Arabic Reading Writing Module 1-Bilal Philips-C

Islamic Online University
Arabic Reading & Writing
Islamic
Online
University
http://www.islamiconlineuniversity.com
by
Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips
Module 1
Lesson One
TRANSLITERATION
Consonants
b
t
th
j
h
kh
d
th
r
z
s
sh
s
d
t
th
gh
f
q
k
l
m
n
h
w
y
Vowels
aw
aa
oo
ee
Dipthongs
ay
FOREWORD
his book is based on the third edition of the Arabic for non-Arabs
textbook published by King Saud Universitys Language Institute;
1 : al-Arabeeyah: Aswaatuhaa wa
Huroofuhaa . It was prepared under the supervision of Dr.
Mahmoud Seenee, a graduate of Georgetown University, U.S.A. The text
employs the latest developments in the science of linguistics related to the Arabic
language. However, it is completely in Arabic. The book was designed to be
taught by Arabs to non-Arabs of varying backgrounds without any intermediary
language.
Over the past fifteen years, I have taught Arabic reading and writing to adults
and highschool students using a number of different books and methods. From
1991-3, I successfully taught the King Saud University book to officers of the
American and British Airforce at Saudia Arabian Airforce Headquarters in
Riyadh using English as the intermediary language. I also introduced the book to
Sharif Kabunsuan Islamic University, Cotabato City, Mindanao, Philippines in
1993 and taught Arabic teachers at the college how to use it. In the course of
teaching the King Saud University text using English as the medium of
instruction, I compiled notes on the letters from descriptions used in Elementary
Modern Standard Arabic 1, edited by Peter F. Abboud. I also modified many of
the drills and vocabulary, as well as the distribution of some of the letters and
reading rules.
The significance of the King Saud University text is that it does not require
the learner to memorize all 28 letters of the alphabet, plus their 112 variations
before learning to read and write. It is ideal for adults and older youths, because it
develops reading and writing skills gradually and logically. In contrast to the
traditional methods based on al-Qaaidah al-Baghdaadeeyah used throughout the
Muslim world. The Qaaidah was developed many centuries ago for Arab
primary school children, but was adopted by madrasahs (religous institutions)
throughout the non-Arab Muslim world. Even today, it continues to be the
standard text used, from the Philippines to Guyana, South America.
This text is the product of my teaching notes, modifications to the King Saud
University book and experience in teaching it through the medium of English. I
have added an introduction on the Arabs and Arabic for the interest of the readers,
as well as an appendix of Arabic selections for reading practice for those who
1
Prepared by Naasif Abdul- Azeez and Mustafaa Sulayman and first published in 1981. The
third edition as in 1990.
have completed the course. The selections are from a grade three Arabic reader
used in the U.A.E., some sayings of Prophet Muhammad (), and the last nine
chapters of the Quraan. The letters of the alphabet and reading principles are
distributed over eight lessons which are designed to be easily taught over a period
of three months, at two hours per week.
Before closing, I would like to thank Ahmad Fat-hi for his diligence in typing
the basic Arabic text and my wife, Sakeenah, for revising my English
explanations, linguistic descriptions and her valuable suggestions regarding the
overall presentation of the lessons. Most of all, I thank Allaah for giving me this
opportunity to help others learn the language of the last revelation; the Quraan
and I pray that He record this effort in my favor.
Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips
Sharjah, U.A.E.
October, 1995
INTRODUCTION : Who are the Arabs?
n prehistoric and pagan times two races inhabited Arabia: one was
largely nomadic and wandered with their flocks over the great deserts
which lie between the Euphrates river and the centre of the peninsula.
The others were the inhabitants of the rain-fed uplands in the south
the Yemen. According to Arab tradition, northern Arabians were Arabicized
Arabs2 descending from Adnaan, while the southern Arabians were pure or
genuine Arabs3 descending from Qahtaan.4 It was the former who were the
Arabs mentioned in ancient records. The earliest surviving account of the
people of Arabia comes in the tenth chapter of Genesis, which names the
descendants of Noah. Noahs eldest son, Shem, is regarded as the ancestor of the
Hebrews, Arabs and Aramaeans, the speakers of Semitic5 languages. But the
term Arab is not mentioned in Genesis.6 So far as is known, the word first
appears in an inscription of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III announcing his
victory over a group of rebellious chieftains, one of whom is referred to as
Gindibu the Aribi. From then on, Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions refer
frequently to Aribi or Arabu. They were a nomadic people living in the north
Arabian desert, and their tribute to their Assyrian overlords was usually in the
form of camels, first domesticated in Arabia between about 1500 and 1200 BC.
In the Bible the name Arab is the first word used in the second book of Chronicles
17:117 to refer to nomads from the east bank of the river Jordan in the time of
King Jehosophat (c. 900-800 BC). But the term most frequently used for Arabs in
the Bible is Ishmaelites. Jewish tradition regarded the Arabs as fellowdescendants of Prophet Abraham. The Jews acknowledge that Ishmael was the
son of Abraham by his second wife Hagar. Adnaan was believed to be a
descendant of Prophet Ishmael.
An Arab was therefore a nomadic inhabitant of the central and northern
Arabian peninsula. The word itself is probably derived from a Semitic root related
2
al-Arab al-Mustaribah.
al-Arab al-Aaribah.
4
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.13, p. 813.
5
This term was first used by the German historian A.L. Schlozer in 1781.
6
However it has been suggested that the mixed multitude (Hebrew erev) mentioned in Exodus
xii, 38 as having accompanied the Israelites into the wilderness from Egypt could be a mistake for
Arabs (Hebrew arav). Hebrew, like Arabic, has no written vowels. (See N. Barbour, Nisi
Dominus, London, 1946, p. 73.)
7
....and the Arabians brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and seven
thousand and seven hundred she-goats.
3
to nomadism. In the Arabic language, the word araba means to cross.

Herodotus and later Greek and Roman authors began to extend the terms Arabia
and Arab to cover the whole peninsula and its inhabitants, including the
Yemenis of the south-west. The Romans referred to the comparatively fertile
region in southwestern and southern Arabia (in present day Asir and Yemen) as
Arabia Felix8 in contrast to Arabia Deserta in barren central and nothern Arabia
and Arabia Petraea9 in northwestern Arabia.10 Already the term Arab was
broadening.
Inevitably, some of the Arabian nomads began settling down around the
oases, where a sedentary civilization was possible. One of these settlements was
Yathrib in western Arabia, which became Madeenah after the time of the Prophet
Muhammad (); another was Petra, the valley hidden among the bare mountains
of south Jordan which in the second century BC became the centre of the
powerful kingdom of the Nabataeans. Although the Nabataeans were Arabic in
speech, Aramaic in writing, Semitic in religion, and Hellenistic in art and
architecture, their culture was synthetic, being superficially Hellenic but basically
Arabian, and so it remained.11 Still another settlement was Palmyra in the central
Syrian desert, which achieved high prosperity as a trading centre at a junction of
caravan routes and ultimately as a great political power in the third century CE 12
under the astute Queen Zenobia. In the south, the Greek writer Eratosthenes (3rd
century BC) described Eudaimon Arabia (i.e., Yemen) as inhabited by four major
peoples; Sabaeans, Minaeans, Qatabanians, and Hadramites. The people who
called themselves Saba (biblical Sheba) are both the earliest and the most
abundantly attested in the surviving written records. Their centre was at Marib,
east of present-day Sanaa and on the edge of the sand desert. Sabaean rulers, who
are mentioned in Assyrian annals of the late 8th and 7th centuries BC, were
responsible for impressive irrigational constructions. The Minaean kingdom
lasted from the 4th to the 2nd century BC and was predominantly a trading
organization that, for the period, monopolized the trade routes. Their capital was
at Qarnaw (now Maeen). The Hadramite kingdom, the wealthiest of these ancient
civili-zations, was based on the sale of frankincense and sea trade from India. It
occupied the modern Dhofar province of the Sultanate of Oman. Himyarites first
appear in recorded history in Plinys Naturalis Historia (latter half of the 1st
century CE). Their kindom was in the extreme southwest of the peninsula, and
they had their capital at Thafaar, nine miles southwest of present-day Yarim on
the road from Aden to Sanaa. In the last decades of the 3rd century CE a
8
Literally Happy, or Flourishing Arabia.

Literally, Stony Arabia.
10
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.1, p. 508.
11
Philip Hitti, Syria: A Short History , London, 1959, p. 61.
12
CE stands for common era or Christian era in place of AD.
9
Himyarite ruler named Shammar Yurish ended the independent existence of both
Saba and Hadhramaut, and the whole of the Yemen was united under his rule. He
and his successors were called the Tubba kings and their rule continued until
shortly before the rise of Islaam.13
Some time after the rise of Islaam in the first quarter of the 7th century CE
and the emergence of the Arabian Muslims as the founders of one of the greatest
empires of history, the name Arab came to be used by these Muslims
themselves and by the nations with whom they came in contact to indicate all
people of Arabian origin. Subsequently, when Arabic replaced the local
languages in many countries of the Middle-East and North Africa, the term Arab
came to refer to anyone who spoke Arabic as their native language.
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet is the second most widely used alphabetic writing
system in the world (the Latin alphabet is the most widespread). Arabic language
was carried across much of the Eastern Hemisphere by the spread of Islaam. The
Arabic script has been adapted to such diverse languages as Persian, Turkish,
Hausa, Malay, Urdu, Spanish, and Swahili. Although it probably developed in
the 4th century CE as a direct descendant of the Nabataean alphabet, its origins
and early history are vague. Some scholars believe that the earliest extant
example of Arabic script is a royal funerary inscription of the Nabataeans dating
from CE 328. Others believe that this epigraph shows characteristics of Arabic
but is essentially Aramaic and that the earliest extant example of Arabic is a
trilingual inscription in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic dating from CE 512.
The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, all representing consonants, and is written
from right to left. Twenty-two of the letters are those of the Semitic alphabet from
which it descended, modified only in letter form, and the remaining six letters
represent sounds not used in the language written in the earlier alphabet.
Two major types of Arabic script exist. Koofee, a thick, bold monumental
style, was developed in Kufah, a city in Mesopotamia, toward the end of the 7th
century CE. It was used chiefly for inscriptions in stone and metal, but was
sometimes also employed to write manuscripts of the Quraan. Even though
Koofee is a very handsome monumental script, it has passed out of use, except in
cases in which more cursive scripts cannot be used. Naskh, a cursive script well
adapted to writing on papyrus or paper, is the direct ancestor of modern Arabic
writing. It originated in Makkah and Madeenah at an early date and exists in
many complex and decorative variant forms.14
13
14
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 8, pp. 815-7.

The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 1, pp. 509-10.
LESSON ONE :

Connecting Form
Name of the Letter
Sound of the Letter
daal
raa
seen
noon
d
r
s
n
Pronunciation
In the Arabic alphabet there are 28 consonants and they are pronounced
according to the first letter of their names. For example, the letter called daal ()
is pronounced as d and the letter called raa ( ) as r. In English there is also
a distinction between the names of letters and their pronunciation, however, they
do not follow a uniform rule like Arabic. The letter called aitch is h and the
letter em is m, while the letter called jay is j and zed or zee is z.
Writing
Arabic is written and read from right to left, the complete opposite of
English. Consequently, the formation of the letters must match the direction in
which the words are written.
daal
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1. The letter daal is pronounced like the d in the English word deed and is
written with a single curved stroke from the top to the bottom. It should rest on
the line and not below the line.
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raa
2. The letter raa is quite different from the English r, which is more a vowel
than a consonant.15 The Arabic r is a consonant produced by tapping the tip of
the tongue quickly behind the upper teeth. It is similar to the American English
pronunciation of t or tt between vowels (e.g. waiter, butter, pretty, etc.) as
a tongue flap rather than a stop consonant as in tea or eat.16 However, the
Arabic r is a trill; a rapid succession of several flaps.
The raa is written as a continual stroke which begins above the line and
extends below it.
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15
English r is the vowel u in but pronounced with the tip of the tongue turned back and with
rounded lips.
16
The Arabic r may be practised by saying phrases like a lotta water, I gotta go.
11
seen
3. The Arabic seen corresponds to the high-pitched s in English words like

see except that the tip of the tongue in Arabic is in contact with the upper teeth,
while in English the tip of the tongue is slightly behind the teeth, giving the s a
slightly lower-pitched sound.
It is written like a cursive w beginning from the right on the line followed
by a large circular u written below the line.
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noon
4. The letter noon is pronounced like the n in the English word none. It is
written below the line as a circular u with a dot between the upper arms of the
u.
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Letter Connection
All letters of the Arabic alphabet can be connected to letters preceding them
by the addition of an extension (e.g. ) . However, six letters
do not connect to letters following them (e.g. daal and raa ) . These letters
are referred to in this book as non-connectors. The remaining 22 letters are
12
called connectors because they connect to letters following them (e.g. seen
and noon ).
The letters which do connect all have modified forms for connecting. Thus,
seen becomes and noon becomes . For example, if seen precedes
daal it is written as and if noon precedes raa it becomes , but if daal
precedes seen or raa precedes noon, they are written separately as follows:
and .
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LONG VOWELS
alif
The vowel alif is equivalent to a long a in English, as in the word father

and will be written in this book as aa. The vowel alif is a non-connector. That
is, it does not connect to letters following it. However, letters which precede it
may be joined to it, if they are among the connecting letters. It is written as a
single horizontal stroke from top to bottom and rests on the line.
The pronunciation of vowels in Arabic does not change as much as they do in
English. For example, the a in English has four different pronunciations in the
following words: father, late, bat and comma.
Reading
Reading in Arabic is merely the addition of the letters and their vowels while
reading from right to left. E.g. ++ daal + alif + noon = d + aa + n =
daan.
13
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Attempt:
1. Reading Exercise 1
2. Writing Exercise 1
3. Dictation 1
At this point and submit before proceeding.
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The vowel
waaw
waaw is equivalent to a long u in English, as in the word
brute and the oo in room. It should be noted that, like alif, the vowel waaw
does not join to letters following it. In this book it will be written as oo. It is
written in one stroke consisting of a circle beginning on the line, from right to left,
and ending with a tail extending below the line.
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It is added in the same way as alif was in the previous section. E.g.
raa + waaw + seen = r + oo + s = roos
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Attempt:
yaa
The long vowel yaa is equivalent to the ee in the English word meet
and is written in this book as ee. It is written like an s whose head is stretched
to the right and whose tail is stretched to the left and curved upward. The head of
the s is written above the line and the tail below the line.
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16
Note that this vowel is a connector. That is, it connects to letters which follow
it. The connecting form is written on the line, like that of noon except that it has
two dots below it. (e.g. and )
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Yaa is added to consonants in the same way as the other two vowels. E.g.
++ seen + yaa + noon = s + ee + n = seen.
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Note: When yaa is followed by raa or noon and preceded by a connector,

the peak of the yaa is commonly joined directly to the top of the raa or noon. e.g.
becomes and becomes
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3
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Attempt:
3. Dictation 2
TWO OR MORE LONG VOWELS

A single word in Arabic may contain two or more long vowels.
Pronunciation of such words follows the same principles used in reading words
with only one long vowel. For example, +++ daal+alif+raa+yaa =
d+aa+r+ee = daaree
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10
Attempt:
3. Dictation 3
20
SHORT VOWELS

In Arabic, there are only three short vowels (a, u, i). Each one corresponds in
pronunciation to one of the three long vowels (aa, oo, ee). They are pronounced
like the a in pat, the u in put and the i in pit. The short vowela is
called fat-hah and is indicated by a short right-slanting line ( ) above the letter it
follows. The short vowel u is called dammah and is indicated by a small waaw
written above the letter ( ) . The short vowel i is called kasrah and is written
as a short right-slanting line below the letter ( ) .

si
su
sa
di
du da
ni
ri
nu
na
ru ra
The short vowels are added to consonants in the same way that long vowels
were in the previous examples. E.g.
+ + daal + fat-hah + raa + fat-hah
+ seen + fat-hah = d + a + r + a + s + a =
darasa
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Attempt:
3. Dictation 4
22
SUKOON

is
us
as
id

in un
an
ud ad

ir
ur ar
The sukoon ( ) is a special symbol written over a consonant to indicate that

the consonant does not have a short vowel on it, for example ( ) is pronounced
as d. Sukoon causes the sound of the letter to be joined to the vowel before it.
Therefore, ( ) is pronounced as ad.
In the first part of this lesson involving long vowels, the consonants
following long vowels were pronounced without vowels, e.g. daar. If the
sukoon was added, there would have been no difference in pronunciation, e.g.
daar. The sukoon only confirms that there is no short vowel on the
consonant, because in modern written Arabic, short vowels are often deleted. This
might appear strange, since the number of possible short vowel combinations in
three letter words are 18. However, only a few are actually used and the context
in the sentence will determine which ones are intended. For example, in English,
23
the sentence: Th_s _s th_ b_ys r_d b_ _ k. Can easily be read as This is the
boys red book by a native speaker of English, or an educated non-native
speaker. Even though it could have been many other combinations of the six
English vowels, some of which made words while others did not; e.g. Thus as
tha bays rod beak.
The long vowel aa is actually produced by a fat-hah plus alif , oo by
dammah plus waaw and ee by kasrah plus yaa . Since alif is always
preceded by fat-hah, waaw by dammah 90% of the time and yaa by kasrah 90%
of the time, the short vowels are not written in modern vowelled Arabic texts.
However, in ancient texts, like that of the Quraan and the prophetic traditions, the
preceding short vowels will be written. e.g.

soodaanee.
Consequently, alif, waaw and yaa may be considered equivalent to the long
vowels aa, oo and ee for beginning Arabic readers.
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24
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Attempt:
3. Dictation 5
Distinguishing Between Long

and Short Vowels
The long vowel is held twice as long as the short vowel in classical speech.
However, in rapid speech, long vowels are shortened. Conse-quently, only a slight
difference in pronunciation of the two types of vowels distinguishes between
them. Although such differences do not affect the meaning of words in English, in
Arabic they do. For example, the word
darasa means he studied,
daarasa means he studied with someone, darasaa means both

of them studied and
daraasah17 means studying.
17
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Actually
daraasah which to non-Arabs sounds exactly the same as daraasa.
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10
11
12
13
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Attempt:
2. Writing Exercise 7 and 8
28

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