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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Arabic studies in the Nigerian university system: retrospections, introspections, and projections |
Author: | Sanni, Amidu |
Year: | 2011 |
Periodical: | Journal of Oriental and African Studies |
Volume: | 20 |
Pages: | 95-116 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Nigeria |
Subjects: | Islamic studies Arabic language higher education educational history |
Abstract: | This paper was originally presented at the International Conference on Arabic and Islamic Cultural Studies in Nigeria, held in April 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of the introduction of Arabic and Islamic Studies as an academic discipline at the University of Ibadan. It traces the history of Arabic and Islamic Studies from 1904 when the first modern centre of Islamic Studies was established in Lagos, until 1948 when the University College of Ibadan was founded as an affiliate of the University of London. It discusses the dilemma of Nigerian Arabism and the fact that the curriculum in the Ibadan school was, from its inception, modelled on the 'orientalist' prototype. Factors that contributed to changes in the curriculum, philosophy and objectives of the discipline are examined for the periods 1904-1962, 1962-1979 (postcolonial until the emergence of the 'Islamization of knowledge campaign'), 1980-2000 (postmodernism), and 2000-to date (cyber period). The paper offers suggestions on how the discipline can be made more relevant through repackaging of input, reorientation of faculty, and appropriation of progressive facilities like the Internet. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract] |