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1st century: early Christianity

Early Christianity and Islam

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1st Century: Early Christianity

Christianity was present in Roman Africa and Egypt from the 1st century and developed rapidly there. In the 3rd century, the Church of Alexandria was one of the pillars of Eastern Christianity, where Christian monasticism was born and its Didascalia one of the greatest theological schools. The Christian community of Roman Africa was numerically, at that time, the largest in Latin Christianity. Augustine of Hippo, a father of the Church whose thought had a decisive influence on the Christian West in the Middle Ages and in the modern era, came from it.

Torn apart by theological conflicts, these communities did not survive long during the Muslim conquest of North Africa. Orthodox Christianity in the Monophysite form has existed in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt since late antiquity. Ethiopia considers itself the second oldest Christian nation in the world, after Armenia, tracing this tradition back to 330 AD.

Early Christianity and Islam

7th Century: Expansion of Islam in Africa

Islam established itself in North Africa from the 7th century and then spread towards the interior of West Africa and the coast of East Africa.

The caravan trade and Islamic expansion allowed new relationships to be established between North Africa and the rest of the continent. Islamization took place in three ways: voluntary (believers embraced Islam through conviction), forced (populations converted to avoid being enslaved and to escape double taxation), or coerced (during military conquests, the vanquished sometimes had no choice but to convert or die). Sunni Islam spread mainly in the Maghreb, Shiite Islam in certain Saharan oases and in Egypt, from where it would later be supplanted.

Early Christianity and Islam

The priests and “sorcerers” of the many animist cults are sometimes the first to convert, in order to safeguard their social positions and traditional knowledge; they form powerful brotherhoods like the Mourides and the Tijaniyyah in West Africa. As a result, Christianity and Islam sometimes present syncretic and initiatory characteristics that are typically African, which the fundamentalists of each religion and the missionaries combat.

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