Qur'anic and Ajami literacies in pre-colonial West Africa

Abstract

Traditional African literacy practices have often been ignored in the wake of European colonialism and the educational policies of colonial governments. Nonetheless, literacy had been established in parts of Africa following the introduction of Islam. This paper will examine the developments of literacy in pre-colonial West Africa. In this region, literacy was introduced for specifically religious functions associated with the practice of Muslim religion and was conducted in Arabic. The introduction of literacy for religious purposes also gave rise to the development of secular literacy practices in which the practices derived from religious literacy were developed in new contexts, and in African languages. The influence of Islam on literacy in Africa languages gave rise to Ajami, African language literacy using Arabic script. The development of Ajami involved a process of micro-language planning in which individuals educated in Arabic adapted Arabic script to the phonologies of local languages giving rise to variable, unstandardised written system.