Note 153 — Chapter XI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA.

“Extracts from the Koran form the earliest reading lessons of children, and the commentaries and other works founded upon it furnish the principal subjects of the advanced studies. Schools of different grades have existed for centuries in various interior negro countries, and under the provision of law, in which even the poor are educated at the public expense, and in which the deserving are carried on many years through long courses of regular instruction. Nor is the system always confined to the Arabic language, or to the works of Arabic writers. A number of native languages have been reduced to writing, books have been translated from the Arabic and original works have been written in them. Schools also have been kept in which native languages are taught.” Condition and Character of Negroes in Africa. By Theodore Dwight. (Methodist Quarterly Review, January 1869.)

Dr. Blyden (pp. 206–7) mentions the following books as read by Muslims in Western Africa: Maqāmāt of Ḥarīrī, portions of Aristotle and Plato translated into Arabic, an Arabic version of Hippocrates, and the Arabic New Testament and Psalms issued by the American Bible Society. For the literature of the Muslims in East Africa, see Becker: Islam in Deutsch Ostafrika, p. 18 sqq. ↑