o - Aceh Books website

M
MABA The Maba of eastern Chad constitute that nation's largest non-Arab
Muslim group. Like other Chadian Muslims, they are universally Sunni following
the Maliki rite. Primarily a farming population, they number some 200,000
people in Chad, with several thousands living as immigrants or refugees in
neighboring Sudan. Since their conversion to Islam in the seventeenth century,
they have formed the nucleus of Wadai, today a province, but earlier a Muslim
sultanate which came to dominate the eastern Chad Basin in the nineteenth
century. After years of resistance, the Maba of Wadai were conquered by the
French in 1911. A half-century of colonial rule did little to change their culture
or to integrate them into the larger nation. For the past 15 years, the Maba and
other Chadian Muslims have been involved in a complex civil war which remains
unresolved.
The Maba homeland is located on the plateau which slopes upward from the
Chad Basin and continues into Sudan. The mean altitude is 1,500 feet, but the
landscape is punctuated with isolated granite peaks and highlands which hamper
communication. The climate and vegetation are Sahelian, with an average rainfall
of 18 inches between May and September. This rainy season is crucial to the
Maba farmers, for there are no permanent streams or rivers. Their very name is
said to derive from an Arabic phrase meaning "water is our father," although
a more likely derivation is "people of the hills." During the rains, the savanna
is covered with wild grasses, providing an important supplement to the diet as
well as forage for cattle, sheep and goats. Acacia and doum palms are the most
common trees, with groves of larger shade trees limited to dry stream beds.
Maba is a collective name for several groups who share a common culture
and speak Bora Mabang, a Nilo-Saharan language closely related to Masalit and
Runga, spoken to the northeast and south, respectively. The most important
Maba subgroups are the Kodoi, Awlad Jema, Malanga, Mandala and Madanga.
All of these groups claim to be indigenous, and they intermarry. Traditionally,
the sultan's wives came from among them, and they played important roles as
notables and soldiers. A second stratum of Maba including the Marfa, Karanga,
Kashmere, Koniere, and Kadianga seem to be clients or immigrants who over