I will appreciate contributions from both MUSLIMS and CHRISTIANS with any contribution to this topic.

First let me state why I started this thread. I am a Muslim and I have come across quranic verses telling us that there were warners/prophets/preachers sent to the different nations on earth, and that every time the message was corrupted with time and the acts of greedy priests a new messenger was sent. Although the most popular messengers we know are the Semitic prophets (Jewish and Arab bloodline). So my question is WHO WERE THE PROPHETS SENT TO THE VARIOUS NATIONS OF AFRICA AND IS THERE ANY REMINANTS OF THEIR MESSAGE?

these are the verses that inspired my question:
"and there has never been a nation except a warner once lived amongst them" Quran 35:24
"and we have sent messengers before you (Muhammad), some of them We have relayed their stories to you, and others we have not relayed their stories to you" Quran 40:78

I would appreciate contribution from Muslims Christians and those with some knowledge of African history.

for example when we look at the zoroatrian and hindu religions,you can find in them traces of monotheism and their text have traces that appear of divine orgin.likewise,it is not farfetched at all that traditional african religions especially the ones with texts or orally transmitted traditions could have an association with revelation that over the time became lost or corrupted.

There are tribes in Africa that have monotheistic ideologies:

The Kapauku Papuans Of West Guinea

The material is taken from a book called The Kapauku Papuans Of West Guinea by Leopold Pospisil. It is a case study of Stone-Age Kapauku tribe who led their aboriginal lives undisturbed by the spreading western civilization until 1938. The Kapauku Papuans are mountain people who belong to one of the several tribes whose members inhabit the central highlands of western New Guinea. Their country, most of which lies 1500 m above sea level, is composed of rugged mountain chains and deep valleys.

The Kapauku have an interesting world view. Regarding the Creator of the universe, the Kapauku believe:

The universe itself and all existence was Ebijata, "designed by Ugatame", the Creator, Ugatame has a dual nature: He is supposed to be masculine and feminine at the same time, is referred to as the two entities, and is manifested to the people by the duality of the sun and the moon. To my enquiry whether Ugatame was the sun and the moon I received the answer a firm denial. The sun is conceived as the ball of fire, because it provides light and is warm; moon is believed to be a cold light like that of a firefly or the bacteria that infest rotting wood. Sun and moon are only manifestations of Ugatame who thus makes his presence known to the people. they definitely are not Creator himself.

On the nature of Ugatame, the Creator:

Ugatame is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, credited with the creation of all things and with having determined all events. Strangely enough, however, he is not believed to exist himself. When I questioned this contention, a Kapauku defended skillfully by a question: "But how can he exist when he created all the existence?" Obviously Ugatame is beyond existence, because to Kapauku all that exists must be of phenomenonal nature; one must be able to see, hear, smell, taste or feel it. But the Creator is beyond this phenomenal dimension, because of the simple reason that He created it. because He is so to speak, in the fifth dimension and is not of phenomenal nature, He is able to be omnipresent."

How about good and evil?

From this position the Kapauku "logicians" reason further that evil as well as good have been equally created and determined by Ugatame. Consequently, he can be neither good, nor bad, but he must be indifferent, In the world created by Ugatame everything is real to the Kapauku. Even the evil spirits that belong to the creation of Ugatame are necessarily phenomenal and not supernatural.

On the aspect of free will, Kapauku think:

As a further extrapolations from above premises the Kapauku argue that because everything has been determined by Ugatame there cannot be anything like a free will in man, and consequently there is no sin. After all, Creator created good as well as evil, so why should he punish a man for executing his own will?

Lastly, now where is this Ugatame, their supreme god, residing?

In the view of Kamu Kapauku the world is a flat block of stone and soil that is surrounded with water and extends indefinitely into the depth thus providing no room for an underworld. Above the earth is a solid bowl of blue sky that limits the known world at the horizon. During the day the sun travels from east to west on the inside of the inverted bowl of sky and thus provides light. In the evening it slips under the edge of the bowl and travels above it from west to east. Because the bowl of the sky is solid, it shields the earth from sun's rays, thus bringing night. an empirical support for this theory according to my informants, is provided by the stars. They are thought to be perforations in the solid sky, through which the rays of the returning sun penetrate at night. In the morning the sun emerges in the east under the canopy of the sky, thus making a new day. Beyond the solid bowl of sky exists another world that may be similar to ours, the abode of Ugatame, the Creator."

Reference:Leopold Pospisil, The Kapauku Papuans Of West Guinea, 1978, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, p. 84.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/prophet.html

tbaba1234:

There are tribes in Africa that have monotheistic ideologies:

The Kapauku Papuans Of West Guinea

The material is taken from a book called The Kapauku Papuans Of West Guinea by Leopold Pospisil. It is a case study of Stone-Age Kapauku tribe who led their aboriginal lives undisturbed by the spreading western civilization until 1938. The Kapauku Papuans are mountain people who belong to one of the several tribes whose members inhabit the central highlands of western New Guinea. Their country, most of which lies 1500 m above sea level, is composed of rugged mountain chains and deep valleys.

The Kapauku have an interesting world view. Regarding the Creator of the universe, the Kapauku believe:

The universe itself and all existence was Ebijata, "designed by Ugatame", the Creator, Ugatame has a dual nature: He is supposed to be masculine and feminine at the same time, is referred to as the two entities, and is manifested to the people by the duality of the sun and the moon. To my enquiry whether Ugatame was the sun and the moon I received the answer a firm denial. The sun is conceived as the ball of fire, because it provides light and is warm; moon is believed to be a cold light like that of a firefly or the bacteria that infest rotting wood. Sun and moon are only manifestations of Ugatame who thus makes his presence known to the people. they definitely are not Creator himself.

Http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/prophet.html

Here we go again , you even want to claim African Prophets , are the prophets in the Bible you plagiarised not enough

The Religion Of Dinka Of Africa

The people of Dinka live in a land which lies in a vast arc around the swamps of central Nile basin in the Southern Sudan. It is a flat country of open savannah and savannah forest, intersected by many rivers and streams converging upon the central basin of the Nile. About the nature of the Dinka's religious philosophy:

The word which any enquirer into Dinka religion will first and most frequently hear is nhialic. Literally, the word is the locative form of nhial, meaning 'up' or 'above', and nhialic is the word used in many contexts in which we shoud speak of 'the sky'. Part of the meaning of nhialic, then, is conveyed by the 'sky' and 'in the above'.

But further, nhialic is addressed and referred to as 'creator' (aciek) and 'my father' (wa), and prayers and sacrifice are offered to it.

Regarding the attributes of nhialic:

It would be easy, it is true, to translate nhialic aciek and nhialic wa as 'God the creator' and 'God (my) father', for the attributes of nhialic and 'God' there closely coincide, as do many others - unity, power, justice, 'highness', for example.

In Dinka there are important interconnexions between notions of creation and of fatherhood, through the verb 'to create' is never interchangeable with the verb 'to beget'. Divinity (i.e., nhialic) created (cak) men in the beginning, and the men he created begot or bore (dhieth) children. Divinity did not 'beget' or 'bear' men, and it would be a linguistic mistake in Dinka either to use this express for the creation of men by Divinity, or to say that father and mother 'created' their child. Dhieth means both 'to beget' and 'to give birth to', so that verbally the activities of men and women in procreation are not distinguished from each other. When a man was asked to explain what happened in Reproduction, he described the physical act, and added 'And that is called begetting (dhieth), and Divinity will then slowly create (cak) the child in woman's belly.'

And, of course, it goes without saying that when the woman is barren, it means that the Divinity has 'refused' her a child.

Other attributes of Divinity are the Absolute Truth and the Judge.

Divinity is specially needed to intervene in human affairs, to put them straight by making the truth appear. Wet nhialic, the 'word' of Divinity, is the truth, or what really and absolutely is so; and the Dinka think that in certain circumstances men may speak this totally objective 'word', representing to others the true nature of things, whether of present, past, of future situations. Cit nhialic, 'like Divinity' or 'as Divinity', is one of the common expressions men used to guarantee the truth of what they say, and 'Divinity will see' is what any Dinka will say if he suspects another of lying or cheating him and can take no further action of his own in the matter. In some of the invocations reproduced later it will be seen that Divinity is made the final judge or right or wrong, even when men feel sure that they are right. Divinity is thus the guardian of truth - and sometimes signifies to men what really is the case, behind or beyond their errors and falsehoods.

The author went on to say:

The Dinka have no problem with the prospering sinner, for they are sure that Divinity will ultimately bring justice. Since among them every man at some time must meet with suffering and misfortune, death or disease among his family or his cattle, there is always evidence, for those who wish to refer to it, of divine justice. It is a serious matter when a man calls on Divinity to judge between him and another, so seriously that only a fool would take the risks involved if he knew he was in the wrong, and to call upon Divinity as witness gives the man who does so an initial presumption of being in the right.

Divinity is also considered as the supreme being.

Nhialic, Divinity, has no plural; it is both singular and plural in intention.

Some interesting thoughts of Dinka about the Divinity:

Divinity is 'in the above', and what rises into the sky thus approaches Divinity. I have been asked whether an aeroplane ever touches the sky, and if Divinity can be seen from it. This is a clear indication that the Dinka can regard Divinity as distinct from the 'physical' sky, for the sky itself can obviously be seen from the earth. The way in which terrestrail being may approach Divinity is by going high, by levitation, or sometimes by building a mound or 'pyramid'. There are many reports of the rising of holy men into the sky, and sometimes by those who claim that special relations have been established between divinity and themselves. Conversely, Divinity makes contact with the earth by falling, or by letting something fall, or by hurling something down. Such contacts are made in rain, lightning, comets and meteorites, and also in free-divinites which fall and possess men. All these are manifestations of Divinity.

How about the beginning of relationship of Dinka and Divinity?

Logically, and for the Dinka historically, their relations with Divinity begin with a story of the supposed conjunction, and then division, of the earth and the sky - the emergence of their world as it is.

Dinka, to our surprise, have their own 'version' of Adam and Eve story, i.e., the first human beings on the earth.

One of the myths of the separation of earth and sky already given shows that the Dinka also have the idea that Divinity originally created a pair, Garang and Abuk, from whom all men are descended.

The first human beings, usually called Garang and Abuk, living on earth had to take care when they were doing their little planting or pounding, lest a hoe or a pestle should strike Divinity, but one day the woman 'because she was greedy' (in this context any Dinka would view her 'greed' indulgently) decided to plant (or pound) more than the permitted grain of millet. In order to do so she took one of the long-handled hoes (or pestles) which the Dinka now use. In raising this pole to pound or cultivate, she struck Divinity who withdrew, offended, to present great distance from the earth, and sent a small blue bird (the colour od the sky) called atoc to sever the rope which had previously given the men access to the sky and to him. Since that time the country has been 'spoilt', for men have to labour for the food they need, and are often hungry. They can no longer as before freely reach Divinity, and they suffer sickness and death, which thus accompany their abrupt separation from Divinity.

Reference Godfrey Lienhardt, Divinity And Experience: The Religion Of The Dinka, 1978 (Reprint Of 1961 Edition), Oxford At The Clarendon Press, p. 29.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/prophet.html

frosbel:


Here we go again , you even want to claim African Prophets , are the prophets in the Bible you plagiarised not enough

here lies the difference between a christian and a muslim.

while muslims embrace all of prophets of God as their own and of their own and from their own,the close-minded christian wants a copyright over God!and you wonder why you are called a bigot.

LagosShia:

here lies the difference between a christian and a muslim.

while muslims embrace all of prophets of God as their own and of their own and from their own,the close-minded christian wants a copyright over God!and you wonder why you are called a bigot.

Okay , all the prophets from the time of ADAM , including the False Prophets, were Muslim , does that make you happy now

Nice right up guys. Am definitely gonna take time to read through all the replies. @frosbel do you really consider your kind so backward as not deserving divine message? The OP asked for all viewpoints including pegans and instead of contributing you are castigating others.

BIGER BOY:

Nice right up guys. Am definitely gonna take time to read through all the replies. @frosbel do you really consider your kind so backward as not deserving divine message? The OP asked for all viewpoints including pegans and instead of contributing you are castigating others.

Okay Mr. Frontward , what divine message ?

frosbel:

Okay Mr. Frontward , what divine message ?

Good question! Now that's what the OPs thread was all about. Now read the replies and references provided so far, or better still add some thoughts of your own including references, and we will end up all having a pleasant discussion.