620s to the nineteenth century · Africanspan
Africa's first mosque stands at Massawa on the Eritrean coast
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The first Muslims in Africa landed on the Eritrean coast, and the first mosque on the continent stood at Massawa, possibly built in the 620s or 630s by members of the Prophet's own family. By the tenth century Islam was spreading inland from the Somali coast through the country that is now Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. The usual telling makes the following twelve centuries a straight fight between cross and crescent. Trade reports something quieter. Muslim merchants worked the Christian highlands in numbers and formed a recognised class there known as jiberti, growing wealthy as Red Sea traffic expanded. The Ethiopian state meanwhile cultivated the image of a Christian kingdom besieged in its mountains, a second Israel with the Bible at the centre of its self understanding. The Oromo made Harar a Muslim city of consequence, and its sultanate rose on links to the Funj in Sudan. Sufi orders did the spreading, the Qadiriyya out of Harar into Somalia and Eritrea, the Salihiyya and Ahmadiyya among the Somali.
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