5 Reasons Why You’ll Fail At Learning Arabic (And How to Avoid Them)

 My landlord who was suffering from cancer gave me a book that he just wrote  A Word by Word Meaning of the Quran.  It was the first word by word translation of Surah Al Fatihah and Al-Baqarah.  And that was my first encounter with the Quranic Arabic. Professor Muhammad Mohar Ali died soon after he completed the 114 Surahs of the Quran. That was 20 years ago, but his book is still the definitive guide for similar work in other languages. At the time I was ignorant of the superpowers that are demonstrated by the Quran. 

Now a lot of things have change, I am absolutely sold on the linguistic superpowers of the Quran. The problem is how to learn the Quran. There are is a lot people claiming quick fix offered on the internet.  The truth is learning it is a challenge with today’s lifestyle. Here is something I wished I had known before I started learning Quranic Arabic:

Choosing the Wrong Arabic

There are 3 types of Arabic, modern standard Arabic, Spoken Arabic and Classical Arabic. It is easy to pick up Arabic if you are held hostage in Syria or have regular lunches with a Yemeni tribe leader.  If you are living in a non arabic speaking country, the Quran is probably your only connection to the Arabic language. In which case you need, classical Arabic.

Don’t stay at the Bus stop

People who were addicted to smoking, drugs or alcohol know when they try to stop, know that that they would have relapses. Sometimes, months, years went by and sometime a whole lifetime passes them by before they get on the quitting bus again.

There were times that, you can’t keep your commitment, this will makes you feel guilty.You’ll start thinking maybe you are destined to hell that’s why it is so hard to learn the Quran. The guilt can put you off for a long period of time that you’ll have to start from square one. You are going to fumble. But you need to get right back on the saddle after you fall. If not you will be wasting weeks, months and even years of unnecessary down time.

Wrong intention

When you learn classical Arabic, you the language not because you want to wax lyrical in Arabic but because you want to appreciate the linguistic miracle of the Quran. You  want to stand behind the Imam during prayers and understand what he is reciting instead of thinking “When is this guy going to stop”. Most importantly, You  want to experience the miracle of the Quran. You want to learn it purely for the sake of Allah, which is very, very, hard to do. Thoughts will come to you like, you’ll definitely impressed good Muslim ladies or you’ll be made Imam at the Masjid.  All these are bonuses, if girls like you, you’ll have your wife to deal with it. If you are made Imam, you probably end up quarreling with the committee. 

Understand Your Situation

I tried to learn Arabic took courses one after another, but I have a career,  family and kids still growing up. I simply do not have the time to enroll in classes and stick with it till the end. There are too many things that compete for my attention. There is no way that I could learn the Arabic language for whatever purpose, with all these competing demands.So, finally what I find works for me is  spending only 10 minutes a day before I go to sleep. So you need to be realistic and not idealistic when when deciding how much commitment can 

Choose A Program

They are so many programs to choose from free and paid. But you need to choose a program that best suited to your lifestyle. It is very important to be in a program so you can track your progress. Allocate how much time can you spent, 2 hours, half hour or even 10 minutes. As long as you keep at it, InshaAllah one day you’ll find that Allah will make it easy for you.  

The Power of Sincerity

If you can have this for long enough and often enough amazing things will start to happen. You’ll see Allah make it easy for you, when that happens everything seems effortless, the Qu’ran would not leave you alone. You will only know what I am talking about once it happen. Just renew your sincerity and put a little effort.

God is The Best of Planners

The most important of all always rely on Allah, He knows the quickest and fastest way for you to get to where you want to go. No matter how many decades you wasted ignoring his signs. All you have to do is put in the effort, and leave the outcome to Allah. My experience is that at first, you need to put a lot of effort to get a tiny result, but in time you’ll see result will come effortlessly.

How to Avoid failing

There will be times that you feel like quitting when that happens, just watch this video, and you’ll come to your senses. He is name is Bret Martin, he’ll tell you the rest. 

Pray that Allah gives guidance to him and his family to the truth