The History of Islamic African Peoples' Literature - 23 -Issue 24 September 2024 The Tukuror. Islam entered the country from the north, the current Borno region, in the eleventh century AD, after its king, Hami Jilmi, embraced Islam and spread it in the country. After that, Arab culture spread in the country, and Arabic became the official language in the Kanem and Borno kingdoms, and the Hausa states, and Sokoto, and it also became the language of religion and literature until the beginning of the twentieth century AD when the European colonizer marginalized it and replaced it with English. Literature flourished in Nigeria with the European colonial era, as poets used poetry to respond to missionary campaigns and defend their Islamic identity. Among the most prominent poets in this field are Aliyu dan Sidi, and the novelist Muhammadu Bello, who used his novels to resist missionary movements in the country in the 1930s AD, drawing inspiration from Hausa folk and fantasy tales in which humans speak with animals. In the Islamic state of Borno, located in present-day Nigeria, which included part of southern Niger, several scholars emerged, including: Sheikh Ahmed bin Fartu, who has works on the history of Borno, and Sheikh Omar bin Othman Al-Alim, who has works on Arabic language sciences, rhetoric, and Sharia. The Kingdom of Borno was famous for its many Quranic schools and circles of knowledge, religion, and literature.

Eras of Nigerian Arabic Literature: The Bornoan era is considered the first era of literature in Nigeria, during which Islamic kingdoms were established from the late ninth to the late thirteenth centuries AD. However, literary production in this era did not reach the desired level, and religious sciences remained superficial due to the recency of the period. Their sole concern was to spread the true religion among society and to work on building the pillars of Arab-Islamic culture. Therefore, the history of Nigeria does not record great scholars or books from this era.