A fascinating example of multicultural heritage In Benin's capital. Today the country is known as a mostly Christian former French colony. But the French took over only in the 1890s, and before then it was under the influence of Portuguese slave traders who turned this into the center of the "Slave Coast" beginning in the 1470s, with the last slave ship leaving for Brazil in 1885 (indeed, the very name of the city is Portuguese to this day: Porto-Novo, "New Port").
In an interesting turnaround, this mosque was biult in the 1920s by a community of Muslims whose ancestors had been freed from slavery in Brazil in the mid-19th century - and more than a classic mosque resembles the colonial Catholic churches of Brazil's Bahia state, where these freed slaves came from.
It's included in an article on MSN's black travel channel Travel Nolre published about top sites in sub-Saharan Africa in honor of the USA's February African America History Month: https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/beyond-the-pyramids-of-egypt-6-african-sites-that-are-worthy-of-a-mention/ar-AAT1gKO
(source: Rachad sanoussi)
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