While West Africa has been part of the Muslim world since the late Middle Ages, as famously demonstrated by the golden pilgrimage of Mali's Mansa Musa in 1324, Islam had only arrived in the region at the close of the 1st millennium.
I especially love the bit on Loropeni many folks were not expecting that, so much is out there under reported or remained completely undiscovered, one thing I was not expecting to see these tombs as being as massive as they were, I looked on some satellite images and they don't really give you the depth of their massiveness especially if there is nothing else to measure them against , thanks also Isaac.
Considering that nearly a dozen neolithic societies were thriving in West Africa 2,000 years before the rise of Islam, with their own cities, crafts work, architecture, and trade, it is counterintuitive to imagine that Islam introduced any of those developments into the region.
I especially love the bit on Loropeni many folks were not expecting that, so much is out there under reported or remained completely undiscovered, one thing I was not expecting to see these tombs as being as massive as they were, I looked on some satellite images and they don't really give you the depth of their massiveness especially if there is nothing else to measure them against , thanks also Isaac.
Appreciated.
Considering that nearly a dozen neolithic societies were thriving in West Africa 2,000 years before the rise of Islam, with their own cities, crafts work, architecture, and trade, it is counterintuitive to imagine that Islam introduced any of those developments into the region.
Jihad was also a major way of spreading Islam through Sub Saharan Africa. Enslaving of black Africans was a major trade to the Arab Muslim world too.