Chad sits on the religious fault line of the Sahel, its Muslim majority concentrated in the arid north and its Christian population, split between Catholic and Protestant, concentrated in the wetter south, with the two communities meeting most sharply where mostly Muslim herders and mostly Christian farmers compete over the same land. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and bars any propaganda, ethnic, tribal, regional or religious, that would undermine the secularism of the state, and a Director of Religious and Traditional Affairs under the Ministry of the Interior arbitrates intercommunal disputes as part of the ordinary work of government. Chad marks both Christian and Islamic holidays, including Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Easter Monday, All Saints Day and Christmas, as national public holidays, a calendar that treats the two majority traditions as equally established in practice rather than by any formal establishment in law. Violent extremism linked to religion has been largely confined to the Lake Chad basin in the country's far west, leaving most of Chad's interfaith relations comparatively calm despite the same demographic split that has produced conflict elsewhere in the region.
Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status Registration or Recognition RegimeSourced to the subject's own accountAll associations, religious and non-religious alike, must register with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralized Territorial Collectivities. 4 Ban or Official WatchlistSourced to the subject's own accountThe government banned the Al Mountada al Islami and World Association for Muslim Youth organizations for portraying violence as a legitimate precept of Islam. 4 Classification
State Funding of ReligionState Neutrality Among Religions 5 Government
Government Type Sovereignty StatusSovereign UN member state 2 Established Year Demographics
Religious CompositionAbout 55 per cent Muslim and 41 per cent Christian, split between Catholic and Protestant, with the remainder following traditional beliefs (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1 Status
Legal StatusThe constitution guarantees freedom of religion and equality before the law without distinction as to religion, and it bars any ethnic, tribal, regional or religious propaganda that would undermine the secularism of the state. 3 Government type (class) Location
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Religion and History in Chad
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Chad sits on the religious fault line of the Sahel, its Muslim majority, about 55 per cent, concentrated in the arid north and its Christian population, roughly 41 per cent and split between Catholic and Protestant, concentrated in the wetter south. The two communities meet most sharply where mostly Muslim herders and mostly Christian farmers compete over the same land, a demographic and religious divide that maps onto Chad's underlying ecological one.
Chad marks both Christian and Islamic holidays, including Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Easter Monday, All Saints Day and Christmas, as national public holidays, a calendar that treats the two majority traditions as equally established in practice rather than by any formal establishment in law. Violent extremism linked to religion has been largely confined to the Lake Chad basin in the country's far west, leaving most of Chad's interfaith relations comparatively calm despite the same demographic split that has produced conflict elsewhere in the region.
Secularism and Shared Holidays in Chadian Law
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Chad's constitution guarantees freedom of religion and equality before the law without distinction as to religion, and it bars any ethnic, tribal, regional or religious propaganda that would undermine the secularism of the state. That secularism is administered rather than merely declared: a Director of Religious and Traditional Affairs under the Ministry of the Interior arbitrates intercommunal disputes as part of the ordinary work of government, a standing office rather than an occasional mediator called in only during crises.
The government's calendar of national public holidays gives one of the clearest practical expressions of Chad's approach: Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Easter Monday, All Saints Day and Christmas are all observed as national holidays, a deliberate parity between Islam and Christianity that goes beyond what the bare constitutional guarantee of equality requires and reflects the near-even demographic split between the two traditions.
Chad
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Connections
Ancient and Historical Regions
Source United Nations Statistics Division: UN M49 Standard country or area codes for statistical use: geographic regions
Associated With
This source names Chad directly: "migrant laborers, including many from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, into a city where they found neither stable industrial employment nor a place in the existing religious establishment, leaving them..."
Source Divinity Atlas Original Articles, Second Edition
This source names Chad directly: "Chad Bauman's academic study examines the pattern of anti-Christian violence across contemporary India, arguing that Pentecostal and independent evangelical Christians are disproportionately..."
Source Divinity Atlas Original Articles, Second Edition
This source names Chad directly: "jihad states in Senegal, Mali and Chad, the most significant expansion of organised Islam in West Africa since the medieval Mali Empire."
Source Sokoto Caliphate (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence AgencyGovernment, government type: ChadView the Source 3. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source 4. Freedom of Religion in Chad (Wikipedia)
Legal and policy framework section, Freedom of religion in Chad
All associations (religious and non-religious0, must register with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralized Territorial Collectivities.
Status in the early 2000s subsection, Freedom of religion in Chad
The Al Mountada al Islami and the World Association for Muslim Youth organizations were banned by the government for portraying violence as a legitimate precept of Islam.
View the Source5. The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Press- demonym / adjectival form
Entity description, state-funding
The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and bars any propaganda, ethnic, tribal, regional or religious, that would undermine the secularism of the state
View the Source United Nations Statistics Division: UN M49 Standard country or area codes for statistical use: geographic regions
United Nations Statistics DivisionAncient and Historical Regions: Central Africa, Geographic regions table, Middle AfricaQuote, Ancient and Historical Regions: Central Africa, Geographic regions table, Middle Africa
Middle Africa 017 Angola 024 AGO LDC Cameroon 120 CMR Central African Republic 140 CAF LDC LLDC Chad 148 TCD LDC LLDC Congo 178 COG Democratic Republic of the Congo 180 COD LDC Equatorial Guinea 226 GNQ Gabon 266 GAB Sao Tome and Principe 678 STP SIDS
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