Praising the Prophet in West Africa: The Profound Eloquence of Arabic Madih Poems

West Africa has a rich history of the writing and reading of Arabic poetry that connects the region to the literary and philosophical traditions of the wider Muslim world. Building on praise poems composed by the Prophet Muhammad’s own companions, and the work of medieval Egyptian masters such as al-Busiri, West African religious teachers developed their own tradition of writing madih, or praise poems. Yet these verses are not mere panegyrics; they are eloquently profound encapsulations of Islamic metaphysics in which the whole of creation is seen as an ongoing act of praise. And in the hands of such modern masters as Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, madih poems were deployed as spiritual vehicles to transport both their writers and reciters into the metaphysical presence of the Prophet himself. Nile Green talks to Oludamini Ogunnaike, author of Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: A Study of West African Arabic Madih Poetry and its Precedents (Cambridge, 2020).