and deference to male authority. Islam Islam became a dynamic political and military force in the Middle East in the decades immediately following Muhammad's death. By the late seventh century AD, Muslims reached North Africa and moved south into the desert. Although it is difficult to date the arrival and spread of Islam in Chad, by the time Arab migrants began arriving from the east in the fourteenth century, the faith was already widespread. Instead of being the product of conquest or the imposition of political power, Islam gradually spread in Chad, and beyond its political frontiers. Islam in Chad has adapted to its local context in many ways. For one thing, despite the presence of a large number of Chadian Arabs and although Arabic is an official language in Chad and widely spoken, Arabic is not the maternal language of the majority of Chadian Muslims. As a result, although many Chadian Muslims have attended Quranic schools, they often have learned to recite Quranic verses without understanding their inner meaning. Hence, perhaps even more than among those Chadians who understand Arabic, the recitation of verse has taken on a mystical character among Chadian Muslims. Moreover, Islam in Chad was not particularly influenced by the great mystical movements of the Islamic Middle Ages or the fundamentalist upheavals that affected the faith in the Middle East, West Africa, and Sudan. Beginning in the Middle East in the thirteenth century, Muslim mystics and da'is sought to complement the intellectual comprehension of Islam with direct religious experience through prayer, contemplation, and action. The followers of these da'is founded brotherhoods, which institutionalized their teachers' interpretations of the faith. Such organizations stimulated the spread of Islam and also provided opportunities for joint action, for the most part, which was not the case in Chad, where only two brotherhoods exist. Perhaps as a result of prolonged contact with West African Muslim traders and pilgrims, most Chadian Muslims identify with the Tijaniyya order, but the brotherhood has not served as a rallying point for unified action. Similarly, the Sanusiyya, a brotherhood founded in Libya in the mid-nineteenth century, enjoyed substantial economic and political influence in the Lake Chad Basin around 1900. Despite French fears of an Islamic revival movement led by "Sanusi fanatics," Chadian adherents, limited to the Awlad Sulayman Arabs and the Toubou of eastern Tibesti, have never been numerous. Chapelle writes that even though Chadian Islam