The Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana are the southern extensions of the historical trade routes between North Africa, the empires in the savannah belt and the gold deposits in the rainforests of Ghana. The Arab traders also wanted to convert the people along these routes to Islam. The mosques in northern Ghana are remains of the Islamic diaspora. The mosques are built of sun-dried mud bricks, two architectural styles can be distinguished: The Djenné style of the Wuriyanga Mosque and the Sudanic style with the Larabanga Mosque as the most famous example.
Full screen map of Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana (On tentative list - Ghana)
Legend
>
Site Info
Official Information
Full Name
Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana (ID: 1395)
Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana by Michael Novins
While returning from Mole National Park to Tamale, I stopped briefly in Larabanga in northern Ghana to visit its whitewashed mud-plaster and wooden-beam mosque, which will celebrate its six hundredth anniversary in two years, making it the oldest mosque in the country and one of the oldest in West Africa and earning it the nickname the Mecca of West Africa.
