Fast facts
- Began
- Ancient, oral and local; no founding date
- Founder / origin
- No founder; transmitted by lineage, elders and initiation
- Followers
- Around 90–100 million follow them as their primary religion; far more practise elements alongside Islam or Christianity
- Figure from
- Pew Research Center, Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa (2010), and Global Religious Landscape estimates
- Where
- West Africa (Nigeria, Benin, Ghana), Central and Southern Africa, and diaspora forms in Brazil, Cuba and Haiti
- Scriptures
- Oral: proverbs, praise poetry, divination verses such as the Yoruba Odu Ifa corpus
- View of God
- A supreme Creator — Olodumare among the Yoruba, Chukwu among the Igbo, Nyame among the Akan, uNkulunkulu among the Zulu — approached through lesser spirits and the ancestors
Shared features across traditions
- One supreme Creator God, widely acknowledged but rarely worshipped directly
- Intermediary spirits — the Yoruba orisha, for instance — attached to natural forces, trades and places
- Ancestors who remain part of the family, are consulted and are given offerings
- Divination to diagnose problems and choose a course of action, such as Ifa among the Yoruba
- Sacrifice and libation to restore right relations
- Belief in witchcraft and in the evil eye, and in protective medicine against them
- Rites of passage: naming, initiation, marriage and funeral, with the funeral often the most important
Diaspora forms
The transatlantic slave trade carried these traditions to the Americas, where they survived as Vodun in Haiti, Santería and Lucumí in Cuba, and Candomblé in Brazil, often under a layer of Catholic saints. Someone in London or New York may be practising a West African tradition through a Caribbean or Brazilian form.
Mixing with Islam and Christianity
In much of West and East Africa, traditional practice continues alongside Islam or Christianity: a Muslim family may still consult a diviner or wear a protective charm. Pew's 2010 survey of sub-Saharan Africa found significant numbers of both Muslims and Christians retaining traditional beliefs and practices.
Islam has been in West Africa for over a thousand years, through Kanem-Bornu, Mali under Mansa Musa (PBUH), and the scholarly centres of Timbuktu. This is not a foreign religion there; it is part of the region's own history.
The Islamic view
Where it meets Islam, and where it differs
Common ground
- The supreme Creator is already acknowledged. That belief is the starting point, not something to be argued into place.
- The unseen is real: spirits, unseen harm and unseen help. Islam affirms the jinn, the evil eye and magic as real, which many Western worldviews do not.
- Deep honour for elders, ancestors and the extended family.
- Community solidarity, hospitality and communal responsibility for the poor.
- Rites at birth, marriage and death matter enormously — Islam has its own, and they map onto the same moments of life.
Where Islam differs
- Islam removes the intermediaries. The Creator is approached directly, with no spirit, orisha or ancestor standing between — the Qur'an addresses exactly this argument, that intermediaries are invoked only to bring one nearer to God, and rejects it.
- Sacrifice is to God alone and in His name only; sacrifice to a spirit is not permitted.
- Divination, charms and protective medicine are forbidden; reliance and protection come from God, and the Prophet (SAW) taught specific supplications for it.
- Accusations of witchcraft that lead to harming people, especially children and the elderly, are a grave injustice in Islamic terms.
Talking points
- Begin with the Creator they already name. Ask who Olodumare, Chukwu or Nyame is, and whether He can be reached directly. That question is often the entire conversation.
- Islam does not tell them the unseen is imaginary. It tells them who has power over it. That is a very different message from the one they usually hear.
- Speak about protection: the verse of the Throne and the last two chapters of the Qur'an, recited for protection, given directly by God, with no fee and no diviner.
- The history of Islam in Mali, Kano, Timbuktu and Zanzibar matters. Islam is not the outsider's religion in Africa.
Avoid
- Do not use the word 'primitive', or treat oral tradition as inferior to written scripture.
- Do not shame someone for a charm or a consultation. Offer the alternative and explain why, gently.
- Do not lump every African tradition together in front of someone who belongs to a specific one; ask which people and which tradition.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa (2010)
- John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy
- Qur'an 39:3; 10:18; 2:255; 113–114
- Sunan Abu Dawud 3910 and Musnad Ahmad 17422, on omens and amulets
This overview describes the tradition as its own followers describe it. The Islamic view is kept in its own section above so the description stays honest.
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