Arabic is spoken as a mother tongue by between 250 and 400 million people across 25 countries. Over a
billion people can read the script even if they can’t understand the language. And Arabic happens to be
one of the official languages of the United Nations. Therefore, many people learn the language for
formal reasons.
At about 1,500 years old, Arabic also happens to be a very old language. It was the language of
scholarship throughout the rule of the Islamic empires – a period of well over 1,000 years from the 7th
century right down to the 19th and even 20th. The greatest books of medicine, geology, law, philosophy,
and basically any subject you can imagine were all written in the finest Arabic. Therefore, many of the
most advanced people in their fields of study learn Arabic for scientific and anthropological reasons.
Arabic is also the language of the Qur’an (the Islamic holy book). It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are,
the Qur’an is unequivocally, undeniably and undoubtedly the greatest form of Arabic literature, and
indeed the greatest form of literature, period. The beauty of this piece of literature is, in fact, quite
literally, miraculous. Therefore, tens of millions of people learn this language to witness firsthand the
beauty and miracle that is The Qur’an... religious reasons.
In fact, emphasis has been placed on studying the Arabic language by the Prophet (PBUH) himself when
he said to the effect: learn the Arabic language as you learn the Islamic obligations and practices. His
companions, who, remember, were Arabs, used to learn Arabic despite the fact that it was their mother
tongue. They used to say: teach your children Arabic. They used to correct each other’s grammar. They
would consider it unacceptable to make a grammatical mistake. And the scholars that followed them in
later centuries all emphasized learning Arabic. Imam Abu Hanifa said to the effect: I would’ve made
learning this language compulsory had I not deemed it difficult on the people.
That is because
1. in order to truly understand the message of God as it was revealed, one must understand it in
the very language it was revealed, and
2. the Qur’an is a literary miracle – really, a full blown miracle – and in order to witness it, you
need to simply learn the language and you will witness a miracle with your very own eyes