How did African societies accommodate Islam, and what was the effect of its spread across Africa?

In Africa, between roughly 800 and 1500 A. D., contacts with the outside world increased as part of the growing international network. Social, religious, and technological changes took place. One of these changes was the arrival of the followers of Muhammad. The spread of Islam from its birthplace in the Middle East and north Africa to India and southeast Asia revealed the power of the religion and its commercial and sometimes military attributes. Civilizations were changed by Islam but kept their individuality. A pattern like this developed in sub-Saharan Africa as Islam provided new influences and contact without uniting African culture as a whole with the Middle Eastern core. New religious, economic, and political patterns developed in relation to the Islamic surge, but great diversity remained.