Among the great facts in the history of West Africa prior to the age of European penetration has been the propagation of Islam and the way it has changed African societies. This book is not an attempt to write a history of West Africa, but to show the way in which Islam spread and moulded the history of the western Sudan. Dr Trimingham's conclusion is that a fundamental change occurred, towards the end of the eighteenth century, in Islam's relationship to the indigenous African civilizations, which transformed it into a social and political force that ushered in a new age.