Islam in Niger

Islam in Niger, although dating back more than a millennium, gained dominance over traditional religions only in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and has been marked by influences from neighboring societies.

[2][3] Hammallism and Sanusiya sects have had historic influence in the far west and far northeast of the county in the colonial period, while sections of Nyassist Sufi orders and Arab Wahhabite followers have appeared in the last thirty years.

[4] Islam was spread into what is now Niger beginning in the 15th century, by both the expansion of the Songhai Empire in the west, and the influence of the Trans-Saharan trade traveling from the Maghreb and Egypt.

Both Zarma and Hausa areas were greatly influenced by the 18th and 19th century Fula led Sufi brotherhoods, most notably the Sokoto Caliphate (in today's Nigeria).

More recently, Senegalese Nyassist Sufi teachers, especially in the Dosso area have gained converts, while some small Arab Wahhabite teaching is funded in Niger—as in much of Africa—through Saudi Arabian missionary groups.

[7] In the 1990s there surfaced agitation for a move to the institutionalization of a Sharia legal system or even an Islamic Republic, attributed to elements of the Hausa-based Islamist movements across the border in Nigeria.

[14] These events were seen then and now as more exception than rule, with interfaith relations deemed very good, and the forms of Islam traditionally practiced in most of the country marked by tolerance of other faiths and lack of restrictions on personal freedom.