Dyula people

Photo of a Dyula farmer wearing a Dutch wax headscarf, 1966.

Over time dyula colonies developed a theological rationale for their relations with non-Muslim ruling classes and subjects in what author Nehemia Levtzion dubbed “accommodationist Islam”.[4] The man credited with formulating this rationale is Sheikh Al-Hajj Salim Suwari, a Soninke cleric from the core Mali area who lived around 1500. He made hajj to Mecca several times and devoted his intellectual career to developing an understanding of the faith that would assist Muslim minorities in “pagan” lands. He drew on North African and Middle Eastern jurists and theologians who had reflected on the problem of Muslims living among non-Muslim majorities, situations that were frequent in the centuries of Islamic expansion.[5]

Sheikh Suwari formulated the obligations of Muslim minorities in West Africa into something known as the Suwarian tradition. It stressed the need for Muslims to coexist peaceably with unbelievers and so justified a separation of religion and politics. In this understanding, Muslims must nurture their own learning and piety and thereby furnish good examples to the non-Muslims around them. They could accept jurisdiction of non-Muslim authorities as long as they had the necessary protection and conditions to practice the faith. In this teaching, Suwari followed a strong predilection in Islamic thought for any government, even if non-Muslim or tyrannical, as opposed to none. The military jihad was a resort only if the faithful were threatened. Suwari discouraged dawah (missionary activity), instead contending that Allah would bring non-Muslims to Islam in His own way; it was not a Muslim's responsibility to decide when ignorance should give way to belief. Since their Islamic practice was capable of accommodating traditional cults, dyula often served as priests, soothsayers, and counselors at the courts of animist rulers.[6]

The development of Dyula trade in Ghana and the adjacent Ivory Coast had important political consequences and sometimes military implications as well. The dyula spearheaded Mande penetration of the forested zones in the south by establishing caravan routes and trading posts at strategic locations throughout the region en route to cola-producing areas. By the start of the sixteenth century, dyula merchants were trading as far south as the coast of modern Ghana.

On the forest's northern fringes, new states emerged, such as Bono and Banda. As the economic value of gold and kola became appreciated, forests south of these states which had hitherto been little inhabited because of limited agricultural potential became more thickly populated, and the same principles of political and military mobilization began being applied there. Village communities became tributaries of ruling groups, with some members becoming the clients and slaves needed to support royal households, armies, and trading enterprises. Sometimes these political changes were not to the advantage of the Dyula, who employed Mande warriors to guard their caravans and if necessary could call in larger contingents from the Sudanic kingdoms. In the seventeenth century, tensions between the Muslims and the local pagans in Begho erupted into a destructive war which eventually led to the total abandonment of the Banda capital. The local people eventually settled in a number of towns further east, while the dyula withdrew to the west to the further side of the Banda hills where they established the new trading center of Bonduku.[8]

The dyula presence and changes in the balance of power occasioned political upheavals in other places. Among the paramount Mande political initiatives along trade routes south of Jenne was creation of the dyula state of Gonja by Naba'a in the 16th century.[9] This was motivated by a general worsening of the competitive position of dyula traders and was occasioned by three factors: (1) a near-monopoly control in exporting forest produce achieved by the Akan kingdom of Bono; (2) the rise to power further north of the Dagomba Kingdom which controlled local salt pans; and (3) increased competition following the arrival in the region of rival long-distance traders from Hausaland.

The reaction of the Dyula in the Bono-Banda-Gonja region to these developments was to establish a kingdom of their own in Gonja - the territory northern traders had to cross to reach Akan forestlands, situated in what is now modern Ghana. By 1675, Gonja had established a paramount chief called Yagbongwura to control the kingdom. But Gonja was not a fruitful land in which to try to maintain a centralized government. This is because the Dagomba power to the north and Akan power to the south were too powerful; thus, the new kingdom rapidly declined in strength.[10][11]

Many of the trading posts established by the Dyula eventually became market villages or cities, such as Kong in today's Northeastern Côte d'Ivoire. It emerged as a commercial center when Malian merchants began trading in the territory which was inhabited by pagan Senufo and other Voltaic groups. The sous-préfecture of Kong, in the area of Kong to Dabakala, is said to be the “origin” area, where dyula traders first settled in the twelfth century. Dyula presence in the Kong area grew rapidly in the seventeenth century as a result of the developing trade between the commercial centers along the Niger banks and the forest region to the south which was controlled by the Baule chiefdoms and the Ashanti. The dyula brought their trading skills and connections and transformed Kong into an international market for the exchange of northern desert goods, such as salt and cloth, and southern forest exports, such as cola nuts, gold, and slaves. The city was also a religious center that housed a substantial academic community of Muslim scholars, with palaces and mosques built in the traditional Sudanese style. As Kong grew prosperous, its early rulers from the Taraweré clan combined dyula and Senufo traditions and extended their authority over the surrounding region.[12]

By the eighteenth century the dyula had become quite powerful in the area and wished to rid themselves of subordination to Senufo chiefs. This was achieved in an uprising led by Seku Wattara (Ouattara), a dyula warrior who claimed descent from the Malinke Keita lineage and who had studied the Quran and engaged in commerce before becoming a warrior. By rallying around himself all dyula in the area, Seku Wattara easily defeated local chiefdoms and set up an independent Dyula state in 1710, the first of its kind in West Africa. He established himself as ruler and under his authority, the city rose from a small city-state to the capital of the great Kong Empire, holding sway over much of the region. The dyula of Kong also maintained commercial links with European traders on the Atlantic coast around the Gulf of Guinea, from whom they easily obtained prized European goods, most notably rifles, gunpowder, and textiles. The acquisition of weapons allowed for the creation of an armed militia force that protected trade routes passing through the territories of various minor rulers. In the course of developing his state, Seku Wattara built a strong army composed mostly of defeated pagan groups. The leadership of the army eventually developed into a new warrior class, called sonangi, which was gradually separated from the overall dyula merchant class.[13]

The Kong Empire started to decline after the death of Seku Wattara. Succession struggles divided the kingdom into two parts, with the northern area being controlled by Seku's brother Famagan who refused to recognize the rule of Seku's oldest son in the south. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, many of Kong's provinces had formed independent chiefdoms. The city of Kong retained the prestige of an Islamic commercial center, but it was no longer the seat of an important political power. It eventually came under French colonial control in 1898. Despite the fall from glory, the seventeenth-century Kong Friday Mosque survived, and the city was largely rebuilt in a traditional Sudano-Sahelian architectural style and features a Qur'anic school.

The Wassoulou Region of West Africa.

The Mande conquerors of the nineteenth century frequently utilized trade routes established by the Dyula. Indeed, it was his exploitation of their commercial network that allowed military leader Samory Touré (1830–1900) to rise to a dominant position in the Upper Niger region. A member of a dyula family from Sanankoro in Guinea, Samori conquered and united Dyula states during the 1860s. He gained control over the Milo River Valley in 1871, seized the village of Kankan in 1881, and became the principal power holder on the Upper Niger. By 1883, Samori had successfully brought the local chieftains under his control and officially founded the kingdom of Wasulu.

Having established an empire, he adopted the religious title of Almami in 1884 and recreated the Malian realm. This new state was governed by Samori and a council of kinsmen and clients who took on the management of the chancery and the treasury, and administered justice, religious affairs, and foreign relations. Unlike some of his contemporary state-builders, Samori was not a religious preacher, and Wasulu was not a reformist state as such. Nevertheless, he used Islam to unify the nation, promoting Islamic education and basing his rule on shari’a (Islamic law). However, Samori's professional army was the essential institution and the real strength behind his empire. He imported horses and weapons and modernized the army along European lines.[14]

Dyula traders had never enjoyed as much prosperity as they did under the almamy. Even though they did not play a central part in the creation of the state, the dyula supported Samori because he actively encouraged commerce and protected trade routes, thus promoting a free circulation of people and goods. Samori put up the strongest resistance to European colonial penetration in West Africa, fighting both the French and British for seventeen years. Samori's would-be Muslim empire was undone by the French, who took Sikasso in 1898, and sent Samori into exile, where he died in 1900.[15]