ABSTRACT
Monod states that the “Islamization of the Wolof chiefs which enabled them to shelter their subjects from the ‘holy wars’ of the Mauretanians, should be placed between the end of the XIth century, the date at which Islam was planted firmly on the banks of the Senegal by the Almorávides, and the XVth century” The Wolof chieftains are described by the early Portuguese writers as having Muslim teachers (Mauretanians) as members of their entourage, though many chiefs considered that the rules of Islamic teaching did not apply to them personally. Le Maire (1682) writes that the nobles are more attached to the Muslim religion though “it is but little observed by the common people, who have only a smattering of it.”
