Editing Dyula people (section)

===Suwarian tradition===
[[File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Portret van een Dyula boerin met een hoofddoek van Dutch Wax TMnr 20013506.jpg|thumb|A Dyula farmer wearing a [[Dutch wax]] [[headscarf]], 1966]]
Over time ''dyula'' colonies developed a [[theological]] rationale for their relations with non-Muslim ruling classes and subjects in what author [[Nehemia Levtzion]] dubbed "accommodationist Islam".<ref>N. Levtzion and J. O. Voll (eds.), ''Eighteenth Century Renewal & Reform in Islam'', Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987, p. 21.</ref> The man credited with formulating this rationale is Sheikh [[Al-Hajj Salim Suwari]], a [[Soninke people|Soninke]] cleric from the core Mali area who lived around 1500. He made ''hajj'' to [[Mecca]] several times and devoted his intellectual career to developing an understanding of the faith that would assist Muslim minorities in "[[pagan]]" lands. He drew on North African and Middle Eastern jurists and [[theologians]] who had reflected on the problem of Muslims living among non-Muslim majorities, situations that were frequent in the centuries of Islamic expansion.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001144/114426Eo.pdf|title=The Routes of Al-Andalus: Spiritual Convergence and Intercultural Dialogue|work= [[UNESCO]]}}</ref>

Sheikh Suwari formulated the obligations of Muslim minorities in West Africa into something known as the ''Suwarian tradition''. It stressed the need for Muslims to coexist peaceably with unbelievers and so justified a separation of religion and politics. In this understanding, Muslims must nurture their own learning and piety and thereby furnish good examples to the non-Muslims around them. They could accept jurisdiction of non-Muslim authorities as long as they had the necessary protection and conditions to practice the faith. In this teaching, Suwari followed a strong predilection in Islamic thought for any government, even if non-Muslim or tyrannical, as opposed to none. The military ''[[jihad]]'' was a resort only if the faithful were threatened. Suwari discouraged ''[[dawah]]'' (missionary activity), instead contending that God would bring non-Muslims to Islam in his own way; it was not a Muslim's responsibility to decide when ignorance should give way to belief. Since their Islamic practice was capable of accommodating traditional religions, ''dyula'' often served as priests, [[Fortune-telling|soothsayer]]s, and counselors at the courts of [[animist]] rulers.<ref>Launay, R., ''Beyond the Stream: Islam & Society in a West African Town''. Berkeley, 1992</ref>