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A Tradition of Diversity: Mosques of Côte d'Ivoire

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Author: Charles O. Cecil
Released 25 March 2008

The Riviera mosque in Abidjan is one of only two in the country with stained-glass windows.

Many people underestimate the role of Islam in coastal West Africa. But those who visit or live there soon learn that, during the lifetime of the present generation, Islam has spread with relatively little fanfare beyond its historic Saharan heartland to become the faith of a near-majority of people in the lands along Africa's Atlantic coast.

This has been particularly true in Côte d'Ivoire, a New Mexico-sized nation on the underside of Africa's western bulge. The country's 1961 census showed only 25 percent of the population Muslim; by 1988 the figure had risen to 39 percent. Now it is increasingly accepted that Muslims make up at least 50 percent of the population.

It was in the 11th century that Islam first crossed the mountains and savannas that divide the parched Sahara from the more hospitable, forested tropics that are now the nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. Following the conquest of Ghana's Saharan empire in 1076 by the Muslim Almoravid confederation of Marrakesh, Islam gained a toe­hold as the religion of chieftains and traders. Among the majority of the people, however, it took hold only superficially. When Ibn Battuta visited Mali in 1352, he recorded that Islam was scarcely practiced outside the ruling circles.

Mosques are always focal points for markets and for the conversations of daily life.

This changed little until the 18th century. Then, through studies of long-neglected writings on the Islamic state, clerics in the western Sahel recognized Islam as a force that could unify the diverse peoples of the region. At the same time, Muslim Dyula traders, who had carried on com­merce among the region's coastal and desert lands for centuries, settled in northern Côte d'Ivoire. Some of the country's oldest mosques date from this period.

The 19th century saw leaders whose political fortunes rose with the unifying wave of Islam. The French colonial rule under which they operated brought advances in trade, transportation, com­munications and the consequent flow of ideas, including Islam. Colonial rule also provided a target for nation­alism that crossed all tribal boundaries. And in World War II, Côte d'Ivoire, as a French colony, provided large numbers of troops who served mostly in North Africa, where they were exposed to Islam in countries that had been predominantly Muslim for centuries.

Today in Côte d'Ivoire, the country's broad religious toler­ance is considered a legacy of the late President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who, after leading the nation to indepen­dence in 1960, served as its president until his death in 1993. It was Houphouët-Boigny, a Catholic, who kept Côte d'Ivoire's borders open to workers from neighboring countries, the majority of whom were Muslims. In addition to indigenous Ivorian Muslims and Muslim guest workers from nearby countries, a Lebanese Muslim community of some 50,000 has resided in Côte d'Ivoire since before World War II.

An Akan tribal motif, the curved stool that symbolizes the authority and responsibility of the chief, appears in the minaret balustrade of this small mosque.

In response to increasing calls from Ivorian Muslims for official recognition commensurate with their growing numbers, the government in 1993 recognized as national holidays two holidays widely celebrated in Muslim countries. One of the first acts of Houphouët-Boigny's successor, President Henri Konan Bedie, was the announce­ment of a grant of land for the construction of a long-awaited mosque in downtown Abidjan. And in August 1994, Bedie dedicated the first mosque to be built on an Ivorian military base.

Côte d'Ivoire remains relatively prosperous, by regional standards, despite the fall in coffee and cocoa prices during the 1980's, which depressed the nation's two major export industries. The country's borders remain open to both guest workers and to immigrants, many of the latter also Muslims. Barring a reversal of this pattern of in-migration, it seems likely that Islam will continue to gain strength in Côte d'Ivoire well into the next century.

Kong Mosque, one of only a dozen Sudanic mosques.

A survey of mosques in Côte d'Ivoire reveals architectural influences from North Africa and the Middle East, as well as indigenous styles.

Reinforcement timbers

The best known of the latter is called “Sudanic” and is characterized by earthen construction using large, tapering pillars or cones rising above the roofline (See Aramco World, November-December 1990, November-December 1995). Such pillars stand at the corners of the mosque, at the entrances, and wherever they are needed as buttresses. Traditionally, each pillar was topped by an ostrich egg, which helped protect the pillar’s tip against the elements, but today, pottery replicas of eggs are most frequently used. Sudanic mosques are reinforced internally with timbers to support the weight of the roof. Smaller timbers protruding externally serve as footholds for the annual refinishing that the earthen walls demand after each rainy season.

Samatiguila mosque

The mosque in Samatiguila, in the northwest corner of Côte d'Ivoire, is believed to be the nation’s oldest. It illustrates the Malinke style, which refers to the cultural group inhabiting parts of eastern Senegal, Guinea, and southern Mali. Malinke mosques are also built of timer-reinforced earth, but their outer walls lack the supporting buttresses of Sudanic mosques. The two round, thatched structures in this photograph are annexes for women’s worship; more typically, rows at the back of a mosque are reserved for women. To date, the people of Samatiguila have not built any other mosque, and the town’s men, women and children all participate in the annual maintenance of this structure. Its roof is divided into eight sections, each of which is maintained by a particular family.

Bondoukou mosque

Bondoukou mosque

In Bondoukou, a northeastern provincial capital near the Ghanaian border, this free-standing earthen pillar, next to a modern concrete mosque, may offer a clue to the origins of the Sudanic style. Recent research has linked the concentration of Sudanic architecture to areas where pre-Islamic ancestor-worship was often manifested in earthen shrines with conical or pyramidal pillars in the forecourts. Throughout Côte d'Ivoire, in addition to the large central mosques in towns and villages, there are multitudes of small neighborhood mosques, many built by families. These are almost all of the concrete block with square minarets, in a utilitarian style. On top of each minaret of this mosque in Bondoukou, the family has included ceramic replicas of the traditional Sudanic ostrich egg.

Bouake mosque

Far more common today than earthen mosques are those constructed of more durable concrete or concrete block. Most use square or octagonal minarets—or both, as in this mosque at Bouake in central Côte d'Ivoire—which are usually decorated with latticework in molded concrete. The square minarets display Andalusian and North African influence, the octagonal ones recall Arabia and the Middle East, and the onion domes look still farther east to southwest Asia.

Reinforced concrete and other modern materials have allowed the construction of tall, slender minarets, as seen below in Côte d'Ivoire’s newest large mosque, the Riviera mosque of Abidjan. It is unique in the country in its adoption of an almost purely Arabian style. Set in a well-to-do urban neighborhood, where many residents are likely to have traveled to Saudi Arabia on the Hajj, the architecture reflects a common conception among upper-class Ivorians of how a well-designed modern mosque should look. 

Abidjan mosque

Charles O. Cecil served with the US Department of State in Abidjan for three years. He is required to note that "the opinions and views expressed are the author's own, and not those of the Department of State."

This article appeared on pages 32-35 of the January/February 1996 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.