About Us

History

Arabic was one of the foundation programmes introduced by this University since its inception. The Curriculum and other preliminary work on this were carried out by the then Dr. I. A. Ogunbiyi who was appointed Senior lecturer in 1975. From the beginning of 1976 and 1977, the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies took off with the then Dr. A. B. Balogun as its foundation head. During the 1977-78 session both programmes of Arabic and Islamic Studies were joined by Christian Studies and Comparative Religions Studies to form a new Department of Religions. In spite of the affinity of Arabic with Islamic Studies, the fact that Arabic distinguishes itself as essentially of language and literature makes students, lecturers and visiting experts in the field and other observers to note the aberration in its location in the Department of Religions. Senate in its wisdom approved the recommendation of the Faculty Board of Arts and the Business Committee of Senate to grant a separate department to the programme. Council also upheld the approval of Senate on this matter and approved a takeoff grant of N500, 000. The effective date of its attaining the status of a distinct Department was 1st of August, 2004. The programme has produced graduates of Arabic and through it, many Masters and Ph.D. holders have been trained. One of the products of Arabic who is the first to have made a First Class is in 1981 the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the University and currently the Registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Olarewaju Oloyede. The Department has since produced three other First Class Graduates with following students: Mubaraki, Saheed Balogun, 2014, Yusuf, Abeebullahi Adewale 2016, Otun, Afeez Akanni 2018. There are particular characteristics, which distinguish Arabic from the other Arts disciplines because it is a language, which has been studied and developed by Nigerians for eight centuries before their study of other foreign languages. Its subject matter continues to elicit the interest of millions of Nigerians who study it without depending on government support. The legacy of skill, quality and accomplishment left behind by such prolific Nigerian writers in Arabic serve as a source material for historians and other cognate disciplines in the Arts and Social Sciences. It also serves as a stimulus for students wishing to learn it as an academic discipline in the university as a continuum to what happens outside the Universities cumulatively and iteratively in addition to those who study it out of sheer interest in a foreign language.
It also provided diagnostic categories at different layers of language to enrich applied linguistics. This reciprocal relationship of Arabic with other disciplines is bound to positively influence the students of the subject. The language has influenced many Nigerian languages through convergence of lexical items through borrowing.