What is "zawaya"

The Zawāyā are tribes in the southern Sahara who have traditionally followed a deeply religious way of life. They accepted a subordinate position to the warrior tribes, whether Arab or Berber, who had little interest in Islam. The Zawāyā introduced Sufi brotherhoods to the black populations south of the Sahara. The jihad movements of the Fula people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have their origins with the Zawāyā. Today the Zawāyā are one of the two noble castes of Mauritania.