Turkey plays its "Islam" card in Africa

The foundation stone of Ghana's national mosque was laid almost a decade ago in the capital Accra. 

And on July 16, amidst great fanfare, it was finally inaugurated.

With its domes and four soaring minarets, it is a replica of the famed Blue Mosque in Istanbul. 

It is also the "second largest mosque in West Africa".

Turkey’s bureau for religious affairs, the Diyanet, oversaw its construction, just as it had for mosques in Mali, Sudan and Djibouti.

The huge Abdulhamid Khan II Mosque in Accra was actually opened in 2019. It is the first such Muslim worship space in Africa to bear the name of an Ottoman sultan.

Building mosques is the most visible manifestation of Turkey's cultural and religious spread on African soil.

It is part of a broader strategy of influence, from trade to defense, which aims to strengthen Turkish prestige internationally. 

It was in the mid-2000s, after the doors of the European Union closed, that Ankara reoriented its diplomacy towards the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.

"Following the pan-Turkism of Turgut Özal (Turkish president from 1989 to 1993), which was oriented towards the East, particularly Central Asia, the foreign policy of Erdogan (in power since 2003) has gradually taken on a pan-Islamic color and has turned towards the South," summarizes Stéphane de Tapia, geographer at the Turkish Studies Department of the University of Strasbourg. 

Turkey began showing interest in Libya and the Arab countries, especially the oil producers, back in the 1970s.

The first Turkish construction companies followed.

Quranic schools and student scholarships 

It is undeniable that Turkey does not have the economic clout of China. But it has a major asset with Islam, since Africa has some 400 million or more Muslims.

"The major achievements of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and Diyanet in Africa are concentrated in countries with a Muslim majority," observes Olivier Mbabia, a writer and expert on Turkey.

But Ghana is different. Two-thirds of the population there is Christian.

In the Sahel belt, an arid region that stretches from Mauritania to Somalia, Turkey finances mosques, Quranic schools and places for training imams.

Theology students are also offered scholarships to study in Turkey. 

As for the children of the African Islamo-conservative elite, many of them have passed through the vast network of schools run by the preacher Fethullah Gülen.

Before becoming Erdogan's number one enemy, he was the president’s ally in spreading a network of religious schools in Turkey and abroad.

"They taught a 'standard' Islam, following the canons of Al Azhar University in Cairo, and without proselytizing in favor of the more rigorous 'doxa' which is now favored by the AKP," says geopolitologist Marc Lavergne, a specialist from the Horn of Africa. 

Turkish language and culture is nonetheless promoted, notably through songs.

Since the failed coup of 2016, the Turkish authorities have regained control of these establishments (today about 130 in Africa) by transferring them to the state foundation Maarif.

According to specialists, a certain "prudence" is still required with regard to Islamic education in these schools, with science and computer science being emphasized more than learning the Quran.

Rivalry over holy places 

In any case, Turkey seems to have succeeded in forging a positive image in Africa. 

Its anti-imperialist discourse insists on South-South cooperation and the solidarity and humanitarian dimension of its action.

Ankara is of course looking for economic opportunities, but also geostrategic ones. 

The Sudanese peninsula of Suakin is one of them. 

At the end of 2017, Khartoum granted Turkey a location in the harbor of this port, which was an Ottoman possession on the Red Sea… and which faces Mecca.

It is one way for Turkey to show its opposition to the domination of Saudi Wahhabism over the main holy sites of Islam, and to secure its religious tourism toward the Arabian Peninsula.

"Since then, the Turks have had to leave Suakin at Sudan's request," Lavergne explains.

"But it is clear that the competition between Turkey and Saudi Arabia for supremacy in the Sunni world is also written on African soil," he says. 

One other point of contention is the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Turkey and its Qatari ally are close, but which Saudi Arabia and Egypt describe as "terrorists".