Islam

Islam

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

 is the dominant religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

in 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 is practiced by 80 to more than 98 % the population.

Islam

Approximately 95% of Muslims are Sunni; 5% are Shi'a. Islam was spread into what is now Niger beginning in the 15th century, by both the expansion of the Songhai Empire

Songhai Empire

The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a state located in western Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city...

 in the west, and the influence of the Trans-Saharan trade

Trans-Saharan trade

Trans-Saharan trade requires travel across the Sahara to reach sub-Saharan Africa. While existing from prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the late 16th century.- Increasing desertification and economic incentive :...

 traveling from the Maghreb

Maghreb

The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...

 and Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. Tuareg expansion from the north, culminating in their seizure of the far eastern oases from the Kanem-Bornu Empire

Bornu Empire

The Bornu Empire was an African state of Nigeria from 1396 to 1893. It was a continuation of the great Kanem Empire founded centuries earlier by the Sayfawa Dynasty...

 in the 17th centuries, spread distinctively Berber

Berber mythology

The traditional Berber mythology is the ancient and native set of beliefs and deities developed by the Berber people in their historical land of North Africa...

 practices. Both Djerma

Djerma

The Zarma people , are a people of westernmost Niger and adjacent areas of Burkina Faso, Benin, Ghana and Nigeria. The Zarma language is one of the Songhai languages, a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family...

 and Hausa

Hausa people

The Hausa are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. They are a Sahelian people chiefly located in northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger, but having significant numbers living in regions of Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Chad and Sudan...

 areas were greatly influenced by the 18th and 19th century Fula led

Fula jihads

The Fula or Fulani jihads, were a series of independent but loosely connected events across West Africa between the late 17th century and European colonization, in which Muslim Fulas took control of various parts of the region...

 Sufi brotherhoods, most notably the Sokoto Caliphate (in today's Nigeria).

Christianity

Christianity was brought with French colonial institutions, and its adherents include local believers from the educated, the elite, and colonial families, as well as immigrants from neighboring coastal countries, particularly Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

, Togo

Togo

Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...

, and Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

. Christians, both Roman Catholics and Protestants, account for less than 5 percent of the population—one estimate has Christians at 0.4% and Evangelicals at 0.1%—and are mainly present in the regions of Maradi and Dogondoutchi

Dogondoutchi

Dogondoutchi is a city located in the east of the Dosso Region of Niger. With a population of 29,244 , Dogondoutchi is the largest city in and administrative center of the Dogondoutchi department, the easternmost section of Dosso Region....

, and in Niamey

Niamey

-Population:While Niamey's population has grown steadily since independence, the droughts of the early 1970s and 1980s, along with the economic crisis of the early 1980s, have propelled an exodus of rural inhabitants to Niger's largest city...

 and other urban centers with expatriate populations. Current estimates place the current Christian population at about 56,000 individuals with projected growth resulting in about 84,500 Christians by the year 2025.

Foreign Christian missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 organizations are active in the country, continuing a tradition dating back to the colonial period. The first Catholic mission was founded in 1931, while the first Protestant missionaries came to Zinder

Zinder

Zinder is the second largest city in Niger, with a population of 170,574 by 2005 was estimated to be over 200,000...

 in 1924 and to Tibiri a few years later. In the late 1970s there were some 12,000 Catholic and 3,000 Protestant converts in Niger, with the remaining Christian population made up of foreigners.

Bahá'í Faith in Niger

The Bahá'í Faith

Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....

 in Niger began during a period of wide scale growth in the religion across Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...

 near the end of its colonial period

Colonisation of Africa

The colonisation of Africa has a long history, the most famous phase being the European Scramble for Africa during the late 19th and early 20th century.- Ancient colonialism :...

. The first Bahá'ís arrive in 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...

 in 1966 and the growth of the religion reached a point of electing its National Spiritual Assembly in 1975. Following a period of oppression, making the institutions of the religion illegal in the late 1970s and 80s, the National Assembly was re-elected starting in 1992. The Bahá'í community in Niger has grown mostly in the south-west of the country where they number about 5,600 (0.04% total population.)

African traditional religion

A small percentage of the population practices traditional indigenous religious beliefs

African Traditional Religion

The traditional religions indigenous to Africa have, for most of their existence, been orally rather than scripturally transmitted. They are generally associated with animism. Most have ethno-based creations stories...

. Although studies estimate that such practitioners number around 1,055,000 individuals, or about 6.6% of the total population, such numbers can be misleading as there is a high rate of syncretism within Muslim communities throughout the country.

Animist beliefs include both animist based festivals and traditions (such as the Bori

Bori

Bori is a town and arrondissement located in the N’Dali commune of the Borgou Department of Benin....

 cult) practiced by some syncretic Muslim communities (in some Hausa areas as well as among some Toubou

Toubou

The Tubu are an ethnic group that live mainly in northern Chad, but also in Libya, Niger and Sudan....

 and Wodaabe

Wodaabe

The Wodaabe or Bororo are a small subgroup of the Fulani ethnic group. They are traditionally nomadic cattle-herders and traders in the Sahel, with migrations stretching from southern Niger, through northern Nigeria, northeastern Cameroon, and the western region of the Central African Republic....

 pastoralists), as opposed to several small communities who maintain their pre-Islamic religion. These include the Hausa speaking Maouri (or Arna, the Hausa word for "pagan") community in Dogondoutci in the south-southwest and the Kanuri speaking Manga near Zinder. both of whom practice variations of the pre-Islamic Hausa Maguzawa

Maguzawa

Maguzawa are Hausa people who still adhere to some of the tenets of the pre-Islamic traditional religions of Kano and Katsina, cities in northern Nigeria. Most of the citizens are found in the rural areas close to Kano and Katsina. They are known to have facial scarification similar to early rulers...

 religion. There are also some tiny Boudouma and Songhay animist communities in the southwest.

Legal status

The Constitution of Niger

Constitution of Niger

The Republic of Niger has had seven constitutions, two substantial constitutional revisions, and two periods of rule by decree since its independence from French colonial rule in 1960...

 provides for freedom of religion

Freedom of religion

Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...

, and the government generally respects this right in practice, as long as persons respect public order, social peace, and national unity. The US government received no reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious belief or practice in 2007.

Interfaith relations

Niger has a history of good relations between the majority Muslim believers and the much smaller minority faiths. In 2008, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Niamey Mgr Michel Cartatéguy was quoted in the press as saying that Niger is one of the "best examples" of cohabitation and cooperation between Christians and Muslims.