Ever since Muhammad, the impact of Islam in Africa has been very significant, especially in the slave trade that was thriving there long before the Europeans got in on the act, and is still going on today. Islam is now the main religion in North and West Africa and most countries north of the equator in that continent. Previous to Muslim expansion and the Christian missions of the Europeans that rushed in to divide and possess the land, most Africa nations, except for the kingdoms of Egypt and Kush, were animistic in their religion. Many still are, and have successfully blended this into both Christianity and Islam.

There have been several feeble attempts to define Africa as the cradle of civilization, and even of mankind, all of which have avoided the obvious observation that if Africa came first, then why is it still in the crib? The fact is that Africa was populated from elsewhere, and it has always lagged behind in development in every sphere. When "Professor" Leakey was unearthing the bones of the so-called Neanderthal man (so closely matching the skeletons of a modern Africans with rickets) he discovered that this "ancient ancestor" was actually an advanced tool user and ornament maker, an ordinary man. Leakey reported that the theory of evolution would have to be seriously revised. But of course it was not. Evolutionists live in denial; the last thing they want to do is revise this preposterous theory.

If evolution were true, if all the peoples in the world were developing separately, then why did we not find humans on other continents with three or four legs, or a million years ahead or behind the others? That is just a finger-snap in the four billion-year fable of evolution. No, they did not develop separately, let alone evolve from one species to another. That is as silly as science fiction; another religion of mysteries that fascinates but does not educate or require the truth. There are also homemade fairy tales about Africans from the south being the foundation of Egypt and even providing the Buddha  that “enlightened” the Far East. Here is an extract from such a myth. “It would seem that Sakya  Buddha was an Egyptian priest, chased from Memphis  by the persecutions of Cambyses. This tradition would support the portrayal of Buddha with wooly hair.” (The African Origin of Civilization, C.A. Diop, Hill, NY, 1974, p.287)

That there were blacks in Egypt from the earliest times is quite correct. We know that when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt (c.1500 BC) he had a Cushite wife. (Numbers 12) But these blacks did not originally come from the south. The facts in the Book of Genesis, the real beginning, remain true. It was the children of Ham ("Black One" or "Burned One") who migrated from Sumeria to Africa some time before 3000 BC. Ham’s sons Egypt and Put (later replaced by Libya, one of Egypt’s sons) possessed the lands closest to the entry point from the Middle East. Egypt took the choice Nile Valley. Descendants of Cush, who pushed further south to Nubia (Ethiopia-Sudan) and other parts of the upper Nile, still speak the remnants of the Hamitic and Cushite languages which they brought with them from the confusion of Babel. Kush was a significant civilization, with many ziggurats left behind as evidence, but it was a lesser clone of Egypt and the original source culture of Mesopotamia.

Other Cushites eventually spread all the way south and west to populate the entire continent. A common feature found in tribes all down through East Africa to the farthest reaches of Southern Africa (e.g. the Zulus) is the appearance of rulers dressed identically to the Greek versions of Nimrod, the black Hercules wearing a lion or leopard skin. The head of the animal is often fitted over the head of the king with the pelt draped down his back like a cloak so that he appears to be in the animal’s skin. No doubt the prophet Jeremiah saw such Cushites in his exile in Egypt (c.600 BC) when he coined his famous phrase. (Jeremiah 13:23, see Son of Baal, Grandson of Ham, Section 1, Mesopotamia) In some translations of the Old Testament, the name "Cushite" is loosely (and incorrectly) substituted by "Ethiopian," from the term the Greeks used for the people south of Egypt. They were also known as Nubians (a term not usually inserted in Bible versions) and had a long and turbulent relationship with Egypt. The Cushites worshipped Seth as their version of the Sumerian storm god and also greatly revered the Egyptian god Amon, despite their continual state of war with Egypt.

"Nubia, ancient region in northeastern Africa, extending approximately from the Nile River valley eastward to the shores of the Red Sea, southward to about Khartoum (in what is now The Sudan), and westward to the Libyan Desert. The southern part…was called Cush (Kush) under the 18th-dynasty pharaohs of ancient Egypt and called Ethiopia by the ancient Greeks…With the rise of the 1st dynasty in Egypt (c.2950 BC), the [first Nubian] culture and Nubia’s independence were extinguished… The Cushites seized Buhen [in Egypt] and by 1650 BC had advanced northward to Aswan… they raided Upper Egypt, seizing many fine Middle Kingdom monuments that they carried off to Karmah, their capital…Amenhotep I (1514-1493 BC) conquered Karmah, destroying the kingdom of Cush. Nubia was colonized…Gold was the main resource exploited by the Egyptians, Cush producing significant amounts of this precious metal…"

"…a new kingdom appeared about 800 BC…and the Cushites occupied Upper Egypt. The Cushite ruler Piankhi (Piye) completed the Egyptianization and about 730 BC raided Lower Egypt. Ardent worshipers of Amon, the Cushites considered the Libyanized Lower Egyptians cultural degenerates, but they felt a strong affinity for the Thebans, who were also worshipers of Amon. The Cushite ruler Shabaka succeeded Piankhi and conquered all of Egypt in about 715 BC…Moving his capital to Memphis, he founded Egypt’s 25th dynasty, which is called Cushite in the king lists. In 701 BC Shabaka backed the Hebrew king Hezekiah’s revolt against Assyria…an Egyptian expedition sacked the capital of Cush, Napata, about 592 BC. The Cushite capital was then transferred to Meroe, where the Cushite kingdom survived for another 900 years…the Egyptian culture of Nubia grew increasingly Africanized…" (Encyclopedia Britannica, Nubia, Std.Ver.1999)

Thus went the power struggle backward and forward between Cush and Egypt. By 550 AD the people in Ethiopia and Sudan had become Christian and remained so for a hundred years before the arrival of Muslim armies around 650 AD. Some centers continued as almost entirely Christian until 1500 AD, but after that Islam became predominant. In Ethiopia, the Coptic Christians, like many across North Africa before the arrival of Islam, remained in the idolatry common to the Early Church and its Fathers. The three-headed trinity idol is still found in Ethiopian worship, even on bishop’s staffs. And through all these changes the same old thunderstorm god and the mother and child cults of Babylon continued intact, the "new" arrivals merely overlaying and reinforcing the "primitive" religion that had come from Sumeria in the first place.

Outside of Egypt and Kush there were no other great empires in North Africa, which was later colonized by Greece and Rome, and then snared in turn by Christianity and Islam. The ruins of a complex of buildings in Zimbabwe ("Stone House") are all that remains of the gold-producing Zaranga kingdom in Southern Africa, which peaked between 1000 and 1400 AD. The fortifications and maze-like passageways are thought to have been a major religious center, somewhat resembling the Incan layouts discovered at Machu Picchu in South America. But otherwise Africa mostly consisted of tribal villages and alliances ruled by local kings and under the spell of the ancestors and shaman priests. In Central and West Africa the chief ancestor-god appeared as Xango or "Shango, the god of thunder and lightning," whose staff is depicted by the "symbol of a double [headed] axe" and who is identified as "the king of Oyo, the largest of the Yoruba kingdoms." (Encyclopedia Britannica, African Arts, Sculpture, West Africa, Yoruba, Oyo, Std.Ver.1999) This is the same god as Enlil, Bel, Baal, Zeus, Jupiter, Thor and Shang-ti (China). Shango can also appear in female form with a double-axed crown. A popular mother goddess is the water and serpent deity, Mama Wati (Mother Water), a sort of Isis mixed with Medusa, often depicted with snakes flowing with her hair.

Like Indian Christians or Muslims that continue in the Hindu caste system, being Christian or Muslim has made little difference to Africans intent on keeping their ancient traditions. The scarring of skin in tribal patterns and decoration with tattoos are obvious examples, despite the fact that the Word of God forbids such markings. (Leviticus 19:28) When it comes to sickness and other impediments in African Christian cults, the local witch or witchdoctor is much more likely to be summoned than a priest, and more faith will be put in lizard bones and traditional incantations than in Christian rites. In fact it is likely that African religion has influenced Christianity more than the other way around, something very evident in the trade and export of several distinct forms of African spirituality.

Widespread mother and child worship from Africa has easily merged with Catholicism in South America, and the spirit and trance cults are particularly well suited to blend with the experientially oriented Pentecostal and tongue-speaking charismatic sects of Christianity. This movement is growing significantly in importance, especially in the gathering together of diverse cults toward the bosom of the Mother Church (for the Scriptural view see either Spirit of the Living God or Harlot Babylon, Addendum, The Truth Which Sets Free). This Voodoo (literally, "Spirit") was one of the main exports from West Africa to the Americas on the slave ships. It is found in the prominent Mardi Gras festival procession in New Orleans and the Rio de Janeiro Carnival, an ancient Tammuz-Dumuzi celebration held on Ash Wednesday in the Christian calendar (see Death of a Shepherd, Section 1, Mesopotamia).

The co-habitation of the Voodoo-Christian spirit is very strong in many American churches today, in forms of spirit-possessed worship aroused and maintained by endlessly repetitive music and lyrics (God is awesome, awesome, awesome…etc). The words are usually simple enough to replicate without thinking and can spell out a message (e.g. everybody is heaven-bound) that subtly skews the truth in Scripture. Most forms of black "gospel" music are rooted in or derived from this, as are secular genres like rap music. The monotonous drone resembles not only African spiritism but also the use of mantric repetition in Far Eastern religions, in which the object of the exercise is to lose oneself in religious ecstasy or "holiness."

In the Caribbean, Jamaica is inundated by Protestant "Holy Roller" cults, having more "houses of god" per capita than any other country in the New World. It is also a nation rife with inter-black discrimination, based on a gradation of skin colour. Inferiority increases with blackness, affecting everything from employment prospects to the description of suspects aired in police reports. This system, inherited from African tribalism and refined in the days of slavery, is found throughout the Caribbean and no religion has done more than merely dent it. In the neighbouring island of Haiti, this racism is extreme and often turns violent. Considered the most backward nation of the Western World and sometimes compared with Bangladesh, the East’s poorest country in the suffocating grip of Islam, it is commonly said that, "Haiti is 90% Christian (mainly Catholic) and 100% Voodoo."

In South America this African export is known as Macumba and Candomblé. "Macumba, Afro-Brazilian religion that is characterized by a marked syncretism of traditional African religions, European culture, Brazilian Spiritualism, and Roman Catholicism. Of the several Macumba sects, the most important are Candomblé; and Umbanda…Macumba rites are led by mediums, who fall prostrate in trances and communicate with holy spirits…elements include the use of the cross and the worship of saints, who are given African names such as Ogum (St. George), Xango (St. Jerome), and Iemanja (the Virgin Mary). Candomblé, practiced in Bahia State, is considered to be the most African of the Macumba sects. Umbanda, practiced in urban areas such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, is more sophisticated and reflects Hindu and Buddhist influence; its appeal has spread to the white middle class." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Macumba, Std.Ver.1999)

A noteworthy development in the Caribbean was the Rastafarian movement. Adherents believed themselves to be the exiles of God’s children, caught in Babylon, a dispersion to be redeemed by the "Son of God" and "Lion of Judah," Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. Selassie’s death in 1975 came as a tremendous blow, as has the death of any counterfeit Son in any of the world's religions. Selassie was the figure around whom Ethiopia’s Christian majority rallied when he ousted an unpopular Islamic ruler. He started well as a statesman but ended badly. "Haile Selassie I, original name Tafari Makonnen…was crowned emperor (1930) and took the name of Haile Selassie (‘Might of the Trinity’)…His rule in Ethiopia continued until 1974, at which time famine, worsening unemployment, and the political stagnation of his government prompted segments of the army to mutiny…Selassie was kept under house arrest in his own palace…evidence later emerged suggesting that he had been strangled on the orders of the military government. Haile Selassie was regarded as the Messiah of the African race by the Rastafarian movement." (Encyclopedia Britannica, Haile Selassie I, Std.Ver.1999)

Rastafarians sometimes refer to themselves as Quashi or Kwashi (Cushites). Their name for God is Jah, derived from the equally incorrect Christian term, Jehovah (a blend of Yahweh with Jupiter and Jove). The distinctive reggae music of Rastafarians, although sometimes long and repetitive, usually contains some of their religious message but is neither "churchy" nor intended for worship and is much more melodic and inventive than any other to come from the Caribbean. Smoking ganja to achieve spiritual insight is a custom of Rastafarians that resembles the use of drugs in Vedic Hinduism (imbibing soma) and the inhaled narcotics of African animism and South American spiritism. The original pacific image of the cult (peace and love, brother) has been overshadowed by the emergence of ruthless Rastafarian drug gangs, each called a "posse." In Jamaica, uncharted airfields, lax laws and a corrupt police constabulary (said to be the biggest domestic distributor) have contributed greatly to the lucrative export of marijuana, especially to the United States.