Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Question: Ustadh, in the journey of learning Arabic, people feel like giving up sometimes and are not motivated enough. Could you motivate us as Muslims and students?
Ustadh Muhammad Tim Humble: I will try my very best. I do understand that a lot of people feel like it’s a never-ending road, and you sometimes feel like, “I’m not getting it,” or “It’s too hard for me.” I completely understand that, and I think almost all of us go through a phase like that.
But I think there is no greater motivation than to say that I don’t know a single thing that facilitates a person to seek knowledge more than learning the Arabic language. The difference between the person who knows Arabic and the person who doesn’t in seeking knowledge is huge. It’s like the difference between the sand and the stars.
It’s something that, when a person knows the Arabic language, they have opened the door to all of those great scholars of Islam, those who are alive today and those who passed away. The books that fill the Islamic libraries… instead of reading a tiny subset of books, not even 0.1% of the books available in Arabic have been translated into English.
You are only reading that tiny subset, and not only that, but you’re reading it with the opinion of the translator included in it.
I don’t think there is any greater example of that than being able to understand the Qur’an as it is, the speech of Allah in the Arabic language, and to be able to understand what the Prophet ﷺ said.
These things, Wallahi, there is no comparison between them. The thing that facilitates all of them is the Arabic language.
Even your Hifdh of the Qur’an, many times it is made difficult because a person doesn’t really understand. They are just moving their mouth to make the sounds of words, but they don’t really understand them. When you understand those words, even your Hifdh of the Qur’an becomes easier.
So being able to understand the Qur’an, being able to understand the Hadith, being able to access all of these Islamic books, and being able to remove yourself from the shackles of translators… those people who sit between you and the Book of Allah, or between you and the books you want to read, they are in the way. You also get their opinions, their mistakes, and their shortcomings.
Then a person is able to access an entire world of people that was otherwise closed to them.
I mentioned the scholars because they are the most important people we want to access, but it’s more than that. It’s a whole world.
Even for those who say, “I want to learn it for my personal situation, I do business in the Middle East,” all of those things become possible with one effort.
You need to remember, it is still just a language. People learn languages every single day. You get people who learn ten languages, twenty languages.
It’s just a language. It’s not something impossible.
I think Shaytan whispers to people and makes them think it is something impossible to achieve. Shaytan doesn’t care if you learn French or Spanish or Italian, but when it comes to Arabic, he knows it will help your religion. So he makes it seem very hard and complicated.
We are trying our best to make a course that makes it as easy for you as possible. We hope to make it even easier in the future, إن شاء الله.
Just keep going.
How long is the course? We are taking time to put the videos up, but in terms of hours, if you did just one hour a day, you could finish within a year with the current content.
Even if we add the same amount again, it’s still not a long commitment. Just one hour a day. If you can’t give an hour a day, give an hour a week. No problem. But give whatever you can.
Put your energy into it.
I honestly think you could study Aqeedah, Fiqh, Hadith, and everything else, but nothing will benefit your seeking of knowledge and your understanding of Islam as much as learning Arabic. Because once you do, you have opened the door to a completely different world.
That is my motivation.
My job is to try to make it easy for people. I still believe it can be made easier and easier. Our job is to make it as easy as possible for you, and we are trying to do that.
We are looking for ways to make it even easier, إن شاء الله.
Because really, there is no reason why it should be harder than learning French or any other language. People learn languages all the time, so why should Arabic be harder? It shouldn’t be.
We just need to take the steps to make it easier for you, and that is what we are trying to do, إن شاء الله.
And Allah knows best.
