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Islam in Africa is the continent's second most widely professed faith behind Christianity. Africa was the first continent into which Islam spread from the Middle East, during the early 7th century CE. Almost one-third of the world's Muslim population resides in Africa. Muslims crossed current Djibouti and Somalia to seek refuge in present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia during the Hijrah ("Migration") to the Christian Kingdom of Aksum.[1] Like the vast majority (90%) of Muslims in the world, most Muslims in Africa are also Sunni Muslims;[2] the complexity of Islam in Africa is revealed in the various schools of thought, traditions, and voices in many African countries. Many African ethnicities, mostly in the northern half of the continent, consider Islam as their traditional religion. The practice of Islam on the continent is not static and is constantly being reshaped by prevalent social, economic, and political conditions. Generally Islam in Africa often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief systems forming Africa's own orthodoxies.[3]
In 2014, it was estimated that Muslims constituted nearly half of the population of Africa (over 40%) with a total population of around 437 million and accounting for over a quarter (about 27%) of the global Muslim population.[4] Islam is the main religion of North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Sahel, the Swahili Coast, and West Africa, with minority immigrant populations in South Africa.
- ^ Muslim Societies in African History (New Approaches to African History), David Robinson, Chapter 1.
- ^ "Chapter 1: Religious Affiliation". The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity. Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. August 9, 2012. Archived from the original on 21 May 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Ware III, Rudolph T. (2014). The Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa. University of North Carolina Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4696-1432-8.