The Dyula (Dioula or Juula) are a Mande ethnic group inhabiting several West African countries, including Mali, Cote 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.
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.
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”. 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 Allah 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 cults, dyula often served as priests, soothsayers, and counselors at the courts of animist rulers.