The Kwara Government says it will establish a foundation to immortalise the late Islamic cleric, Shaykh Adam Al-Ilory.

Alhaji Mohammed Raji, the Commissioner for Commerce and Co-operatives, made this public on Tuesday at the international conference on the life and works of the late cleric at the University of Ilorin.

"Al-Ilory left a legacy of academic dynamism and intellectual eclecticism through his vast writings on Arabic and Islamic studies and other fields as diverse as history, political science, Islamic mysticism and others, so he deserves to be emulated," Raji said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that other scholars at the event described Al-Ilory as a world-class intellectual who revolutionalised the teaching of Arabic and Islamic studies in Southern Nigeria.

Prof. Stefan Reichmuth, the Director of the Institute of Oriental and Islamic studies, University of Ruhr, Bochom, Germany, described the cleric as "encyclopaedic."

He said the cleric made personal contributions to Islamic studies, Arabic language and literature, adding that the feat achieved by the cleric would be difficult to match.

Scholars at the event recommended that all the works of Al-Ilory should be collected and preserved in the proposed foundation.

They further recommended that the works should be translated into English and other languages by the University of Ilorin Centre of Translation Arts.

The conference was attended by more than 300 participants from Nigeria, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Egypt, Sudan and Kuwait.
(NAN)