DOMESTICATION OF ARABIC PROSE IN NIGERIA
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Date
2012
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Abstract
Prose is not alien to Arabic writings of Nigerian authorship. There is,however, preponderance of poems in Arabic writings of Nigerian descent.That poetry is more embraced could be due to many factors, chief amongwhich is that it is easy to memorize. The metric and rhythmic nature ofArabic poem coupled with lyrical tendencies of many Nigerians make poemeasy for them to compose. The musical attributes of poetry make it a veryefficient means of disseminating message; hence the huge reliance on it byearly scholars of Arabic for their teachings. It is also a historical fact thatpoetry preceded prose in germinating in every human society. Anotherimportant reason that endeared poetry to the ancient writers was that theywere more in contact with poetic works of the Arabs than prosaic materials.The themes of ancient Arabic writings both poetry and prose, were almostsynonymous in the sense that they were didactic, meant to teach religiousrituals. Many works of the forerunners in using Arabic language attest to thisas we can see in the preface to the famous Ihya' us-Sunnah of Uthman binFodio, where he stated that his intention was only to revive the prophetictraditions. In other words, many of the prosaic works of the early scholarswere confined to religious issues. This has made it very uncommon to findArabic writings that were principally aimed at discussing other themes apartfrom religious matters.The emergence of Shaykh Adam Abdullahi Al-Ilory brought aboutreform and transformation of Arabic prosaic writings in Nigeria. The concernof this paper therefore, is the study of selected themes from Al-Ilory's worksin his efforts to domesticate Arabic prose writing. The paper is divided intofive sections namely introduction; short biography of Al-Ilory; synopsis of the selected works; analysis of the works and conclusion.