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$Unique_ID{bob00309}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Cote d'Ivoire
Chapter 8.    Religion}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{T.D. Roberts, Donald M. Bouton, Irving Kaplan, Barbara Lent, Charles Townsend, Neda A. Walpole}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{coast
ivory
religious
traditional
islam
african
groups
africa
peoples
west}
$Date{1973}
$Log{}
Title:       Cote d'Ivoire
Book:        Area Handbook for Ivory Coast
Author:      T.D. Roberts, Donald M. Bouton, Irving Kaplan, Barbara Lent, Charles Townsend, Neda A. Walpole
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 8.    Religion

     A large majority of the people still adhere to the traditional tribal
religions. About 23 percent of the population, mostly in the north, have
been Islamized to varying degrees. The first wave of Islamization came to the
north in the thirteenth century; the second in the nineteenth. In the
twentieth century it has been spread to the south by traders. Christianity can
claim about 12 percent of the population, mainly in the south, as its nominal
adherents. With the exception of scattered and insignificant efforts
beginning in the sixteenth century, Christianity was spread by European
missionaries arriving in the late nineteenth century and has attracted much
of the educated elite. Both Christianity and Islam have been, for the most
part, urban religions.

     This picture is essentially similar to that found among the coastal
neighbors of the Ivory Coast; Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Dahomey and Nigeria. These
countries and the Ivory Coast are at once the most pagan and the most
Christianized countries of West Africa, in contrast to their neighbors to the
north and northwest, who are heavily Islamized and where Christianity plays a
far smaller role.

     The religious picture is still more complex in that both Christianity
and Islam are known in many different versions in the Ivory Coast, some of
which are particular inventions of West Africa. Each traditional religion is
limited to a specific ethnic group, and even though the religions of
culturally related groups may share a number of basic elements, the elements
are differently organized and emphasized within each group.

     The people of the Ivory Coast may be said to be religious in that most
of them attend religious ceremonies, observe religious practices, and tend
to resort to religious aid in times of personal crisis. Both Islam and
Christianity are often said to be "thin" in the Ivory Coast because their
adherents will, under sufficient tension or pressure, often resort to
"pagan" practices, at least as supplementary assurances, despite
prohibitions of their faith. Furthermore, it is often suggested that even
the more orthodox versions of Islam and Christianity are somewhat
"watered down" in the Ivory Coast. On the other hand, it can as truly be
contended that adherents of these faiths take them more seriously and
literally than do many people in more sophisticated, older centers of these
religions. Atheism, agnosticism or free thinking is extremely rare,
confined to a few university graduates.

     The Constitution proclaims the Ivory Coast a secular state, but in
practice the government gives a general, nonspecific support to religious
institutions. Members of the government are present at various major
religious ceremonies, and they place no obstacle in the way of missionary
work. They give financial aid to schools sponsored by religious groups,
although this is somewhat controversial. In 1961 the Ivory Coast Government
was the host to an international seminar on African religions sponsored by
the Society of African Culture, an international organization which
publishes Presence Africaine. The seminar, opened by President
Houphouet-Boigny included as participants both Africans, and non-Africans,
and adherents of the four major African religious groupings (Islam,
Catholicism, Protestantism, traditional African religions). The Ivory Coast
Government now has under study, as an outgrowth of the seminar, a proposal
to establish a research institute for the study of African traditional
religions.

     As a consequence of French colonial administration, the calendar of the
Ivory Coast is a Christian calendar, and the major Christian holidays, such
as Christmas and Easter, are national holidays. Moslems normally are
permitted time off to celebrate major Moslem holidays, such as Ain-el-Kebir.
Moreover, the Islamic law of personal status is applicable to those who
profess Islam.

Traditional African Religions

     Religion is a central focus of Ivory Coast traditional societies. It
impregnates all their beliefs and their practices. The solidarity of the
group or community is seen in certain common religious beliefs and practices.

The Southeastern Peoples

     The traditional religious life of the Agni and Baoule and other Akan of
Akan-influenced peoples focuses on two sets of supernaturals: deities and
ancestral spirits, with quite heavy emphasis on the latter. A high god,
Adoudoua-who is not the object of worship-bred Niamie, god of the skies, and
Assie, earth goddess, and then retired from the scene. Assie, associated with
the serpent and crocodile symbolizing fertility, has numerous sacrificial
altars to her, all of which must be built of earth. Niamie originally seemed
to symbolize virility, but his position is increasingly unclear in recent
years. In addition to these gods, there is a host of secondary deities who
are the protectors of specific groups or places, for example, castes or
villages, and others who control specific forces, such as gods of thunder
and smallpox. As important as these deities may be, the socially significant
supernaturals for the southeastern peoples are the ancestors, whose cult
assures the prosperity of the lineage. Usually the head of each lineage is
its priest, and his chief task is to maintain harmony between the community
of the dead and the living. Here the religious and secular head of the group
is one person, and the group is a religious congregation as well as a
political and economic entity.

     For the Akan, man has a body and a soul. The soul (ekala among the Agni,
okra among the Baoule) is immortal and indestructible. An individual
possesses the qualities of his soul, which may be the soul of a deceased
ancestor, in which case his entire behavior is determined by it. Ordinarily
the soul is pure and white, but failure of the person to obey its
rules-including various ritual prohibitions and moral norms-may lead to its
becoming soiled and leaving the body prematurely. On death the soul usually
goes to the kingdom of the dead, abode of the ancestors, believed to be near
the gods on high. There is no notion of final judgment or of heaven and hell.
Death is defined as a joyous change of state, which marks the end of travail
on earth and the beginning of the sweetness of the afterlife. The soul leaves
a life without repose to enter one of peace. Everyone, living and dead,
rejoices. Sometimes, upon death, the soul does not go to its rest but wanders
on earth, seeking another body in which to lodge itself and pursue the
objectives of purity.

     Transgressions of a ritual or moral kind, including failure to give
various spirits-ancestral and other-their due, are negatively sanctioned by
the offended supernaturals here on earth. Life and death, happiness and
sorrow, success and failure are consequences of the relations between men and
the various spirits and deities.

     The proliferation of deities and cults is matched to some extent by the
proliferation of religious personnel. In addition to lineage heads and chiefs
in their priestly capacity, there are also priests (usually called feticheurs
in French-speaking Africa) for specific cults dedicated to particular deities
or spirits. The feticheurs undergo extensive training, somewhat curtailed in
recent times, by established specialists, and successful completion of their
education is marked by public ceremony. Usually these feticheurs also act as
diviners, and the most esteemed of them are believed to be clairvoyant.
Confronted by a multitude of malevolent and benevolent spirits and by the
power of sorcerers, the people have recourse to diviners who can specify the
supernatural source of a particular difficulty and instruct them in the
proper procedures for placating or counteracting malevolent powers and
eliciting the support of benevolent ones. The feticheur-diviner will often
perform the necessary ritual-usually requiring communication with and
sacrifice to the spirits-on behalf of their clients. Another specialist is
the curer, a kind of indigenous doctor-pharmacist. In principle, he practices
his art without reference to the supernatural, but he is sometimes required
to deal with illness believed to be caused by sorcery.

     The sorcerers of a village or larger entity are thought to be an
organized group under a chief, who engage in group ritual as well as
individual enterprise. Their activities against particular persons or groups
are felt to be motivated by hate or envy or perhaps by sheer malevolent
pleasure in the exercise of their powers. They often make use of poisons, but
their power does not reside in the materials used; rather, the materials used
have their power because they are employed by sorcerers, who are also thought
to be able to achieve their ends without the use of material agents. The
feticheurs are seen as a countervailing power, capable of dealing with
sorcerers but subject to the chief of sorcerers and unable to function without
his approval. Sometimes they are suspected of functioning as sorcerers
themselves and are therefore viewed ambivalently, since they are capable of
help or harm. Although the people of the southeast have recourse to diviners
and feticheurs when faced with difficulties, they also seek to ward off
malevolent acts through the use of a variety of amulets and other objects.

     In addition to those rites performed when personal or group situations
seem to demand them, there are more regular ceremonies calling for the
participation of groups of varying scale. Among these are birth and funeral
rites.

     The most important collective religious ceremony for many of the
southeastern peoples is the yam feast, which serves the triple function of
thanksgiving for the harvest, of commemoration of the dead who always watch
over men and, on occasion, of purification and rejoicing in refound peace
and abundance. The exact date, which falls between November and February,
varies with the ethnic group and according to an indigenous calendar. Even
within each group, the date is variable and is set each year. There is a
movement among the young to establish a fixed date.

The Southwestern Peoples

     The traditional religions of the southwest peoples are not very different
from those of the Akan, and there may have been considerable borrowing. There
is a sky-god, often with a name very similar to that of the Akan high god, and
frequently there is an earth god. Among some southwest forest peoples,
however, a Manichaeist principle operates. Alongside the supreme god is a
second and evil deity, a devil who is perpetually struggling against the
first. He is called Kou by the Krou and Bou by the Guere. Each person is
believed to reflect this duality within his own psyche.

     As in the southeast there is an ancestor cult and a belief in a place to
which the souls of the dead go. There is perhaps a greater emphasis on sorcery
among the southwestern groups than among those of the southeast. Associations
of sorcerers include men and women. Some of them in earlier times ate human
flesh. Sorcerers may be or may disguise themselves as feticheurs. The latter
may also be curers (witch-doctors). One who has both the spiritual powers of
a feticheur and the pharmaceutical knowledge of the witch-doctor is respected
and often feared by the southwestern peoples. It is believed that all
feticheurs and sorcerers are clairvoyant and that the former, acting as
diviners, can detect the latter because of this power. As among the
Akan-speakers of the southeast, the importance of the belief in sorcery has
not diminished with entry into the modern economy. New strains, stresses and
uncertainties seem to have led to an increase in anxieties about accusations
of sorcery.

The Northern Peoples

     Among the savanna peoples of the north one also finds paired deities.
The Senoufo creator god, Koulo Tyolo, no longer figures significantly in the
thought or ritual of the people, but the earth goddess, Ka Tyeleo
(mother-of-the-village), is at the center of a number of agricultural rites
and, above all, of the important initiation rites of their secret societies
(see ch. 11, Social Values and Patterns of Living). The belief in two deities
may reflect the existence of two groups of people, an older, indigenous one
and a newer, conquering one. Among some of the northern peoples the
distinction is clear and manifests itself in the distribution of religious and
secular powers: the indigenous group continues to provide the priests
(sometimes called chiefs of the land) whereas the relative newcomers provide
political chiefs.

     As among other Ivory Coast peoples, those of the savanna have a variety
of secondary deities and spirits, some of them incarnated or represented in
material objects. Some ritual is addressed to or focuses directly on Senoufo
ancestors. The most important ceremony honoring them directly is an annual
one in honor of the dead. However, all traditional ritual, no matter to whom
addressed, is performed because it is the will of the ancestors.

     In the north too there are various types of religious personnel. Among
the Senoufo, the senior members of the secret society, having passed through
a series of stages within the society, control the more esoteric religious
lore, educate the younger initiates and conduct a variety of rituals.
Blacksmiths, who are inducted into a separate secret society, have religious
powers which give them important roles in general initiation rites and in
funeral ceremonies. The role of chief of the land is particularly important
with respect to agricultural ritual.

     Among the savanna peoples more than among the forest peoples, the role
of witch-doctor or curer tends to be separate from that of priest.
Witch-doctors have had a long apprenticeship and have a vast knowledge of
drugs and of various remedies for illness. They are heirs to secrets and
often are specialists in one malady. They are, however, farmers, often from an
inferior caste, who have no religious authority over those whom they treat.

     A distinctive feature of the traditional religions of the savanna is the
role of secret societies in the initiation of the young. In addition to
initiation, they control funerals and agricultural feasts. They are
hierarchical, with closed groups of both men and women, and are a central
aspect of both the religious and political systems of these peoples.

     There is, in these traditional religions, an essential conservatism of
spirit. New ways are not always known to the ancestors or gods and thus will
be frowned upon by them. The superstitions, the widespread use of amulets,
the complex of submission of deities and ancestors, all served historically to
maintain a traditional order. Today many of these ways have been subverted,
but the hold of these ancient beliefs serves as a weapon of those within rural
society who would resist the further breakdown of the traditional social
structure.

Christianity

     Christianity in the Ivory Coast is predominantly the religion of urban,
literate, middle-class southerners. The most strongly Christianized groups
are the Agni and the Lagoon Cluster peoples; the least Christianized are the
Mandingo (traditionally under Islamic influence) and those northern groups,
such as the Senoufo, which have been under Mandingo influence. Almost all the
Europeans in the Ivory Coast are Christians and form an important part of the
Christian community.

     Catholicism first came to the Ivory Coast in 1687 when Father Gonsalvez
and Father Cerizier landed in Assinie on the southeastern coast. The church
disappeared, however, with the closing of the French outpost there. In 1843,
when Bouet-Willaumez signed an accord with the Agni King Amatifou, he invited
the missionaries in to proselytize and agreed to pay for their maintenance in
return for educational work. In 1895, Governor Binger asked the Society of
African Missions of Lyon to undertake the education of native populations of
the Ivory Coast. In 1905, however,the French law on separation of church and
state ended this benevolent atmosphere.

     The first churches were established in the southeast and in Korhogo in
the north. A preparatory seminary (petit seminaire) was opened in Dabou. The
first African priest was ordained in 1934. In 1913, there were about 2,400
Catholics. Today, there are some 250,000 Catholics and catechumens and 38
African priests, which is still less than the number of non-African priests.
In 1960, Msgr. Bernard Yago, an African of the Ivory Coast, was named
Archbishop of Abidjan. There are also archdioceses in Katiola, Daloa, Bouake
and Gagnoa. A number of Catholic schools have been established, including
several offering secondary education and four preparatory seminaries. There
is a network of Catholic lay organizations, such as Catholic Family Action
and the Social Secretariat, and youth groups, such as Young Christian Workers,
Young Christian Farmers, Young Christian Students, and several children's
organizations.

     In 1914 a prophet named William Wade Harris (called Latagbo, Latabou or
Latabo by his followers) came to the country and left a distinctive mark on
Ivory Coast Christianity. From Cape Palmas, Liberia, Harris was a Grebo
(Krou), brought up as a Methodist. When he was past 60 years of age, he
claimed to have received a call from the Angel Gabriel who commanded him to
go convert the pagans of the Ivory Coast. He traveled essentially along the
Lagoon areas, first in the district of Lahou, then in the districts of
Abidjan, Grand Bassam and Assinie. He also visited Nzima country in Ghana.
Everywhere he preached, and he is estimated to have baptized 120,000 persons
from Fresco to Agboville to the Ghana border.

     He wore a long, white gown and a turban, went barefooted, and carried
a bamboo staff with a cross, a small Bible and a calabash of water. He led a
simple life, eating what the villagers offered him. He claimed no superiority
or divinity, but considered himself simply the messenger of God. He preached
against idolatry and ordered the systematic destruction of fetishes and the
exorcising of sorcerers. In some areas, he abolished practices which have
never since been resumed. Although he tolerated polygamy, he condemned
adultery, theft and lying. He forbade intemperance and ordered the strict
observance of the Sabbath and of Christian ritual. He preached hell for
sinners and paradise for the virtuous. He maintained a sympathetic attitude
to both Catholic and Protestant churches and did not call for a new church.
Although he was violent in his opposition to pagan practices, he otherwise
preached total obedience to customary and colonial administrative authorities.

     In 1915 the French governor took fright at the disruptive character of
Harris' preachings, despite his complete political submission, and expelled
him to Liberia. He left, all along the Lagoon, dozens of independent "Harrist"
churches, governed normally by "twelve disciples." Many of these groups
started with mud and bamboo churches,to be replaced later by cement and
granite buildings. After he was expelled, a number of English-speaking Fanti
and Nzima clerks from the Gold Coast living in the Ivory Coast took over his
work, calling themselves the "sons of God." Many were of dubious honesty and
were pursued by the authorities. Some Harrists entered the Catholic Church
after his departure.

     In 1924 two English Methodist missionaries discovered the extensive
legacy of Harris and took up his work. In 1927 he was discovered living in
Liberia, and it is claimed he gave a Methodist missionary the "testament of
Harris" which asked his proselytes to join the Methodist Church, and it only.
The majority, numbering about 50,000, complied. A fraction retained their
independence, however, and beginning in 1939, Harrism, or neo-Harrism has
seen an important revival in the Lagoon area and around Agboville. The major
accomplishment of Harrism was the remarkably swift, effective and permanent
destruction of fetishes, and the ability of the Harrist movement to cross the
tight ethnic limits of the Lagoon Cluster peoples.

     Before Harris, Protestantism was represented in the Ivory Coast mainly
through the infiltration of rather rich Gold Coasters, foresters or clerks.
The preachers were Africans. They concentrated on converting men rather than
women and children, which in the matriarchal southeast caused them to lose
their converts on marriage.

     The Harris movement changed this trend, and since 1924, Methodism has
been a significant force in the southern Ivory Coast, reaching 4 to 5 percent
of the population by the second world war. There are today Methodist missions
at Abidjan, Dabou, Divo, Grand-Lahou, Adzope, Grand Bassam, Bongouanou and
Abengourou. Other groups followed the Methodists. The Christian and Missionary
Alliance came in 1925 and, to avoid competition with the Methodists, went
inland to Bouake and opened the Central Bible School there. The Methodist
missions were British as was the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade which came
in 1934. A French Baptist group, called the Biblical Mission in the Ivory
Coast, established itself in the 1920s. Other American groups joining the
Christian and Missionary Alliance were the Assemblies of God and the
Seventh-Day Adventists. After the second world war, two more American Baptist
groups came, concentrating their efforts among the Senoufo and in Bondoukou.
In 1957 it was estimated that the Protestant community (not including the
neo-Harrists) was over 50,000, with over 500 places of worship and with the
majority of personnel African. The Protestants maintained several schools.
Youth organizations include the Protestant Youth Federation, Methodist Youth,
and the Young Men's Christian Association.

Syncretic Cults

     In large areas of the Ivory Coast, syncretic cults flourish, each quite
separate from the others. Sometimes, they are apostolic movements focusing
around a strong prophetic personality; sometimes they reflect an attempt at
ethnic renewal. They are all proselytizing, and all are efforts of various
individuals and groups to cope with the collapse of some traditional
institutions and the rapid incursions on individual lives of a modern
political and economic system. To a considerable extent, syncretic cults are
the expression or reaffirmation of African values in the face of Western
missionary efforts, but African values tempered by modern elements borrowed
from Western religions or emulating some of their features.

     Harrism was one such expression. But Harris did not deviate far from a
fairly orthodox Protestantism, except in his toleration of polygamy, and he
never encouraged secession. In the end, most of his followers were absorbed
by the Methodists and to a lesser extent by the Catholic Church. The fact,
however, that many of his followers declined to return to the fold indicates
that to some degree Harrism was a rejection of Western forms.

     In later years, and especially since the second world war, many syncretic
cults have emerged, which can be divided into three major types. One is along
the southern coast, where the movements have been inspired by Christianity and
are essentially neo-Harrist. The second, in the center of the Ivory Coast,
extends from Gagnoa to Daloa to Bouake to Abengourou, where the new cults are
closer to traditional religious forms. The third, which is essentially a
transformation of the traditional religion, is in the north, in Senoufo
country. Two areas that thus far have been refractory to these cults are the
northeast (among the Koulango) and the West (among the Islamized Mandingo in
the north and the Dan and Guere in the south).

     Among the Harrist groups of the Coastal regions, several new prophets
emerged. One of the earliest was a disciple of Harris named Bebe (or Begbe)
Grah, who preached to the Neyo of Sassandra. There are reports of his
activities as early as 1930. He claimed to have seen God, to have been
surrounded by light, and that God told him he was to be known as Loxzema,
which he said meant law of God. Bebe had a practical streak in that he
required his converts to work on his plantations as laborers before baptizing
them. The group declined in Sassandra, and its center is now in Tiagba, to
the east of Grand-Lahou, possibly forming a separate cult of Bebe. An Ebrie
prophet named Ake became influential on Petit Bassam Island. He has now
reached out among the Adioukrou, Avikam and Dida. John Avit, of Port Bouet,
gained followers from Abidjan to Divo and Lakota. In the region of Divo, the
prophet Makoui, preaching in English, founded the Crastchotche (corruption of
"Christ Church"). He was imprisoned and succeeded by others. The cult spread
to the Alladian and the Ebrie. Among the Dida of Divo and Lakota, in
competition with John Avit, is the cult of the Nzima prophet Boto Adai (called
"Papa Adai"), to whom many come for his "miraculous cures." A witch-doctor and
exorciser, he requires public confessions and uses blessed water and the
laying-on of hands among his liturgical curative apparatus. At Beregbo, near
Abidjan, another curer, named Atcho, requires public confession also. Many of
the leaders of these cults imitate the style of Harris, not only his doctrines
and the organization of his church, but his dress as well. Many priests wear
long, white tunics and carry a wooden cane topped with a cross.

     These cults have made little headway among the Agni, who are strongly
Catholicized. The Baoule, by contrast, have seemed to resist Christianity,
the neo-Christian sects and Islam. They have sought to overcome the crisis
brought on by the progressive abandonment of various traditional beliefs by
grafting imported religious elements on to a more traditional base. The two
principal cults are known as Dei'ma (or Demba) and Tete Kpan (or Ahiere Kpli).

     Dei'ma was founded in 1942 by a Godie woman, Marie Dahonon, surnamed
Lalou; thus it is often called the Cult of Marie Lalou. Marie was baptized a
Protestant but one day received, in the forest, a revelation from an immense
reptile which had the feet of a crocodile and the horns of a buffalo. The
animal taught her to prepare "miraculous ashes," and she was thus called Lalou
(ashes). She also took "sacred water" from the pond out of which the serpent
appeared. With these two substances, she could counteract all ill. The liquid
was not to cure sickness but to prevent maledictions, providing the recipient
harbored no bitterness in his heart and adored no idol. Marie Lalou was said
to "want to have her own religion." Both the cross and Jesus appear in her
temples alongside magic practices. At one point, she divinized
Houphouet-Boigny as well as his mother, until he expressly asked her to
desist.

     Marie Lalou died in 1951. Her cult spread among the Godie, the Dida and
the Bete and was brought into Baoule country in 1948 under the name of Demba
by a Baoule. This cult is very severe in its destruction of ancient Baoule
religious establishments and has led to wholesale exoduses of its adherents
to create their own villages. They did this both of their own accord and
sometimes under constraint of their neighbors.

     The other major Baoule cult, Tete Kpan, was originated in 1938 by Non
Kofi and by 1948 had become the major spiritual force in Baoule life. Now
penetrating nothern Agni country, the cult is universalistic and intolerant
of traditional religious customs. It calls for the destruction of traditional
ceremonial objects.

     Among the Senoufo in the northern Ivory Coast, a new cult called massa
spread suddenly in 1951 and flourished for a period. The cult originated
among the related Miniaka of Mali where it is called "the religion of San" or
"the religion of Wolo." Wolo is the village in the district of San where its
founder, Mpieni Dembele, lives. Mpieni was a sacrificer to nya, one of the
principal occult powers among the Minianka. He preaches a morality of good
deeds to neighbors and obedience to the authorities. The cult has built many
sanctuaries for the fertile goat's horn (massa) which is an ancient symbol.
Although both doctrines and symbols are borrowed from traditional sources, the
cult sought to eliminate the initiation ceremonies of the poro and did so for
a while. For this reason, the older men reacted against it and succeeded in
reviving the traditional local cults, thus ending the pretension of massa to
be the supreme religious sect of the Senoufo. The cult has spread as well to
the Bobo and seems to have been most effective in those areas where
chieftaincy has suffered the most disruption serving as a mechanism to renew
village solidarity.

Islam

     Islam is a monotheistic religion based on revelation which has spread out
from its origin in seventh-century Arabia to the whole Middle East and large
parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. There are about 80 million Moslems in
Africa, of whom 40 million are black. Starting in the north and northeast,
Islam spread down through the savanna of the western Soudan (which includes
the northern part of the Ivory Coast) and along the east coast of Africa. Its
sacred book, the Koran, given to the prophet Mohammed by Allah (God), was
later supplemented by the Hadith (a collection of the sayings of the prophet
which elaborate his doctrine). Of the four codified versions of Moslem law
(Sharia), Malekite prevails in the Ivory Coast, as in most of Africa, and is
recognized by the authorities as customary law.

     Islamization came to West Africa in three great waves. In the ninth
century, the Berbers brought the faith from North Africa to the ancient empire
of Ghana. Beginning in the thirteenth century, the Malinke rulers of the
ancient empire of Mali spread it throughout much of the savanna, a process
which continued into the eighteenth century, when the Moslem Dioula Kingdom of
Kong was established in the northern Ivory Coast. The third great wave, in
the nineteenth century, was marked by the invasions of Samory Toure in the
northern Ivory Coast.

     Islam in the Ivory Coast, and in West Africa generally, is Sunni
orthodox as to rites. However, as to custom, Moslems have tended to retain
most of the traditional local forms, thus making West African Islam a special,
more tolerant, version of the faith. West African Islam follows Sufism, which
is a mystical movement characterized by organization into brotherhoods
(confreries), in which the great master is the depository of the baraka (gift
of blessing) of the founding saint. He enforces the true path, as do his
religious spokesmen (marabouts). The brotherhood is a religious order whose
rites are fixed by the master and which confers many temporal advantages of
mutual aid and social discipline.

     The four great brotherhoods found in the Ivory Coast are: the Qadiriya,
which is dominant; the Tidjaniya, which is important; and the Senoussiya and
Ahmadiya, which have few adherents. Both Qadiriya and Tidjaniya are divided
into many suborders, each with its own master. Qadiriya was founded in the
eleventh century in Iraq and came to West Africa in the fifteenth century.
Its spiritual centers in West Africa are in Mauritania. Tidjaniya is a more
recent creation, dating from the eighteenth century. Specifically North
African in origin, this order is political as well as religious and today
plays a role in modern politics. Most of the masters of the West African
suborders are centered in Senegal. The mystical echelons of the other orders
are suppressed in Tidjaniya, which is democratic in religious structure.
Tidjaniya was in the nineteenth century the way of the warrior-proselytizers.
Senoussiya is essentially a Libyan order and has only a few followers in the
Ivory Coast. Ahmadiya, a Shiite sect originating in nineteenth-century India
and brought by traders to British West Africa, is the only non-Sunni version
of Islam known in West Africa. It has spread from Ghana into the southern
Ivory Coast. Historically, some of the orders had a radical political
significance. Omarian Tidjaniya, Hamallite Tidjaniya and Mouride Qadiriya
represented the aspirations of captives, women and the young against the
tyranny of traditional authority. This meaning is much diminished today.

     The significant religious authority in West African Islam is the
marabout. He is a worker of miracles, a curer, a mystic, who exercises both
magic and moral authority. He is considered by many non-Moslems as a powerful
fetish priest with whom one must come to terms. Indeed, many of his practices
are those of the fetish priest. He carries and sells amulets on which are
written verses of the Koran or mystical combinations of figures and letters
which guarantee the wearer against evil. He has around him disciples called
talibes who stay with him many years learning his wisdom.

     In recent years, two reactions to the marabouts have been seen in West
Africa. One is a reformist movement originating with some students returned
from the Islamic university of Al-Azhar (Cairo) who established a modern
Islamic secondary school in Bamako (Mali) in 1950. Many students from the
northern  Ivory Coast and from Agboville went to this school, which is
inspired by a combination on modernist ideas and Wahabite puritanism.
Wahabism, a reforming ideology originating in nineteenth-century Saudi Arabia,
has also been spread to the Ivory Coast by merchants returning from the
pilgrimage to Mecca. They have been particularly influential in Bouake where
they speak principally for the rich Malinke merchants as against poorer, more
illiterate merchants of Peul, Soninke and Mossi origin. Both forms of
Wahabism have been strongly opposed to the  marabouts and the Sufi
brotherhoods.

     In general, in the Ivory Coast, Moslems tend to observe the five pious
duties: profession of faith (shahada), regular prayers (salat),almsgiving
(zakat), the yearly fast (sawm) and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). The hajj
is more important in West Africa than in many areas nearer to Mecca, and the
authorities do much to facilitate these pilgrimages, which are often made
by air by those with sufficient money. The various taboos of Islam, such as
pork and alcohol, are widely observed, even among the educated, though the ban
on alcohol is not rigid. There is however, no seclusion of women. Prayer is
engaged in five times daily by the pious. On Friday noon, all the men gather
in the mosques, which are now being built in all the main centers. The yearly
fast which occurs during Ramadan, a spring month in the Moslem lunar calendar,
involves abstention from food and drink during day time hours. The rigor of
its observance is variable. Koranic schools, consisting of a master teaching
small children to read verses from the Koran off a wooden slate, may be seen
in all Moslem centers. In general, it may be said that in the towns of the
southern Ivory Coast Moslems represent a traditional element, which is less
touched by Western education and ways than are other groups of the population.

     In 1955 there were 300 mosques, 970 Koranic schools and more than 320
marabouts in the Ivory Coast. Of the marabouts, 219 were Qadiriya, mostly in
the west; 101 were Tidjaniya, mostly in the east; and there were a few
Senoussiya marabouts in Bouna. Islam in the Ivory Coast is basically the faith
of the Malinke-Dioula, who do the most to spread it There are also a number
of strangers coming from the savanna who profess Islam or who adopt it during
their stay in the urban centers as a way of finding a solidary social group.
In general, the Dioula are doubtful of the solidity of the faith of both this
group and southern converts among the Ouobe or Abbe. In recent years, Islam
has nevertheless been making significant gains in the south, mainly among the
Mossi in the commercial centers; around a young reformist iman (spiritual
leader) who went to Bouake in 1951; and in Gagnoa where Yabouba Sylla has
introduced a version of Mouride Qadiriya emphasizing a religion of labor.

     The spread of Islam in the Ivory Coast, as elsewhere in West Africa,
can be attributed to a series of factors. Islam offers a way of social and
religious reintegration, a social whole, for those whose traditional customs
have been severely disrupted. However, Islam is accommodating and almost
syncretic, and it permits polygamy. It offers cultural prestige that is not
Western. Its agents of propagation are black. It is a religion of the
anticolonial world.

     Islam and Christianity have been little in conflict in the Ivory Coast.
For a long time, Islam was in the north, Christianity along the coast, and the
center of the country was a vast, pagan belt of insulation. Now that Islam has
moved into the south and Christianity into the  north, albeit very slightly,
there is more contact, but the lay atmosphere of the Ivory Coast
administration does not encourage religious dissension.