Here We Go...

The moment we've all been waiting for...the most enjoyable part of being in Egypt...we will finally see the true reasons behind the greatness of Egypt!

We're going to get our visas renewed, insha'allah.

According to our Al-Diwan guide, it's all part of our "Egyptian experience". Oh boy. We need two get two passport-sized photographs, our old passport and visa, money, and a lot of patience. Insha'allah I'm trying to make it seem a lot more arduous than it probably will be because that way when I actually go insha'allah it won't seem as difficult.

Today the two Muhammads who work at Markaz Al-Diwan were cleaning out one of the rooms on the fourth floor. The room was previously being used for storage but now since summer is coming with its accompanying wave of new students the teachers need to use it for a classroom. There was tons of stuff inside it. Both of the poor Muhammads were complaining that every two months they have to move all the stuff right back into it. I had a good laugh with my teacher.

When they were moving all the stuff I also found an excellent little pamphlet written by Ustadh Islam Aly on learning Arabic. It clears up so many misconceptions that foreign students have when learning Arabic, and actually addresses language in general. For example, it talked about the fact that some students always care an English-Arabic dictionary around and try to learn as many complicated words as possible. They believe that a good understanding of a language entails knowing lots of words no one else knows. But eloquence, as Zachariah bhai always reminds us, is using the right words in the right place, no more, no less.

I met one student who was leaving Egypt and I asked him, "How do you feel about your progress in Arabic? Do you feel that it's been worth it?"

He said, " Yeah, I'm really happy with my progress. If I stayed any longer, all I would do is simply be memorizing new words. I can do that anytime with a dictionary in my own country."

I thought about that comment a lot and realized that it was wrong. The most important thing is to learn the correct context to use the word, especially in Arabic. In Arabic you have to worry about a lot of different things when you learn a word: does it need an object or is it lazim (certain verbs are "stand-alone"; for example, "I went," doesn't require an object)? What place does it occupy in the mushtaqqat? And most of all, customarily how do we use this word?

Another important thing I learned from the book is that learning from old and important books is not always a good way to learn Arabic. I always personally use to think that the best thing to do is study a book like Ihya Ulum al-Din or something like that and after that your Arabic would be tip-top. But as Ustadh Aly points out, language is about communication. It's important that we remember that Arabic is a living language. Some people think, "Well, I only want to understand the Qur'an; why would I need to learn to speak in Arabic?" Until you've lived in an Arabic country you don't really a get a full taste for the language. There were some articles from students who had learnt Arabic at Markaz Al-Diwan included in the book and one student gave the example of the word nazar. In Urdu the word nazar literally means, "sight". But contextually it also means evil eye, jealousy and a host of other things. The Qur'an is the same way. The more we live with the people of the language, the more potent our understanding becomes.

I can already forsee people saying, "Well, the Arabs today are a lot different than from before. Arabs don't even speak fus'ha anymore!" But I still contend that if your only contact with Arabic is in a book, your understanding will serious lack fruitfulness.

(Yeah, I am an expert now. I've spent my two months and now I can be crowned as Sheikh Toad-ud-Din. :D)

Everyone keep praying for us. Our visit to the greatest Egyptian monument, the Mujamma, awaits.

~Ameer