Da`wah: Islamic Propagation in Lagos, Southwest of Nigeria (original) (raw)
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African Studies Review, 2022
The Yoruba ethnic group has intrigued scholars of Africa for at least one hundred years. The Reverend Samuel Johnson's History of the Yorubas was first published in 1921. Since then, there have been many treatises on the cultural and societal foundations, political and economic development, identity formation, and diaspora of the Yoruba. Each study offers its own unique addition to the scholarship, and Aribidesi Usman and Toyin Falola's book The Yoruba from Prehistory to the Present is no different in this regard. Their book features a very accessible overview of Yoruba history from prehistoric times to the present, with three main areas of differentiation. First, it centers a narrative of the Yoruba that begins with their prehistoric existence (as few volumes do). Second, it gives considerable attention to other Yoruba polities outside of Ile Ife and Oyo (while most focus on Ife and Oyo primarily). Third, it has a goal of incorporating the rich archaeological evidence that is available from various other sources. The book is divided into six sections with twenty chapters (delineated by precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial independent periods); it begins with a conversation on the origins of the Yoruba using oral tradition, archaeology, and linguistic sources. Evidence is presented in Chapter One that refutes the generally accepted idea of Yoruba origins having been in the Middle East or North Africa (3). There is also an etymology of the name "Yoruba" (4-5), along with a linguistic analysis of some dialects of Yoruba subgroups, showing that they are linked by strong cultural characteristics evidenced in linguistic patterns, regardless of their geographic proximity (13-17). Chapter Two is devoted to a general prehistory of the Yoruba, based heavily on archaeological data from the Early, Middle, and Late Stone Age periods, which aligns with the first and third objectives. It features hammer stones, stone axes, palm kernels, human remains, rock shelters, and iron smelting centers, with a reference to settlement and farming as well. The authors state that widespread agriculture in Africa developed only between 6,000 and 5,000 B.C., and that Mesopotamia is noted as the earliest area with agriculture
History of the yoruba people: culture and tradition
The Yoruba people (Yoruba: Àwọn ọmọ Yorùbá) are an ethnic group of Southwestern and North central Nigeria as well as Southern and Central Benin known as the Yorubaland cultural region of West Africa. The Yoruba constitute over 40 million people in total; the majority of this population is from Nigeria and make up 21% of its population, according to the CIA World Factbook, [1] making them one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language, which is tonal, and is the Niger-Congo language with the largest number of native speakers. [7]
Yoruba Studies Review, 2021
Encyclopedia of the Yoruba is a single-volume encyclopedia that is comprised of 285 entries of short essays written by 188 authors who are predominantly scholars and academic researchers from Africa, Europe and North America. The different word-ranges of the essays vary from 1000 words (for 78 entries) to 750 words (for 88 entries) and 500 words (for 119 entries). Across these entries, the encyclopedia gives a complex, yet detailed, presentation of the Yorùbá, a dominant ethnic group in West Africa and the most prominent African cultural population, identity and presence in the African diaspora including North America, the Caribbean and South America. It presents the Yorùbá with respect to their involvements in, and interactions with, different sociocultural experiences, practices and expressions by “emphasizing the peculiarities, features, and commonalities of the people” (xi). Following an alphabetical ordering, each entry in the encyclopedia is complete on its own as it examines ...
Yoruba is a race of many tribes united by common descent, history, culture and language. Inhabiting a large area in the Guinea forest region of West Africa that covers some part of the present day Nigeria and Republic of Benin. This group of people were divided into seven Yoruba kingdoms before the civil wars that disbanded them, there are some Yoruba settlement in Cuba, Brazil, and United States of America who originated from Oduduwa's Ile-Ife Yoruba in present South West of Nigeria in Gulf of Guinea in west Africa. Yoruba is a famous tribe in the world whose relevance is inherent in archetypal image wielded by the mention of the name. "Yoruba Hegemony" searched through the world history from primeval period to the present by forensic method to ascertain the claim to their greatness.
Al-Qanatir International Journal of Islamic Studies , 2024
The advent of Islam in Africa and indeed in Nigeria has been well documented for centuries, and, profoundly, among the early converts in the West African subregion are the Yoruba people of Southwestern Nigeria. The Yoruba people are among the most versatile and urbane tribes in Africa and have had fruitful contact with Islam for over five centuries, even before the advent of colonialism and Christianity. However, accurate historiography of the advent of Islam and the impacts of religion itself on these Yoruba people has been relegated and distorted by non-Muslim historians and ethnographers who believed that the incursion of western education through colonialism was the only vehicle that had brought civilization and literacy into Yorubaland, despite the glaring legacies of Islam, which had benefited all and sundry. Therefore, with the employment of descriptive and analytical methods, this paper unearths the historical background of the advent of Islam in Yorubaland, the genealogical account of the Yoruba people, and enumerates methodically the impacts of Islam on the people, which are still felt to this day. It was discovered that in all facets, Islam has bestowed on the Yoruba people numerous legacies in the areas of culture, language, literacy, and others that cannot be easily obliterated for millennia to come. Additionally, Yoruba Muslim historians, ethnographers, academia, and scholars are urged to use various mediums to publish more works on the impacts of Islam, not only on Muslims alone but on all Yoruba descendants within and outside the shores of Nigeria.
There are many cultural practices that connect ancient Egyptians to the Yorubas and the new interpretation of the Oduduwa legend suggests that the Yorubas have originated or are influenced mainly by the Egyptians. The attestation of Egypt as the main influencer of the Yoruba culture made Egypt significant in the study of the history of the Yoruba people. Some writers are beginning to think that the ancient Egyptians were responsible for introducing and spreading many cultures amongst the Yorubas. As more Yorubas are tracing their origins and the origins of their culture to ancient Egypt, this research investigates whether the Egyptians were the originators and the main spreaders of the afterlife culture in Yorubaland.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2022
The Yoruba people, mostly found in modern-day southwestern Nigeria, created one of the most effective, stable, and celebrated civilizations and political structures in sub-Saharan Africa, with the city of Ile-Ifẹ considered its original source. The city’s founder and first sacred king, Oduduwa, was later deified as a mythic ancestor of all Yoruba people. He established a robust system of limited monarchy that was re-created in city-states all over contemporary Yorubaland and beyond. From about 1000 to 1500 CE, Ile-Ifẹ enjoyed a position as the political, economic, and religious center of the entire region, cultivating one of the most famous artistic traditions in African history and exporting its political structure to new city-states that formed their own kingdoms. As trade routes began to shift, the city-state of Ọyọ started to eclipse Ile-Ifẹ in terms of prestige and power. Still operating under the same general political schema, Ọyọ established the largest empire in the West African tropical forest and dominated affairs in Yorubaland until the end of the 18th century. Internal power struggles crippled the Ọyọ Empire, and its rapid collapse set off shock waves that destabilized the entire region. A century of almost perpetual warfare ensued in which cities and states were created, abandoned, and destroyed. No resolution could be found until British military power and intervention brokered peace and established a protectorate over most of Yorubaland, beginning the colonial era in 1893. Speaking of “Yoruba” states in precolonial history is a bit anachronistic in that the term Yoruba previously only referred to the Ọyọ subgroup. Although all people known today as Yoruba were mostly united by similar linguistic dialects, sacred history, and religious and political traditions, the broader term Yoruba came into usage in the 19th century as a result of experiences in diaspora and missionary activity.
Akinwumi Ogundiran: The Yorùbá: A New History
African Archaeology Review, 2021
Akinwumi Ogundiran: The Yorùbá: A New History Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2020, 562 pp., ISBN 978-0253051493 Lasisi, O. Akinwumi Ogundiran: The Yorùbá: A New History. Afr Archaeol Rev (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-021-09436-8