Dyula people
The Dyula (Dioula or Juula) are a Mande ethnic group inhabiting several West African countries, including Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Burkina Faso.
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.
[2] 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.
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.
[3] 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".
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.
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.
[6] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As Kong grew prosperous, its early rulers from the Taraweré clan combined dyula and Senufo traditions and extended their authority over the surrounding region.
Despite the fall from glory, the seventeenth-century Kong Friday Mosque survived, and the city was largely rebuilt in a traditional Sudano-Sahelian architectural style and features a Qur'anic school.
Even though they did not play a central part in the creation of the state, the dyula supported Samori because he actively encouraged commerce and protected trade routes, thus promoting a free circulation of people and goods.
The dyula had long been accustomed to surrounding their cities with fortifications and taking up arms when it was deemed necessary in order to defend themselves and maintain the smooth flow of trade caravans.
According to the dyula clerical tradition, a student received instruction under a single sheikh for a duration varying from five to thirty years, and earned his living as a part-time farmer working his teacher's lands.
His sons continued spreading their father's teachings and expanded through towns in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, founding Islamic schools, or madaris, and acting as imams and qadis.
He cites al-Hajj Osmanu Eshaka Boyo of Kintampo as an "‘alim with a wide range of Muslim connexions and an excellent grasp of local Islamic history" whose efforts brought together a great many Arabic manuscripts from around Ghana.
