Zaouia (Arabic زاوية "corner"), also spelled
zawiya,
zawiyah,
zaouiya,
zaouïa zwaya, etc, is a
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
i and West African term for an
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic religious school or monastery, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term "madrassa". The zawiya often contains a pool, and sometimes a fountain.
In precolonial times, these were the primary sources for education in the area, and taught basic
literacyLiteracy is a concept claimed and defined by a range of different theoretical fields. In everyday terms, "literacy" is typically described as the ability to read and write...
to a large proportion of children even in quite remote mountainous areas - leading according to some estimates to up to a 40% literacy rate in
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
in 1830, for instance, which is supposedly higher than after the French left.
Zaouia (Arabic زاوية "corner"), also spelled
zawiya,
zawiyah,
zaouiya,
zaouïa zwaya, etc, is a
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
i and West African term for an
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic religious school or monastery, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term "madrassa". The zawiya often contains a pool, and sometimes a fountain.
Schools in the Maghreb
In precolonial times, these were the primary sources for education in the area, and taught basic
literacyLiteracy is a concept claimed and defined by a range of different theoretical fields. In everyday terms, "literacy" is typically described as the ability to read and write...
to a large proportion of children even in quite remote mountainous areas - leading according to some estimates to up to a 40% literacy rate in
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
in 1830, for instance, which is supposedly higher than after the French left. Their curriculum began with memorization of the
Arabic alphabetThe Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic and Urdu. After the Latin alphabet, it is the second-most widely used alphabet around the world....
and the later, shorter suras of the
Qur'anThe Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam...
; if a student was sufficiently interested or apt, it progressed to law (
fiqhFiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the Sharia Islamic law—based directly on the Quran and Sunnah—that complements Shariah with evolving rulings/interpretations of Islamic jurists....
), theology, Arabic grammar (usually taught with al-Ajurrumi's famous summary), mathematics (mainly as it pertained to the complex legal system of inheritance distribution), and sometimes astronomy. These are still operational throughout the Maghreb, and continue to be a major educational resource in the
SahelThe Sahel or Sahel Belt is a semi-arid tropical savanna and steppe ecoregion in Africa, which forms the transition between the Sahara to the north and the slightly less arid savanna belt to the south, known as the Sudan .-Geography:The Sahel runs 2,400...
of
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries distributed over an area of approximately 5 million square km:*Benin...
, from
MauritaniaMauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest...
to
NigeriaNigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger...
.
Sufi lodges
In the
Arab worldThe Arab World refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast...
, the term
zawiya can also refer to a Sufi lodge, akin to the term
khanqahA khanqah, khaniqah , ribat, zawiya, or tekke is a building designed specifically for gatherings of a Sufi brotherhood, or tariqa, and is a place for spiritual retreat and character reformation...
used in the Persian-speaking world. An example is the
Hilaliyya ZawiyaThe Hilaliyya Zawiya is a zawiya located in the east part of the Jallum quarter of Aleppo, Syria. It was reconstructed in 1790 to accommodate a mausoleum for Sheikh Mohammed Hilal Ram Hamdani. It has evolved into a place where pilgrims could meditate in seclusion....
in
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
. One of the best known living or contemporary Zawiya's today is located in
LefkeLefke may refer to two different Turkish cities;* It is the former name of Orhaneli, in Bursa Province* For the city in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, see Lefka...
,
CyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon....
and is part of the
NaqshbandiNaqshbandi is one of the major tasawwuf orders of Islam. The order is considered to be a "sober" order as many following the Naqshbandi Sufi way have chosen the silent dhikr of the Heart, rather than the vocalized forms of dhikr common in other orders.The Naqshbandi Order is the only Sufi order...
Sufi Order. There are several extensions or sub-zawiyas affiliated with this Zawiya located in places around the world.
Hassane tribal usage
Among the
HassaniyaHassānīya Arabic is an Arabic variety originally spoken by the Beni Hassān Bedouin tribes, who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and the Western Sahara between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has almost completely replaced the Berber languages spoken in this region...
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
-speaking populations of
MauritaniaMauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest...
,
MoroccoMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
, Mali and
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
(often referred to as
MoorsThe description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of Muslim people of Berber, Black African and Arab descent from North Africa, some of whom came to conquer and occupy the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. The North Africans termed it Al Andalus, comprising most...
/
MaureA Maure, since the 11th century AD, is the symbol of an African head.The term has Phoenician and Greek origins; see Moors.- U Moru :The main symbol in the coat of arms in Corsica is U Moru, Corsican for "The Moor", originally a female Moor blindfolded and wearing a necklace made of beads...
and Sahrawis), the term is also used to signify a certain type of tribe. Sahrawi-Moorish society was traditionally (and still is, to some extent) stratified into several tribal
casteA caste is a combined social system of occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power. Caste should not be confused with class, in that members of a caste are deemed to be alike in function or culture, whereas not all members of a defined class may be so alike.Although Indian...
s, with the
HassaneThe Hassane is a name for the traditionally dominant warrior tribes of the Sahrawi-Moorish areas of present-day Mauritania and Western Sahara. Although lines were blurred by intermarriage and tribal re-affiliation, the Hassane were considered descendants of the Arab Maqil tribe Beni Hassan , and...
warrior tribes ruling and extracting tribute -
hormaThe horma was a tribute paid by subservient tribes to their protectors in traditional Sahrawi-Moorish society in today's Mauritania and Western Sahara in North Africa. The powerful Hassane warrior tribes would extract it from low-caste Znaga tribes, where each member was forced to personally pay an...
- from the subservient
znagaThe Znaga or Zenaga tribes were at the bottom of Sahrawi-Moorish society in today's Mauritania and Western Sahara in North Africa. They performed demeaning duties for their Hassane and Zawiya overlords, and were additionally exploited through payment of the horma tax in exchange for protection,...
tribes. A middle caste was formed by the Zawiya, or scholarly tribes, who provided
religiousA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
teaching and services. This did not necessarily mean that they maintained a monastery or school as described above, since all these tribes were more or less nomadic. However, important shaykhs would sometimes create schools, or, after their deaths, their
gravesA grave is a location where a dead body is buried. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries....
would turn into holy places of significance to the tribe.
Often, the Zawiya tended to be descended from Sanhadja
BerberBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the...
s, while the Hassane claimed lineage from the
Beni HassanBeni Ḥassān was a Bedouin group, one of several Yemeni Maqil Arab tribes who emigrated in the Middle Ages to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania...
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
s. Even if intermarriage and tribal alliances made the distinction difficult to maintain from a scientific perspective, it was culturally important; however, from about the 19th century, most or all Sahrawi-Moorish tribes had adopted the Hassaniyya Arabic dialect and come to regard themselves as Arabs. Sometimes, the Zawiya and Hassane roles changed with this: military and economic strength would often lead to a gradual redefinition of the tribe's role, and, simultaneously, to its self-perception of religious and ethnic background. Especially in the northern Hassane areas, i.e. today's Western Sahara, the Zawiya tribes were more or less synonymous with the Chorfa, tribes who claimed descent from the
ProphetIn religion, a prophet is a person who has been contacted by, or has encountered, the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other humans...
MuhammadMuhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh , is the founder of the religion of Islam [ إِسْلامْ ] and is regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of , the last and the greatest law-bearer in a series of Islamic prophets as taught by the...
. In the areas corresponding broadly to today's Mauritania, this was not necessarily so; there, the name "
MaraboutA marabout is an Islamic religious leader and teacher in West Africa, and in the Maghreb. The marabout is often a scholar of the Qur'an, or religious teacher. Others may be wandering holy men who survive on alms, Sufi Murshids , or leaders of religious communities...
" is also used synonymously with "Zawiya" in its tribal meaning.
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