Özet:

West Africa is a region that has had strong commercial and cultural relations in the past with North Africa, which was ruled by the Arabs. However, narrative African Literature was not much affected by Arabic writing in transforming it into written literature before the arrival of Islam. When Islam came to the region, African Muslims were interested in Arabic, and they specialized in all branches of the Arabic language, especially in Arabic poetry. It was rare to come across a famous scholar who does not have a Divan (poetry collection) or at least does not have an ode for the prophet or anyone else in the regionThese poets, however, were at the same time the scholars of the societies they were living in. Despite all this, some subjects of Arab-African poetry remained undiscovered by researchers and scholars of literature, so we deemed it beneficial to study one of these topics in a literal and rhetorical approach. The topic we settled on is the art of elegy by West African poets in the 20th century. While expressing their perspectives towards life, African literati wrote their poems based on Arabic poems and showed their own poetry skills. It could be argued that the interest of most poets of the region was different in terms of the genres to Arab poetry. They usually started their poems by praising primarily Hazrat Prophet then their sheikhs. In style and importance, there is not much difference between elegy and praise. While Sheikhs and scholars were included in their elegies, we were surprised that they didn't give place to The Prophet (peace be upon him) nor his companions. West African poets followed classical Arabic poets in terms of style and content in their laments and wrote dirges for people, places and animals. They honor deceased persons, be it family members, relatives or friends, scholars, or prominent persons in the community. If the deceased were scholars or saints, they praised them by emphasizing their knowledge, piety, oracles and sufi rank. If the dead was one of the leaders, poets wrote about his struggles to free his country from the malicious colonists in their odes. In addition, innovations seem in odes written for people. On the other hand, poets in their odes expressed their sorrow for the sacred places and scientific centers that were destroyed due to external and internal conflicts, both regionally and globally. Examples of these places include Sokoto, the capital city of the Islamic state founded by Fullânî Osman Dan Fûdî, which was destroyed by the British colonialists, the city of Masina, a scientific center destroyed due to the sectarian differences and clashes, or the Masjid al-Aqsa occupied by Israel. As for the odes written for animals, death of animals did not seem to evoke the feelings of poets in the region. Only a very few poets addressed this issue in their poems. For example, the poet Ahmed ‘iyân Sî who was affected by the death of a cat, and Amir Samba, who was upset about the death of a parrot wrote odes for these pets. Some West African poets expressed their sadness and grief as if they were wailing for the dead in their odes. However, while they expressed their deep grief, they did not leave the doctrines of Islam, immediately remembering that Allah pronounced death on all creations. After lamenting and crying for the dead person in their poems, some poets invited people to stay away from worldly desires and to prepare for the hereafter. Others did not stay away from their country's social and political issues while describing the virtues and outstanding characteristics of the deceased. The poets artistically combine Arabic and African styles which have literally displayed all the contents of odes that express their intense feelings. Part of the findings we arrived at in this study is that there is a concentrated usage of rhetorical structures coupled with indigenous African phrases by African poets in their elegy, such as their analogy to the morals of the person they are praising or eulogizing with the purity of milk, which is an important food for poets from the tribes who are known herdsmen. They used rhetoric widely and while using narrative arts, they mentioned the styles of African languages. As the poets of the region used African poetic styles, odes written in West Africa differed from those in classical Arabic poetry and brought a new and unique tone to African Arabic poetry. In order to highlight these features of the specific African Arabic poetry in this study, we tried to shed light on the types of elegies that the poets in the region tackled and the issues they considered while discussing the values of their dead. Also, the art of eloquence found in some of these elegies and the artistic methods poets derived from the African nature and the realities they lived were examined using an analytical method, in order to depict their mastery in the art of elegy.

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