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Zaouia



Zaouia (Arabic زاوية "corner"), also spelled zawiya or zawiyah, is a Maghrebi and West African term for an Islamic religious school cum monastery, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term "madrassa". In precolonial times, these were the primary sources for education in the area, and taught basic literacy to a large proportion of children even in quite remote mountainous areas - leading to a 40% literacy rate in Algeria in 1830, for instance, which was actually higher than after the French left.



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