Nouman Ali Khan – The Arabic Studies Landscape
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the need for students to learn and grow rather than just what is taught in the classroom. They stress the importance of flexibility in learning environments and acknowledge the need for students to learn and grow rather than just what is taught in the classroom. The speakers emphasize the need for students to learn and grow rather than just what is taught.
AI: Summary ©
language, if you've had any interest or curiosity about learning Arabic, whatever level you are, then this might be beneficial for you. When somebody says, I want to build a house, and you say, Okay, well, let's talk about the land. Let's talk about the foundation. Let's talk about the concrete, the, the steel, the wood, the, you know, the plumbing, the electrical, the electricity, and constructing a house is an entire process, right? And some parts of that process are under the ground. Some parts of it are over the ground, and you need different specializations before you can get to a house. But somebody says, no, no, don't give me all the details. Just tell me how I can get
a house. How do I build a house? No, then you're not understanding the problem. The problem is, it's huge. It's a big project. And it's made up of many parts, right? I'm giving you this analogy, because I want you to understand, I've been in the Arabic teaching space for a long time. I've been teaching Arabic for about 25 years. And studying Arabic also for about 25 years, I'm still studying Arabic. And sometimes you get because we're in the age of, you know, quick products, like you say, you know, lose 10 pounds in five days, and learn Arabic and just these four hours, we get all this kind of gimmicky stuff. We're so used to that. So we want something quick, quick, quick. And I just
want to know it right at one time I was sitting here in Texas in Irving, I was sitting at a restaurant, and just minding my own business eating my biryani else's, like a normal person, somebody came up to me, and you teach Arabic right was like, Yeah, so you're guaranteeing that if I take your Arabic program, I will understand the whole Quran.
Like, huh, so when did you go to university? And he said, Yeah, I was like, so when you went to the before you went to the University? Did you go to your professors and say, so you're guaranteeing that if I take your program, I will become the top accountant. Did you have like, the idea is you're not buying a shampoo, dude, you're getting an education. And when you get an education, 90% of the work has to be done by you.
The teacher is just there to say turn this way, pick this up, move that way, it's just guiding you. But the work is not being done by the teacher, the work is actually being done by the student, but because we have become consumer, like impressed with consumer mentality. We've even started looking at education the same way we look at products, right, we've got that consumer mentality, even in education. So that's the first thing I want you to be aware of that I'm not going to be presenting the consumer version, I'm not going to be telling you, here's the quick fixes. You know, there are programs that might say if you do this, you will know 90% of the Quran, or you will know 90% of the
Arabic language.
I don't believe it. Sorry. And if somebody says yeah, I did it, and now I know 90% of the Quran, I have a problem with that person because they have a psychotic issue. They think they know 90%
I've been studying Quran for 25 years, I can't put a number but I know very little of the Quran. So this idea when we start doing gimmicky things, that's like saying, if you see the surface of the ocean, and you say I know the entire I know 90% of the ocean, where you don't even know what's five feet deep. What to speak of, you know, 500 feet deep or 1000 feet deep. How do you know you don't know. So there's needs to be a level of humility first, as we get into this discussion anyway. But let's put a map if you understand the map, this will really really help you. Okay, I will make I will give this presentation to Imam Nadeem. This will I put this together today? And by the way,
this was very last minute, this was not announced because I'm only in the US actually, for a couple of days. I'm flying out tomorrow. And he talked to me this afternoon. Hey, what are your thoughts about an Arabic program? I was like, let me just come and talk about it. Let me just get it off my chest and I'm, I'm putting this on YouTube also. So you can refer back to these notes. Inshallah for your benefit. Okay, so let's go through this quickly.
Any education should be based on goals. So the first thing I want you to know is, I'm not interested in saying I finished this book and this book and this book. No, I know this skill and this skill and this skill. You understand? So if you want to break it into goals, there are five goals in Arabic education. These are your five goals, reading and pronouncing properly without understanding, which is what most people from South Asia and Southeast Asia and most non Arab Muslims, they can read the Quran and some of them did some Tajweed so they can pronounce properly. So they know number one, but some people don't even have number one. Some people took shahada a month ago they don't even have
number one right. Or some people were even born Muslim, the reasonable some family but they learned to read
Quran when they were 5678 years old, but they haven't done it for 40 years. So they forgot, or they're not good at it anymore. So there's lots of millions and millions of Muslims who don't even have number one. But that is actually number one. Before we talk about anything else in Arabic, we got to do number one. Right? So then there's number two, what I call Arabic fundamentals. Arabic fundamentals is basically your first course in Arabic studies, the first course you would take before you do anything else to understand Arabic. So the first one, number one is not about understanding, that's just you're pronouncing it properly. You're saying you're reading it properly,
that's all. The second one is you're starting to understand. And the starting to understand is, that's why I didn't say Arabic. I said Arabic fundamentals, just the basics, just enough that you are now ready for the actual language, the building blocks, that's number two. Okay, then let me I'm going to describe all three because these are the three that I'm going to keep talking about over and over again, these are the three words I want you to remember science, skill, literature, you see that 345 Arabic as a science, Arabic as a skill and Arabic as literature. If you understand this, I've done my job. Okay, so let me explain what this means. Science is when you will look if you've
listened to my videos or a scholar even I'm not a scholar, but scholar talk about an ayah of the Quran, they'll say this word is looked at that this is a couple this word because it's it's monsoon bits this way or that way. They'll talk about the grammar of the word. And they'll talk about the technical aspects of the Arabic inside of an IRA or in a hadith. And because of that technicality, we get these meanings. Right? That's actually it's very, how many people here studied English grammar, English grammar, like subject predicate adverb, you know, just some subjective, that kind of stuff. You study that because you were forced to study it. But if I'd gave you an What's your
understanding me right now. But if I told you this sentence, this car is new. Give me the grammatical scientific breakdown of this than car than is the new. Right. Some of you might have trouble with that you don't know what the subject and predicate is anymore, you don't care. I just know what it means why you're getting so technical error, because the science is about getting very, very technical. It's getting technical. It's like the source code of Arabic. Right? Those of you that are from a tech background, there's the Arabic front end, and there's the Arabic back end. Arabic as a science is the Arabic, back end, right? All of us are using an app. But a programmer
doesn't just see the app, he can already see oh, this is the functionality they used. This is the source code. This is the engine they put together, he sees more than other people, we just see the buttons and the sliders or whatever, right, the programmer can see so much more. This gives you the programmers view of the language. And this is really important if you're going to be advanced in your understanding of the Quran. Because in the Quran, every word was specifically chosen by Allah. And so the more we know about a single word or a single sentence, and a single variation, just like in code, you put a slash in the wrong place, or you put a comma in the wrong place, the whole app
breaks or the output is different. Isn't it? The same way every word is an exact places in the Quran. Every every structure is different. And sometimes there are two very simple similar statements, but they're set differently. Why did Allah say them differently? You cannot get to that level. You can never know what Allah Habima Tama Luna habito Allah have you don't be matamanoa You're never going to know until you know Arabic as a science. That's the science. So it is technical. It is like learning programming or coding. It's like learning algebra. It's a lot of work. But that is a skill. That's number three. Oh, sorry, that's a science. Now we get to number
four Arabic as a skill. So remember, science is already covered. Now we're talking about skill. Skill is what I'm using right now to speak to you in English. And skill is what you're using right now to understand what I'm saying. Skill basically means you can communicate in a language you can understand when people are speaking to you, and you can speak back with them. You can write an email in English. So you have the skill of writing. You can listen to somebody in English and understand so you have the skill of comprehension, understanding, you have the skill of putting a sentence together so you have the skill of speaking, right. So reading, writing, listening and speaking,
these are skills. What happens if you take two and I want you to understand the difference between three and four. This is very important. You have a student I have a student I teach them Arabic as a science. One year I teach them Arabic as a science, and then I have another student
I don't teach them better because the science I teach them Arabic as a skill. They're both Arabic students. But one was in the science department. The other was in the in the skills department. The student in the science department can look at an IRA or look at a hadith and technically break down what's going on with every word and all the benefits that come from that.
The student from the skill department cannot do that.
But the student from the skills department can speak in Arabic for 30 minutes. Because he talaga Kana who Arabic as if he's Arab, he can just smile Jazeera. He cannot listen to Jazeera channel. Jazeera Channel News understands 100% You can write emails in Arabic, you can send text messages in Arabic, you can listen to a lecture in Arabic local double muhabura Masha has been our be yo, yo fam, we are filming, oh, understand the entire lecture in Arabic. The poor student who studied Arabic as a science cannot understand the shape. He cannot write an email in Arabic, he cannot speak Arabic, he doesn't have those skills. Because he wasn't focused on the skill. What was he focused
on? The science. So the Arabic as a science student doesn't have the skill. And the Arabic as a skill student doesn't have the science. So what happens in Islamic schools in America, I know a lot about Islamic schools in America and Arabic. If you have an Arab teacher in your Islamic school, they're gonna teach Arabic as a skill.
They're gonna teach her because of one skill. And they'll say science is too technical. Even the adults don't know the science, don't worry about the science, that would that mean and, and utama, kind of Taalib middle associates in the Seattle law, you have to know the fundamentals of the language, and you have to have depth that you should be able to speak and yes, my wife hum to listen and understand. You know, so Oh, Jakub Cheyenne, can you? Jim Lovell will will argue you can put a sentence together in Arabic, they teach these skills, that's what the focus is. The problem is, if you have this focus, are you going to develop an understanding of the Quran? No, you're not, you're
gonna learn Arabic, which is pretty cool. But you're learning Arabic as a what, again, skill. And there are some very successful programs that teach Arabic as a skill.
The problem is, when people have the skill side say science is unnecessary. And the people of the science side say that what skill is unnecessary, they're both necessary. They're both necessary. Actually, if you're, if you're real students of Arabic, you want to know the science and you also want to have the skill, but I at least want you to know the difference between them. It's like you're in two different departments. There, you know, for example, chemistry, there's organic chemistry, right. And there's other kinds of chemistry. They're both chemistry, but there are two different kinds of chemistry. You see. So the same way you can have law somebody is a student of
law, somebody studied family law, and somebody studied Business Law. They're both law, but they're two different departments the same way in Arabic at the Arabic University. They're two different departments. There's the knuckle surf era Bulava. You know that that department and then there's the skill department everybody clear about that? So that's science and skill. What's the last one? What do you what do you guys see? Literature? This is different. Now. This is a different animal. Completely different from three and four. Why? How many people here let me because I'm looking at Brown faces. I'm gonna say how many people speak or do
in a villa when la Rajon. Okay?
Farsi Farsi.
Oh, hush passion. Okay. Mashallah. Come Can you help me get on? challah? Busca behind me, okay. Okay.
Oh, pasta Farsi. We Okay? Farsi.
Okay, so firstly, one day two years from now I'll do questo let me get my Farsi good. But anyway, so let me tell you about literature. I talk about can lithium.
The good education Raluca Ivanka shares an idea the SSC to curogan. Linkin Park, Mr. Charles acusa millennia.
You can you can know or do or you can know English. You can know Arabic. But when somebody speaks poetic language, and somebody drops a line of poetry. You're like, my dad says, oh, but
you don't know it. You have the skill, but you don't have the education in the literature. You don't have the education in the literature the same way. People in America speak English. People in America speak English. But if you opened up
like a book of like literary excellence, if you put read a little bit of Shakespeare, for example, or maybe you read a one of the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, those of you interested, Abraham Lincoln was an incredibly articulate writer. You read a passage from Abraham Lincoln, and you give it to your friend who you're hanging out with and who speaks English. And you had to him, he said, What do you think, on all these words, man?
Because, because that the Abraham Lincoln is not speaking as a skill, he's actually producing a work of what literature it's higher English. There's such a thing as hire or do, there's such a thing as hire Arabic hire Farsi, you understand? I know I'm learning Farsi as a skill. But I'm nowhere near Farsi as what there is this different level, there's different level, this the same difference between kids that are in eighth grade English class, and the PhD in English Literature at a university speak difference between them. So this is number five, because it belongs at the bar at the bottom, this is the hardest part. This is where you get a taste and the walk the other bit
Arabic, right, that's a very high level. And this is I'm, I'm barely starting here, like for myself, after 20 years, I barely have, like a little bit of a touch of this river of Arabic as literature. I'm decent at skill. I'm very good at science, but literature, forget it. I'm barely a beginner. When it comes to literature, that's myself. Okay, now, let's move quickly. Now. The first two were reading and fundamentals, you remember that? If you are starting to get serious about your Arabic, these two are the only concern you should have everything out three, four, and five is none of your business.
Three, four and five doesn't matter for you only one and two matters for you. Until one and two are perfect. Don't worry about three, four or five. If you need to do one and two over and over again for a whole year, two years, I don't care stay focused. Don't move on. This is the common denominator. In any language. If you want to get good at language, you should be able to read better.
Children are taught the alphabet, then they're taught to read small words, then they're taught, you know, cat hat, bat and rent. Then they go to two syllable words, three syllable words until they're able to read full sentences. The children that struggle with reading, the children that struggle with reading, they struggle in history class, they struggle in science class, they struggle in every class. Why? Because they're struggling with what reading.
Once you're, if you're stopping at every word, trying to make sense of it, you can never understand any subject. It's blocking your path. So you have to get the reading, right. And this means reading with zero understanding this by the way, nobody does it better than brown people.
The cardio neuron here the way the hips mothers have set it up. And the way that we teach NASA in the in the South Asian subcontinent. Nobody has a quicker turnaround program for this than that. There's no need to reinvent it. Like HIV schools around the world. Some kids from third grade in public school says their parents say we want to make them a Hatfield. Does he read? He doesn't know anything yet. Two months later, he's joining the hems program. How? How because they have they have teaching reading with fluency down to a science. They have it down to a science. Okay. So anyway, so that's that's a little side note, Arabic fundamentals. I'll tell you about that later. So now that
was one in two but there were three, four or five, remember 345? Actually, let me ask you what was three, four or five?
Science skill? So we're gonna stick to those three words. Yeah, science, good literature. Okay. After you do the basics. My philosophy says you have two options. You can go science, literature, skill, literature, and then science. So you could do science at the end. Or you can start with science, then go to skill and then go to literature, you have to you have two roads you can take because I want you to have all of it. But you have to decide which road you're going to take. Now, let me tell you the difference between these two roads. If you take the skill road first, then you will be communicating in Arabic sooner.
And you will feel more connected to Arabic as a language sooner. You will be able to make friends with Arab Shijo sooner. Okay, you'll be able to travel and enjoy a little bit more Arabic sooner you'll be able to listen to Arabic content on YouTube or whatever else sooner because you're focused on what skill you
And I'm not telling you you're gonna get literature at the most advanced level. But after you do skill, you can move on to reading the basic stuff in Arabic like reading like a small baby an essay, right, you can start reading WhatsApp messages in Arabic. And then from there, you can start reading social media posts in Arabic. And from there maybe you can start reading even tough series in Arabic basic stuff series in Arabic, you can do that you can go from skill to at least basic literature, not advanced literature, but basic literature you can get there, but you're still going to be missing the science. So eventually, you can come back and do the science that let me tell you the
real value of the sciences with Quran. Okay, now let's come back. One and two are the same. Wanting to know but no disagreements, everybody's got to do one and two, and I didn't really describe number two, I will at the end.
If you take the science Road,
here's what's gonna happen. You will spend all this time studying the science. The more you study it, the more you will see the Quran unlocking for you.
When you're standing in Salah behind the Imam Whoa, what was that? Is that what Allah says? I gotta I gotta go to the man What Sudha was that? I want to read that for myself again. Because that was a that was a condom. Why was that no condom? Why is this why is this mana one? Why is this one what that's manure Minnesota why you're gonna just your brains gonna be your neurons are going to be firing when you're standing in Salah because you're focused on the science of the Arabic every word matters. every word matters that will start building this connection with the Quran. However, when your Arab friend comes to you and says Hey,
have you tagged them in Arabiya? Like what? I salute your studies Arabic one year what you cannot speak with
what you learn
you're gonna have Arab friends or like you're studying Arabic for a whole year you didn't learn nothing. You can even order a shawarma.
I gotta order it for you. You know, so you're not going to be able to impress anyone with the science. You can impress people very quickly with the what skill if you want to show off go with skill.
Guaranteed people like mashallah, oh, he's got a whole set. I heard him say like two sentences in Arabic doors. Arabic which is coming out of him girl says he must be really Islamic.
So if you want to impress people go with skill. You know what sad people go over young men from the 90s I know young men used to go study I want to study Arabic in Egypt. I want to study Arabic and Jordan before serious crisis. May Allah help the Muslims in Syria. A lot of Muslims used to go to Syria to study Arabic to study you know, different Institute's and they come back after six months, eight months. You know, somebody goes from America for six months they come back
compared to us, there are a che right over there. And what did they study there? Did they What do you imagine if you go to Egypt? Did you study skill or did you study science? What do you think? Skill? So they come back speaking Arabic And then everybody says Masha Allah, Allah Hara via Calaca, Yanni. All right. We're in Farsi, Nami, Hoda. Chaka hookah mizuna?
How gasm are just by asking RBOCs esta masala years, okay, right. But the problem is when you sit that same young man down and say, Tell me about this if we didn't do that,
because what did they not cover? The science. If you want Quranic studies first and not impress anyone, then start with science, science is going to be painful. But it's very rewarding with Quranic studies. Now, from science, you cannot stop at science, you must go over to what you must. It's a must. Why? Because we don't just want to understand Arabic. We want to taste Arabic. We want to taste the language of Rasulullah.
Right? It's a beautiful thing to be able to connect with the OMA and the language of the Quran. To have that skill is a really beautiful, beautiful thing. Right? And that's so you want to but because your science part is already done, the skill will come to you super fast.
For those of them that have done skill, literature comes quickly. For those that have science, what comes quickly, skill will just you'll Bill eat it up. You will go through textbooks and weeks. entire university textbooks that teach Arabic in 234 semesters, you'll be done in six weeks. You can fly through it, pick it all up. And if you're worried about vocabulary, it will start coming naturally. You don't have to have anxiety about it.
Then finally you get into what literature this by the way, the science skill literature, that was my journey. So if between these two, I didn't have access to learn the skill from anybody. And skill is also difficult in non Arab environments. Because to learn the skill of Arabic, you should be in the Arabic environment, but we're not in the Arabic environment. Right. So it's difficult to pick up that skill. The reason many of you got good at English is because you're what you're in an English environment, everything you're hearing, everything you're saying has to be in English. So you pick it up, right. So now, this is I'm going to move quickly. Now, this was my kind of overview. Now
we're going to dive a little bit into the science just to give you a quick bullet point list. These are the three subjects that you study in the science side. Now, serve money and Budhia. Two out of the three Bulava sciences. This is what you study when you're studying Arabic as a science, meaning you don't have to know how to speak a word of Arabic. And you can still learn these three things and be very, very good at them. Pakistani Indian, Bangladeshi Imams, many of them, they don't speak Arabic very well, but they are masters of this stuff. Like they've mastered this stuff. They really own that the science thing that we've done in Armada, this is amazing. And some it's really, really
impressive. Okay, so this is the this is an evidence to how they were focused on Arabic as a science. Anyway, these three will get you into a very technical good understand, I won't describe these three, I've done that in other videos. If you're interested in learning more about them, you can actually Google this stuff and find a lot of information about what was what sort of is and what my opinion but er. Now, when it comes to skill in every language, German, French, Arabic any, it's the same four skills, reading composition, composition means writing, listening comprehension. And speaking in natural immersion. Natural immersion means if I drop you in the middle of Morocco, if I
drop you in the middle of Cairo, you can manage, you're naturally immersed in the language, you're not feeling awkward, you can communicate effectively, right? Thank you so much. Okay. So these are the four skills in language. I'm hinting at it. But I'm telling you now openly, two out of these skill three, two out of these four skills, listening and speaking, listening and speaking, you're not going to get good at them until you're forced in an environment. You cannot watch videos and become good at listening and speaking. You cannot sit and take a course once a week or twice a week and become good at listening and speaking. But if you spent a month with an Arab friend, and he's
just talking to you only in Arabic, you get good at both listening and speaking. I was an Arabic as a science guy in 2000 and 567. I was an Arabic as a science guy. I didn't have any skill. I really had almost no skill. I'm going to start the heat on Saudi at the Irving Masjid in 2007. For the first time, I was giving a halacha there and he came up to me afterwards. I'm sad, but she told me
until that article RRB. Jaden, you don't know Arabic? Well, and I was like, No, I don't
smoke. He told me I'll teach you. He's Afghani. He lives in Irving Stiller. And that is somewhere towards Arlington now. But anyway, said I'll teach you Arabic. I was like, okay, so I traveled with him. I traveled with him for 10 days. And when I got on the flight with him, we went to Detroit. I didn't go to the Arab world. We went to Detroit, which is kind of the Arab world too. But anyway, but to go to Detroit, he sits on the plane and he goes Nah, man. And hola como que la Bellavia? Jose, but I don't understand because I'm from LA. Well, I can add
10 days the man wouldn't speak to me except an Arabic. Just Arabic.
And after 10 days, I started mumbling through sentences. Then I said let's do it again. He goes what? Okay, no courage.
Now I'm in love says Michelle will moderate Anthony. I went with him to Chicago, which is more like India.
South India to be specific anyway. So go to Chicago 10 days, he's only speaking to me in Arabic. We're reading AlJazeera articles together. He's just talking to me about some of his he's posted articles on Al Jazeera is an accomplished author, right? It's very lucky to find a teacher like that because what did I get from him that I can never get in a class or a video or anything? I got an environment. I was immersed in the Arabic language for 20 days. And it got me going just revved my engines. Why was it easy for me because he didn't have to explain the word should be this way. And the Arab should be that way. It should be mostly Moon mostly mean you should put an owl here now but
I didn't need any of that help from him. Why? Because I already had Arabic as a science. I already had the science he was just giving me the skill now. That's all it was. Okay. Now literature this
Is Why Why should you be interested in literature? First of all that will get you reading the fear of seals is also different degrees of complexity if you're reading to see the blue Casitas easy Arabic tafsir you know a Cauvery also is fairly easy Arabic vsido Jelena and easy Arabic You got to be that's a little bit tougher. Because a little bit further down us with a CD about a month ago, Dino Rossi. Okay, now you need a little more Arabic. You get to like, you know, Alica Schaff you start reading it No, I showed a mama Lucy, you start unnecessarily you start reading more advanced this year, like Oh, what did he say? Well, I don't know have these words? I don't know what to do
with that, that so the literature gets more and more and more advanced. That's in literature. And of course you have to learn poetry, because a lot of Quran is challenging poetry. So that comes here. And of course, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had a very unique style of speaking. Right? So the Quran has its own unique style. Rasulullah Salam also has a unique style, unlike the other Arabs. So the style of a hadith is not like the style of general Arabic. So that's also kind of a literary study, in my view, okay. Anyway, now, this is for you. Now, if you remember that, by the way, what were the three areas?
Science skill, literature, okay, so I gave you a picture of all three science skill literature. Now I want to just listen to this. I'm just going to read this to you. What do you need for a mindset the necessary mindset for non Arab beginner Muslim students? non Arab beginner Muslim by the way, how many out of mana an Arab? Okay. Okay, about men commercial Allah.
The Arabs have what?
The skill, the skill, and the Arabs were crying when they were a back home, and they had to do now and self because they hated science. Okay, so even they even though ug due to the Arabiya Minja was Akela ug Donna minjiang okra, they don't they're not good from another angle, because they never did it as a science really. So you guys, you don't need the skill. But now you need the what? The science right? So even the Arab some of my my favorite students are actually my Arab students, because something's come to them naturally. But then now sort of stuff. When they learn it, they eat it up really quickly. And it really benefits them anyway. So you must do the most of the work
yourself. Congratulations. So which program should I follow? Which teacher is going to make this easy for me? No, if you have that mindset, I'm sorry, you're not going to make progress, you will not, you have to come to terms with the fact that you are on your own. For the most part, you have to learn the skill yourself. Some of the best programmers I know learn programming in a classroom or themselves, themselves. They picked up the new languages, they updated themselves themselves. Some of the best business people I know that did the business work themselves or got somebody else taught them. They did 90% of the work themselves. Whenever they got stuck, they got some advice from here,
they're 90 person 99% They're doing themselves. Anybody who's actually good at something does most of the work by themselves. And they always get stuck somewhere, then they go to some expert who helps them push a little bit more than they go and and the people who say Oh, who's going to help me who's going to make this easy for me who's going to those people will never become good at anything.
They'll you'll never be good at anything. Because you're not you're not in the mindset of doing this yourself. Some people say until I have a teacher in front of me, I can't concentrate. Okay, then continue to remain a loser, who's entitled, people used to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles 1000s of days of their life gone. Because they could maybe learn one or two things from a teacher. And those teachers didn't have full time for them either. Right? And now information is coming to you. But you're like, Yeah, but it's not the flavor. I like I like sitting on a cushion chair first. I like to what is this?
What is that first mindset, then you must become independent as much as possible. You have the resources, you have the tools. Now you just have to follow the plan. Right? Three, you must focus on one goal at a time and not be overwhelmed. How many? How many areas that I define five? You don't say Oh, Arabic is too much. No. Where are you? Are you in? 1234 and five? Which one? Are you in? Where are you? And inside each of them? There's a list. Finish the list. If you're in two, there's a list finish the list. Don't say Oh, it's too much. No, no right now I'm on step three. Okay, then work on step three focus. What students sometimes do is they're like, Oh, this one thing was hard.
The whole thing is hard. Is a crisis. No
Be more specific about where you're having a problem. Okay? And finally, you must self assess what's why is this important?
If you got a 60 on a test, if you got a 60 on a test, if you're a good student, and you got a 60 on a test is really good for you.
Because you won't say, Oh, I'm a loser, I failed. I can't believe I can't even study. No, no, no, you'll look at your focus on your mistakes. You will study your mistakes and say, I messed up this one, this one, this one, that means I'm not good at multiplication. I'm not good at decimals, I'm not good at you know, graphs. These are my three mistakes. I will keep practicing these three, because these are my weak areas. You understand? We do this in sports. If you play a lot of table tennis, I have I lost because I kept losing points on my backhand, guess what if you want to get better, I'm gonna practice my backhand. Because I identified my weakness. When I say self assess.
Nobody can help you identify your weakness. If you're not aware of yourself, bad students, you know what they do, the moment they fail at something, they say I'm just bad at Arabic, you're a bad student. But if you've got the same bad score, and you say I'm bad at self,
or I'm bad at Latif, or I'm bad at Joomla, I have specific, this is what I'm bad at. Now you're a good student. And I'm telling you, if you can identify your weaknesses as a student, you will be the strongest kind of learner and those weaknesses will be your strong points. Like you'll enjoy teaching those the most, because you'll conquer them. It to me, it's like I'm I'm a gamer, I'm a video game guy. You know, the boss, you can't beat
that, like, Oh, you got so close. And then he gets you that boss. Once you beat that boss, you get such a high out of going back and beating that boss over and over again. Then you want to make a video on Twitch to show other people how to beat that boss, because you got so good at beating him because it was a sense of accomplishment. Same thing in education. When you make a mistake somewhere and this is self assessment, then you focus on that until that becomes a strength. That's the mentality thing. Okay, now, this is the last part. I know I've been talking for too long. But the plan now let me give you I have, I don't have a plan for everything. But I have a plan for some of
these things. And the epic community mashallah have a good relationship with you guys. They keep you know, they've asked me to help you plan, an Arabic program for the community. So I want to tell you what resources are there and what we can build on. I told you number one was reading and the two was what fundamentals I taught the fundamentals here for 10 days. And they were broadcast live on YouTube. So if you didn't attend them, you can watch them. And if you study them and you forgot them, you can review them. But until you solidify those 10 days of material, none of this conversation has any benefit for you. Then go have a slice of pizza and go to sleep. You know you
don't need anything else that you need to do. If you are before that you don't have any reading at all You don't know if or when you're reading Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim you're reading BS,
me, me. If that's your level, then I have a video series for you on buying a TV. It also takes 10 days you have but you have to do it 10 days in a row. If you do it one day, a week once every Saturday, you're not going to get it, you got to concentrate time and get this out of the way. fundamentals are like a bootcamp. Okay. So that's the commitment that will be required. Now the science, my institute Vienna, which started in 2005. We're known around the world for teaching Arabic. But to be more specific, we're actually known around the world for teaching Arabic as a science. So I've made a career as an Arabic teacher,
perfecting the art of teaching Arabic as a science, that part I'm good at that part. I've already done the entire I've written a book on it. I've written curriculum materials on it. I've done video lectures on it. And I've taught the entire science sciences a huge list. But I've taught the entire science and recorded the whole thing. It's already available. That's already available. Now. What we're hoping to do with the APA community is give you guys a target. Watch this much do these many chapters from the textbook, and then you can have like a review and study sessions here with the Imam with some of the knowledgeable people here that you can build that together so you can mix
between the online learning and collaborative learning and finish the science thing that I can tell you the easiest thing to accomplish as a community is the Arabic as a science. You can actually everybody can do it and
It's about, I would say it's about 200 hours of work between 200 to 250 hours of work. Some people can do that in two months. Some people can do that in six months, some people can do that in three years doesn't matter, but you need to put in those 200 hours. And you're the science will be done. Okay, now,
the skills, the skills are reading, and writing, and speaking and listening, I'm only talking about two skills right now, not for reading and writing just, I've already put a curriculum for it. You can do the skills on as part of the continuation in a community, part time through the videos, watching stuff, you can learn to read better. And you can learn to write to, I didn't speak to any Arab. By the time I was writing essays in Arabic, I didn't speak to a single Arab, I just watched stuff online, and I did a textbooks at home. I literally did textbook sitting in Queens at home. That's what I did. And you can do that too. I've put the program for this together. But the other
skill,
which is listening and speaking, you need intensives you need an environment where every you're not going to be allowed to speak English. There's a language institute in Vermont, Middlebury, they have a six week seven week program, they can you go into CIA sends people there FBI sends people there, seven, eight weeks, you're speaking Mandarin seven, eight weeks, you're speaking Iraqi dialect, dialect, Arabic, seven, eight weeks, you're speaking bungler, seven, eight weeks, you're speaking that ear. So maybe you're speaking Pashto, they've got a program for all of them, pay 10,000 bucks live there for seven, eight weeks, you can learn the language. Why? Because they're eating together,
sleeping sports activities, everything is in that language.
We can create this environment temporarily, and we can build the skill of Arabic, I don't think the skill of Arabic should be taught in the classroom, I think it'd be shot should be taught as an environment. We're going to be experimenting actually the Imam of great community in the Minnesota dollar Farrokh, whose skill program I'm extremely impressed with. I've never impressed with Arabic programs, but they are just the approach they're Institute is called a desert Institute. I'm really impressed with their program. They've got this down and they produce results their students mashallah are now some of their tops are speaking really beautifully. They can write, they can
compose their thoughts, and they, they have the skill never left Minnesota Public School kids that are speaking beautiful Arabic, it's possible. It's not a it's not a dream, right? So we can inshallah produce, things like that, I think summers are a good time to do that. Finally, literature plan that's way down there. Don't worry about number five yet that's going to be advanced study sessions with scholars and things like that, we'll have someone like say, for hip teaching to see the binges IE and things like that. So what you can do
later studies. Now finally, this is my last slide for kids, for university students, all part timers, all full timers and profiles. For Kids. If you're doing this with your parents, you will learn fast.
And my recommendation is actually kids should be learning Arabic as a science along with their parents. So if you have kids in school, then perhaps a weekend approach every weekend, you're you're studying Arabic together as a family, because you guys don't have the science either. And they don't have the science either. Right? So build that together. University students, my recommendation is you guys can do this in the evenings.
But if you make this a regular thing, a daily thing, you can take time off during the exams and stuff. But if you make this into a more regular participatory thing, I think it can really help you if you really want to go full time Arabic studies. If that's what your interest is, then I personally I recommend you go skills first.
If you want to go full time, then go skills first, then just go somewhere and study Arabic and in Arabic only environment. Don't worry about the Navajo serve and all of that become conversant become, you know, immersed in that language. And finally, for her five, I think especially because mashallah, this is a community with a successful hands program. And a lot of young men and women are memorizing the Quran here, you should be less concerned with the skill much more concerned with the science, because it will improve your Quran. And then you will know which it goes where, and you won't go on the wrong track like you do when you're leaving taraweeh. And you switch channels
without realizing. Right, that will happen less now because you know the science, right? So that's my recommendation for them. So having said all of that, I'm done talking. I want to hear from you what your questions might be, what your interests might be, and what kind of program you want to see happen in in the epic community and childless. I'll take your questions now if you have any.
Yeah,
I have something planned in Minnesota in the summer.
Because I don't want to be in Texas in the summer because I don't want to remember Judgment Day that much.
Minnesota is nice.
I'm working on a date for that. But if what would be really nice, is if, you know, we took a busload of students from Texas, and just went for 20 days to Minnesota and studied some Arabic together. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah.
Okay, what are the fundamentals? How do you retain that? My recommendation on the fundamentals is number one, do it twice. And now that's easy, because if you've done it in person with me, the videos are there, it'll all start coming back. But do it the second time you do it, you should do it as though you've never done it before. So don't do it passively. Do it actively. Right? Then after that, start reading Quran that's all you got to do.
read Quran and see what's going on here. What's going on there. I wonder why this is like this, I wonder and start giving the Imam a headache.
You will start noticing things because the whole point of the science thing is it makes you think about Quran more. So become more mindful in your Quran reading. And then you'll have lots of unanswered questions because the fundamentals don't answer all your questions. Even in the Quran, you will understand some things you will understand some things, what's going to answer those other questions? Ah, that's the rest of the science. That's going to push you into the more advanced science side. Great question. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, so, when you go the question, my dear brother is what's your name? Hi, Sam asks that he speaks Arabic when he goes to, you know, maybe Lebanon or Syria or any other. He doesn't understand what they're saying.
But when he goes to, you know, Mr. DIA, or Chad or Musa Sudan, and he can understand what they're saying. But supposedly it's all Arabic. Right. But there it's not really the same Arabic? Yeah, there are lots and lots of dialects. And there's a Standard Arabic. When I'm saying skill, I'm referring to the standard, the newspaper, the Al Jazeera, the chef's lecture Arabic, but I'm not talking about the ledger Masuria. And the ledger looked at any other dialects, because the dialects are there all over the place.
You know, so they don't understand most of them. I understand the Egyptian dialect pretty well. But the other ones, the solidity, kind of the Algerian, forget it, forget it.
Personally, my opinion, the Yemeni
people will love them.
And that the Saudis and the Sudanese are pretty close. Sudan is very close to first of all, yeah, that's my opinion, Allahu Allah, at least in my experience.
Yeah.
Yep.
That's what is a skill. The question is, what should i What should a person what course should a person take to learn about the roots, you need two things for that, you need your skills to be very high. So you should be done with the skill set. And you should be in the within. Sorry, now I spoke wrongly, your science should be done. And then on the skill side, your reading comprehension should become advanced, when you can read the Arabic sources that talk about the roots.
Right? So basically, what I'm saying is, you're done with the science. And then you got to a point where you're reading you're able to read Arabic books, which is one of the skill areas right and then the Arabic book you will access in this case is the columnist the the lexicons which are, okay, I'll buy in la meme, here are the origins of this word, and the story behind this word, etc, etc. And that's where a lot of my lectures come from the colonies. I go to the sources and dig into the origin of the word and where it came from, and all of that stuff and then I put my thoughts to and then I look at them with a serial number tapes and about that word, etc. Right. So you will need a
skill for that. Now, there are some sources available in English. They're good. They're not as thorough but they're good. You know, there's there's English dictionaries too. Now. Yeah.
That's tafsir study. There's Linguistics of serious studies, the multiple domains. The question is how would you get to know the multiple dimensions of the ayat of the Quran. So this area of tafsir study is called L Buju whenever f, or tafsir. Sybil origem, what that means is, you can look at the eye, and you can look at that word, and you could have multiple possibilities. And see, there's certain types, there's not every gives you certain the series are specialized in that, like a chef Razi or Lucy for sure know how sure they'll focus on here are the different ways you can read the cya. And this is what it would mean in each of those cases. And then of course, Lucy will even add
at the end, here are the five opinions. What about the fifth opinion? Lisa Vichy? That's nonsense.
He'll do that to her marks. He'll mention it and then say he
doesn't know what he's talking about. There's only four there's no perfect one. Right. So that's, that's a good question. Yes.
That's right. Yeah. I have two different sets of 10 Day videos for I have a 10 day series for one, and I have a separate 10 Day series for two. Yeah.
For number two, it's on YouTube. For number one, it's on Boehner TV. Yeah. Yeah.
No, sir, no, I don't want to do step number two in person again,
I, I'll tell you why. I know a big believer in productivity. And I think about what is the most productive contribution I can make. With the best case scenario, there's a couple of decades left, right, so that's best case scenario. So what's the most productive contribution I can make? And in my mind, the parts of the Quran that I haven't studied in depth, or commented on In Depth,
studying them and being able to produce that work so that maybe 50 years after I'm gone, some young people have some access to something that they can understand, without knowing the Arabic that can inspire them to then learn Arabic, right? I want to leave that legacy behind. So I did sort of najem with you guys. Some of you might remember, last December, but I've been doing a surah every month since. So I'm currently working on Soto, Montana. So we've come a long way from certain Nigel, I'm all the way and so to Montana, no. So but that's my priority, leaving. That's why I got this curriculum recorded. Because I personally would be if I asked my teacher
that I learned Arabic From who recorded it. And by the way, his recordings were on cassette tapes,
and handwritten notes. If I had gone and asked him, Hey, could you teach it again, because I liked the live experience.
He would have taken the plastic album of the cassette tapes, and he would have whacked me over the head
and said, You acuminata Scotch Irish,
right? So this is me kindly whacking you over the head and saying, come on.
So if you're done with step two, and you live in the United States, generally I would say go towards the science, because you don't have access to the resources to build your skill. So might as well just at least get one of the 334 or five out of the way. So science is low hanging fruit. I've got the entire science curriculum in the form of a textbook
exercises. And for each each chapter and sub chapter section, companion video explanations. It's already done, the whole thing is already there. It just, you know, Helaman wonderchef There's someone who's going to take it up. That's already on the Dream Program. Dream that beta tv.com You can see all of its there. And there Mashallah. There's, you know, 10 1000s and 1000s of students around the world that have already completed it. Some have already translated it into their languages, they're teaching it, it's being taught in Tamil. It's being taught in French it's being taught in Turkish etc. So Hamdulillah
you can print it, it's a PDF. You want to make a hard copy, make one
can you go from three to five directly by after skipping for? I doubt it. I doubt it very much. The reason is, if you're not naturally tasting the language, then tasting poetry is kind of the big it's because the literary taste is built on top of the basic taste.
Meaning like reading tough series and stuff. Yeah, you need you need half the skills you'll need half of so
Think of it as three. The item number three is three A and three b. Let me further clarify, three A has to do with reading, reading and writing. Three b has to do with listening and speaking, you will need three A.
So science does not give you three A, you still need three or three a once again is what reading and writing, you'll need to develop that skill. Because using that skill, then you can open up a tafsir book and then you know get further. Good yeah
you have an application called Arabic with pasta.
Yeah, that's science. All that's all science. Yeah. That's all science.
No, Arab, I have three programs on Vienna that cover the science. The the easiest version is Arabic with hosta. Okay, then there's a brief version called the Dream Program. It's within the beginner TV app. But the full version, like if you really want to get the science, that's called the Dream Program. And that's specifically outside the app. It's actually on the browser. It's dream that billionaire tv.com same login. But that's it's got a study resources, all the PDFs. So I made a separate website for it. And that's dreamed up being a tv.com. That's the entire science curriculum.
That is the one I'm doing live with the students. Yes, the one Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, you know,
I think I want to make some kind of recommendation for that, that can be implemented easily. I've been thinking about that it's bringing is cool, you bring that up? So the idea is, there's Arabs and non Arabs living in the community, right? So what you could do easily hypothetical, linguists have now identified, there's about 200 things that you need to learn how to say in any language, and you become basically functional in that language is a couple of 100 things, those same 200 things, you learn them in Farsi, but same to other things, you learn them in Arabic, those same two other things, you learn them and you're basically starting to communicate, right? I could pick up produce
those 200 things and give them as a list and say, Hey, and give them to all the Arabs to and say, Hey, whenever you speak to your non Arab friend, when you pick your Bangladeshi friend and your SIR Lankan friend, or your Pakistani friend, use this, keep using it, keep using it and keep using it. And then they start like, Who 10% of my conversation today was in Arabic, and the next day 11% And the next one 15% You understand, but it starts with some very basic, you know, easy to reach target I can produce that for you guys
the more you try to organize it, the less it works, the more organic you make it the more it succeeds, that's been my experience.
That'd be cool. That would be cool. That's very nice idea. Yeah, well, yeah.
Yeah.
What's the benefit of being an Urdu speaker or the shortcoming of vegan or the speaker when it comes to Arabic learning?
The benefit is that there's a lot of words in Arabic that are in order to do that the disadvantage is that there's a lot of words in Arabic that are in order to
be because the Arabic words in or do they have a different meaning, but then the other speakers say mashallah, when I listened to the Quran, right? I understand 50% Because my my father used same words.
No, he didn't, bro he didn't.
I'll give you just one example. In Arabic, someone who is powerless. powerless, is called valine.
Valley Zelizer or the mechanism. The lien is someone who is what power the plural of vilene in Arabic is Avila. what are called the nasarah qumola. Who the veteran well I'm Tom Avila. Allah helped you at whether you were the Neil.
If you do Tajima of the real in Arabic in the Leland will do.
Do
you see the difference? Okay, hello Jessa Sadie Illya Hassan Ali Hassan Bill Arabiya, and it can Aslan. It can Benjamin like when you do excellently that's called a lesson and he is unavailable. Excellent at work, okay?
In order what's axon
fever has just signed in Lilia sign as anchor but that was
a horrible translation. That's a mistranslation of the Quran. So what I'm trying to tell you nicely is the same thing that is our advantage is also our
edge. But at least the reading comes easily right? Because the same alphabet. So at least that's, that's a good advantage.
But you can learn that easily. Yeah, you can you can learn that easily. The pronunciation definitely is different. We have read it because obey Allah humbler? So Eileen? Yeah, but you can fix that. That's not a too big of a jump. Yeah, yes, sir.
Yeah, that's fine.
I think I'll tell you my mindset, what's your name?
So I'll tell you my mindset as a student now, as a teacher, my mindset was, I'm not putting a timeline on this. My mindset was, I'm going to learn this. I wasn't I'm going to learn this in one month, two months, three months, I'm going to learn this. That's it. So it didn't get I didn't get frustrated that I didn't reach a certain milestone within a certain time. Because the only the there's only one thing that I checked, did I make progress? That's it. That's the only question. So long as I was making progress, keep going, keep going, keep going. And I don't have to learn everything. I just have to make one more step one more 1%. half a percent. Point. 2% doesn't matter.
But it's progress. If you have that mindset, Sohail you're never gonna give up.
You just won't. Because the journey becomes the destination.
Right? That's a meme. Okay.
Last two questions, I got to go home.
The skill side? Yeah, the skill side.
So my thought my recommendation, we haven't ironed it out my recommendation for a community. And I'll make epic the experimental community for this is that I've already done the hard part, the teaching and the resources and the organizing of the curriculum. That's all done in education, that's 70 80% of the job. So my recommendation is give a timeline, let's say six months. And I say in six months, I'm going to have an exam based on the first 15 chapters of the textbook. Here are the videos here, the 80 videos or whatever. And here are the 15 chapters. I need you to finish whoever you are, if you're a grandma or you're a sixth grader in school, or whatever you are, I need
you to finish this much in six months, and Imam Nadeem will help you with any of your questions every Saturday from this time to this time.
Now, some of you are doing three chapters every day, some of you are doing one chapter a month doesn't matter. But he's there to help. So again, what did I say as a principal, you have to do most of the work. If you're gonna wait for him to teach the class with all due respect to him, I'm gonna deem I love him to death. He's not going to teach it better than me.
I already taught it.
Go through that with concentration, where you get confused. You bring that to him make the most productive use of time. Look at my please listen to this carefully. educational philosophy, teaching math. Teaching math is very different than teaching history.
A math teacher has to stop every two minutes and say what's the answer than two minutes? What's the answer? Two minutes? What's the answer, isn't it but a history teacher gives a lecture. He gives a lecture in Arabic education. There's the lecture portion. And there's the interactive portion.
I've already done all the work of the lecture portion. If you take advantage of that the only thing left is what portion the Interact come to him with all of your questions. Now you're not wasting his time, and he's not wasting your time. Because if he's explaining something that you already understood,
but the next one student doesn't understand one student understands, right? So if I'm explaining this to him with this one is bored, because he already understood.
But if they all come to them with their specific, I'm having a hard time with this, solve this problem, solve me this problem, solve me this problem. Now students are interacting with each other, they're working as a collaborative group, the learning just shoots into the sky. So what I what I recommend now is a hybrid approach. Do the lectures on your own time, then come together and practice then do the lectures on your own time then come together and practice everybody's progressing?
That's it's going to be better than any sitting in a classroom lecture setting you can do guarantee because I'm a believer in results Yes.
Yeah.
You can also come together and listen together
to the introduction part, yeah, so groups can be organized. You can do your own group studies in Minnesota they they get groups together and listen together, and then you can have the interactive part.
The good thing is Imam Nadeem and people like him, they're like living breathing answer keys.
So here you have your problem and you just see him after salah. This is what's this? And he said, Let's refer because this this this, started giving him a hard time.
Okay.
Okay, I'm done. Thank you so much for listening. Everybody's like Hello, Helen Subhanak Allah humblebee Hamed ignition to Elena Hannah and Willie, my dua for all of you is Let make this journey easy for all each and every one of you