Costel’s Reviews > An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence > Status Update

I got an idea of just how extensively Islam grew in West Africa when I was in Senegal, which made up part of the Ghana Empire. In the Senegalese capital Dakar, when it was time for Friday lunchtime prayers just about everybody stopped what they were doing and headed to the mosque. Around 95% of Senegalese today are Muslim.

Dr. Kane explained to me how Ghana traded gold, weight for weight, for salt with the rulers of North Africa, which had abundant sources of rock-salt bars from salt mines.

Today, around 40% of the population of Morocco and 30% of Algerians are Berber, and there are small but sizable minorities in Tunisia and Libya as well as millions of people of mixed heritage. The Berber language is still often spoken within these communities.

Broadly speaking, Sunnis (who today constitute about 90% global Muslims) focus on following the Prophet's example, with no intercessor being necessary between the believer and Allah; whereas Shias emphasize the lineage of the Prophet's family through a series of imams and rely on a 'clergy' such as ayatollahs to guide them in their faith.

Keen to get a sense of the Coptic community today, I went to Cairo to meet Father Basilios Sobhy of the Church of the Virgin Mary in the district of Zeitoun. He explained how Coptic developed from the ancient Egyptian Pharaonic language and is still used in church services today.

The port-city of Utica became the capital of the North African province of the Roman Empire, which the Romans called ‘Ifrikiya’. Eventually the whole continent became known as Ifrikiya, or Africa.

Cristóvão da Gama’s troops were almost completely wiped out and Gama himself was captured with around ten of his men. He was offered the chance to live so long as he converted to Islam. He refused and was promptly executed.

In 1541, Gelawdewos and Portuguese raised an army under the command of Cristóvão da Gama, son of the famous explorer Vasco da Gama, who landed with his men at the port of Massawa.

Lalibela’s chief legacy is the remarkable series of churches hewn out of solid rock in a mountainous region about 650 kilometres from Addis Ababa, which continue to excite wonder and disbelief. Pilgrims and visitors flock in their droves to the city that today bears his name.

Today, Africa is pretty evenly split between its Muslim and Christian communities, with about 15 percent accounting for those who adhere to traditional African religions.