Literary Analysis of Mohammed Amin Bamba's Poems

ABSTRACT

This study analyzed the poetic collection of Mohammed Amin Bamba in order to highlight the quality of his works and to shed some light on his contribution on Arabic studies in Ghana. The research was based on protracted face-to-face interviews the writer conducted with the poet over a series of meetings. It equally benefited from rich sources of Arabic, both contemporary and classic. The study adopted an eclectic method; comprising historical analytical, and comparative approaches. As a scholar, Bamba has been very phenomenal, and have had a long and interesting academic enterprise this far. Apart from the school he built in Ejura, he has written generally on diverse themes, however, the most part of his works are poems on religious and socio-cultural occasions in Ghana. This work constitutes the first attempt to study the poetic pieces of Mohammed Amin Bamba in detail. The study revealed the following among others: 1. The poet is particularly passionate about Arabic-Islamic education in Ghana. After a very extensive study in both Ghana and Nigeria, he established his own school, and preoccupied himself with the training of young Muslims in Ajura and Ghana at large. 2. His poems is characterized by accurate diction, straightforward style, and elaboration of thoughts. 3. The poet is very inclined to the traditional style both in terms of content and approach, whereby he dealt with traditional themes such as description, praise, and romance. 4. As a poet, Mohammed Amin Bamba is very fond of traditional figures of speech, mainly simile and metonym, and he used extensively throughout his poems. 5. It was discovered that some of his poems contain obvious prosodic defects mainly in terms of Arabic meters. In some instance, the lines of his poems deviates completely from the specific meters of the poem.