Arabic Training 1

7/28/2019 Arabic Training 1

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Shariah Program 2003-2012

Training Video 1Welcome everyone to the first of the two training videos!

In this presentation I dont want to recap verbatim everything that was mentioned in the report.

Initially my aim and purpose was to provide the content through the report and then teach the same

material in the videos in order to cater to different learning styles. That was the original purpose. But

then I saw the 3000+ downloads, over 500 comments and 900 title suggestions - at the time of

creating this video. I remember seeing a comment where the brother said he read the report three

times. That made me change my mind. I didnt think it was fair to repeat what was in the report

without making any significant changes. So I scrapped that earlier presentation and now I am

recreating it for you.

4 Stages of GrowthI am going to speak about the four stages of growth that you need to go through in order to succeed.

They are:

Start-up phase

Initial growth phrase

Rapid growth phase

Continuous growth phrase

As we move forward we are going to talk about the behaviour that is required in every stage, what

you can expect and how long each stage should last. I will quickly talk about the continuous growth

phase first because I wont be talking about that throughout the presentation. It is the stage that

never ends. This is what we mean when we say Arabic is the first thing the scholars study and they

continue studying it for the rest of their lives. Imam Nawawiwho is one of the greatest scholars of

this ummah used to split up his day into 12 portions. He was studying Saheeh Muslim, al muhazzab

(book in Shafiee fiqh), tafseer, usooland it comes in his biography, . One of the

sciences he was studying was the science of Arabic morphology, what we introduced to you in thereport. He doesnt consider himself relieved from this because the depths of Arabic are just so vast,

especially balaagha. The standard book in grammar is 132 pages but the standard book in balaagha

is 550 pages. Then there are books in tafseerwhich are very large. The amount that one can study

really never stops. We want you to get out of the start-up phase, quickly through the initial growth

phase, into the rapid growth, and then gain a level ofindependence. That is the key word. Once you

are in continuous growth you now have a level of independence. You can now access the texts on

your own and be reasonably confident that you are not misunderstanding.

In the start-up phase we will give you the overall framework of how the language works. In the initial

growth we will build on that and fill from 4% to 20%. In the start-up phase we focus only on the 4%(it was talked about in the report). Then in the initial growth we fill the next most broadly applicable


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aspects of the language. Then when we move into rapid growth we are studying unvowelled text.

We are building analytical skills to make sure you dont make mistakes when you are in continuous

growth. So when you are studying the books oftafseerand Imam Aaloosi , Imam Raazi, Ibn Taymiyya

or Imam Gazzali are speaking about something that is complex then you are not misunderstanding

them because we want to train you to think at the level of the scholars. I just gave you a brief

overview. As we move forward we will speak more about this.

Start-upThe start-up phase is characterised with uncertainty, worry, anxiety and overwhelm. Within the

start-up phase, minimising that should be the primary objective. The material needs to be presented

in a way that does not overwhelm the beginner. I am not saying it is easy and there is no effort

involved. In fact there is considerable effort in the opening days. Many people may have even left us

because of the report; however that is fine because this program/format/method is not for

everyone. I like to leadwith the elaborate and really attract those that are ideally qualified for the

method I have. Its good for the slow learner, I am not trying to disc ourage the slow learner, but at

the same time I have confidence in you that inshaAllah you will get it. I mentioned in the report that

by design this start-up phase does not assume that the student gets it 100%. You dont need 100%. I

say that because as soon as start-up completes we begin the next stage where we begin the actual

reading. As the reading book begins every word, phrase and sentence becomes an example of what

was taught to you in the start-up phase. If you had a 60/70% understanding of it then as the book

begins soon the 60/70% will become 100%. It cant get more obscure, it can only get clearer. This is

having confidence. Even experienced instructors are reluctant and hesitant to expose the students

to these elaborate topics early on. On the contrary I just go ahead and do it. There is considerable

risk involved but the momentum and enthusiasm just needs to be created which is the main goal.Once the reading texts begins the overwhelm can be removed.

This is a lot like how small businesses go through these 4 phases. In the start-up phase the main

concern of the business owner is whether they will have enough money to operate. They are

worried whether they will be in business tomorrow or not. If they are no longer worrying about that

then they are out of the start-up phase. Thats what characterises the start-up phase. They are doing

everything themselves and it is characterised by this chaotic overwhelm. During this phase the main

aim and objective of the business owner will be building the reserves so they dont have to pump

their own money into it but the business will be generating enough revenue to allow them to be able

to operate with a profit margin.

Similarly throughout the start-up phase we give you this big picture, the overall framework and a

significant amount of grammar and vocabulary we can draw on as soon as the text begins. This is our

reserves that we build on in the first three weeks in order to help us when we begin the reading text.

Building motivation and keeping the enthusiasm levels high is very important. Without this nothing

else matters. You can be sitting with the most brilliant scholars and the best curriculum and still fail if

the enthusiasm levels are not kept high. Key vocabulary is given to you through the mapping and

through the introduction ofsarf(morphology), nahw(grammar) and the classification of the word,

sentence and phrase. This will then be used as soon as the book begins. We can immediately start

drawing on the structures that begin occurring.


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In my normal classes I like to spread it over 8 hours. Every topic is labelled. If you look in the report I

can remind you of quite a few of them.

First of all we introduced the comprehensiveness of the Arabic language at the word level.

Then we presented the (istansaroo) example which then led to the definition of

sarf.

It needed to be done in that order. If you started with the definition ofsarfit would not have been

nearly that impactful. By illustrating the comprehensiveness we created fascination and interest.

Then we gave you the components that would then be used within the definition. I am going to do

that for you now. I am going to illustrate for you how a mini presentation is presented on a certain

topic. I will do that on the comprehensiveness of the Arabic language by presenting the

(istansaroo) example. I will take that and from it extract the definition ofsarfand map the language

with the most basic sound that comes out of the human mouth. That would lead to major topics ingrammar. We do one for sarfand we do one for grammar and we alternate between the two. Each

can be segmented into a mini presentation or labelled with a different title.

You need to know the topics so well that if you are called upon e.g. to present the three parts of

speech, how would you do that? Defining them and giving examples would be an inferior method.

The better way would be to take the English parts of speech, list them and spend some time on

them. Once you spend some time on them you can take them and assign them, the way we did in

the report. I will go ahead and give an example of that.

The key is that within the first three weeks (start-up phase) we cannot deviate. We must remain

within the 4% of the language that has the broadest application. Every word, every sentence and

every topic that is introduced in these first three weeks tightly belongs to that 4%. The focus needs

to be on this 4%.

Topics covered in the Start-up PhaseWe need to highlight the problem and the frustration because they might think that the language is

difficult, there is too much memorisation, it is beyond their comprehension or it is too random. So

we have to take all of those problems and tie them to a core problem that all of these are really

symptoms of that core problem. That core problem was introduced to you in the report. It was the

simple to the complex approach. Highlight the problem and then offer the solution. Youd be

surprised at the amount of people that offer solutions to which they havent created any problem.

Stating the problem would be a topic that would need to be presented. Then we speak about the

non-word meanings. There are meanings that come from the individual words but there are many

more meanings that come from the vowels, patterns, and grammatical structures. This needs to be

presented at an abstract level without too many examples. That one (istansaroo) example

would be sufficient to highlight non-word meanings. How what looked like a single word ended up

conveying seven meanings. That would lead to talking about verb tables. The ending on


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(istansaroo) example was a . We can have many more endings. If we want to say group of

females how would we do that?If we wanted to say one male how would we do that? We would

talk about the table layout and spend a little time on that, without filling the slots. That leads to the

definition ofsarf.

The same thing would be done with grammar.

The science of grammar would be introduced by starting with the mapping process, not by leading

with the definition. I will do it differently than I did it in my report just to show you that you dont

have to parrot my words. It is like a good joke. If you know the punch line you can always

reconstruct the joke.

Once we have introduced the topic of grammar through the mapping it would lead to the three

types of words, the two types of sentences and the two major issues which are associated with each

type of sentence. The nominal sentence has its problem and the verbal sentence has its problem.

Then the solutions to the problems are presented. This is what we do throughout the first three

weeks. This leads us to grammatical states because that is the solution to the sequence problem.

Then 15 of the 22 places are developed. That concludes our introductory theory. Then we would

move on to the reading text.

Istansaroo example

Here we go with the (istansaroo) example. I have decided to redo this in the video although

it was covered in the report. I feel this is important because every time I have done it people who

have heard it before never cease to re-comment saying this is what brought me to the course or Ive

taught my students this, or not only does it highlight sarfbut it also gives us an appreciation of why

Allah chose Arabic as the medium for His final message.

The purpose here is not to teach the topics or give you the total possible ways that meanings can be

conveyed at the word level. It is only to highlight that what we have on the screen looks like one

single word but conveys up to seven meanings. How is that happening? This structure translates as

they sought help. When you convey it in English you would need three words. In Arabic the total

number of meanings that are coming from the structure are actually more than three.

1) Initial help: coming from the in the middle ( ). When meanings are

created in Arabic it is done by taking consonants and grouping them in groups of three.

Every group of three has an associated meaning. These three letters have the associated

meaning of to help. The proof of that is that if you were to change these three letters and

substitute them with any three other letters then everything else would stay the same. The

seeking part would stay, the they part would stay and the help would change to

food. The letters for food are . If I say (istatamoo), notice how it rhymes,

the translation changes from they sought help to they sought food. Clearly the help is

coming from the particularness of the three consonants used in the middle.


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2) Notion of seeking: coming from the and at the front ( ). If you were to remove

the and and say only the translation changes to they helped.3) Past tense: the structure translates as they sought help.It could have been they seek

help, they are seeking help they will seek help or seek help! It is none of those. Sowhere are we getting this past tense from? That would be known by contrasting with the

other two.

The imperfect verb in the Arabic language that indicates on the present and future needs to

have a particular prefix. In the absence of that prefix the word cant be an imperfect verb.

What are they? : , , and . Since what we

have does not begin with any of the 4 letters, it cant be a present or future tense verb. The

command verb would have kasra on the . It would be . Since what we have has a

fatha on the it cant be a command either. Necessarily it must be a past tense verb. If

you have a house with three rooms and a person walks in the house, we go look in the first

room he is not there, the second room he is not there then that means he must be in the

third room. Just by finding him absent in the first two he must be in the third room. By

process of elimination we come to the conclusion that the verb on the screen is a past tense

verb. Where is that coming from? It is coming from the absence of the prefix at the front and

thefatha on the .

4) Active voice: The translation is they sought help. It could have been help was sought

from them. The sarfpeople would tell you that in order for the word to be passive, the

letters would be the same but the vowels would be different. The part would

change and become . Similarly the would become and we get

. Teaching that is not the point. The point is that it will be different. The kasra under

the , thefatha on the and thefatha on the all contribute and give us the active voice.

5) Masculine gender of the subject

6) Third person aspect of the subject

7) Plurality of the subject

5, 6, 7 are coming from the . This is mind blowing and highlights comprehensiveness. What looks

like a single structure ends up conveying to us up to seven meanings. English tried to do this and

they needed at least three words: they sought help. Even that wasnt precise because they in

English doesnt distinguish between males and females. This is what the Prophet (peace be upon

him) meant when he said (I was given words of great comprehensive meaning)

(and speech was made concise for me). He was talking about his own talent

and aptitude because he was more eloquent than most. But he was also talking about the language


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because the language has these things built into it. When you know this you end up learning more in

a single day than what others learn in a single year of study. That is the mini-presentation on

highlighting the comprehensiveness of the Arabic language at the word level. I just did it for you.

Grammar: MappingNow if you were to move on to grammar you would do something similar. You would start with the

most basic sound that comes out of the human mouth called utterance. In Arabic it is called .

The Arabic terms at this stage arent that important. Utterance can either be: meaningful or

meaningless. The meaningful can be: one word or more than one word. If it is more than one word it

will either contain predication or it wont. i.e. it will either be conveying a complete meaning upon

which silence is appropriate or it might be less than that. After doing all of that we end up with three

things: word, sentence and phrase. This is all of grammar because when people speak they speak in

sentences which are made up of words and phrases. We are going to develop the word, speak a little

about the phrase then develop the sentence in the next video.

The wordHow do you go about defining the word and classifying it?

There are three types but the best way to introduce the three parts of speech would not be to list

them. Since the assumption is that you have read the report. I would immediately launch into the

English parts of speech and spend about five minutes on those because it is much more productive

to spend five minutes on explaining the English parts of speech because the audience already knows

what a noun, pronoun, adjective and an adverb is. Even if they dont know then spending five

minutes on it is time well spent. All of that will then lead us in understanding the three parts of

speech in Arabic. The three parts of speech are: , and

I can go ahead and give a precise definition for the three parts of speech. That would be accurate but

it wont leave a mental imprint. You will not be likely to retain it for a very long time. If I use the

other approach, by beginning with the three parts of speech and then assigning them then this is like

a supersized grapefruit. Thats an analogy you might have caught. If you didnt that there is book

called Made to Stick written by two brothers Chip and Dan Heath. They speak about how to

introduce topics in a way that creates stickiness and mental imprint. It is good for teachers oranyone that is in the task of convincing and persuading and communicating with others. Anyway

there is a fruit out there called a pomelo. If I wanted to give a definition for it I would have to say

that it is of this size, yellowish and has a pink juicy inner core and a rough rind and list all of its

attributes but then it would be difficult to really make you understand what it is. If I say it is a

supersized grapefruit then you get it straight away.

Parts of SpeechIn English we have the 8 or 9 parts of speech:

1) Noun: a word that is used to refer to a place, person or thing.


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2) Pronoun: smaller words used in place of the noun when it has already been mentioned.

3) Adjective: word that modifies noun, e.g. tall, small, smart, lazy, hardworking.

4) Adverb: modifies other than a noun, e.g. quickly and swiftly

5) Verb: indicates on action plus tense e.g. went, going, will go

6) Prepositions: smaller parts of speech which are used to bring out attributes of the upcoming

noun which would otherwise not be indicated upon. E.g. from indicates on origin. Origin is

the attribute of a place. If you want to indicate that you are going to have to add the word

from before it, so it brings out this attribute that previously could not be understood.

7) Conjunction: e.g. and, or, nor, but.

8) Article: e.g. the.

The top four are all grouped together and labelled with the single label called the . The second

part of speech is the verb. It is exactly what in Arabic we call the . The third part of speech is

and that includes everything else.

Now when you proceed to define the , and you made your job a lot easier. If you get

this one single point it will unravel the entire topic. That would be to understand what it means for a

word to indicate a meaning in something else. That is by grabbing onto the and speaking

about the first. What is it?You would have to look at the prepositions, conjunctions and

articles and find some commonality between them. If you look at the word and, from, to,

not, yes they are all examples of . You will see that they all indicate on meanings in

something else. When I say and itis indicating on gathering. But in Zaid and Amr came is it the

and being gathered or is it Zaid and Amr being gathered in the action of coming? It is Zaid and

Amr being gathered in the action of coming. Gathering is a meaning from the meanings and it is a

meaning in something else. Every is like that, it indicates upon a meaning in something else.

That means and indicate on meanings within themselves. When I say tree it is the tree

which is the tree and I am not talking about some other word. Similarly when I say went the notion

of going is contained within that very word and not found in some surrounding word. You can then

proceed to define the , then follow up and explain the difference between the and the .

That would be the lack of tense in the and the presence of tense in the .

For the sake of brevity I am going to skip the sub-classifying of the and . When we sub-

classify our main objectives are:

1. To explain the differences between what we have just grouped together because nouns,

pronouns, adjectives and adverbs are in and of themselves quite different. When you takethe word quickly and compare it to man there is hardly any commonality there. When


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you take the word them and compare it to very the only commonality is that they are

both words that indicate on a meaning in themselves and they are not linked to time. But

does that justify generalising them and grouping them with a single label? That would be

problematic if we left it there but since we sub-classify that is no longer problematic

because what you see together you later see them different. All the commonality is

expressed when we say . Their differences are made apparent through the sub-

classifying process.

2. It also gives us the reserves that we need when we approach the reading text. It gives us this

key vocabulary that will be utilised when we draw attention to the words, phrases and

sentences that occur in the reading text.

3. The most important benefit is that it allows us to bypass many of the preliminaries that

would normally be required in order to present a major topic. I can go ahead and talk about

the heart of the Arabic language. I can speak about the lack ofis issue and the sequence

not determining grammar issue, without too much fear because this sub-classifying has

allowed me to do that. It gives me an excuse to do away with many of the preliminaries and

get through the core quickly in order to begin the reading text in the third week of class.

Classification of the

The divides into the governing agent and the non-governing agent. Here is the million dollar

question. What does it mean to govern and not govern? This is where we present the two analogies.

It was done a little different in the report. We came to this question at the end of the report. In my

teaching I would normally address it now and I would peel off one layer. Remember the onion

analogy. This core theory is given in stages and it is like the peeling of an onion. Every layer reveals

more of the system. What does it mean to govern and not govern? At this stage I would speak about

the human emotions analogy and follow up with the pronouns analogy.

Grammatical StatesHuman beings experience emotional states. People make us happy, angry, sad etc. This happens

because of interaction with other humans. People treat us in certain ways. Sometimes they fulfil our

expectations and other times they dont. These emotions are then reflected on our faces. By looking

at the persons face we can tell what emotion they are experiencing. Arabic words behave in asimilar fashion. Words influence words and interact with one another and experience grammatical

states. Human beings experience emotional states and Arabic words experience grammatical states.

Unlike human emotions which are endless grammatical states in Arabic are just four, from amongst

them we are interested in three. The fourth one is not part of the introductory theory. They are:

(he)

(him)

(his)


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Notice the he, him and his. Why do they have three variations? Because the pronoun could be

the subject, the object or possessive. Whenever the pronoun is intended to be the subject of the

verb they say he came, when it is intended to be the object of the verb they say I saw him, and

when it is in a possessive structure they say hispen. You are seeing the same meaning essentially

being conveyed in three ways in order to highlight grammatical state. This in English only happens in

pronouns. In Arabic it happens in the majority of . I am saying the would look different based

on how it is used. We can show you this with the house example.

The house fell down:

I entered the house:

The door of the house:

The point of the examples is the word . In the first example ends with a damma, in the

second example it ends with afatha and in the possessive example it ends with a kasra. In English it

stays the same. House in all three. In Arabic, it changes. Just like a human being experiences

emotional states and the states are reflected on theface, in the same way Arabic words experience

grammatical states. The grammatical states are reflected on the last letter.

All of that is for a particular purpose which we will give you in the next video when we talk about the

sequence not determining grammar issue.

Back to our main question. What does it mean to govern and not govern? Notice we were sub-classifying the . All of that was just an excuse to speak about grammatical states and peel the

first layer. So lets tie it back in. If you look at all the , then there are certain that

influence the way a word looks and other dont do that. If you put a at the beginning of a

maadiverb you would get . on its own means he helped. contributed to the

meaning and created negation. Negation is a meaning in something else. The is negating the verb.

In the (in) is indicating containment. The word has a kasra that is induced by the

whereas thefatha on is not induced by the . It was there before the came as well. Basically

the ending of can move around based on how the word is used in the sentence. The ending of

does not move around. At any rate did not induce any change so it would be a non-governing

agent. Whereas would be a governing agent.

We teach all of this theory in the opening 3 weeks and encourage the students to develop their ownmini presentations which do not need to be identical to the way I do it.


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Initial GrowthThat was all start-up. Once we are out of start-up we begin the reading text which continues for six

months. From the middle of the third week till the end of month six. In there all of the theory comes

to life. New grammar is taught alongside that. Now we are not only zooming in on the 4% we are

broadening out to 20%. Now we take all of the theory that was built in the earlier start-up phaseandapply it to the structures that occur in the reading text. This is where our vocabulary builds rapidly

also. We learn all ofsarfand 20% of grammar. It fills the gaps in the understanding because

throughout the start-up phase the aim was to get through the core with 60-70% retention and

comprehension. You dont even have to understand it 100%. This is another big limitation and huge

liability for many people. They cant move forward unless they have a 100% understanding of what

they are being taught. Here there has to be patience, perseverance and a satisfaction with 60-70%.

Because you have to trust that as the book begins the gap will fill. It cant get more obscure. The only

reason I speak about a certain topic is because it has broad application. By definition what that

means is every subsequent encounter of the principles application can only lead to greater clarity.

Immediately in the first passage we would draw attention to any and every thing that was taught in

the first three weeks. New material would be introduced based on my judgement. As a teacher I

would assess whether this is worth speaking about or not. The author sort of collaborates with us in

this, while explaining the story of Ibraheem (peace be upon him) he will repeat sentences and

structures, then he will start gradually introducing new structures. As he brings them in the book I

bring them. You will be surprised at the amount of people that spend an inordinate amount of time

learning things they dont even need. You need to know what the next most important thing you

need to learn is. So in the introductory theory we are only teaching you the bare minimum that is

required in order to begin any reading. As the book begins the new grammar is introduced while the

author introduces the structures in the book. He brings them at the appropriate time when I would

want to teach them. It is pretty startling. Very rarely do I have to defer a topic and say, this will be

taught later, this will be taught later. We only speak about new structures if it has broad application

otherwise they will be ignored.

Now we move from 5 to 20%. We spend the six months (initial growth period) filling that gap. Sarfis

being taught simultaneously. The rules ofsarfare self-contained. You can go ahead and master that

first. There is a sort of imbalance because there is more sarfand less grammar. But the grammar

that there is, is the most important grammar. From the period from week four until the end of the

sixth month it is the 20% we are focusing on.

Rapid GrowthThen we can start playing in the white area in month seven and beyond. That is rapid growth. We do

the 132 page best book in the world for grammar book. It is called Hidaaytaun Nahw. I have taught it

19 times. I continue to teach it three times every year and I never delegate any aspect of its

teaching. I am going to tell you more about that book in the next video.

Then there is tafseerof the Quraan that is introduced in the second year, but we allow our

Hidaaytaun Nahwstudents to attend the tafseersessions also. We introduce and expose the student

to the principles ofbalaagha. Exactly as we did with grammar in the Qasas book (reading text), inthe tafseersessions through the verses of the Quran we are showing application of rhetorical


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devices. Grammar teaches you flexibility and rhetoric teaches you what to do with that flexibility. A

person emailed me about the report; I think they misunderstood how if you have a verb and two

nouns then the meaning can be conveyed in six different ways. He thought I was suggesting all six

ways of formatting the sentence were equal. Clearly, thats not what I meant. There will be one that

is standard and five that are unconventional. Everything else being equal it is the standard one that

you would use, the verb at the front, subject second object third. If your listener already knows

about the action having occurred and who did it, the only new information that you are giving is that

of the object then only then would you employ the structure with the object at the front. If you have

a verb and two nouns there are six different ways the sentence can be formatted. Add another

major potion and the number jumps and becomes 24. Add one more major portion the number

jumps and becomes 120. It keeps multiplying. There is really no limit to the size and length of a

verbal sentence. We will talk about that in the next video. That is only one factor. Other than that

there is the question of whether to bring it definite or indefinite. If you bring it definite then do you

bring it in the form of a pronoun, a demonstrative pronoun or do you say (those

who rejected Shuaib - the subject of the sentence) (were the losers - the

predicate of the sentence). Allah could have said the nation of Shuaib were losers. Why have so

many words been used? Why that particular choice? Grammar only says that the subject of the

nominal sentence needs to be definite but it doesnt specify what kind of definite. There are seven

kinds of definite. happens to be a relative pronoun, it means who, what, which. By

bringing the subject in the form of a relative pronoun, the verse tells you the cause and reason for

the loss (i.e. the reason for the predicate). Why did they suffer the loss? Because of their rejection of

Shuaib. By saying you would not be able to capture that. While doing tafseerwe highlight

a lot of the principles ofbalaagha applied, without the theory.

Let me tell you the best news, when you open the books oftafseerthey assume you know grammar.

They wont get into the basics of the parts of speech. If you open up Imaam Aloosi or Imaam Raazi,

Abu Al-Saud or one of these linguistic tafseerbooks they will not be talking about grammar, but

when they are highlighting the principle ofbalaagha within a verse they will summarise for you the

topic and then show its application. That means that what you need is the 132 page book in

grammar cover to cover and you dont need to read the 550 page monstrosity book in balaagha.

Although if you do you will be an expert, and amongst the 1% of mankind because most people

dont get to that level. That is the continuous growth phase.

Next VideoRemember these phases and inshaAllah we have a lot more to share with you in the next video. We

are going to talk about the lack of is issue, the sequence not determining grammar issue and we

are going to develop 15 of the 22 places. I hope you got some good value from this and I would

really like to know what you thought about it.

Arabic Training 1

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