Arabic Literature of Travelogue in Nigeria: A Case Study of Ishaq Ayyub Baba-Oye’s Poems Literature of Travelogue

Abstract

The art of travelogue is one of the Arabic literary trends in Nigeria, as scholars admired it since the twentieth century by writing poetry or prose, due to its aim at imparting the knowledge of geographical descriptions, historic facts and societal development in the readers and documenting the scholars’ experiences from various travels which could be for the acquisition of ascetic, cultural, diplomatic and socio-economic values, The main objectives of the study were to determine the extent at which the selected literary works of Is-haq Ayyub Baba-Oye, as a case study, met the requirements of the art of travelogue with contents analysis. The selected poet, is considered as one of the admirers of the art of travelogue, as proven by his two literary works on travels to Ngala-Maiduguri of Nigeria and Cairo of Egypt Republic. The methodology adopted is both historical and descriptive. It is historical by presenting the background of the art of travelogue in the Nigerian Arabic literature, then identification of scholars involved, followed by the biography of the poet. It is descriptive, as contents of selected works were unveiled while discourse analysis of the artistic and critical features was handled with formative and thematic measures. It was noticed that the author did the justice to the genre to his best capability, therefore, the work is recommended for readers for the benefits of the contents and embellishments.