The Dyula (Dioula or Juula) or Wangara are a Mande ethnic group inhabiting several West African countries, including, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Burkina Faso.
Characterized as a highly successful merchant caste, Dyula migrants began establishing trading communities across the region in the fourteenth century. Since business was often conducted under non-Muslim rulers, the Dyula developed a set of theological principles for Muslim minorities in non-Muslim societies. Their unique contribution of long-distance commerce, Islamic scholarship and religious tolerance were significant factors in the peaceful expansion of Islam in West Africa.
The term 'Dyula' is sometimes used interchangeably with Wangara or Jakhanke, depending on the historical period and region.
Historical background
The Mandé embraced Islam during the thirteenth century following introduction to the faith through contact with the North African traders. By the 14th century, the Malian empire (c. 1230–1600) had reached its apogee, acquiring a considerable reputation for the Islamic rulings of its court and the pilgrimages of several emperors who followed the tradition of Lahilatul Kalabi, the first black prince to make hajj to Mecca. It was at this time that Mali began encouraging some of its local merchants to establish colonies close to the gold fields of West Africa. This migrant trading class were known as Dyula, the Mandingo word for “merchant”.
The Dyula spread throughout the former area of Mandé culture from the Atlantic coast of Senegambia to the Niger and from the southern edge of the Sahara to forest zones further south. They established decentralized townships in non-Muslim colonies that were linked to an extensive commercial network, in what was described by professor Philip D. Curtin as a "trading diaspora". Motivated by business imperatives, they expanded into new markets, founding settlements under the auspices of various local rulers who often permitted them self-governance and autonomy. Organization of dyula trading companies was based on a clan-family structure known as the lu – a working unit consisting of a father and his sons and other attached males. Members of a given lu dispersed from the savanna to the forest, managed circulation of goods and information, placed orders, and effectively controlled the economic mechanisms of supply and demand.Kevin Shullington, Encyclopedia of African History Routledge; 1 edition (18 Nov 2004)
Suwarian tradition
Over time dyula colonies developed a theological rationale for their relations with non-Muslim ruling classes and subjects in what author Nehemia Levtzion dubbed "accommodationist Islam".N. Levtzion and J. O. Voll (eds.), Eighteenth Century Renewal & Reform in Islam, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987, p. 21. The man credited with formulating this rationale is Sheikh Al-Hajj Salim Suwari, a Soninke cleric from the core Mali area who lived around 1500. He made hajj to Mecca several times and devoted his intellectual career to developing an understanding of the faith that would assist Muslim minorities in "pagan" lands. He drew on North African and Middle Eastern jurists and theologians who had reflected on the problem of Muslims living among non-Muslim majorities, situations that were frequent in the centuries of Islamic expansion.
Sheikh Suwari formulated the obligations of Muslim minorities in West Africa into something known as the Suwarian tradition. It stressed the need for Muslims to coexist peaceably with unbelievers and so justified a separation of religion and politics. In this understanding, Muslims must nurture their own learning and piety and thereby furnish good examples to the non-Muslims around them. They could accept jurisdiction of non-Muslim authorities as long as they had the necessary protection and conditions to practice the faith. In this teaching, Suwari followed a strong predilection in Islamic thought for any government, even if non-Muslim or tyrannical, as opposed to none. The military jihad was a resort only if the faithful were threatened. Suwari discouraged dawah (missionary activity), instead contending that God would bring non-Muslims to Islam in his own way; it was not a Muslim's responsibility to decide when ignorance should give way to belief. Since their Islamic practice was capable of accommodating traditional religions, dyula often served as priests, soothsayers, and counselors at the courts of animist rulers.Launay, R., Beyond the Stream: Islam & Society in a West African Town. Berkeley, 1992
Commercial and political expansion As fellow Muslims, dyula merchants were also able to assess the valuable trans-Saharan trade network conducted by North African Arabs and Berbers whom they met at commercial centers across the Sahel. Some important trade goods included gold, millet, slaves, and kola nuts from the south and slave beads and cowrie shells from the north (for use as currency). It was under Mali that the great cities of the Niger bend including Gao and Djenné prospered, with Timbuktu in particular becoming known across Europe for its great wealth. Important trading centers in Southern West Africa developed at the transitional zone between the forest and the savanna; examples include Begho and Bono Manso (in present-day Ghana) and Bondoukou (in present-day Côte d'Ivoire). Western trade routes continued to be important, with Ouadane, Oualata and Chinguetti being the major trade centres in what is now Mauritania.J. F. Ade Ajayi. "Africa in the Nineteenth Century Until the 1880s": Unesco. International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General
Penetration into southern forest regions The development of Dyula trade in Ghana and the adjacent Ivory Coast had important political consequences and sometimes military implications as well. The dyula spearheaded Mande penetration of the forested zones in the south by establishing caravan routes and trading posts at strategic locations throughout the region en route to cola-producing areas. By the start of the sixteenth century, dyula merchants were trading as far south as the coast of modern Ghana.
On the forest's northern fringes, new states emerged, such as Bono and Banda. As the economic value of gold and kola became appreciated, forests south of these states which had hitherto been little inhabited because of limited agricultural potential became more thickly populated, and the same principles of political and military mobilization began being applied there. Village communities became tributaries of ruling groups, with some members becoming the clients and slaves needed to support royal households, armies, and trading enterprises. Sometimes these political changes were not to the advantage of the Dyula, who employed Mande warriors to guard their caravans and if necessary could call in larger contingents from the Sudanic kingdoms. In the seventeenth century, tensions between the Muslims and the local pagans in Begho erupted into a destructive war which eventually led to the total abandonment of the Banda capital. The local people eventually settled in a number of towns further east, while the dyula withdrew to the west to the further side of the Banda hills where they established the new trading center of Bonduku.J. D. Fage, William Tordoff, A History of Africa 4th Edition, Taylor & Francis, Inc., December 2001
Gonja state The dyula presence and changes in the balance of power occasioned political upheavals in other places. Among the paramount Mande political initiatives along trade routes south of Jenne was creation of the dyula state of Gonja by Naba'a in the 16th century. This was motivated by a general worsening of the competitive position of dyula traders and was occasioned by three factors: (1) a near-monopoly control in exporting forest produce achieved by the Akan kingdom of Bono; (2) the rise to power further north of the Dagomba Kingdom which controlled local salt pans; and (3) increased competition following the arrival in the region of rival long-distance traders from Hausaland.
The reaction of the Dyula in the Bono-Banda-Gonja region to these developments was to establish a kingdom of their own in Gonja – the territory northern traders had to cross to reach Akan forestlands, situated in what is now modern Ghana. By 1675, Gonja had established a paramount chief called Yagbongwura to control the kingdom. But Gonja was not a fruitful land in which to try to maintain a centralized government. This is because the Dagomba power to the north and Akan power to the south were too powerful; thus, the new kingdom rapidly declined in strength."The Wider Influence of the Sudanic Kingdoms", britannica.comWilks, Ivor. "Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the Fifteenth & Sixteenth Centuries II: The Struggle for Trade". Journal of African History 23:4 (1982): 463–472
Kong Empire Many of the trading posts established by the Dyula eventually became market villages or cities, such as Kong in today's Northeastern Côte d'Ivoire. It emerged as a commercial center when Malian merchants began trading in the territory which was inhabited by pagan Senufo and other Voltaic groups. The sous-préfecture of Kong, in the area of Kong to Dabakala, is said to be the “origin” area, where dyula traders first settled in the twelfth century. Dyula presence in the Kong area grew rapidly in the seventeenth century as a result of the developing trade between the commercial centers along the Niger banks and the forest region to the south which was controlled by the Baule chiefdoms and the Ashanti. The dyula brought their trading skills and connections and transformed Kong into an international market for the exchange of northern desert goods, such as salt and cloth, and southern forest exports, such as cola nuts, gold, and slaves. The city was also a religious center that housed a substantial academic community of Muslim scholars, with palaces and mosques built in the traditional Sudanese style. As Kong grew prosperous, its early rulers from the Taraweré clan combined dyula and Senufo traditions and extended their authority over the surrounding region.Y. Person, Samori, Une Revolution Dyula. Dakar: IFAN, 1970. Volume 1, Ch. 2
By the eighteenth century the dyula had become quite powerful in the area and wished to rid themselves of subordination to Senufo chiefs. This was achieved in an uprising led by Seku Wattara (Ouattara), a dyula warrior who claimed descent from the Malinke Keita lineage and who had studied the Quran and engaged in commerce before becoming a warrior. By rallying around himself all dyula in the area, Seku Wattara easily defeated local chiefdoms and set up an independent Dyula state in 1710, the first of its kind in West Africa. He established himself as ruler and under his authority, the city rose from a small city-state to the capital of the great Kong Empire, holding sway over much of the region. The dyula of Kong also maintained commercial links with European traders on the Atlantic coast around the Gulf of Guinea, from whom they easily obtained prized European goods, most notably rifles, gunpowder, and textiles. The acquisition of weapons allowed for the creation of an armed militia force that protected trade routes passing through the territories of various minor rulers. In the course of developing his state, Seku Wattara built a strong army composed mostly of defeated pagan groups. The leadership of the army eventually developed into a new warrior class, called sonangi, which was gradually separated from the overall dyula merchant class.Shmuel Eisenstadt, The Early State in African Perspective, Universitah ha-‘Ivrit bi-Yerushalayim. BRILL, 1988