The Role of the Religious Institutions in Strengthening

The Bonds of Cooperation between Egypt and Africa

This paper discuses the role of the religious institutions in strengthening the relationship between Egypt and Africa, the Republic of Chad as a model, it is aims at  reviewing the role of these institutions in building cooperation, and the efforts of the old Chadian kingdoms to strengthen and support this cooperation, which was appeared in the creation of some educational facilities and components to serve their students in Egypt, and the role of graduates students from Egypt in creating schools at  their homeland, which resulted in the strengthening of the cultural and scientific ties. The paper followed the historical method to review the history of the kingdoms of Chad and the history of this cooperation, and the descriptive method to describe the outcomes of this cooperation.

This paper is divided  into five parts: The first part deals with the Republic of Chad, geographically and historically, and the second part deals with the role of religious schools on the Mamluk era, and the interest of the Chadian kingdoms in the Islamic education offered by these institutions, the third part deals with the role of the Egyptian religious institutions to consolidate Egypt’s relations with Chad in the era of the modern Egyptian state, and part the fourth deals with the role of Al-Azhargraduates in establishing some  institutions  that contributed to the strengthening of this cooperation and, finally, Part five deals with the impact of the Egyptian cooperation in formatting Chadian national identity.

The researcher found out that the Egyptian religious institutions have played a significant role in strengthening cooperation between Egypt and Chad since the Mamluk era, and the old Chadian kingdoms were interesting in sending  their students  to receive  the knowledge in Egypt, then there was the role of the graduates of religious institutions in the era of the modern Egyptian state, which resulted in the consolidation of this cooperation and linking Chad with their  Arabic  and Islamic neighboring countries , that help in  shaping the national identity which  was about to wiped out during the French colonization.

Dr. Mohamed Kasem