A History of Islamic Societies

By the end of the nineteenth century, Islam had spread in Sudanic, savannah, and forest West Africa by virtue of a combination of forces. Migrant trading communities and missionary teachers had formed scattered Muslim communities. In parts of the Sudan and East Africa, these communities converted local rulers and helped establish Muslim states. In other cases, Muslim ʿulamaʾ and holy men waged jihad to form new states. At the very end of the century, European invaders defeated and broke up existing states and imposed their own regimes. Muslim state formation was checked and Muslim peoples became subject to European-generated political and economic pressures.

Colonialism and independence: African states and Islam

The French and the British empires largely determined the political configuration of modern African societies. By 1900, the French Empire comprised a vast region including the Atlantic coastal territories of Senegal, Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and Dahomey. Between 1899 and 1922, the interior was organized into the large colonies of French Sudan, Niger, and Mauritania. Upper Volta was formed in 1919, but in 1932 it was divided among the Ivory Coast, Niger, and the Sudan, and then reconstituted in 1947. The French Central African empire included Muslim populations in Chad. The British organized protectorates for Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and the northern and southern regions of Nigeria. The Nigerian protectorates were united as the colony and protectorate of Nigeria in 1914.