Muslim Influence on Major African Civilizations Essay

Introduction

In the Subsequent Muslim Arabs’ conquest of north Africa in the 7^th century, the Islamic religion spread to west Africa through traders, merchants, missionaries, and scholars, mostly by peaceful means. The African monarchs endured the religion or converted to it themselves (Naylor 2015). In east Africa, the religion the Arabs brought about the religion when they crossed the red sea. Consequently, in the last six centuries, the spread of Islam was mainly peaceful and gradual due to trade links with the Muslim communities of the Persian Gulf, Arabian sea, and the southern Mediterranean (Stapleton 2013). The Islam religion was not accepted consistently, nor did it uphold its original purity, therefore exited with a mixture of traditional rituals and practices.

The Effect of Islam on Civilization in Africa

Several technical innovations came along with the Islam religion, for example, numbers, writing, weights, and measures. Islamic architecture took root with the spread of religion. Nevertheless, like religion, there were slight local changes. For example, the Swahili coast mosques had neither inner courtyards nor minarets compared to mosques in other Islamic places (Speel 1960, 193). Taxation and justice were the adoptions of the Muslim systems of administration. Islam promoted more efficient administration by enabling leaders to give educated Muslims administrative positions such as judges, diplomats, secretaries, and other executive functions. For example, in the Songhai empire, king Mohammad I imposed Islamic law on his kingdom and appointed judges and magistrates (qadis) as Timbuktu’s head of justice (Naylor 2015).

Conclusion

In conclusion, from the time of the encounter with Christianism, the Muslims mainly spread in north Africa, and successive government policies were geared towards Islamification. The interaction with the Islamic community brought about an incredible interaction due to the nature of the religion, trade, intermarriage, or the African rulers’ declarations.

Bibliography

Naylor, Phillip C.2015 “North Africa, Revised Edition: A History from Antiquity to the Present.” University of Texas Press, 2015.

Speel, C. J.1960. “The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam.” Church History 29, no. 4 (1960): 379–397.

Stapleton, Timothy J.2013. “A Military History of Africa (Volume 3).” eBooks. Publisher Praeger Publishers, 2013.