In April 2024, Morocco inaugurated the Mohammed VI Mosque in Abidjan, the largest city of Côte D’Ivoire. The mosque is an architectural gem, visible from across the Ébrié Lagoon that separates much of Abidjan from the Atlantic Ocean. Morocco’s religious interaction with Côte D’Ivoire makes sense: Both embrace the moderate Maliki school, one of the four religious schools within Sunni Islam.
Abidjan’s new landmark is not Morocco’s only religious footprint in a country that now has the largest per capita income in West Africa, more than three times that of Nigeria. A decade ago, against the rise of the Islamic State, I visited a center in Rabat in which Moroccan clergy trained students and imams from across West Africa — from Côte D’Ivoire to Mauritania — to reinforce the spiritual purity of Maliki Islam against the many external forces that would pervert it or seek to sway young Muslims.
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There is no shortage of forces that would do so. Some are online, but many are within the mosques themselves. In the late 20th century, American diplomats were vaguely conscious of Saudi efforts to spread radical interpretations through the construction and sponsorship of mosques and subsidization of mullahs and madrasas.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bernard Lewis, an emeritus historian at Princeton University and the doyen of Middle Eastern studies in America, explained to an interviewer the pernicious role of Saudi Arabia in the spread of Islamist extremism. “Imagine that the Ku Klux Klan gets total control of the state of Texas. And the Ku Klux Klan has at its disposal all the oil rigs in Texas,” Lewis said. “And they use this money to set up a well-endowed network of colleges and schools throughout Christendom, peddling their peculiar brand of Christianity. You would then have an approximate equivalent of what has happened in the modern Muslim world.”
In recent years, I have visited a number of states across the region — Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, and more. What is evident across the region is that there is a battle for hearts and minds underway for Muslims, be they the majority or minority in a country. Turkey sponsored the Ghana National Mosque, whose website brags that it towers above the Accra skyline, a largely Christian city in an overwhelmingly Christian country. Saudi Arabia still reportedly funds roadside mosques.
In Côte D’Ivoire, Morocco’s new mosque does not stand alone as a symbol of this competition. Turkey has built an Islamic cultural center. Saudi religious charities, meanwhile, build small mosques at roadside gas stations and rest stops in order to cater to the truck drivers.
Turkey seeks to cement its influence with a new Sahel initiative as it tries to transform itself into the region’s most influential Islamic power. After Turkey pressured local governments to shutter the schools operated by dissident theologian Fethullah Gülen’s network, it took over the properties itself and formed the Yunus Emre Institutes to administer them. Turkey brags it has educated nearly 16,000 students from 160 countries, many of whom seek its help to convert to Islam.
Diplomats often calculate influence in terms of foreign assistance and diplomatic partnerships. Simultaneously, American officials treat religion as a third rail due to the traditional separation of church and state in the United States.
As American adversaries and allies battle for influence on the world’s second most populous continent, however, Washington and its representatives abroad can no longer remain aloof. Diplomats and intelligence professionals must assess and measure religious influence and see who is up and who is down. When Morocco dominates the religious scene, moderation follows. When Turkey or Iran does, terrorism is often the result.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.