page_title: Religion in Ivory Coast
section_title: Islam
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in Ivory Coast / World religions / Islam
caption_attribution_description: mosquée de Kong
context_page_description: Religion in Ivory Coast is diverse with Christianity representing 33.9% of the total population. Adherents of Islam represent 42.9% of the population. 3.6% of the population follows traditional African religions and 19,1 have no religion.
  Christianity is practiced in a variety of forms throughout the country though mostly in the south, as different social and spiritual problems bring forth a variety of responses. Islam has been practiced in the far north for roughly seven centuries, shifting its appeal over this time from its strength as a world religion and its basis in written testaments to its symbolic importance as an alternative to European religions. Christian missionaries arrived at the coast in the seventeenth century but did not win converts in large numbers until the nineteenth century. Christianity's appeal was strongest among educated Africans and those who sought advancement through European contact.
context_section_description: Most Ivoirian Muslims are Sunni, following the Maliki school of Islamic law. Sufism, involving the organization of mystical brotherhoods (tariqa) for the purification and spread of Islam, is also widespread, laced with indigenous beliefs and practices. The four major Sufi brotherhoods are all represented in Ivory Coast, although the Qadiriya, founded in the eleventh century, and the Tidjaniya, founded in the eighteenth century, are most popular. The Qadiriya is prevalent in the west, and the Tidjaniya, in the east. The other two major Islamic brotherhoods have few adherents in Ivory Coast. The Senoussiya is identified with Libya, where its influence is substantial. The Ahmadiyya, a sect originating in nineteenth-century India, is the only non-Sunni order in Ivory Coast.
  The significant religious authority is the marabout. He is believed to be a miracle worker, a physician, and a mystic, who exercises both magical and moral authority. He is also respected as a dispenser of amulets, which protect the wearer—Muslim or non-Muslim—against evil. The influence of marabouts has produced a number of reactions in Ivoirian society, among them a series of reformist movements inspired by Wahhabist puritanism, which originated in nineteenth-century Saudi Arabia. These reform movements often condemn Sufism and marabouts as un-Islamic.
  Hamallism began as an Islamic reform movement in the French Sudan early in the twentieth century, and has provided a channel for expressing political and religious discontent. Its founder, Hamallah, was exiled from the French Sudan to Ivory Coast during the 1930s. He preached Islamic reform tempered by tolerance of many local practices, but he condemned many aspects of Sufism. Orthodox brotherhoods were able to convince the French authorities in Ivory Coast that Hamallah had been responsible for earlier political uprisings in the French Sudan. Authorities then expelled Hamallah from Ivory Coast and banned his teachings.
  As of 2012, about 40.2% of the population is Muslim.
caption: A mosque with a Sahelian architectural style in Kong
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