Book review of "Access to Quranic Arabic"

Most people need to know Arabic primarily to understand the Quran. The Access to Quranic Arabic course, by Abdul Wahid Hamid, is an attempt to meet this crucial and pressing need. This is a brief overview of the program.

Aim

The aim is to enable users to understand, quickly and accurately, much of what they read.

Course Materials

1. The Textbook covers the basic grammar and structure of Arabic using Quranic words, phrases and sentences throughout. It uses three Word Lists with words occurring over 100 times, between 50 and 100 times, and between 25 and 49 times in the Quran.

This approach has two benefits. Users will not be burdened with a very large vocabulary from the outset, and with non-Quranic vocabulary. By mastering the select vocabulary, they will be able to understand much and quickly.

The page layout and design of the forty Units in the textbook should make it easy to follow.

2. The audio cassette tapes for the Textbook which each unit and line of text identified.

3. A separate Workbook has stimulating exercises for each Unit of the Textbook and gives much-needed practice in grammar, structure and meaning.

4. The book Selections from the Quran has passages that feature the select vocabulary and illustrate points of grammar and structure covered in the Textbook. The 110 Selections are presented with parallel translations in English, notes and vocabulary.

5. Three audio cassette tapes contain the full recording of the Selections from the Quran.

The Access to Quranic Arabic course should be a useful starting point for a more detailed study of the Quran and of Arabic in general. May this attempt encourage us to a greater understanding of the Quran, the better to appreciate it, follow it, and be inspired by it through our lives.