A beautiful agreement between Christians and Muslims
One cannot really speak of a majority religion in Côte d'Ivoire, but rather of a decomplexed and harmonious syncretism typical of Ivorian religious practice, always nourished by a background of animism and popular beliefs linked to village and family tradition. There is a geographical disparity, the north is predominantly Muslim and the south Christian. However, a surprisingly harmonious cohabitation of these multiple religions and practices exists in Côte d'Ivoire and is in no way a source of division or conflict. Some sorcerer's apprentices did try to exploit these differences of allegiance during the post-electoral crisis, but the sauce did not set and religious stigmatization never entered into the various troubles that the country may have experienced. Like the villages, which often have their church, harrist temple and mosque, most of the country's cities are "sectorized" into neighbourhoods of different faiths. Even today, the major religious festivals that mark the annual calendar are everyone's holidays, and it is not unusual for a family to include both Christians and Muslims in its midst. In Côte d'Ivoire, religion transcends the divisions of the different gods honoured.
Muslims with a Maliki majority
Most Muslims in Côte d'Ivoire are Sunni Muslims of the Malekite rite, as are all the Maghreb and the sub-Saharan Sahel Muslims. Malikism or Malekism is one of the four madhahib, Sunni classical schools. It is based on the teachings of Imam Malik ibn Anas (711 - 795), "faqih" (Islamic jurist) and theologian born in Medina. The same Islam also existed in Sicily and Andalusia under Muslim rule.
Four brotherhoods of Sufi origin also exist in Côte d'Ivoire, of which the qadiriyya and tidjaniyya are the most popular. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Dioulas were the main Muslim community in the country, since the construction of the Kingdom of Kong very early in history. Indeed, it was the Dioulas, Islamized by the Arab Berber traders from the Sahara with whom they traded, who introduced this religion into the country. As such, they had a special religious status, such as a monopoly on the making of amulets. The appearance of dawa, a form of proselytizing aimed at converting non-Muslims, counterbalanced the extensive evangelization of the evangelical churches. The country's Muslim population increased from 7% in 1920 to 14% and then 20% in 1960, reaching 30% of Ivorians since the 1990s, with new believers mainly in Abidjan.
Places of worship include the Kong Mosque, which existed at the beginning of the eponymous empire in the 11th century and attracted scholars of Islam from all over the Sahel. It resembles that of Timbuktu in its architecture. In 1741, Kong already had several mosques, including the Great Mosque (Missiriba) destroyed by Samory Touré around 1897. The present one was built at the beginning of the 20th century. We can mention the Great Mosque of the Plateau in Abidjan, particularly beautiful with its night-blue dome, and the equally monumental Great Mosque of Yamoussoukro.
Christians concentrated in the south of the country
On the Catholic side, Christians represent 17% of the population against 11% for Evangelical Protestants. Christian missionaries were present from the arrival of the first settlers in the 17th century, seeking to convert new believers and accommodating local beliefs. The Prince of Assinia, taken to the Sun King in 1688, was to stay 10 years at the court of Versailles under Louis XIV, his godfather. He will discover a Christian faith by visiting Notre-Dame in Paris. On the lagoon coast, where the French colony between Assinie and Grand-Bassam was founded, public schools were often entrusted to missionaries. However, they were expelled from the classes in 1900, following the republican law decreeing the separation of Church and State, pushing the missionaries into missions of evangelization in territory not very inclined to Catholicism. The reopening of authorized private Catholic schools and the conversion to Catholicism in 1915 of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who would later become the father of the nation, then influenced the Christianization of the country. It was only in the 1960s that the Pentecostal evangelist churches began to flourish, and their practices, which are based on animist traditions, have attracted many Ivorians in recent years. In the emblematic places of worship, we can cite the charismatic cathedral of Saint Paul on the plateau that gathers many faithful, of a daring modernist style, with its triangular shape, its roof curved like a canvas stretched by the weight of the giant cross inclined towards the lagoon. We can also mention the famous Basilica of Yamoussoukro, copied from that of Saint Peter's in the Vatican, which Félix Houphoët-Boigny wanted for his city, but 20 metres higher than the original!
The new Pentecostal churches
Even if it is not new, the most striking phenomenon of recent years remains however the incredible proliferation of sects and local churches based on syncretic religions, sometimes picturesque, with abracadabrasive doctrines, more or less proven and often reinterpreted variants of Protestant Christianity for most of them: in addition to the Methodists, Pentecostals and the Harrist Church (an independent church of prophetic type which has faith in Jesus Christ, especially implanted in the Ivory Coast; founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the Liberian William Wade Harris Wury, it has belonged since 1998 to the World Council of Churches), we find, for example, the Church of the Assemblies of God, the New Father Church, the Deima, Jesus the Rock or the Legion of Mary, to name but a few examples. This multiplication of liturgies has given rise to various excesses, some of which are particularly deplorable: the ambient uneasiness often constitutes the breeding ground for unexpected conversions, and for several years now we have witnessed the flowering of self-proclaimed "prophets", "visionaries", "apostles", "pastors", "guides", "miracle-workers" and other self-proclaimed "Prophetikos" (a non-exhaustive list), sort of new "grazers" who practice their catechism undressed like DJs by shouting their sermons into poorly tuned microphones, not hesitating to exploit the material and moral distress of their emulators in a way that is often more than dubious. Like Guy-Vincent Kodja, a former member of the group RAS, some of these "crowd electrifiers" and charismatic charlatans come from showbizz circles and build their preachi-preach by affixing the codes of the star-system to the "religious" world. Claiming to be in a state of sudden enlightenment, the "pastors-shouters" claim to have received the supreme anointing to evangelize the masses of "lost sheep", and while these, prompted by their "saviour", fall prey to prayers supposed to grant their every wish, it is not uncommon to find the saviours in question on the front page of one of the popular celebrity magazines of the square, or driving with an open tomb on the city boulevards in the latest model of Porsche imported directly from the United States. If the crowds of believers are so comfortable with the Protestant doctrine (and its derivatives) for its closeness to the modes of religious expression of traditional cultures (dancing, singing, mystical trance, etc.), it's not surprising that they're so familiar with it.If the crowds of believers are so comfortable with Protestant doctrine (and its derivatives) for its proximity to the religious expressions of traditional cultures (dance, song, mystical trance, etc.), the misguided preachers, for their part, find in the historical concomitance between Protestantism and economic prosperity the ideal pretext for not having to justify the origin of their fortune, all the more indecent since it "grows and multiplies" on the backs of the poor, the sheep of Panurge and the docile dairy cows: apart from the tithes and offerings that the latter pay "voluntarily" to the embassies of religious madness, the followers are subject to the payment of various expenses intended to finance in particular "deliverance sessions" and "internal church activities" (goodies, installation of panels 4 by 3 in the city, this does not include the sale of religious symbols, brochures, and books published by the "prophet" and imposed on the customers of these "faith supermarkets". "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"... A true American-style charity-business has thus developed in recent years, with large gatherings, exorcisms and live miracles in support.
God is everywhere
If religious sentiment is extremely present in the country - a phenomenon that the years of crisis have considerably amplified - and put into perspective in every gesture and every word of daily life, it is becoming commonplace. In all the towns and villages of the Ivory Coast, one will come across somewhere a "ministry of the mountain and fire" or similar, while the invocation to the protection of God appears prominently on billboards, bush signs, shops and street vendors (seen and read in Abidjan, on the sign of a telephone unit dealer : "Jesus, 100 FCFA the call"), and sometimes even at the end of emails, memos and other official communiqués (in some offices in the square, the days sometimes begin with collective prayer sessions). God's good graces are also invoked to close each meeting and conversation ("May God keep you", "Thank God" and "Thank God" have almost become punctuation marks), while at the back of the countless taxis, gbakas, trucks and other vehicles criss-crossing the city and the country, there are countless "It is God who is strong", "God's pencil has no eraser" and "God bless Allah" in bloom (if) you want some, here some.
Religion does not mean deprivation
However, the chosen ones touched by the grace of Jesus, Mary, Allah and even Claude Vorilhon (Rael) are just as likely as the "unbelievers" to give in to the call of feasting and farotage. While the impulses of religiosity often succumb to the last avatars of the coupé-décalé, fashionable in this vast capital of sparks that is Abidjan, religion quickly takes over at the slightest opportunity, and whenever the time comes to pray and perform his "spiritual toilet" by going to sit in church or temple. But the ambivalence is well experienced, especially since Ivorians are unaware of Western Cartesianism (hypocrisy?), which would like a fervent practitioner, obeying an implacable behavioural logic, not to drink or display himself cheerfully in festive places in the middle of the night. In Côte d'Ivoire, and all the more so in the context of uncertainty and precariousness, the moral survival of citizens is translated in an almost schizophrenic way into an equal propensity to prayer and celebration. In the same way, the young prostitutes, gogo dancers or bar trainers who scour Zone 4 on Saturday night, parading around in the most enticing outfits to entice the male, may find themselves the next day at Notre-Dame d'Afrique praying fervently to the Blessed Virgin.
Animist healers
If a believer fails an exam for the umpteenth time or misses his job interview, it is because he is the victim of a "mystical block" or "totem". If a believer fails to get pregnant because she is barren, it is because some cousin in the village or her husband's second office who is jealous of her has put a spell on her. When no satisfactory explanation can be given, one hastily attributes her misfortune to the moods of a God or a fetish and goes to consult her "healer". For all means are good to get rid of the "evil eye" and to reach the mountains and wonders promised by unscrupulous bishops: to wear a talisman that one keeps in one's pocket or wears around the kidneys or fingers, in the form of a ring; to sacrifice an animal and bury its bones at the foot of the tree in the common courtyard; to recover the hair or personal belongings of an altar or a she-devil; to spit on the ground at the sight of a black cat? It is thus that in the shadow of the backyards, marabouts and fetishes continue to meet with the approval of the popular masses, and that sacrifices and trafficking of all kinds are regularly practiced, in the hope of improving a daily life that one would like to be more rosy.
The legend of Queen Pokou
Queen Abla Pokou really existed in the 18th century, guiding her people, a branch of the Akan of the Ashanti kingdom, to the lands of Côte d'Ivoire, before the first Baoule queen. Nevertheless, the story of this heroine is nourished by a legend, that of the sacrifice of the only son to allow his people to cross the Comoé River. She is part of the collective unconscious. The word "Baoulé" comes from "Ba-ouli", which means "the child is dead".
In the 17th century, the powerful Ashanti kingdom at its height covered two thirds of present-day Ghana. The matrilineal societal model of this ethnic group appoints the crown prince as the son of the king's sister rather than the son of the brother. The queen, niece of King Osei Tutu, found herself in the midst of a fratricidal succession struggle upon the death of the king and then upon the death of her nephew (the son of her sister). Itsa, an old uncle from the reigning family, and Dakon, Abla Pokou's second brother, vie for the throne. Dakon is killed in Kumasi, the capital of the kingdom. As in a Greek tragedy, Queen Pokou understands that Itsa will do the same to her and her son in order to achieve her goal. She then decides to flee with her family, her servants, her faithful soldiers and all those of the people who recognize themselves in her and in Dakon. Blocked in their flight by the winter flood of the Comoé River, a natural barrier in the lands of their ancestors, followed by their pursuers, legend has it that Queen Pokou raised her arms to the sky to turn to her soothsayer and ask him "Tell us what the genius of this river asks for to let us pass! ». The old man is said to have replied, "Queen, the river is angry, and it will not be calmed until we have given it our most precious gift. "Immediately the women would have given their ornaments of gold and ivory, and the men their bulls and rams. But the soothsayer would have said: "The dearest thing we have are our sons! ». No one would have wanted to offer his own as a sacrifice. The queen would have raised the child above her, contemplating him one last time before throwing him into the boiling spasms of the river. The waters would then have calmed abruptly and receded to the knees, allowing the tribe to pass into the central lands of Côte d'Ivoire where the Baoulé now live. The queen would then have sobbed "ba-ouli", the child died, giving his name to his people. She died shortly after the tribe settled in its new lands.
