[17][18] Along with this constant political instability, it has one of the highest levels of income inequality of any nation, and ranks in the medium quartile on the Human Development Index.

Nonetheless, after a stay in Mecca, he returned to Ngazidja, where he built a mosque in his home town of Ntsaweni, and led the gradual conversion of the islanders to Islam.

[33] France first established colonial rule in the Comoros by taking possession of Mayotte in 1841 when the Sakalava usurper sultan Andriantsoly [fr] (also known as Tsy Levalo) signed the Treaty of April 1841,[34] which ceded the island to the French authorities.

In addition to sugar on Mayotte, ylang-ylang and other perfume plants, vanilla, cloves, coffee, cocoa beans, and sisal were introduced.

On 3 August 1975, less than one month after independence, president Ahmed Abdallah was removed from office in an armed coup and replaced with United National Front of the Comoros (FNUK) member Said Mohamed Jaffar.

Very close to South Africa, which financed his "presidential guard," he allowed Paris to circumvent the international embargo on the apartheid regime via Moroni.

Abdallah continued as president until 1989 when, fearing a probable coup, he signed a decree ordering the Presidential Guard, led by Bob Denard, to disarm the armed forces.

Said Mohamed Djohar, Soilihi's older half-brother, then became president, and served until September 1995, when Bob Denard returned and attempted another coup.

[45] In April 1999, Colonel Azali Assoumani, Army Chief of Staff, seized power in a bloodless coup, overthrowing the Interim President Massounde, citing weak leadership in the face of the crisis.

The African Union, under the auspices of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, imposed sanctions on Ndzwani to help broker negotiations and effect reconciliation.

Under ongoing international pressure, as a military ruler who had originally come to power by force, and was not always democratic while in office, Assoumani led the Comoros through constitutional changes that enabled new elections.

The elections in 2006 were won by Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi, a Sunni Muslim cleric nicknamed the "Ayatollah" for his time spent studying Islam in Iran.

[51] Colonel Mohammed Bacar, a French-trained former gendarme elected President of Ndzwani in 2001, refused to step down at the end of his five-year mandate.

Ndzwani, whose capital is Mutsamudu, has a distinctive triangular shape caused by three mountain chains – Shisiwani, Nioumakele and Jimilime – emanating from a central peak, Mount Ntingui [fr] (1,575 m or 5,167 ft).

Banc du Geyser, a former island in the Comoros Archipelago, now submerged, is geographically located in the Îles Éparses, but was annexed by Madagascar in 1976 as an unclaimed territory.

As a practical matter, however, these resolutions have little effect and there is no foreseeable likelihood that Mayotte will become de facto part of the Comoros without its people's consent.

[74][75] To close the debate and to avoid being integrated by force in the Union of the Comoros, the population of Mayotte overwhelmingly chose to become an overseas department and a region of France in a 2009 referendum.

[78] In May 2013 the Union of the Comoros became known for filing a referral to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the events of "the 31 May 2010 Israeli raid on the Humanitarian Aid Flotilla bound for [the] Gaza Strip".

A defence treaty with France provides naval resources for protection of territorial waters, training of Comorian military personnel, and air surveillance.

France maintains the presence of a few senior officers in the Comoros at government request, as well as a small maritime base and a Foreign Legion Detachment (DLEM) on Mayotte.

[85] Remittances through the sizable Comorian diaspora form a substantial part of the country's GDP[86] and have contributed to decreases in poverty and increases in living standards.

[87] An October 2005 paper by the Comoros Ministry of Planning and Regional Development, however, reported that "registered unemployment rate is 14.3 percent, distributed very unevenly among and within the islands, but with marked incidence in urban areas.

[89] The islands' agricultural sector is based on the export of spices, including vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves, and thus susceptible to price fluctuations in the volatile world commodity market for these goods.

The government is struggling to upgrade education and technical training, to privatise commercial and industrial enterprises, to improve health services, to diversify exports, to promote tourism, and to reduce the high population growth rate.

Although most French left after independence in 1975, a small Creole community, descended from settlers from France, Madagascar and Réunion, lives in the Comoros.

Although the state sector is plagued by a lack of resources, and the teachers by unpaid salaries, there are numerous private and community schools of relatively good standard.

[106] Prior to 2000, students seeking a university education had to attend school outside of the country In Europe and Americas especially: France, United Kingdom.

His status in the social hierarchy greatly increases, and he will henceforth be entitled to speak in public and participate in the political process, both in his village and more widely across the island.

He will be entitled to display his status by wearing a mharuma, a type of shawl, across his shoulders, and he can enter the mosque by the door reserved for elders, and sit at the front.

The ada is often criticized because of its great expense, but at the same time it is a source of social cohesion and the main reason why migrants in France and elsewhere continue to send money home.