African elites started putting more weight in reviving the use of Arabic script when they suddenly come to realize that the official definition of illiterate was not accurate. In an effort to have a deeper understanding of illiteracy within the context of the illiteracy eradication projects, the African scholars realized that the definition of a literate person as given by UNESCO is: (the person who can read and write in Latin alphabets) has evidently excludes a large number of Africans who can actually write and read their local languages using the Arabic script. At the same time, statistics show that two third of children in these nations receive their early education in Arabic script, while some adult still use it in their daily transactions and correspondences. This is not to talk of the large pool of African literary heritage documented in the Arabic script, only little of which is known to the world.

Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ali, the Director of the Islamic Development Bank takes the credit of being the first to hold the view of reviving the use of Arabic script in writing the African languages at least publicly. When shared with Mr. Ahmad Mukhtar Ambo, the Director of UNESCO, he welcome the idea and gave it a very wide publicity. The idea gained acceptance as many organizations answered to the call of the Director of IDB.

In March of 1984, the UNESCO, IDB and World Islamic Call Society (WICS) signed an agreement with the UNESCO regional project. The agreement was that of illiteracy eradication using the Arabic script. The project consists of a number of programs as follows:

• To study the situation of the Arabic script among the African users. The study was conducted in Mali, Senegal, Niger and Nigeria.
• Organizing conferences with the theme of designing the specific alphabets for writing the Bolar, Fulfulde Songhai, Zurma, Wolof, Kanuri and Hausa languages.
• Establishing model classes for the use of Arabic script in teaching the local languages in Qur'anic schools in Mali, Senegal and Niger.

The most important step that followed this was the unification of the symbols that represent the same sound in different languages. This made it possible for the users to avoid representing the same sound with many symbols.

In August and September of 1989, two conferences were held, the first in Khartoum and the second in Rabat. The conferences were collaborative efforts of Khartoum International Institute of Arabic, IDB, and the Institute of Research and Studies for Arabicization. As a result, the scripts used for writing six of the East African languages were unified. These include Comoros language, Swahili, Oromo, Denka, Lokbara and Lokanda, so also West African Bolari, Fulfulde, Songhai and Zurma. The project was later extended to include other West African languages as Hausa, Kanuri, Tamashug, Manlike, Bambara, Swoswo, Lonoke and Sarakoli.

From 11th to 16th July, 1991, the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization in collaboration with IDB and Khartoum International Institute of Arabic organized another conference in promotion of the same idea. Apart from the representatives of organizing bodies, highly qualified experts had participated in the conference. The organizations that had representation in the conference include UNESCO, the Institute of Studies and Research for Arabization, expert from Comoros, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal. The conference resulted into a unanimous agreement over the specific Arabic symbols to be used for writing a collection of languages being extensively studied in their morphological, historical pedagogical and artistic contexts.

When the Islamic Development Bank in collaboration with International Organization for Islamic Call funded the project of manufacturing 600 manual typewriters specifically designed for typing 16 different African languages in Arabic script, the project was considered to have graduated into a higher level. It was a good preparatory stage before the whole thing was introduced into educational system especially in illiteracy eradication programs.

The project stepped into an advanced stage when the International University of Africa made a giant move by publishing widely circulated reading materials as an after math of illiteracy eradication. These materials discussed health, animals rearing, farming and other community oriented issues. In the same line, ISESCO produced an operational curriculum for illiteracy eradication and in some African languages. The materials discussed the patterns of improving the traditional farming, animals rearing, planning individual activities, Islamic education, nursing, purity, health and mathematics. The materials were produced in Fulfulde, Hausa and Comoros languages.

In promoting the same project, the International University of Africa in collaboration with ISESCO has translated Sheikh Muhammad Mahmud el-Swawwaaf's book Ta'alim es-swalat in 1997 into many African languages using the Arabic scrip.

The plans for the expansion of Arabic script project have already gone far. The project planned to include a number of local languages in the Muslim communities in a number of Asian countries. These are Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Dar-es-Salam, Philippine, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and China.

At this stage, the project aims at making it possible for larger number of Muslims to be able to contribute in developing their societies and be able to communicate with their cultural heritage. It also aims at simplifying teaching reading and writing in Arabic script which is naturally going to open a window for learning Arabic language.