Lesson 1 Arabic

Classroom Tour
v Participants list
v Chatbox
v Private Messages
v Hand up button and others
v Microphone/Video
v The course page is the page from which you entered the
classroom. There if you scroll down you will find materials for each
class coming up as and when needed for you to look at. Also,
within 24 hours of each class, the recording will be up under the
relevant date. There is also a forum where you can ask questions
or discuss issues related to class with your classmates.
v Don’t forget there is also a class whastapp group
1. Intentions – make your intentions for learning Arabic clear so
that you can remind yourself in order to encourage your
progress and reap more rewards
2. Respect – we should understand that this is the language of
revelation and thus, its study should be undertaken with
respect and part of this respect is to do our best in it
3. Patience – if you really want to grasp the language, it takes
time. The scholars used to say, “The entrance to Arabic is hard
and its exit is easy.” So there is light at the end of the tunnel!
We must be patient with ourselves as well as with our
classmates.
4. Duʿā - Allah says, “He (Allah) taught man the art of
expression.” (Qurʾān 55:4) So we should make duʿā for help on
this journey of Arabic.
Aims of this course:
v Recognize the letters in all their forms

v Read Arabic texts correctly
v Transliterate texts correctly
v Pronounce texts correctly
v Feel comfortable reading Qurʾān
v Learn some vocabulary
v Recognize Arabic numerals
The way that Arabic differs from English in particular is that it is a very
structured and logical language. It has many rules but this should not
put you off – these rules are in fact helpful since once you know the
rule all you have to do is apply it. Whereas with English there are so
many exceptions that they are almost a rule within themselves!
Also, it should please us to know that just because some of us may not
be Arab, that does not mean anything! There was a man called
Sībawayh, and as students of the Arabic language we should all
remember his name. He was the first person to ever codify Arabic
grammar and write a book on it, and he was Persian! His book is called
Al Kitab (the Book). Also, one of the great hadith scholars we know,
Imam Bukhari, was from Uzbekistan – his not being Arab did not
prevent him from being a master in Arabic!
Arabic has contributed numerous words to the
English language such as:
qutun ‫قطن‬
ghazaal ‫غزال‬
qithaara ‫قيثارة‬
alkaḥool ‫الكحول‬
laymoon ‫ليمون‬
Types of Arabic:
• Classical Arabic or Fuṣḥa. This is the language of the Qur’an and ḥadith. It
remains widely used by religious scholars but it is generally considered
today more of a written language than a spoken one. It is considered to be
the base of the syntactic and grammatical norms of the Arabic language
we have today.
• Modern Standard Arabic or MSA. This is the closest thing to Fuṣḥa, it is
similar but easier than Classical Arabic. It is understood across the Arab
world and used by television presenters and politicians, for example, as
well as to teach Arabic as a foreign language. You'll also find it in
newspapers and works of modern Arabic literature.
• ʿĀmiyyah. This is the spoken form of Arabic of which there are many
different dialects depending on where in the Arabic speaking world a
person is. An Arabic speaker from Iraq, for example, can find it almost
impossible to understand a local Algerian, and vice versa - even though
both individuals are speaking a particular form of Arabic dialect. However,
both will be able to communicate in Modern Standard Arabic.
Some special qualities of Arabic:
• Allah tells us in many places in the Qurʾān (such as in surah Yusuf 12:2) “We have revealed the
Qur’an in Arabic” This is because when the Qurʾān was revealed, the Arabs had reached such a
peak of eloquence that had the Qurʾān come in any other language the Arabs would have rejected
the message. There is an overwhelming power of the Qur’anic language – the power that caused
the Quraysh who were still disbelievers to fall into prostration against their will!
• Unfortunately, much of the subtleties and meaning of Arabic words are lost in translation,
therefore only knowledge of Arabic can allow you to get to the depths of the Arabic language!
• Allah says of the Qurʾān “so that they may reflect upon its verses” and it is a characteristic of
Arabic that it naturally forces you to reflect. Every word in Arabic is made up of root letters which
causes groups of words to be linked to one another. For example, the word tadabbara (to reflect)
is made up of the root letters d, b, r which as dubur means someone’s back, or as dabbara means
to manage things. In this root system you are forced to look beneath the actual word to the root
letters which give it extra meaning. So within this word for reflecting, we must look to the back,
i.e. to those things which are not necessarily apparent, and also contextualize and manage our
thoughts. Allah could have used the word tafakkur (to think) but when He says, “A fa lā
yatadabbarūna-l qurʾān” (will they not reflect upon this Quran?) [Muhammad 47:24] then we see
what level of depth that Allah wants us to think about > He wants us to look between the lines and
contextualize.
• Another example of the depth of Arabic is if we look to words in Arabic such as the word for gold
which is dhahab. It comes from the verb dhahaba which means to go/leave because there is a
message in it for us that these things will not stay with us forever.
v Arabic is written right to left and the front of an Arabic
book is what would be considered the back by speakers
of most western languages.
v No such thing in Arabic as upper or lower case letters.
Everything is the same case so there are no capitals.
v Arabic has 28 letters, which are consonants
v There are three vowels which can either be short or long.
v In terms of writing, several languages share the same
script as Arabic, such as Persian/Farsi, Urdu, Pashto and
Kurdish.
‫ا‬
Alif
ʾ
‫نا ما‬ ‫ا‬
Alif is actually a glottal stop, whose sound is similar to that of a hiccup. It takes the
sound of the vowel you place on it. We need to put a hamza symbol on top of alif
in order to be able to add a vowel to it. Hamza is not generally considered a letter
in its own right, but we will come to hamza soon inshā Allāh. The transliteration
symbol for alif is a backwards facing apostrophe.
Alif is one of the 6 UNFRIENDLY LETTERS

which do not allow a letter to join after
them. ‫أ‬ Alif with hamza
symbol on top
‫ب‬
Bāʾ
b
‫بم مبل مب‬
The next letter is Bāʾ which is the first of a set of 3 sister letters. It
is like a boat with a dot underneath (remember ba for below). You
could even remember the dot as a belly button (ba for belly
button). Make sure not to make its body square and not to make it
completely round either. The transliteration symbol for this letter
is just b.
‫ت‬
Tāʾ
t
‫تم متل مت‬
The next letter is Tāʾ which is the second of the set of 3 sister
letters. It is like a boat with two dots on top (remember ta for two
and ta for top). Make sure not to make its body square and not to
make it completely round either. The transliteration symbol for
this letter is just t. Note that the sound of this letter is not as harsh
as an English t sound.
‫ث‬
Thāʾ
th
‫ثم مثل مث‬
The next letter is Thāʾ which is the last of the set of 3 sister letters.
It is like a boat with three dots on top (remember tha for three).
Make sure not to make its body square and not to make it
completely round either. Your tongue should be visibly between
your teeth when sounding this letter. The transliteration symbol
for this letter is just th. Note that the sound of this letter is like th
in the word three and not the word this.
The letters in the alphabet are consonants. They
require a vowel sound in order for their sound to
move. There are 3 short vowel sounds:
__
َ _ __
ُ _ __
ِ _
a u i
fatḥa ḍamma kasra

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Classroom Tour

v Recognize the letters in all their forms

Alif is one of the 6 UNFRIENDLY LETTERS

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