Paper long abstract:

To know Arabic or to engage in pursuing Arabic knowledge is presumably equivalent to knowing or pursuing not only the knowledge of Islam but also the totality of Islam as a religion in the Yoruba society of Nigeria. In the view of many, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, Arabic is just the same thing as Islam. This culturally oriented motivation for the study of Arabic has overtime determined the ways people learn and try to know more about Islam in the society and has also been one of deciding factors of inclusion and exclusion among the populace. For Islamic purposes, Arabic can be regarded as one of the vibrant languages being massively learned outside the realm of the so-called formal education. It has developed a very strong and viable system of its own over the ages and continues to be taught at different levels and domains such as traditional Ile Keu (school), madrasa-based system and governmental institutions. This paper explores those ways through which Arabic, via its Islamic background in the Yorubaland, south western Nigeria can, and continue to, be known. Despite various formal and informal levels and institutions where Arabic is being learnt, only three ways of knowing, this paper argue, are extant viz; ta'allum, (learning), ta'līm, (lit. teaching) and Ta'līf (authoring). These ways, which seems to be normal, transcends the border of their respective common meanings and purposes in the Yoruba-Nigerian socio-religious context. How the three work out and how they are being appropriated for socio-religious purposes in the contemporary Yorubaland are thus also engaged in this paper.