Muhammad Awuda Ouléch at Abéché: a reformist Islamic challenge to French and traditionalist interests in Ouaddai, Chad, 1947-1956

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Title:	Muhammad Awuda Ouléch at Abéché: a reformist Islamic challenge to French and traditionalist interests in Ouaddai, Chad, 1947-1956
Author:	Gardinier, D.E.
Year:	1989
Periodical:	Islam et sociétés au Sud du Sahara
Issue:	3
Pages:	159-185
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Chad
Subjects:	Islamic movements national liberation movements biographies (form)
Abstract:	The return to Abéché in 1947 of the faqih Muhammad Awuda Ouléch from Cairo in order to create an institute of reformist Muslim learning marked the beginning of a new challenge to both French and traditionalist interests in the Ouaddai Region of eastern Chad. The soon flourishing 'ma'ahad al-'ilmi' which Ouléch founded in the capital of Ouaddai spurred the French colonial administration to organize a competing institution, the 'collège franco-arabe' of Abéché. It would achieve only moderate success despite the backing of the Ouaddaian sultan and notables who were attached to a traditionalist Islam. Though the administration expelled Ouléch from Abéché for his allegedly hostile activities and though the sultan pressured some of his 'foqaha' to teach at the collège, thereby crippling the ma'ahad, they were never able to win over the bulk of the Muslim population. Notes, ref.