Madar (Nouakchott) - Mauritania's Minister of Islamic Affairs and Original Education, Sid El Hadj Dah Ab, said the number of mahadras (traditional Quranic schools) supported by his department rose over the past seven years from 60 to 1,767, while regional institutes of original education increased from 4 to 9, the independent Alakhbar agency reported on Monday evening, November 2, 2026.
The minister was speaking at the opening of a training forum for mahadra sheikhs in the town of M'Bout, where he said the mahadra "was never merely a place for memorising texts and teaching sciences" but had remained over the centuries "a school for producing scholars and a bulwark for preserving identity," rooting values of brotherhood, tolerance and social cohesion.
He added that the educational and scholarly event reflected a will to link the legacy of the past with the needs of the present and to invest the country's scholarly and civilisational heritage in building the future.
The minister said the sector had seen "an unprecedented qualitative leap," being raised for the first time in the country's history to the rank of sovereign sectors, with the creation of a house of the Holy Quran, a Higher Zakat Council and a President of the Republic's prize for memorising and understanding mahadra texts.
