alternatehistory.com

First post here, because I've noticed a general lack of African timelines :p

The Muslim trading caste known as the Juula or Dyula emerged from the traders of the western Sahel, perhaps from the Wangara networks of the Soninke, and were, from the very beginning, involved in the gold trade. The spread of the Juula to the south to what we call the forest zone of West Africa - the non-Islamic part without cavalry - also coincided with the development of new gold mines (the Juula were also involved in kola nut trade, but that's secondary to the much more coveted gold). Following the gold, the Juula expanded their commercial clout down the Volta.

Probably in the early fifteenth century the Juula became involved in a fabulously lucrative trading relationship with the Akan people of modern Ghana (the Akan people would later found the Asante Empire). The Akan produced the gold, and the Juula network bought it and sold produce from the northern world. The gold was sold in the Sahel, and Akan gold thus entered the wider world. As the Juula settled among the southern kuffar - unbelievers - they often adopted secondary identities. You might be a Bobo-Juula if you lived among the Bobo, or a Senufo-Juula if you lived among the Senufo.

It should be said that not all Juula were traders. There were Juula scholars or Juula farmers, and Juula weavers were and are common. Then there were people who were not actually Juula but a lot like the Juula (if that makes sense) - the tun tigi who were generally descendants of warriors who spread south after the decline of the Mali Empire and sometimes helped found Juula chiefdoms.

For most of their existence among the Akan, the Juula traders were followers of the Suwarian school of Islam founded by the Soninke scholar Al-Hajj Salim Suwari, who lived around 1500. The Suwarian position on the kuffar is that God's design for the world is that some people remain pagans for longer than others, meaning to actively proselytize or to force pagans to convert is defying the will of God. (it might sound un-Islamic, but Suwarianism doesn't actually conflict with Maliki orthodoxy).

Suwarianism was a very convenient ideology for Juula traders. As early as Mansa Musa's rule, it was noted that attempts to Islamize the gold miners under the rule of Mali itself led to a drastic decline in gold production. The Juula network was very influential, but they were still just traders and had far less power over the Akan then Mansa Musa had over his miners. If Mansa Musa himself was unable to quickly Islamize the miners without compromising his economy, I don't see why proselytizing Juula traders would have any quick success with the Akan while simultaneously maintaining the trade.

However, there actually were Islamic conversions in the Volga region. Manwura, the king of Gonja, converted around 1600; legend goes that in a battle Gonja was nearly defeated, but then an imam walked towards the enemy and planted his staff on the ground, causing Manwura to win the battle and become a devoted Muslim. Even the Asante court had some Muslims - the British mention "Moorish necromancers" as the Asante king's advisers in the 1870s, and the Asante kings kept in correspondence with the imams of Gonja. But conversions were gradual and the Akan today are majority Christian thanks to the British Empire. The Juula do still exist - actually Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana Muslim Council's declaration in 1860 is incredibly Suwarian. But understandably they are no longer what they were i the past.

A fantastic and comprehensive source for Dyula/Juula history is Nehemia Levtzion's History of Islam in Africa. Chapter 4 "The Juula and the Expansion of Islam into the Forest" discusses the Juula, their history and their theology, in depth.

This was all OTL.




But how can we change this and make the Juula successfully Islamize the majority of the Akan, while also maintaining the Juula gold trade? I would think the POD has to be before the Asante Empire, because the Golden Stool beliefs were far too deeply ingrained into the legitimacy of the Asante. Earlier the POD, the more changes, so the better.

Thoughts? I initially thought it would be easy to have a Muslim Ghana and that the consequences in West Africa would be fun to draw up, but the more I look into the Akan and the Juula it seems more and more likely that if the Juula decide to actively proselytize they would eventually just get kicked out by angry Akan. After all, there's a reason Suwarian tolerance became so popular among them.
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