Bondoukou is located in northeastern Cote d›Ivoire. Although the official name of the city is Bondogo, the city is more famous as “the city of a thousand minarets” or the “city of a thousand mosques”. Despite the decline in the number of mosques currently in the city, a large number of them are still standing and show that there is no single place or house of the old city’s neighborhoods that is deprived of a mosque or a chapel of its own. Bondoukou, which is one of the oldest cities in the country is also known for its great ethnic diversity.
The Abu Bakr Toure Mosque is currently considered one of the most important mosques in the city. It was built by the Mujahid Sheikh Samouri Toure, who arrived in the town at the end of the year 1800 from Guinea Conakry. The area was known in the past as “Beto” before it was called “Bondogo”, and it was one of the important trading points in the region characterized by the trade of salt and gold. The city successively fell under the control of the koulangos, the Abrons, and the malinkes.
The latter, coming from their metropolis Begho, came to settle in Bondoukou in 1666 attracted by gold and the caravan trade. Under their influence, Bondoukou became both a major religious center with the construction of a Koranic university and a commercial city, the merchant city of the Abron kingdom and a relay city between the Akan States and the Mande cities of the Niger valley. Bondoukou thus became an extremely important center of interest where the most diverse commercial transactions were tied and organized.
