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In the contemporary Republic of Mali in West Africa, Arabic is not a native language of the largely Muslim population (80–90% Muslims), except for a minority of approximately 1 percent of Ḥassāniyya speakers (www.ethnologue.com). However, Standard Arabic plays an important role in Islamic education and scholarship in Mali, and in this role the language has a long history in the region. Arabic did not spread to the Sahel region of West Africa primarily as the language of Islam, however, but as a language of commercial communicat…

1. Bambara and Arabic Bambara is the largest language family of the Mande group (Niger-Congo family). From the 19th century onward, Bambara gained influence in the region as lingua franca of trade and army, and, through Bambara-speakers, in French administration and education. It is now the predominant lingua franca in Mali and Eastern Senegal, and it is also spoken in Gambia, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Sierra Leone (Baldi 1992:1–3), by a total of approximately 10 million or more people as first (around 2.8 million) or second language (<www.ethnologue.com>). In the 1st millennium C…