction, style, religion and its culture. Africa became linked by a trading network, becoming partners through profitable gold trading. A result of the Islamic conquest of large
Between 640 C.E. and 700 C.E., much of northern Africa fell to Muslim armies in the first expansion of Islam. Much of the Berber population was converted to Islam and eventually created regional states at Fez and Sijilimasa. During the 11th and 12th centuries, radical reformers among the Berber--first the Almoravids, then the Almohadi--moved southward against the African kingdoms of the sub-Saharan region. Islam appealed to African rulers as a means of justifying their authority. The Islamic doctrine of equality put Africans, Berbers, and Arabs on an equal footing.

Islam reached the Savannah region in the 8th Century C.E., the date the written history of West Africa begins The Muslim-Arab historians began to write about West Africa in the early 8th century. As Islam spread in the Savannah region, it was quite normal that marketable links should also come to be established with North Africa. Trade and export also paved way for the material culture, and made possible the intellectual progress which followed the introduction of literacy, and for which parts of the Sudan were to become memorable in the many hundreds of years to