Ivory Coast

The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), located on the Atlantic coast of Africa between Liberia and Ghana, received its independence in 1960, after [Page 606]almost 70 years of French colonial occupation. In 2010, it had an estimated population of about 20 million, but its recent official figures, including those of religious denominations of the Ivorian population, date back to the census of 1998. Censuses are sensitive in Côte d'Ivoire as two decades of political strife and popular antagonism revolve around issues of citizenship sometimes articulated in terms of religious opposition between Christians and Muslims.

With almost 40% of the population identifying itself as Muslim, Islam is the largest religious group in Côte d'Ivoire, followed by Christians (30%), non-religious people (17%), and “animists” (12%)—that is, practitioners of traditional or neotraditional rites and belief systems. Although no hard figures are available, it is widely believed that since the 1990s, the new religious movements are booming. Whether these churches—variously called evangelical, Pentecostal, or charismatic—are gaining terrain on the other Christian religions or recruiting among nonreligious or animist people is not known due to lack of reliable survey data.

Historically, Islam is the oldest religion of the book to have found its way to the region now called Côte d'Ivoire. First introduced in the 14th century, by the 18th century, Islam was firmly established in the northern part of the country and in the urban centers along the southern coastline. By the end of the 19th century, the first Catholic presence can be noted, followed by Methodist missionaries in the 1920s. Christianity flourished throughout the 20th century, mainly in the southern part of the country, but it also had an important following in the central and eastern parts of the north. A massive north-south labor migration due to a thriving plantation economy brought about the dissemination of Islam in both the urban and rural areas of southern Côte d'Ivoire.

A religious phenomenon that traverses the diverse religious denominations and that has been giving rise to various syncretic movements is that of prophets and healers. The Liberian prophet William Harris Wadé, who held sway in coastal Côte d'Ivoire in the early 20th century, is emblematic of the success of prophetism during the colonial period. After independence, new types of prophet-healers have emerged with changing but sometimes considerable impact both on the general public and on economic and political elites.