The history of literary composition in Arabic extends over a period close to eight hundred years in this region. The first known writer in Arabic was a grammarian and poet of Kanem, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm al-Kānemī, who was active c. 1200; at the present time scholars are still using Arabic as the language of their doctrinal polemics, of their Islamic teaching manuals and of the poetry they so frequently write in praise of the Prophet, in praise of Sufi leaders, and to elegize departed friends, colleagues and patrons. Indeed, in the secon…