Full course description
As a registered charity, we charge course fees to cover our running costs. However, we aim to make our education accessible to as many people as possible and are therefore able to offer a 65% fee waiver. To make use of this fee waiver, please use the code AMI65 when purchasing your courses.
Students in need of further financial assistance should contact the education team at education@almahdi.edu to enquire about the possibility of further fee waivers.
This level two course in Arabic will continue the text-based approach introduced in level one, enabling students to be able to tackle a variety of reading material with a clear aim towards texts with vocabulary that will complement their studies in other courses at AMI. Students will be taught and encouraged how to look up words that they do not know in a bilingual dictionary to understand the morphology of individual words, as well as within their textual context, and to be able to express themselves using Arabic synonyms given in the vocabulary lists in the book. By the end of the course, students should be able to have an intermediate level of proficiency at reading, understanding, writing, and knowing basic vocabulary in Arabic. They will also be able to write complete and grammatically correct sentences with varied syntax and vocabulary and be able to translate sentences from Arabic into English correctly and vice versa. In addition, a small portion of the course will be dedicated to deciphering oral Arabic.
Lesson Breakdown
Lesson 1 Passive verbs (al-fiʿl al-majzūm/jāzim)
Noun of exaggeration (ism al-mubālagha)
States (ḥāl)
Specification (tamyīz)
Beginning reading from Munyat al-murīd
Lesson 2 Three types of replacement (badal)
Lesson 3 Reading from Munyat al-murīd: third form hollow verb (al-fiʿl al-nāqis) and associated patterns
Reading from Munyat al-murīd: introduction to additional factors that make one verb jussive (majzūm) – lamma
Lesson 4 Introduction to additional factors that make one verb jussive (majzūm) – lām al-ʿamr al-ghāʾib
Factors that make two verbs jussive - man
Lesson 5 Additional factors that make two verbs jussive
Reading from Munyat al-murīd
Lesson 6 Reading from Munyat al-murīd: ism al-mawṣūl/mushtarak
Student questions
Lesson 7 Placing the hamza
Lesson 8 Introduction to conditional tools and particles
Conditional particles – in, idhā, law
Student questions
Lesson 9 Conditional tools and particles (continued)
Reading from Munyat al-murīd: the word inna-mā
Exercise for placing the hamza
Lesson 10 Student questions
Lesson 11 Reading from Munyat al-murīd
Lesson 12 Student questions
Lesson 13 Introduction to exemption (al-istithnāʿ bi-ʿillā)
Lesson 14 Exercise for al-istithnāʿ bi-ʿillā
Reading from Munyat al-murīd
Student questions
Introduction to verbs that take two direct objects (al-afʿāl allatī tanṣibu mafʿūlayn bihi)
Lesson 15 Introduction to verbal noun taking direct objects (Masdar yaʿmal ʿamal fiʿlihi)
Lesson 16 Conditional particles (ādāt al-sharṭ)
Recap of topics from part one
Lesson 17 Placing of the hamza
Application of placing the hamza
Lesson 18 Introduction to rhetoric (balāgha) and simile (tashbīḥ)
Tashbīḥ continued
Lesson 19 Metaphor (istiʿāra)
Metonymy (kināya)
Application of tashbīḥ, istiʿāra in the kināya story
Kināya – proverbs and figures of speech
Lesson 20 Analysing ḥadīth dʿuā al-rajab – the six nouns
Lesson 21 Listening comprehension 1
Listening comprehension 2
Lesson 22 Analysing poetry
Lesson 23 Analysing poetry
Lesson 24 Reading from Munyat al-murīd
Prerequisites
Please note that Arabic Two is only available to those who have completed Arabic One, except with the approval of the Education Manager (education@almahdi.edu).
Hours of Study
29 hours
Assessment Methods
Written exams (100%)
Course Instructor
Shaykh Muhammad Reza Tajri
Shaykh Muhammad Reza Tajri began his seminary studies at the Ḥawza ʿIlmiyya of London and went on to complete a BA in Islamic Studies at The Islamic College and Middlesex University. He then moved to Damascus to study at the Ḥawza al-Imām al-Khumaynī. Whilst in Damascus, he also studied advanced Arabic at the University of Damascus. Upon returning to the UK, he completed an MA in Islamic Studies at The Islamic College and Middlesex University and a second MA in Islam in Contemporary Britain at Cardiff University. He is currently completing his PhD at Lancaster University where he is researching evolving perceptions of Shīʿī religious authority on British university campuses. A specialist in the Arabic language, he has been a Lecturer in Arabic at the Al-Mahdi Institute since 2015. He is also the Director of both the Centre of Intra-Muslim Studies (CIMS) and the Inter-Religious Symposia Platform (IRS) and is the lead for research into comparative religion at AMI. His research interests revolve around Muslims in the UK and Europe, contemporary Shīʿism and Shīʿī identity, religious authority, and the impact of gender on religion. He has presented his research at numerous conferences across the UK.