Pathway to learning Arabic Section One

(Updated: 09 April 2018)

Since I kept adding many new resources to this pathway, I realized that it has grown beyond the scope of a simple blog post. So I have moved the pathway to learn Arabic through self study to a website of it’s own Alhamdulillah.

The resources are now more organized and the whole pathway is structured into courses. And I have added menus to make it easy to navigate the resources.

Check it out at Pathway to Arabic through self study website.

(Updated: 22 March 2018)

This is the first section of my pathway to learn Arabic language through self-study. This section contains resources for complete beginners who have no prior knowledge of the language.

Welcome to the study of Arabic language, the language of the book of Allah. Just start from step 1 and study your way through this section. For each step I have provided links to downloadable material and links to forums and Facebook groups which I have found beneficial myself.

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Introduction to Madinah Arabic books

Madinah Arabic books is the world renowned program of study to learn Arabic language, used in Madinah Islamic University. These books are written by Dr Abdur Raheem who very kindly has kept them royalty free. Which means you can download these books free from the web without violating any copyrights. By the end of these books, you will know and understand around 80% of the grammar of Quran.

Originally Dr Abdur Raheem has written 3 volumes of Madinah Arabic books, or to give them their proper name دروسُ اللغةِ العربيةِ لـغير الناطقين بـها (Durûs al-Lughah al-‘Arabiyyah li-Ghair al-Nâtiqîna Bihâ). Now these books are popularly known throughout the world as Madinah books. When Goodwords books and other publishers published these books by the name of Madinah Arabic Readers, they divided these three volumes into further volumes so there are altogether 8 volumes. Since these books are being used as text books in many schools, making smaller volumes means that kids in the school can study one book per year and finish the whole program in eight years. So currently the volumes work like this:

Original Volume 1 = Madinah Arabic Reader volume 1 and 2
Original volume 2 = Madinah Arabic Reader volume 3, 4 and 5
Original volume 3 = Madinah Arabic Reader volume 6, 7 and 8

This gives rise to lots of confusion. So to clarify, when I refer to any volume of Madinah Arabic, I am referring to the original volume.

And now without further ado let’s dive in!

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How to track and show your progress (Optional)

1. Create an account in Trello.
2. Copy this board to your personal account. See how to copy a board here.
3. Now that you have a copy of my official board, you just need to pass the cards to the Doing column or Done column as you progress in your study.

The intention of this board is to provide for students a way to track their progress, and also the ability to show their progress through a public page for friends, family, fellow students, etc. You can change the status of your board to be public or private. But using it is completely optional.

Prerequisite for this section

You must be able to read and write in Arabic fluently. If you do not know how to read or write in Arabic or if you want to brush up on your reading/writing skills you can first follow At-Tibyaan by Dr Abdur Raheem. Or any other book you may wish.

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Step 1: Madinah Arabic Book 1

Resources:

1. Durus al Lughah, the main text book. Download the book for free. If you want to buy the book they are readily available throughout the world. Check your local bookstores.
2. Course key is the explanation of each lesson in English language. So you can understand the concept being taught. Download it from here. Keys are also available in Urdu and German.
3. Solutions to exercises so you can check your work. Download from here.
4. Glossary of words used in Madinah Arabic books. Download it from here.
5. Videos of Brother Asif Mehr Ali teaching Madinah Arabic books. This is the true gem. You can watch all three Madinah Arabic books being taught by a teacher who is as enthusiastic about teaching Arabic as he is knowledgeable. These videos are high quality and available free of charge, a courtesy of Institute of the Language of the Quran Toronto. You can download the videos from here or watch them on YouTube.
6. (Optional) Vocabulary learning aid for Madinah Arabic Book 1.
7. (Optional) Anki flashcards for Book 1 vocabulary. If you are not familiar with Anki please read this.
8. (Optional) Colored worksheets for the first 10 chapters of the book can be downloaded from here.
9. (Optional) Grammar notes in a visual form.
10. (Optional) Audio files of Madinah Arabic Books narrated in Arabic, English and Urdu.
11. (Optional) Madinah Book 1 Handouts.

Support:

1. Facebook group for the students of Madinah Arabic books.
2. LQToronto forums.
3. Join my Slack workspace which I have setup especially for the people following this pathway.
4. I sometimes offer online personal mentorship, free of charge, for students of this course. If you are interested please email me at hello at naveeraashraf.com

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Step 2: Madinah Arabic Book 2

Resources:

1. Durus al Lughah, the main text book. Download the book for free. If you want to buy the book they are readily available throughout the world. Check your local bookstores.
2. Course key is the explanation of each lesson in English language. So you can understand the concept being taught. Download it from here. Keys are also available in Urdu and German.
3. Solutions to exercises so you can check your work. Download from here.
4. Glossary of words used in Madinah Arabic books. Download it from here.
5. Videos of Brother Asif Mehr Ali teaching Madinah Arabic books. This is the true gem. You can watch all three Madinah Arabic books being taught by a teacher who is as enthusiastic about teaching Arabic as he is knowledgeable. These videos are high quality and available free of charge, a courtesy of Language of Quran Toronto. You can download the videos from here or watch them on YouTube.
6. (Optional) Vocabulary learning aid for Madinah Arabic Book 2.
7. (Optional) Anki flashcards for Book 2 vocabulary.
8. (Optional) Madinah Arabic side book for reading.
9. (Optional) Madinah Arabic side book for expression.
10. (Optional) Grammar notes in a visual form.
11. (Optional) Audio files of Madinah Arabic Books narrated in Arabic, English and Urdu.
12. (Optional) Madinah Book 2 Handouts.

Supplementary Resources (Optional)

The use of these resources is optional. But going through these resources will result in stronger understanding of Arabic composition and build on the vocabulary, Insha Allah. Please note that you may have difficulty going through these without a teacher. You may not understand everything but don’t give up. Research shows that exposing your mind to material which is beyond your current level of understanding actually helps you in your learning process. So try to find out the meanings of the new words through dictionaries, ask for help in the support forums and groups (see below) and give it the best you can. If you have a lot of difficulty in understanding them then come back to them after some time.

1. Imam Ibn Saud Aarabic – Reading and Writing- Level 1
2. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Lessons from the Quran – Level 1
3. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Composition – Level 1
4. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Picture Dictionary of words

Support:

1. Facebook group for the students of Madinah Arabic books.
2. LQToronto forums.
3. Join my Slack workspace which I have setup especially for the people following this pathway.
4. I sometimes offer online personal mentorship, free of charge, for students of this course. If you are interested please email me at hello at naveeraashraf.com

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Step 3: Madinah Arabic Book 3

Resources:

1. Durus al Lughah, the main text book. Download the book for free. If you want to buy the book they are readily available throughout the world. Check your local bookstores.
2. Course key is the explanation of each lesson in English language. So you can understand the concept being taught. Download it from here. Keys are also available in Urdu and German.
3. Solutions to exercises so you can check your work. Download from here.
4. Glossary of words used in Madinah Arabic books. Download it from here.
5. Videos of Brother Asif Mehr Ali teaching Madinah Arabic books. This is the true gem. You can watch all three Madinah Arabic books being taught by a teacher who is as enthusiastic about teaching Arabic as he is knowledgeable. These videos are high quality and available free of charge, a courtesy of Language of Quran Toronto. You can download the videos from here or watch them on YouTube.
6. (Optional) Vocabulary learning aid for Madinah Arabic Book 3.
7. (Optional) Anki flashcards for Book 3 vocabulary.
8. (Optional) Madinah Arabic side book for reading.
9. (Optional) Madinah Arabic side book for expression.
10. (Optional) Grammar notes in a visual form.
11. (Optional) Audio files of Madinah Arabic Books narrated in Arabic, English and Urdu.
12. (Optional) Madinah Book 3 Handouts.

Supplementary Resources (Optional)

The use of these resources is optional. But going through these resources will result in stronger understanding of Arabic composition and build on the vocabulary, Insha Allah. Please note that you may have difficulty going through these without a teacher. You may not understand everything but don’t give up. Research shows that exposing your mind to material which is beyond your current level of understanding actually helps you in your learning process. So try to find out the meanings of the new words through dictionaries, ask for help in the support forums and groups (see below) and give it the best you can. If you have a lot of difficulty in understanding them then come back to them after some time.

1. Imam Ibn Saud Aarabic – Reading – Level 2
2. Imam Ibn Saud Aarabic – Writing- Level 2
3. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Lessons from the Quran – Level 2
4. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Lessons from Al Hadeeth – level 2
5. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Composition – Level 2
6. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Nahw – Level 2
7. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Sarf – Level 2 
8. Imam Ibn Saud Arabic – Dictionary of words

Support:

1. Facebook group for the students of Madinah Arabic books.
2. LQToronto forums.
3. Join my Slack workspace which I have setup especially for the people following this pathway.
4. I sometimes offer online personal mentorship, free of charge, for students of this course. If you are interested please email me at hello at naveeraashraf.com

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Step 4: Al Ajwibah

Resources:

1. This book is part of the 3 Madinah Books. It contains the solutions to the ‘General Questions Covering the Whole Book’ that appear at the end of Madinah Book 3. Essential for every new graduate of the course to test their newly acquired knowledge and determine how much course material has been understood. Download it from here.

Support:

1. Facebook group for the students of Madinah Arabic books.
2. LQToronto forums.
3. Join my Slack workspace which I have setup especially for the people following this pathway.
4. I sometimes offer online personal mentorship, free of charge, for students of this course. If you are interested please email me at hello at naveeraashraf.com

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Step 5: Conversation Drills

An audio-visual conversational course that develops speaking skills using the vocabulary, lexical and grammatical knowledge in the 3 Madinah Books. Drills are meticulously structured with lively, every-day topics. Dialogues start from the simplest conversation to full conversational Arabic. Enjoy the Shaykh’s beautiful spoken Arabic and the privilege of following the teaching methods of the Islamic University, Madinah.

Resources:

1. Download the book.
2. Download the videos here or watch on YouTube.

Tip:

Find a study budy on the Slack workspace for this pathway and practice the conversation with them.

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Congratulations! You have finished first section. By now you know around 80% of the Arabic Grammar used in Quran. Go ahead and master the remaining in Section Two.

(Note: Section Two is still under construction)