Traditional Islamic Arithmetics (ḥisāb, ḥisaabi) in Islamophone Northern (Hausa, Kano) and Western (Yoruba, Ilorin) Nigeria: Routines and Peculiarities

The bibliographical evidence does not allow us to trace the introduction of Is- lamic-Arabic scholarly traditions of reckoning in the territory of modern Nigeria in such a way that the sender, message and addressee can be clearly identified. Titles, author names and very different disciplinary and regional influences are too fragmentary and spread over two centuries. Local adaptions of such selected techniques combined and amalgamated by canonic and esoteric religion, belief and practical needs led into types of treatises that were noted down in concise Arabic and Hausa manuscript texts that were obviously used as starting points for the teaching, learning and application of basic (or not so basic) arithmetical procedures some of which will be presented, investigated and explained.