Religious Excerpts In West African Arabic Literature

Abstract

The study focused on religious excepts and its significance in West African Arabic

Poetry, seeking to showcase not only the extent of occurrence of these excerpts, but

also its artistic value. The study was carried out on pieces of poems curled from

collection of individual poets from the dawn of the twentieth century to date. The

essence of the study was to highlight the central role of excerpts technically defined in

Arabic Rhetoric as "al-iqtibas" in consolidating the thoughts expressed in West

African Arabic poems.

The study adopted an inductive and descriptive analytical approaches, whereby the

researcher identified, described, and analysed religious excerpts, mainly from Quran

and Hadith, that have been featured in the sampled poems. Generally Muslim scholars

consider the Quran and Hadith as linguistic masterpieces and standard work worthy of

emulation. This primarily explains why Muslim novelists and poets, frequently

feature in their works, excerpts from Quran and Hadith. They seek to offer their piece

of work, both the requisite linguistic value and authoritative voice. This phenomenon

has not been duly explored as far as West African poetry is concerned. This is what

necessitated this study. Among others, the study made the following observations:

1. It was established that West African Arabic poets used religious excerpts

mainly in exhortation and advice, seeking to influence their audience.

2. The study revealed that religious excepts occurred mostly in descriptive

poems, and the poets display a depth of creativity in terms of situating the

excerpts in proper context.

3. In the same way, the poet used religious excerpts in poems of complaints and

intersession, whereby they featured quotes from Quran and Hadith relating to

supplications.

4. It came to light that two main forms of religious excerpts were predominantly

used in these poems; direct quotes and indirect quotes. In the latter, the poets

reproduced the meaning contained in specific quotes, while in the former they

used same words to convey same thoughts.

5. It emerged that the goal for replicating religious excepts in most of the poems,

was to inculcate sound morals in the audience.