Ajami

Ajami refers to the practice of writing African languages with the Arabic script. In West Africa and the Sahel, ajami has a long history as a vehicle for Qur’anic education, religious literature, poetry, and personal correspondence, particularly among speakers of Hausa, Kanuri, Fulani, Yoruba, and Zarma. The term itself derives from the Arabic word for foreign or non-Arab, and it describes a family of scripts rather than a single standardized system.

Historically, ajami emerged through the spread of Islam and the need to read and write religious and secular texts in local languages. Scribes adapted the Arabic script to local phonologies, using diacritics and occasionally additional letters to represent sounds not present in Arabic. Distinct regional conventions developed in places such as Kano, Katsina, Timbuktu, and other urban centers, leading to a variety of ajami practices across the Sahel and Atlantic Africa.

Hausa ajami is among the most well-documented, with extensive manuscripts ranging from Qur’anic exegesis to poetry and correspondence. Yoruba, Kanuri, and Fulani communities also produced ajami texts, each with its own conventions for representing language sounds. Ajami traditions often coexisted with Latin-based scripts; in many areas, Latin literacy (boko) became dominant in formal education, leading to a gradual decline in daily use of ajami. Nevertheless, ajami remains an important element of cultural and religious heritage, with ongoing scholarly study, preservation of manuscripts in libraries, and continued use in some religious schools and community settings.