ABSTRACT
By comparison with its previous history in tropical Africa, discussed elsewhere in this volume (see pp. 470–85), Islam has made rapid progress there during the twentieth century. In Eastern Africa, from modern-day northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, it was largely confined to the coastal areas and to Arab and Persian traders and settlers until the closing decades of the nineteenth century. But from then on Islam was to penetrate inland and secure an increasingly larger following among the indigenous peoples, especially in what is today Tanzania. In western Africa also, where for many centuries it had been for the most part the religion of court and commerce and of the inhabitants of the towns, leaving many of the rural areas virtually untouched, Islam was to make great strides during the colonial era (c. 1885-c. 1960). Areas classified as non-Muslim or ‘pagan’ at the onset of colonialism, such as the southern region of the Ivory Coast, had a strong and growing Muslim presence by the end of the Second World War. And in Nigeria, towns like Lagos and Ibadan, each of which has several million inhabitants, are now predominantly Muslim, whereas a little over one hundred years ago the Muslim population of both towns when taken together was no more than a few thousand.
