ABSTRACT
Early Islamic influences were more readily accepted in V1est Africa because Islamic beliefs and practices had at first been accommodated as a supplement to existing religious systems rather than as a substitute. Similarly, Islam and its early representatives-traders and clericspresented no threat to social structures and values. Muslims were integrated into chiefly courts without undermining the political system. Islam which is a prophetic, and therefore an exclusive, religion maintained a symbiotic relationship with African religions and indeed adopted something of their tolerance and open-endness. Adaptation to the local environment in the process of Islamization emphasized parochial and particularistic aspects at the expense of Islamic universalism. During the early stages of the process there had been a greater emphasis on the magical and ritual than on the legal aspects of Islam, and there was little or no articulation of the political content of Islam.
