3 Islamic articles on: Arabic learning

An algorithmic cheat sheet for Arabic diptotes (mamnūʿ min al-ṣarf)

In order to make sense of the immense complexity of Arabic diptotes I decided to turn all of the rules into an algorithm written in the PHP language. Diptotes (mamnūʿ min al-ṣarf) are Arabic words that do not acquire tanwīn like normal words do and have fatḥa instead of kasra in the jarr position, as in marartu bi-Aḥmada , which would normally be marartu bi-Aḥmadin if it was not a diptote).

Turning the diptote rules into an algorithm means that a grammatical discussion that normally takes about 10 pages of a grammar book is turned into a very small “function” that can be reviewed at a glance.

function is_diptote($word) {
    if(is_not_muḍāf ($word) && does_not_have_definite_al($word)) { // masājid is normally diptotate, but in masājidi l-muslimīn it is NOT diptote due to iḍāfa, likewise afḍal is normally diptote, but in marirtu bi-l-afḍal it is not due to having definite article "al"
        if(sounds_like_mafāʿil($word) || sounds_like_mafāʿīl($word)) { // masājid, ṣaḥāʾif, maṣabīḥ
            return true; // "return true" means it is a diptote
        }
        if(sounds_like_a_verb($word) && (is_proper_noun($word) || is_ṣifa($word))) { // Āhmad, Yashkur, aḥmar, ākhḍar
            return true;
        }
        if(is_maʿdūl($word)) { // maʿdūl = a word that "deviates" from its normal form, as in ʿUmar, a deviation from ʿĀmir
            if(is_proper_noun($word)) { // ʿUmar, Zuḥal, Zufar
                return true;
            }
            if(is_ṣifa($word)) { // ukhar, mathnā, thulātha, rubāʿa, khumāsa, sudāsa, subāʿa, tusāʿa, ʿushāra
                return true;
            }
        }
        if(is_feminine($word)) {
            if(is_feminine_only_in_the_way_it_sounds($word) && is_proper_noun($word)) { // Ṭalḥa, Ḥamza, Qatāda, Muʿāwiya, Khalīfa
                return true;
            }
            if(is_feminine_in_sound_and_meaning($word) && is_proper_noun($word)) { // Faṭima, ʿAʾisha, Khadīja, Munīra, Luʾluʾa, Mājida
                return true;
            }
            if(is_feminine_in_meaning_alone($word) && is_proper_noun($word)) { // Zaynab, Suʿād, Hind
                return true;
            }
            if(has_alif_taʾnīth_mamdūda($word) || has_alif_taʾnīth_maqṣūra($word)) { // ḥamrāʾ, khaḍrāʾ, ṣafrāʾ, sawdāʾ, asmāʾ, ʿuzzā, salmā, salwā, hayā, laylā, ḥublā
                return true;
            }
        }
        if(has_tarkīb_mazjī($word) && is_proper_noun($word)) { // Baʿlabak, Maʿdīkarb, Ḥaḍramawt
            return true;
        }
        if(has_added_alif_and_nūn_at_the_end($word) && (is_proper_noun($word) || is_ṣifa($word)) { // Salmān, Sulaymān, sakrān, ʿaṭshān, ghaḍbān, rayyān
            return true;
        }
        if(is_non_arabic($word) && is_proper_noun($word)) { // Jibrīl, Mīkāl, Isrāʾīl, Ibrāhīm, Ismāʿīl, Isḥāq
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false; // if above conditions are not met, it is not a diptote
}

IslamQA: How to learn Quranic Arabic

Assalamualaikum. Do you have any advice for someone who wants to learn Arabic in the Qur’an? I already know how to read the Arabic, but since I want to understand deeply about Qur’an maybe you have learning methods which you can suggest. Jazakallah brother

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

You may be interested in my book Learning Quranic Arabic for Complete Beginners. The contents can be accessed for free at my site here.

Learning Arabic properly requires thousands of hours of effort. It doesn’t really matter what book you select or what learning method you choose as long as you continue to read new books and benefit from free online courses such as on YouTube.

The way I learned Arabic was from watching Arabic-dubbed anime cartoons as a child (here is an example). You can also watch Arabic TV series that use standard Arabic, such as the Omar series.

Once you have some understanding of the language, you can move on to reading Arabic-language books, such as novels. Amazon.com actually sells a lot of Arabic books, including the Harry Potter books in Arabic. You can check them out here. Once you have a good knowledge of standard Arabic, reading and understanding the Quran deeply become possible.

I believe that the most important thing in language learning is consistent effort to try to read the language, and reading books in the language is the best way to do that. I learned English from reading hundreds of novels.

Arabic Grammar in Context by Mohammad T. Alhawary

Arabic Grammar in Context (2016) by professor Mohammad T. Alhawary is an enjoyable and beneficial resource for learners of Arabic. It features excerpts from actual Arabic books and articles and uses them to illustrate grammatical points.

The book is not for complete beginners and should be used either after studying a basic grammar book or alongside one.

As is typical for books published by academic publishers, it is somewhat overpriced at over $40 on Amazon.