African' Contributions to the Rise of Islam

By Adib Rashad ( RashadM@aol.com )

Since the beginning of the revelation of the Qu'ran that inspired and
motivated Prophet Muhammad in 670 C. E., Africans have been pivotal
figures in the development of Islam.

Never in the history of Islam were Africans severed or dissociated from

its glorious advent.Washington Irving , in his book, Life of Mohamet, and
Abu Uthman Amr Ibn Bahr Al-Jahiz, in his The Book of The Glory of The
Black Race, state that Prophet Muhammad was reared by Barakah, an
African woman, after the Prophet's mother died. D. S. Margoliouth, in his
Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, and Al-Jahiz say of the sons of Abd Al-
Muttalib, Prophet Muhammad's grandfather, that All ten sons were of
massive build and dark colour.The earliest converts and disciples of
Prophet Muhammad were Africans, including Zayd bin Harith, the
Prophet's adopted son and one of his generals.

Another pioneer noted in Islamic history was Abu Talib, uncle of the
Prophet and father of Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph. Al-Jahiz writes
the following: The family of Abu Talib were the most noble of men, and
they were Black with Black skins.Dr. Akbar Muhammad, noted Islamic
scholar, and son of the late leader of the Nation of Islam, The Honorable
Elijah Muhammad, informs us that not only were the Prophet's ancestors
(members of the Quraish tribe as well) of African descent, but many
Africans were among his earliest followers, among them Barakah Um
Ayman, the wetnurse of the Prophet, whom he called my mother after my
mother, and Mitjar the first martyr at the Battle of Badr.

Two of the Prophet's wives were Africans, Umm Habiba and Maryam, an
Egyptian Copt. A number of Africans who were companions of the Prophet
and participated notably in the earliest advancement of Islam were slaves
freed Prophet Muhammad and Abu Bakr, the first Caliph. Examples are
Umm Ayman, Zinnira, and Abu Anjashah al-Habashi, a former slave who
became the trusting caretaker of the Prophet's family.In the year 615 C.
E., the Muslims were experiencing such severe persecution that the
Prophet commanded a small group to flee from Mecca. He advised them
to seek refuge in Abyssinia ( Ethiopia ), with the Christian king, al-
Najashi; this migration is known as the first Hijra, or flight. This is a
strong testament to the respect Africans had for Islam and the admiration
and respect the Muslims had for Africans.
The African king protected the Muslims and eventually accepted Islam; he
later sent a delegation, which included his son, to study under the
Prophet in Medina.Another African was Wahshi, the assassin of Hamzah,
paternal uncle of the Prophet. Very few studies mention the fact that after
Wahshi was freed and received numerous rewards for his dastardly deed,
including Hind's hand in marriage, she commissioned Wahshi to
assassinate Hamzah, he continued to reside in Mecca.

Most importantly, years later he embraced Islam, and the Prophet

pardoned him for his crime.After the death of Prophet Muhammad, a large
number of Muslims perished in a war with an enemy of Islam, Musaylimah
of Najd. Wahshi succeeded in killing Musaylimah, and felt vindicated. He
is reported to have said: I had killed one of the best Muslims, Hamzah;
now for killing one of the worst enemies of God, God will perhaps pardon
me for my former crime. Later, Wahshi participated in the wars against
the Byzantine Empire; he settled in Syria, where he died at an advanced
age.

The most celebrated African in Islamic history was/is Bilal Ibn Rabah, the
first caller to prayer (Mu'adhdhin) and treasurer of the early Islamic
State. He was an Abyssinian slave in bondage to a cruel master who
mistreated him for accepting Islam. He became an early follower of
Prophet Muhammad in Mecca. Abu Bakr, saw Bilal being mistreated and
freed him.

When the Muslims entered Mecca in triumph, in the year 9 A. H./630 C.

E., Bilal made the call to prayer from the top of the Ka'bah. Bilal remained
a trusted companion of the Prophet and of the caliphs. He eventually
traveled to Syria where became governor, he is said to be buried there.

Early Africans were known narrators and teachers of Hadith. Even non-
Muslim Africans contributed to the culture of Islam. For example, there
was the poet Antar, who was an Ethiopic Arabian, so dark that his
nickname was Gharab (the crow).J. A. Rogers, in his World's Great Men of
Color, Volume One and Dr. Carter G. Woodson's African Heroes and
Heroines, point out that Antar accomplished great feats as a warrior and
poet in pre-Islamic Arabia.

One of Antar's poems was accorded the highest honor possible for an
African-Arabian writer. Antar's works hangs among the seven poems at
the entrance of the Mosque at Mecca . This collection of seven poems,
known as the Muallakat, is cherished by Muslims around the world.Dhul
Nun was a great ninth century C. E. philosopher/mystic. A Nubian who
was born a slave, he nevertheless became one of the finest scholars of his
day, noted throughout the Islamic world for his wisdom and
accomplishments in such diverse fields as law, alchemy, and Egyptian
history and hieroglyphics.
Among Sufis, he is considered one of the greater mystics. Dr. Muhammad
argues quite persuasively that religious scripture has not eradicated
ethnocentrism; therefore, after the death of the Prophet, scripes and
scriptural translators infused their biases into their translations. Thus
racism and the willful neglect of other people's contributions to the broad
multicultural significance of Islam are still quite prevalent. These biases
hold firm insofar as African Muslims and their contributions to Islam are
concerned.

According to Dr. Muhammad, the root words denoting Blackness occur ten
times in the Qu'ran; three times they have the meaning of Lordship (Al-
Siyadah). Blackness, referring to darkness or cloudiness, occurs five times
as a description of a spiritual condition or state rather than an inherent
characteristic or color of countenance. The two remaining words refer to
the landscape and nightfall. Hence, there is no negative connotation to
Black as a color, or to Africans as a people, in the Holy Qu'ran (or the
Bible for that matter).

A similar view is stated by Idris Shah:The Kaaba (cubic temple, Holy of

Holiest) in Mecca is draped in Black, esoterically interpreted as a play on
words of the FHM sound in Arabic, alternatively meaning Black or Wise,
understanding. The word sayed (prince) is connected with another root
for Black, the SWD root. The original banner of the Prophet Mohammed
was Black, collectively standing for wisdom, lordship.

By 690, the Muslims were firmly established in Egypt and Tunisia, ready
to advance onto the Iberian Peninsula . The so-called Berbers, who
initially offered considerable resistance to the advancing Muslim armies,
eventually became great advocates and propagators of Islam. They
successfully crossed into Europe in 713, under Berber/Moorish general
Tariq Ibn Ziyad, from whose name the word Gibraltar is derived (Jabil
Tariq, the mountain of Tariq).

The advance into Europe did not stop until 732, when Charles Martel
defeated the Muslim forces at the battle of Poitiers ( Tours ), in France.
Most of us are not aware that the peoples whom the classical Greek and
Roman historians called Berber were Black and affiliated with the then
contemporary peoples of East African areas. The word Berber in fact was
used to refer to peoples of the Red Sea area in Africa as well as North
Africa...It was such populations that in large measure comprised the
Moorish people, but because of the attribute of Blackness which sharply
distinguished them from the bulk of the European people, the word came
to be generally used by Europeans to describe persons of Black
complexion in general.

The word Moor was used for people basically Berber in origin but then
came to include, during the Islamic period, the early Arabians. Both of
these populations belonged to a physical type or types of men commonly
referred to by early scholars as Hamitic, brown or brown Mediterranean.

Throughout the Middle Ages and previous to the Atlantic slave trade other
men of Black or nearly Black pigmentation, particularly Muslim, came to
be commonly referred to as Moors.(See Ivan Van Sertima's The Golden
Age of the Moors, p. 143)The Moorish contributions to European
civilization have been documented by numerous historians and is not
disputed. The Moors were considered the light of Europe during the Dark
Ages which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Moorish Spain became the academic source and foundation for the rise
and success of Western European universities in the Middle Ages. Stanley
Lane Pool provides the following description: Cordova was the wonderful
city of the tenth century; the streets were well paved and there were
raised sidewalks for pedestrians. At night one could walk for ten miles by
light of lamps, flanked by uninterrupted extent of buildings. All this was
hundreds of years before there was a paved street in Paris or a street
lamp in London. Its public baths numbered into the hundreds, when
bathing in the rest of Europe was frowned upon as a diabolical custom,
avoided by all good Christians.

Moorish monarchs dwelt in sumptuous palaces, while the crowned heads

in England, France and Germany lived in big barns, lacking both windows
and chimneys and with only a hole in the roof for the exit of smoke.
Education was universal in Moslem Spain, being given to the most
humble, while in Christian Europe 99 percent of the populace was
illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. In the tenth and
eleventh centuries, public libraries in Christian Europe were conspicuous
by their absence, while Moslem Spain could boast of more than seventy,
of which the one in Cordova housed 600,000 manuscripts.

Christian Europe contained only two universities of any consequence,

while in Spain there were seventeen outstanding universities. The finest
were those located in Almeria, Cordova, Granada, Jaen, Malaga, Serville,
and Toledo. Scientific progress in astronomy, chemistry, physics,
mathematics, geography, and philology in Moslem Spain reached a high
level of development.

Scholars and artists formed associations to promote their particular

studies, and scientific congresses were organized to promote research
and facilitate the spread of knowledge. As mentioned earlier, the
Berbers/Moors of North Africa initially resisted Islam and fought the
Muslim armies before they accepted the religion and became its most
ardent caliphs, generals and scholars. By contrast, the flow of Islam into
Sub-Sahara Africa took a completely different form.
Inner Africa experienced no Arab conquests and Islam was to spread
through the peaceful work of African itinerant traders and peripatetic local
Ulama (teachers and scholars). Islam filtered across the Sahara into West
Africa through the agency of Islamized Berber/Moorish traders who
frequented Bilad Ed-Sudan (Lands of the Blacks). Their first converts were
their West African counterparts, the Mande traders known as the Djula,
and court officials. A class of local Ulama (also known as Marabouts)
emerged and towns such as Timbuktu, Jenne and Walata became
renowned centers of Islamic studies. In the eighteenth century, the
Qadiriyya Sufi brotherhood became one of the most important agents of
Islamization in the area...

On the other hand, the seeds of Islam were sown in the Horn of Africa
and the East African Coast by Arab migrants and traders from Southern
Arabia (many of these Arabs were dark in complexion). In time, a cadre
of Ulama of local origin also emerged in these areas.

These Ulama opened schools that produced scores of teachers who in turn
opened Quranic schools in their localities.Ghana was the first great
kingdoms to emerge in western Africa after the spread of Islam. This
kingdom reached its height about 1000 C. E., when it covered parts of
what are now Mali and Mauritania.By the beginning of the tenth century
the Muslim influence from the East was present. Kumbi Saleh (the city)
had a native and an Arab section, and the people were gradually adopting
the religion of Islam.

The prosperity that came in the wake of Arabian infiltration increased the
power of Ghana, and its influence was extended in all directions. In the
eleventh century, when the king had become a Muslim, Ghana could
boast of a large army and a lucrative trade across the desert. From
Muslim countries came wheat, fruit, and sugar. From across the desert
came caravans laden with textiles, brass, pearls, and salt. Ghana
exchanged ivory, slaves, and gold from Bambuhu for these commodities.

Among fourteenth century Africans, none is more renowned than Mansa

Musa (1312-37), the great leader of the Mali Empire. In 1324 C. E., he
performed the pilgrimage to Mecca in such a fashion that his fame was
proclaimed from Andalusia to Khurasan, and the names of Mansa Musa
and Mali made their appearance on fourteenth century maps.

During the fifteenth century, the Songhai Empire, founded by Sunni Ali
Ber, spread forth from the capital city of Goa, on the Niger River, 200
miles south of Timbuktu. This Muslim civilization is acknowledged by
historians as one of the greatest in history. During the fifteenth century,
in East Africa, the majority of Sudanese Muslims became linked through
their religious leaders (Imams), with either the Qadiriyya or Tijaniyya Sufi
order.
The propagation of Islam in Africa cannot be understood without
considering this attachment of the leaders to one or another of these
orders. The Tariqas (another Sufi order) in the Sudan operated on two
different levels: among Muslims, they sought converts to Sufism, while
among non-Muslims, they sought converts to Islam. Despite their spiritual
roots, they had a profound impact on the social, political, and economic
life in the area. During the late 1440s and 1500s, Europeans began to
establish trading posts in Africa.

While the spread of Christianity motivated sincere Christians to establish

numerous missions, gold and slaves eventually became the primary
interest of the Europeans interlopers. Ironically, the more that non-
Muslim Africans saw of Europeans, the more they gravitated to Islam. In
the early days of European control there were few Muslims in the coastal
towns. Today none are without their Muslim quarter.

The population of Lagos , for instance, is about 50 percent Muslim; in

Dakar the proportion of Muslims is steadily increasing. In Sierra Leone
Colony in 1891 Muslims formed 10 percent, in 1931 they numbered
25,350 out of 95,558 or 26.2 percent....During the eighteenth century,
Islamic militancy increased as the European presence became more
pervasive. Unjust rule, heavy uncanonical taxation, bida or innovations
foreign to Islam, immoral practices, mixing Islam with traditional customs
and subordination of Muslims to non-Islamic rule prevailed throughout the
region.

Above all, European invaders, the infidels, identified as the terrible Gog
and Magog, were thrusting dagger deep in the heart of Muslim Africa. The
Dajjals were everywhere in the area in the form of despotic and corrupt
rulers.The conditions were ripe for revolution. The West African Jihadists
capitalized on them. Usman Dan Fodio founded a theocratic state in
Northern Nigeria; Seku Ahmadu established the Hamadullah Calphate in
Masina (republic of Mali); and Al-Hajj Umar Tall carved out an Islamic
Empire in the Senegambia.

During the nineteenth century, resistance by African Muslims to European

occupation was relentless. The Mahdi of Sudan, Muhammad Ahmad
(1848-85) led a remarkable holy war against the British; his forces
defeated General Gordon and took over Khartoum in 1885. Muhammad
Abdullah Hasan, the Mahdi of Somalia, fought the forces of occupation
from 1889 until he died of influenza in 1920. Mahdist uprisings against
European encroachment were so frequent in other parts of Africa that,
writing on Nigeria in 1906, Lord Lugard stated, I do not think a year has
passed since 1900 without one or more Mahdist movement.
Ahmadu Bamba (1850-1927) founded the Murid brotherhood in 1886. It
was/is a branch of the Qadiriyya Sufi Order and it attracted oppressed
Africans that were uprooted by the French occupation of Senegal.
Bamba's followers make their Hajj not to Mecca, but in Touba, where
Bamba is buried.*=====

Adib Rashad (RashadM@aol.com) is an education consultant, education

program director, author, and historian. He has lived and taught in West
Africa and South East Asia.*