|
Arab Islamic Education in
the Republic of Chad
History and Perspectives
by Dr. Mustapha Ahmad Ali
Introduction
The Republic of Chad is characterized by its
geographical location in the centre of Africa. As a result of that location, it
was the crossroads of caravan routes connecting East with West Africa, the
shores of the Mediterranean and the Great Desert with the hinterland.
Consequently, it received numerous migrations.
Among these, the most pivotal in giving this
province its special features and its civilizational cultural directions were
those Arab migrations from the Nile Valley to the East and the Maghreb to the
north. From the first century of the Hijra (7th century A.D), those migrations
brought Islamic religion and Arabic language. Their effect began to multiply and
take roots calmly until its institutions were gradually transformed, from the
7th century (Hijri), into states and institutionally developped kingdoms that
greatly contributed towards the history and civilization of the Islamic nation
and the civilizational and cultural future of the area and neighbouring
districts.
Among the first Islamic states and kingdoms that
expanded its influence over this area of Africa were the Sultanates of
Kanem-Barno and Ouddai¨. The first was founded in the early 7th century. Its
influence included the provinces around lake Chad which presently represent
large parts of Chad, Cameroun, Niger and the Republic of Federal Nigeria.
Historians divide its rule into two historical epochs : The Barnawian epoch
which extended from the 7th to the 14th century and reached its zenith in the
13th century. The Kanmian epoch lasted from the 15th to the late 19th century.
During this epoch, the Kingdom reached the summit of its glory in the 16th
century. During these two epochs, this kingdom had knitted close relations with
the Islamic civilizational centers in Cairo, Tripoli, Tunis and Sokoto.
On the other hand, the Sultanate of Ouddai was
founded in the 10th century. It ruled the eastern province of present day Chad,
and its frontiers extended to Um-Shaaloba, to the north, Bahr Al-ghazal and the
outskirts of lake Chad to the west, Dar-Assalamat and Dar Kuti, to the south,
while neighbouring the Sultanate of Dar Four to the east.
The Sultanate of Ouddai reached the summit of its
glory in the early 19th century under the rule of Sultan Abdel-Kareem Bin
Mohammad Saleh, known as Saboon (1805-1813) and succumbed to French colonialism
in the early 20th century.
The Sultanate of Ouddai had a very distinguished
role in expanding Islam and Arabic in the region. Arabic was the language of the
rulers and the ruled, spoken by the inhabitants whether Arabs or Arabized. The
Sultanate had close contacts with centres of Islamic civilization in Dar Four,
Tripoli and Cairo.
Expansion of Arabic Culture
In its social cultural constitution, Chad could be
compared to the neighbouring Republic of Sudan. The elements for that comparison
look more evident due to the fact that the northern parts of both countries
witnessed the rise of Islamic states, and were greatly affected by migrations of
Arab tribes from the east and north. Those migrations were characterized by
their formation by nomadic tribes, living on the outskirts of Islamic
civilization centres, and engaging in conflicts with urban societies in the heat
of historical moments fraught with political turmoil and changes.
One of the factors that led to the multiplicity of
those migrations is that the new lands extending from the shores of lake Chad
towards the east across Al-Batha plain, the highlands of Ouddai and beyond Dar
Four province in Sudan, were a natural extension to what the nomads knew in
their original lands as climate, topography, plants and animals. As a result of
the density and multiplicity of those migrations, Arabic and Islam became two of
society’s cornerstones.
In addition, rulers of the Islamic states in this
region were of Arab descent, ruling according to Islamic doctrine and using
Arabic as the language of their courts, assemblies, reunions, correspondance and
every day life.
Consequently, Arabic became the common language of
all inhabitants, although a large number of non-Arab groups used their own
dialects. The researcher can count more than fifty Arab tribes whose roots
related to Adnan and Kahtan. These tribes are divided into two groups according
to their life-styles and social activities : Camel herdsmen, in the north, whose
most important tribes are Iraikat, M’hameed, Rzikat, Nouaiba and cow herdsmen,
in the centre, whose most important tribes are Assalamat, Oulad Rachid,
M’siriya, Ja’atna, B’nou Halba and Azzyoud.
Alongside these Arab tribes, there are groups of
Arabized tribes that remained attached to their languages whilst using Arabic as
a means of communication with others, and also as the language of warship,
commerce and traditional education. First, among these groups are the Tobo,
Kanimbo, Z’ghaoua, in the north, Maba, Tama, Masaleet, Dagou, Mimi, Fellata and
Barno in the central plain extending from lake Chad to the highlands of Ouddai.
We have to refer to the fact that these groups
played an important role in laying the foundations of Arab Islamic culture. In
this context, it is sufficient to note that non-Arab elements were the main
stronghold of earlier mentioned Islamic kingdoms. The state of Ouddai was
governed by a Maba family while that of Kanim-Barno was ruled by Barno and
Kanimbo families.
Islamic Education in the Sultanates of Ouddai and
Kanim-Barno
Islamic education flourished in the Islamic
kingdoms in Chad. Travellers and historians left clear indications that Arab
Islamic culture had long matured, especially in the state of Ouddai. That was
due to many factors of which the most important are Ouddai’s location
neighbouring Sudan and Egypt, and the fusion of Arab tribes with its inhabitants
thus furthering the use of Arabic in a way that puts the Sultanate of Ouddai in
a league by itself compared with other Islamic states and kingdoms in Africa.
Ouddai was greatly advanced in sciences of the
Arabic language as well as Quranic sciences. It could be said that no other
Islamic country compares to Ouddai province in the number of those who recite
and know Qur’an by heart. The most extensively used version to read or recite
Qur’an in Ouddai, among city dwellers, is Abi’Amr Al Doury’s as related to him
by Abi ‘Amr Ibn Ala’a. Arab tribes follow the version of Warsh as related by
Nafa’a, while the version of Hufs, as related by Assim, started to gain a great
following since the middle of this century after the wide disribution of the
published Qur’an.
The Sultanate of Ouddai was characterized by the
expansion of education among the population whereas in the Sultanate of
Kanim-Barno, it was, to a great extent, a privilege of the elite.
Upto this day, citizens of Chad give great
importance to teaching children Qur’an. At the age of five, the child is sent to
the “maseed” or “khalwa” which are the traditional institutions where Qur’an is
taught and recited. These are so abundant that one can hardly count them because
in almost every house, in the big cities or villages or nomadic dwellings, there
is a maseed with a resident “Goni” or “Faki” who leads the prayers and teaches
children Qur’an.
The child usually starts learning the Qur'an
through reading. He learns some of the verses and Surats of the Qur'an, then
recites what he has learnt to his teacher (Sheikh). When he has learnt a number
of Surats by rote, he starts learning how to write according to Baghdadi method.
First, he learns alphabetical letters seperately, then combined together and
afterwards he moves to actual writing. The Child continues learning Qur'an till
the age of puberty when he completes the Qur'an. While some students content
themselves with completing the reading of the Qur'an without learning it by
rote, others keep on reading it time and time again until they learn it by rote.
Because of their great numbers, these Qur’anic
schools are administered in different ways. Those on the outskirts of cities, in
villages and other residential areas, accept students from far away destinations
who usually depend on donations, farming and manual work.
Some of the “maseeds” are mobile where students
follow their teacher “sheikh” in his wanderings.
This type is mostly remarked among nomadic Arab
tribes, both camel and cattle herders, who are always on the move searching for
pasture. Students attending this type of Qur’anic schools also depend on
donations, herding and other manual works. Some of the “maseeds” are annexed to
big houses in cities or villages and, thus, they call for no additional
expenses.
The children attending these schools are called
“Muhajireen”, i. e. immigrants because the child, in most cases, migrates from
his original homeland to join a teacher “sheikh”. Even today, we can see, in
Chadian cities and villages, groups of small children singing in sweet voices :
(Iam an) immigrant
For the cause of God
For the cause of the Prophet
O Slave of God
(An) immigrant
For the cause of God
For the cause of the Prophet
O servant of God
However, it is worth noting that despite the
expansion of Qur’anic schools on a very wide scale, Chad never knew the rise of
those great “khalwas” that were prominent in the neighbouring Sudan such as
those in Um Dubban, Abu D’lik, Abu Haraz, in Khartoum and Gezira regions, and
those of the Majazeeb and Ghubush in northern Sudan.
After completing Qur’an and reciting it, in
integrity or part, the student moves to attend learning circles in mosques to be
educated in Islamic doctrine subjects.
The Sultanates of Ouddai and Kanim-Barno had
contacts with Islamic culture centres in the Islamic world, especially in Sudan,
Egypt, Tripoli and Tunis. The sultans also paid great attention to mosques and
Islamic institutions in as much as they were generous towards scholars and
students. That care was not limited to the confines of their borders. Historical
references relate that Sultan Mohammad Saleh Doud Murra, Sultan of Ouddai, sent
sixteen qantars of ivory to be sold in Benghazi. Four fifths of its price were
sent to the mosques of Mecca and Medina while the rest was marked to aid the
students of Ouddai, Sinnar and Dar Four attending Al-Azhar and cater for the
needs of mosques in Egypt.
Islamic education during the colonial era
After the French authorities firmly controlled the
Sultanates of Ouddai, Kanim-Barno and other areas that formed what is presently
known as the Republic of Chad, they started uprooting Arab Islamic culture and
imposing modern education institutions guided in philosophy and perception by
French culture. One of the incidents that signify the colonizer’s oppression,
brutality, savagery and willingness to obliterate all symptoms of Arab Islamic
culture and physically liquidate scholars, was that infamous incident known as
the Slaughter of the “Kubkub”, i.e. machete, which was perpetrated by the French
officer Decourly against the elite of Ouddai’s scholars and notables while they
were performing their morning prayers. It was Thursday, 27th Muharram 1336 H
(1917) when armed French forces surrounded them and started beheading scholars
and worshippers with machetes. That dramatic scene was repeated in other parts
of the city of Abeshé and lasted from early Thursday to late Friday. Other
cities of Ouddai were not spared that slaughter which took the lives of between
four and five hundred scholars and reciters of Qur’an who were buried in a
single grave in Um Kamel in the centre of the city. Those scholars and notables
who escaped the slaughter immigrated to neighbouring Dar Four where their
descendants still live there. After the slaughter, the French moved to libraries
where they burnt the majority of books, Qur’anic manuscripts, and sent the rest
to French museums.
There are different versions as to the direct
reasons for the perpetration of that slaughter, but they all agree on the
colonizer’s intent on putting an end to civilizational, educational and cultural
institutions represented by mosques, maseeds and scholars in the Sultanate of
Ouddai and other Islamic countries in central Africa. That was a preparation for
the imposition of new educational and cultural institutions modeled, in
philosophy and perception, derived from French thought, and designed to provide
the new colonial administration with clerks and officials.
Despite the French attempts to obliterate the
foundations of Arab Islamic culture, especially in Ouddai and in Chad in general,
the inhabitants distanced themselves from French educational institutions to the
extent that (when the French imposed on princes, sultans and tribal chiefs to
send their sons to those schools, to guarantee a generation of educated rulers,
some of them sent their slaves and servants as being their sons)*. Meanwhile,
they sent their sons and the elite of their youth for education in neighbouring
Dar Four, to the religious institute in Omdurman and to Al-Azhar mosque in Egypt.
The prominent Chadian researcher Aissa Hassan Khayari has a detailed study of
how the inhabitants of Ouddai shunned the public (French) school, and how the
elite of their youth migrated to Dar Four to be educated in modern schools
founded by the British administration in Sudan where they mixed traditional
Qur’anic schools (khalawi) and modern education methods without giving priority
to the colonizer’s language over Arabic as the lingua franca. In this context,
the researcher states that the “majority of the inhabitants of Ouddai showed
refusal and indifference towards the public (French) school because they were
incapable of abandoning Islam, their religion, or Arabic, their language. The
public school taught French, the official language, while colloquial Arabic was
the language of communication spoken by all the inhabitants of Ouddai (not to
say the majority of Chadians) to the extent that some indigenous tribes dropped
their local languages and, instead, adopted colloquial Arabic.”
At the middle of the century, the elite of
educated youth returned from Egypt and Sudan, and, with God’s design, Arab
Islamic culture was destined to rise again at the hands of people like Sheikh
Mohammad Attayib Attahir, Sheikh Mohammad Ismail, Sheikh Mohammad Saleh Ali, and
most of all Sheikh Mohammad Al-Eish Aouda.
“Sheikh Mohammad Al-Eish Aouda returned to Chad
from Egypt after completing his university studies in Al-Azhar Al-shareef. He
founded in the city of Abeshé a religious institute, and put its administration
and curricula under the supervision of Al-Azhar. The institute, advancing at a
rythm which bewildered French authorities, enrolled 350 students in a short
time. The French administration put obstacles in its path as part of its war
against Arabic language and Islamic culture in the country. After fabricating
conspiracies, it ordered it shut in 1953, and exiled its founder to Sudan.”
“Despite that, the graduates of the institute, in
collaboration with their colleagues who graduated from Al-Azhar, continued their
activities in promulgating Arabic and Islamic culture. Some started giving
lessons in mosques, some in houses while others founded institutes and religious
schools in different Chadian cities.”*
The founding of religious institutes continued in
Abeshé. The institute of Islamic education was founded in 1954, the Islamic
Centre in 1955 and the institute of Islamic culture in 1956, while the city of
N’djamena witnessed the foundation of the institute of Arabic Renaissance in
1958.
In the face of strong Muslim refusal of the French
school and the embrace of religious education whose institutions started to
flourish, French authorities were forced to introduce Arabic language in their
schools. The Arab French elementary school, opened in Abeshé in 1956 was the
first French government school to teach Arabic language. It is noteworthy that
this school progressed, later, to incorporate a secondary level as from 1963.*
That abnormal situation had a great effect on
determining the country’s future after independance when the north engaged in a
long conflict with the new national authority, while the conflict between the
north and south began to flame. That was due to the fact that the situation in
the atheist south was greatly different in the sense that modern schools sprang
up alongside churches, medical services and hospitals. This (French) culture
flourished in the south and the schools of the clergy started providing the
government, French administration and companies with technicians and
administrators, especially since French became the official language. While the
percentage of elementary education, in the early sixties, reached almost 34% of
the number of children eligible for school in the south, that percentage was so
low in the northern provinces that it did not exceed 5%. That situation created
a deep chasm between the inhabitants and gave reign to emotions of inferiority
and superiority that made it yet deeper.
The status of education after Independance
The state tried to correct the situation by
transforming secondary schools into bilingual schools in imitation of the Arabic
French school opened in Abeshé during colonialism. It decided to include Arabic
in government school curricula in 1962. Nevertheless, the citizens did not warm
up to joining the official school because of its laic leaning, the weakness of
its Arabic language curriculum and its “optional” status whereby studying the
language or passing its exam was not a condition to further education. Under
these conditions, the citizens resorted to founding popular religious institutes
though they were lacking in regulations, curriculum and teachers’ training.
Those institutions were modeled after their counterparts in Arab countries, in
general, and Sudan in particular.
In the mid seventies, however, civil Arabic
schools that were copies of official schools in Arab countries, began to
flourish.*
Based on citizens’ embrace of this type of
education which caters to their cultural and social constitution, those schools
grew in numbers, varied in form and alongside official ones, Arab communities
opened their own schools. Following its recognition of Arabic as the official
language, in the early eighties, the state recognized all civil and private
Arabic schools, and started participating in preparation of exams, giving
degrees and training teachers. In the context of this new policy, the state
founded in 1982, an annex to the teachers institute with the purpose of training
Arabic language teachers to fulfil the needs of official and popular schools.
The following table shows the present status of
schools as to their categories and language of education :
Table 1
Types of schools and language of education
* Its number, according to the last statistics
(1996), is 2471 schools, of which 2452 elementary and 19 intermediate in all the
Republic.
* In the last statistics (1996), there are 119
schools of which 95 are elementary, 14 intermediate and 10 secondary. They are
concentrated in the northern part of the Republic (Ouddaï, Al Batha and
Shari-Bagarmi).
Table 2
Arabic popular and private schools,
number of students and teachers
Remarks :
- The source of these statistics is the Ministry
of National Education, Republic of Chad, February 1996.
- Popular and private Arabic schools are
supervised by the Ministry, and all modern subjects are taught.
* Statistics indicate that 72.2% of these schools
are in N'djamena which has 30 elementary schools, Abeshe' has 30 and Atia Al
Batha 16.
Table 3
The most important popular, private and
communities Arabic schools
Remarks :
- All these schools teach modern subjects.
- Programmes and curricula vary between Azhari and
Sudanese. Some schools teach more than one syllabus (Azhari, Sudanese, Saudi,
Libyan, as available).
One can deduce from what had been said and
detailed that the cultural and social incentives and reasons for founding
private Arabic schools in Chad (or the northern and central parts of it at
least) were too strong to be sidestepped or neglected by objective educational
policies, and that the official school, for a long time to come, will fail to
produce the required balance and satisfy the citizens’ needs unless it takes on
a new form that lessens the burden of its rigid laic approach.
Until conditions are ripe for treating that
educational dualism, Arabic popular and private schools will grow in number and
expand with the possibility of outnumbering official schools in a short lapse of
time.
Nevertheless, Arabic education, whether private or
popular, has its problems of which we summarize the most important as follows :
Study curricula and programmes
After the state reinstated Arabic and made it its
official language, it was decided to prepare an Arabic curriculum translated and
excerpted from the French language curriculum that prevailed earlier. Actually,
it was possible to designate some subjects for a bilingual unified curriculum.
But that step remained incomplete since it was not followed by the supply of
programmes, printed material and school books that aid the teacher in teaching
various subjects in Arabic. This could explain why private Arabic schools
depended on programmes, curricula and Arabic school books from Sudan, Egypt,
Libya and other countries.
To cover up this shortage, the Chadian Ministry of
National Education is preparing the project of “translating the school book” as
part of the policy of bilingualism in the country’s educational system. This
project aims at translating the elementary school curriculum from French to
Arabic, in addition to translating the subjects of mathematics, natural
sciences, geography, history and national education to Arabic at a cost not
exceeding 10 000 US Dollars. Arab Islamic institutions for common action, such
as educational, cultural organizations, or donating parties could well support
this strategic low cost project that falls within the realm of cultural security
of the Arab Islamic nation.
Teachers’ Training
In Chad, there are presently two institutes
responsible for training and qualifying Arabized teachers :
- The Abeshé bilingual institute for the
qualification of teachers which graduates elementary school teachers with a
total capacity of 50 teachers per year.
- N’djamena High Institute for the qualification
of teachers whose graduates are intermediary and secondary school teachers with
a capacity of 15 teachers for the intermediary, and 5 for the secondary level.
For more details and statistics concerning the
qualification of Arabized teachers, we introduce the following table :
Table 4
Trained and untrained Arabized teachers in
different levels
* These statistics were compiled during a field
work visit to N'djamena conducted by ISESCO in September 1995 in preparation of
a field study for the creation of an educational centre for training teachers
on-the-job.
** At the rate of one teacher per school.
As made clear by the preceding statistics, the
Republic of Chad, with the present teachers’ qualifying capacity not exceeding
70 teachers per year for all stages, will need half a century to provide one
Arabized qualified teacher for every school. To face up this shortage, the
Ministry is planning to implement the system of “class teacher” in the
elementary stage. This system calls for one teacher to teach all subjects in
Arabic, in all Arabic and bilingual schools. In addition, the Ministry is intent
on qualifying French speaking teachers according to special programmes, so that
they can learn Arabic and use it later as a teaching language.
In this context, we have to refer to the field
study prepared by ISESCO with the aim of founding an educational centre to
qualify untrained Arabic speaking teachers during their career. This type of
training has many positive features. It offers qualifying opportunities for
greater numbers of teachers during a period not less than a full academic year.
It also gives the teacher a certificate acknowledged by the state, and offers
him a chance for professional and administrative promotion. All this could be
achieved at an annual cost approximating that of a single qualifying session of
the kind usually organized by specialized organizations and academic institutes,
though such sessions have many drawbacks because of their short duration, the
limited number of beneficiaries and the fact that the trainee is not given a
certificate which qualifies him for further pursuit of studies and
administrative promotion.
Present day status of Qur’anic schools
Qur’anic schools are still performing the role
that we evoked earlier while referring to Islamic education in the Sultanates of
Ouddai and Kanem-Barno. Those schools formed the cornerstone of education in the
northern part of the country. They bore the burden of effacing illiteracy, and
expanding Arab Islamic culture on a wide scale. But despite the ill fortunes
that preyed on this institution, the slaughter of Kubkub, it is still prevailing
in homes, residential areas, villages and nomadic dwellings, operating on
traditional lines whereby education is optional, depending on citizens’ support,
the effort of the sheikh teacher who works voluntarily anticipating alms and
donations, and using his students’ manual work as a source of subsistence.
The Qur’anic schools still receive students from
different age groups who study Qur’an, Hadeeth and parts of the history of the
Prophet. Lately, they started receiving students from official schools (laic) on
part-time basis because or their parents wish to catch up with what is lacking
in their Arab Islamic culture which is not taught at official schools where
religious education, whether Islamic or Christian, does not figure on the
official education map.
The administration of religious affairs
supervises, to some extent, some of these Qur’anic schools. That supervision,
however, does not exceed compilation of statistics which proves to be a very
difficult task because the proliferation and variation of these schools make it
very hard to enumerate and classify them. On the other hand, the administration
in charge of eradicating illiteracy tried to use Qur’anic schools as operational
centres in the provinces of Ouddai and Shari Bagarmi. The experience was greatly
successful as testified by the high rate of inscription. The centres reached 23
in one year. This figure exceeds that of similar centres teaching in French.
Presently, the administration in charge of eradicating illiteracy is trying to
introduce modern educational subjects such as mathematics, general culture and
add some economical activities that can develop local resources.
|
