The Impact of the Expansion of Islam in North and West Africa essays

The Impact of the Expansion of Islam in North and West Africa essays The Islamization of Africa started around the seventh century with the military conquests in Egypt led by Arabic armies and spread over the western part of the continent during the next five hundred years, reaching Morocco. Islam brought major changes at all levels of society in North and West Africa, at first, and to the the rest of the continent along the centuries, till today. Christian Egypt was the first country that knew islamization, after the death of Mohammad, around 639 C E, through the Arab armies and also through the Arab merchants that brought along scholars. These were wise men that taught the newly conquered people the Arab language and also gave advice to their leaders. They needed guidance in economic and political related matters and the Arabs came with their knowledge and organization due to the new faith that also established new rules and forms of governing. The faith of Islam was successful in conquering the people in Egypt and further, during the next five centuries, in Maghreb because it was not just a new religion intended to replace these populations beliefs but it came with new sets of rules and political knowledge. The followers of Mohammed were united by a faith that sought justice and unity for its faithful and it appealed to the people of North and West Africa by the way it applied to everyday life and its practicality. Some authors think that the fact that it permitted men to have more than a wife, unlike the Christian religion, might also have been considered more appealing to the nomadic tribes in the Western parts of Africa. The Arabs had the advantage of not merely imposing their own new religion to the newly conquered territories, but also of bringing with them a set of rules and a system that helped them teach through their scholars and clerics the rules that guided their own home society and proved successful in organizing them and bringing them together. Mohammed was aware ...