Islamic law emerged through the compilation and interpretation of Qur’anic prescriptions and traditions concerning the Prophet’s sayings, actions, conduct, and relations with believers and unbelievers. Sharīʿa incorporated these prescriptions, while fiqh supplied jurisprudential interpretations and clarifications. Four legal schools developed, differing in their approaches to literalness and rigour.

The regional distribution of legal schools mattered greatly in Africa. Mālikism left a deep and almost exclusive imprint from the Maghrib across West Africa. After its successes in the eleventh century, it became more formalistic and, in conjunction with Sunnism, encouraged a high degree of intransigence among jurists. Shāfiʿism, described as more liberal and strongly established in Egypt, was generally predominant in the Horn of Africa and along the East African coast.

The eleventh century also brought stronger Sunni uniformity and the renewed spread of Sufi currents. These developments affected state authority, education, social norms, and relations with African cultural traditions. In the Maghrib, Sufi brotherhoods received a particularly warm welcome; the Qādiriyya appeared in the twelfth century, while the Shādhiliyya was popularized in Morocco by al-Djazūlī during the fifteenth century.