Islam in Burkina Faso - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...

(Upper Volta

Republic of Upper Volta

The Republic of Upper Volta was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Before attaining autonomy it had been French Upper Volta and part of the French Union. On August 5, 1960 it attained full independence from France.Thomas Sankara came to power...

) has a long and varied history. According to the 2006 census, the population of the country is 60.53 percent Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

.

Until the end of the 19th century, the Upper Volta was dominated by the Mossi kingdom, who are believed to have come from central or eastern Africa sometime in the 11th century. The Mossi initially defended their religious beliefs and social structure against Islamic influences from Muslims from the northwest. In the 15th century the Upper Volta region attracted Muslim merchants and settlements by the opening of the Akan

Akan people

The Akan people are an ethnic group found predominately in Ghana and The Ivory Coast. Akans are the majority in both of these countries and overall have a population of over 20 million people.The Akan speak Kwa languages-Origin and ethnogenesis:...

goldfields, and the opportunity to trade in gold, kola nuts, and salt. Some of these merchants were Soninke

Soninke language

The Soninke language is a Mande language spoken by the Soninke people of West Africa. The language has an estimated 1,096,795 speakers, primarily located in Mali, and also in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ghana...

-speaking peoples from Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu , formerly also spelled Timbuctoo, is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali...

and Djenné

Djenné

Djenné is an Urban Commune and town in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali. In the 2009 census the commune had a population of 32,944. Administratively it is part of the Mopti Region....

who later adopted Malinke dialect and became known as Dyula. They settled in the towns of Bobo-Dyulasso, Kong

Kong, Côte d'Ivoire

Kong is a town and commune in the Ferkessédougou Department, in the Savanes Region of northern Côte d'Ivoire. It was the capital of the Kong Empire .-Natural history:...

, Bunduku, and other places leading to the goldfields. Other traders came from Kanem

Kanem Region

Kanem is one of the 22 regions of Chad, corresponding to the former prefecture of Kanem. Its capital is Mao. It is named after the famous Kanem Empire, which was centered in this vicinity.The region of Kanem is divided into 3 departments:-Demography:...

, Bornu

Borno State

Borno State is a state in north-eastern Nigeria. Its capital is Maiduguri. The state was formed in 1976 from the split of the North-Eastern State...

, and the Hausa city-states and moved into Gonja

Gonja

This page discusses the Ghanaian kingdom of Gonja; for uses for the word Ganja, see Ganja Gonja was a kingdom in northern Ghana; the word can also refer to the people of this kingdom. The Gonja are a Guan people who have been influenced by both Akan people and Mande people. With the fall of the...

, Dagomba

Dagomba

The Dagomba are an ethnic group of Northern Ghana. They inhabit the sparse savanna region below the sahelian belt, known as the Sudan. They speak the Dagbani language which belongs to the More-Dagbani sub-group of Gur languages...

, and other parts of the Volta region. Muslims married local women and raised families, which were tied to the Muslim community through the father and to the local pagan community through the mother. The offspring of these marriages often inherited chieftainships and brought about the conversion of local peoples. They organized festivals, offered prayers and divination at local courts, distributed talismans, and participated in anti-witchcraft rituals. As a result, Muslims in the region were not a distinct language group but regarded themselves as part of the Mossi kingdom.

Throughout the region, the Dyula communities maintained a high standard of Muslim education. A Dyula family enterprise based on the lu, a working unit consisting of a father, his sons, and other attached males, could afford to give some of its younger men a Muslim education. Thus there emerged an ulema

Ulema

Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...

class known as karamokos, who were educated in Qur'an

Qur'an

The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

, tafsir

Tafsir

Tafseer is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. Ta'wīl is a subset of tafsir and refers to esoteric or mystical interpretation. An author of tafsir is a mufassir .- Etymology :...

, hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

, and the life of Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

. A student read these works with a single teacher over a period varying from five to thirty years, and earned his living as a part time farmer working on the lands of his teacher. Having completed his studies, a karamoko obtained a turban and an ijazah

Ijazah

An ijazah is a certificate used primarily by Sunni Muslims to indicate that one has been authorized by a higher authority to transmit a certain subject or text of Islamic knowledge...

, his license to teach, and set forth in search of further instruction or to start his own school in a remote village. Certain families provided scholars generation after generation. During the great Senegambian jihad led by Ma Ba (1809–1867) Islam spread in the stateless region of the Upper Volta, the Ivory Coast and Guinea

Guinea

Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

.

French colonial rule was imposed on Upper Volta in 1919, but it was divided among the Ivory Coast, Niger

Niger

Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

, and the Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, and then reconstituted in 1947. French rule was characterized by a promotion of secular elites selected from the indigenous population, but it also aided the peaceful spread of Islam. Colonial administration indirectly favored the spread of Islam by creating peace and order and by stimulating trade. They also tended to regard Muslims as culturally and educationally more advanced than non-Muslim Africans, and appointed Muslim chiefs and clerks as administrators in non-Muslim areas. In Upper Volta at the end of the 19th century there were only some 30,000 Muslims, but by 1959 there were 800,000, approximately 20 percent of the population.

In 1987, Upper Volta was renamed Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...

. After a succession of military coups, a constitutional republic was established in 1991. In Burkina Faso the Arabist and Islamist movement is viewed a counter-culture to the European style of modernity, and also a way of integrating the disparate ethnic groups which make up the Muslim population of the country. Madrasa education, which began just after World War II, now serves half of the Muslim population, though only tiny minorities reach the secondary level. Islam is also strengthened by the construction of mosques, preaching on national television, official recognition of Muslim festivals, and support from the Arab world. Madrasa education appeals to the lower middle classes, excluded from political power, who favor a state based on sharia

Sharia

Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

. The Islamic movements, however, are divided into numerous factions.

Since the late 20th century, there has been a noticeable presence of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the larger of two communities that arose from the Ahmadiyya movement founded in 1889 in India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian . The original movement split into two factions soon after the death of the founder...

, a Muslim group who believe in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

Mīrzā Ghulām Aḥmad was a religious figure from India and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Community. He claimed to be the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah , and the Mahdi awaited by the Muslims in the end days...

, who claimed to be the Messiah of the latter days, originating in the late 19th century India.

Further reading