Religion and Social Change in Africa (Part 1): Islam, Christianity and Changing Values
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Flip to reveal answersWho founded the Sokoto Caliphate in 1804?
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All 12 Flashcards — Religion and Social Change in Africa (Part 1): Islam, Christianity and Changing Values
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Question
Who founded the Sokoto Caliphate in 1804?
Answer
Usman dan Fodio, whose jihad established Islamic rule across the Hausa states of what is now northern Nigeria.
Question
Define: African Independent Churches (AICs)
Answer
Christian churches founded, led, and controlled by Africans, blending Christian teaching with African worship and leadership, independent of European mission control.
Question
Give an example of an African Independent Church and its country.
Answer
The Aladura churches (e.g. Christ Apostolic Church) in Nigeria, emphasizing prayer, healing, and prophecy in Yoruba.
Question
What was a main factor promoting the spread of Islam in Africa?
Answer
Long-established trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean trade routes carried Muslim merchants and Sufi teachers into West and East Africa.
Question
What was a main factor promoting the spread of Christianity in Africa?
Answer
Missionary societies (e.g. Church Missionary Society, Catholic missions) offered education and medical care, and were backed by colonial administrations.
Question
Why did colonialism sometimes inhibit the spread of Islam?
Answer
New colonial borders after the 1884–85 Berlin Conference cut across trade routes and existing Islamic states, and colonial administrators often favoured Christian missions.
Question
What was the Aba Women's War (1929)?
Answer
A mass protest by Igbo women in south-eastern Nigeria against colonial taxation and the warrant chief system, using a traditional shaming custom on a large political scale.
Question
Give one reason women's traditional roles were undermined under colonial rule.
Answer
Colonial administrators (mostly men) often ignored or dismantled women's traditional political and market authority, such as councils held by Igbo women before colonial rule.
Question
Compare: reasons Islam spread vs reasons Christianity spread in Africa.
Answer
Islam spread mainly through trade networks and jihad states; Christianity spread mainly through missionary institutions (schools, hospitals) backed by colonial power.
Question
What change did mission education bring to African social values?
Answer
It created literate, often urbanized young Africans whose outlook increasingly diverged from that of rural elders, widening generational divides.
Question
Why is the Aba Women's War useful evidence for a 'change and continuity' essay?
Answer
It combined a traditional Igbo protest custom (continuity) with a new colonial-era target — taxation and warrant chiefs (change).
Question
What two African countries are used as case studies throughout this topic?
Answer
Nigeria and Kenya, chosen because together they illustrate nearly all the syllabus factors for social and cultural change in Africa.
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Topic 21.16 hub
Social and cultural developments in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries
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