DevonAjala

The claim that Ifá was imported into Yorùbáland from Aswan, Egypt, because of its resemblance to Arabic geomancy (Al-Raml), deserves serious historical scrutiny. First, similarity is not proof of origin. The fact that two divination systems share sixteen fundamental figures, binary arrangements and geometric patterns does not automatically establish that one was borrowed from the other. Similarities can indicate cultural exchange, shared influences or independent development. Historical borrowing, however, requires evidence. Ifá is far more than a system of sixteen numerical figures. It is an extensive intellectual, literary, philosophical, religious and cosmological institution deeply embedded in Yorùbá civilisation. Its 256 Odù contain an enormous body of oral literature addressing history, ethics, medicine, governance, human relationships, spirituality and the nature of existence. Ifá must therefore be examined beyond the geometric arrangement of its divination figures. Consider the scholarship of Professor Akinwumi Ogundiran in his 2020 book, The Yorùbá: A New History. On page 147, he directly addresses claims about the Islamic origins of Ifá, describing them as unsubstantiated and questioning the assumption that similarities in geomantic numerology establish historical borrowing. William Bascom’s Ifa Divination: Communication Between Gods and Men in West Africa (1969) also provides extensive documentation of the distinctive structure, ritual practices and literary corpus of Ifá. Interestingly, Umar H. D. Danfulani’s 1997 study, Sixteen Figure Divination in Africa: Its Regional Spread and Relationship with Arab-Islamic Geomancy, examines the relationship between African sixteen-figure divination systems and Islamic geomancy. This is a subject deserving serious academic investigation, not simplistic conclusions. Now, if Ifá was imported from Aswan, several historical questions must be answered: What is the earliest dated documentary evidence establishing this transfer? Through which historical migration, trade or religious networks did it enter Yorùbáland? What linguistic evidence demonstrates that the original terminology of Ifá was borrowed from Arabic? Who were the individuals or communities responsible for introducing it? How and when was the extensive Yorùbá Ifá literary corpus developed from this supposedly imported system? There is another distinction we must understand: the possible borrowing of a divination technique does not automatically establish the borrowing of an entire religious and philosophical institution. We must distinguish between the origin of a numerical structure, the origin of a divination technique, the development of the Ifá literary corpus and the development of Ifá as a Yorùbá religious institution. These are different historical questions. I am not arguing that cultural exchanges between Yorùbáland and the wider Islamic world never occurred. They certainly did. Nor am I claiming that scholars have conclusively ruled out every possibility of Islamic influence. I am challenging the presentation of an unproven hypothesis as an established historical fact. Ifá’s written documentation by European observers in the nineteenth century does not represent its birth. It represents the beginning of a surviving written documentary record. An oral civilisation does not begin to exist merely because someone eventually writes about it. My position is simple: Ifá’s distinctive intellectual, literary, philosophical and religious identity is deeply rooted in Yorùbá civilisation. Anyone claiming that the entire institution was imported from Aswan must demonstrate that claim with archaeological, linguistic, documentary and historical evidence. Geometric resemblance alone is insufficient. We must investigate history, not manufacture it to accommodate religious convictions. Àṣẹ!