This chapter is written by Stefan Reichmuth and Razaq D. Abubakre

Despite a Muslim presence in southern Nigeria and in the coastal towns which can be traced back to the eighteenth century, it was not until the firm establishment of local centres of Islamic learning that Arabic writing also took root in the south. For quite a long time in the nineteenth century Ilorin remained the cultural centre of Yoruba Muslims, despite the wars which were fought against the emirate by Ibadan and other Yoruba states. The…