Umm Al-Qura University
1. As loving it is an act of obedience to Allah, we celebrate the Arabic language because it is the language of the Message that came to us from the greatest beloved One, Who is loved for Himself, Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He); how can we read the Message of our Lord, understand His objectives, and explain His Words without understanding the language of this Message? What is required for fulfilling obligatory acts is also obligatory. Every Muslim should know and understand from Allah's words enough to be able to perform the acts of obedience and avoid evil acts. Allah (Exalted be He) chose this language for us for our convenience, even though the Message is for all people.
2. We celebrate it because anyone who explains the words of our Lord or clarifies the Sunnah of our Prophet has to know its vocabulary, grammar, morphology, and rhetoric.
3. We celebrate it because it is our field of specialization. It is our means in this life by which we learn knowledge, gain lawful earnings, spread the Message of our Lord, and elevate the status of our religion and nation. Allah (Exalted and Glorified be He) says, "And it is not (proper) for the believers to go out to fight (Jihad) all together. Among every troop of them, only a party should go out, that they (who are left behind) may obtain instructions in the (Islamic) religion, and that they may warn their people when they return to them." The verse contains an order from Allah to the Muslim nation to let a group of its follows learn science or a certain field of knowledge. This is what is referred to as specializations in our modern time, and helps the nation to be self sufficient in all its affairs. We have carried the trust of the language in which the Qur’an and the religion are preserved, so we have to celebrate this.
4. We celebrate it because it is the means by which we express our purposes and feelings. The Arabic language philosopher Ibn Jinni stated, "It is a collection of sounds by which all people express their purposes.” Through this language we convey our feelings and emotions, learn useful knowledge, pray to our Lord, and ask Allah to bestow peace and blessings upon our Prophet.
5. We celebrate it because it is our second bond, after Islam: Arabism.
Arab countries are my homeland,
and all Arabs are my brothers.
6. We celebrate it as it is the language of knowledge. It continued to bear various fields of knowledge for about eight centuries, when Muslim scholars made use of the sciences of Greece, India and Persia. They translated their sciences, developed them, and produced creative work in these fields. Thus, the Arabic language became the language of medicine, astronomy, engineering, mathematics, and philosophy. The efforts of Al-Razi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Ibn Al-Haytham and others are clear witness to that effect. The Arabic Language is now able to carry the trust of these sciences again. The experience of the Arabization of medicine is a suitable witness to this. There are no shortcomings in this language as it carried the Message from heaven, so how can it not be fit for human sciences?! Faults and shortcomings rise only from its speakers.
7. We celebrate it because of what it is distinguished with. It is the language of various synonyms, homonyms, and opposites. The Arabic language is also distinguished with its genius and status among other languages.
But the question is: How can we celebrate it?
We will not truly appreciate or celebrate our language until we are convinced that learning it is a matter of faith and religion, and that learning and loving it are acts of worship to Allah. This is in order to avoid the poet's saying being applicable to us:
You disobey God while claiming to love Him,
This, I consider, to be hideous.
If your love was sincere, you would obey Him,
The one who loves, towards the one he loves, is obedient.
We are the community of the Department of Arabic Language who bear the trust of the language as it is the means of conveying and safeguarding the religion.
We should feel at ease with the Arabic Language, even if this is imposed upon us by the educational average. We should develop our linguistic skills, love reading, and use classical Arabic in our writings and websites. At the same time, we should not be negligent of other languages.
Verily, Allah is the One Who knows the intention behind our deeds. Many happy returns of this blessed occasion!
Supervisor of the Department of Arabic Language
Adham University College
