TALK 8

Tunisia

The Arabic Language - Between the Glory of Islam and the Plotting of Colonialism

(Translated)

Carrying the ideology to the world is the primary role of the state. Given that language is the backbone of a nation’s civilization and a communication tool with a view to serving that ideology, the Arabic language was the target of the West. They made every effort in marginalizing and removing its essential role. And we will cite many aspects of their sly roles in carrying out that objective in the past and present. William Granara, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, said: "The Middle East is a part of the world that can not be understood unless we put our feet in it and see it with our own eyes." The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Harvard was opened in Tunisia, which is has been home to culture since ancient times to the present day. What would an American center be spreading in Tunisia?

Dozens of other similar American, English and French institutes attract the sons of elite families to be the emulated role models in concepts taken from them. And this is not a new phenomenon, rather it has been present since the fall of the Khilafah "Caliphate". The West was working hard to instil secularism in Muslim countries through the consolidation of its language and the neglect of the Arabic language. Its division of the lands into mini-states and undermining the geographical concept of the Ummah was not enough, but it deliberately attacked its most important part, namely the Arabic language. It removed its role in the education system to be replaced by their own language in almost all disciplines notably with regard to the science of medicine, engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry, agriculture and others... In Tunisia, the West founded the French Carnot Institute for the teaching of the French language and sent missions to the Sorbonne, and in return it was attacking the education in Az-Zaitouna, and waged campaigns against madrassas and stirred distrust in their role. Bourguiba told pupils of the Sorbonne in the French newspaper “Le Monde" on 11 March 1976 of his key betrayal: "I am proud of three issues: I closed Az-Zaitouna Mosque, I liberated women, and issued the Personal Status Law". The University of Az-Zaituna was out of reach for the colonialists but the agent Bourguiba dared and barred its function, to achieve the consolidation of the Francophone Education.

They removed the status of Az- Zaitouna Mosque and the Mosque of Qairouan, Uqba Bin Nafi’ in Tunisia, and the Qarawieen Mosque in Morocco and Al-Azhar Mosque in Egypt and many others in the Muslim countries after having had a significant impact in guiding the education of the world. In order to make the Muslims lose their beacons by removing their content and role in educating the society with the Islamic culture compatible with the creed of the Muslims, and instead to be compensated with schools and institutes of Western-style secular culture, that the agent Muslim rulers worked hard to consolidate. They are working to serve their masters who planned their programs and enacted laws and posts and everything related to the education policy. The aim is to hit the intellectual base, and the first weapon is the marginalization and ultimately the exclusion of the Arabic language, after having been the source of fountains of solid and useful knowledge: they separated Shariah sciences from the rest of the sciences and removed the Arabic language from most universities and reduced its teaching to a couple of hours in schools and institutes with programs and methods that were imposed forcibly. So what did we gain from the Westernization of the Arabic language in teaching our children? And what did the West gain?

- Difficulty in mastering and understanding the language, and being repulsed by it while fascinated with another one.

- A low sense of identity and the growing lack of confidence in the completeness of classical Arabic.

- Establishment of teachers that do not master the Arabic language, and use colloquial dialects rather than the classical Arabic in instruction of science and knowledge. It is not a spontaneous matter that some people from our Ummah who speak in our language come out to demand the teaching of the colloquial dialects in the early school years instead of classical Arabic, claiming that Arabic is the most difficult languages to learn, ​​and mastering it requires a long time.

- To create a framework for learners that the Western language is the language of science and the future, research and modernity and urbanization, allowing them to open up to the world, the one who masters it is counted as a modern intellectual and progressive, and its use is the measure for gaining positions and progressing up the employment scale. While Arabic is the language of literature and ethics and does not allow them to deal with the cognitive programs

- The loss of intellectual and cultural heritage; it is unknown to learners and so they lost the correct method to bring back the glory and victory of Islam. In contrast, their admiration of the Western civilization and culture have increased; they did not know any other, and so they embraced it with no understanding or insight

- Their Separation from their Deen and their ignorance of the basic necessities of how to live according to Islam.

Thus, the West was guaranteed the closure of the door of Ijtihad, as the one who is incapable of using the Arabic language will be unable to definitely understand the Qur'an and Sunnah, and thus will be incapable of the process of Istinbat (extraction of evidence), Ijtihad and addressing new issues, and therefore will resort to Western solutions that allow the colonizers to own and control the Ummah.

Thus enabling the West to impose its colonization and in disseminating its ideology and spreading corruption, what was not achieved militarily, was spread through Westernisation and building generations of youth unconnected to their language and thus their identity.

It is obvious that there is a role for language in shaping the consciousness of the community and the behaviour of its members, it reflects their thinking and their civilization and development, and by it the production of the Ummah is recorded; its culture, knowledge and history, and it can formulate the elements and characteristics of its existence. The language does not only describe, but is the ability to express, and its status among the other languages ​​is a reflection of the status of the state. The Arabic language is the most important characteristic of the Islamic Ummah and a confirmed element for its continuity and clearest evidence of its existence.

- If the West realized the importance of our language and its role in building our civilization and realized that in neglecting it the doors of Ijtihad will be closed, how is it that the Muslims fail to see what is realised by the West, when they should be the first to realise it? How is it that they do not see that they are a dignified Ummah? How is it that they do not remember their glorious past, when the list of Muslim scientists was an Encyclopedia?! They mastered various fields of science without neglecting the Arabic language.

Imam Shafei, May Allah have mercy on him, said: "The Arabic tongue is the broadest of tongues and most verbally abundant, and its knowledge to the Arabs is as learning about the Sunnah to the people of Fiqh,”

That day it was at the forefront of international languages, and even lands that its residents did not speak it, like Spain, Central Asia and India, with the advent of Islam, produced the best scholars, they mastered Arabic and used it as the medium for writing their knowledge, which helped build a revived society in thought and advanced in knowledge.

Ibn Sina from Bukhara, the author of The Canon of Medicine which has become an essential reference for a long time.

Ibn Khaldun was the first to speak on Architecture.

Ibn al-Haytham was the first-founder of Telescope science.

Al-Idrissi became prominent in the science of Geography and Cartography.

Al-Khwarizmi was the founder of Algebra; he classified many books in the history of science, which were all in Arabic, confirming the status of the language in science and culture.

Ibn an-Nafis, was a linguistic scholar, and a doctor and the first to describe and explain the blood cycle between the heart and lungs.

They realized the close relationship between science and language and the ideology, so they gave its status in learning, especially after the spread of Islam in the regions and Arabs and Persians embraced it. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali was the first to develop the rules of grammar, the dots on the characters and shape of the letters of the Quran, by order of the Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, may Allah honour him, and was followed by other Arab and non-Arab scholars: Al-Jerjani and Al- Faraaheedi and Al-Asma'i and Sibaweh - a Persian, but his name was written in the history of Arabic language sciences.

This shows the importance of language in the construction of the glory of the Muslims, the Islamic State is not able to find solutions for the new inventions and problems except by Ijtihad and this wouldnot have been possible if the Mujtahids did not master the Arabic language. The Qur’an and the Hadith contain the general meanings to solve problems, and the Mujtahid exerts his utmost effort to extract the rules.

This is the language that the Qur'an was sent down in, and was spoken by the Master of creation and Allah made it the language of the people of Jannah. We must highlight its role in building our identity and bringing back our glory, and we must work to restore its role, and this will only be under a state that implements Islam, and considers this language seriously and adopts this in its general policy, in treaties concluded and deals conducted. And it is also adopted in the media and cultural policy and programs, and all aspects and activities of life, as well as the educational curricula. Nevertheless it is also necessary to take into account its mastery in teaching materials and the use of methods and means to restore it as the container of the thought and the language of communication, and the main reference of our jurisprudence of legislative wealth that is inexhaustible

And so it would become the mother tongue and original language, thus ensuring:

- Dissemination of Islamic culture in all educational fields.

- Recognition of the value of scientific research in the Arabic language.

- Strengthening the status of the Arabic language among its people and others and expanding the fields of its use.

- Providing scientific references written in Arabic and providing Arabic scientific terms, it is known that one of the sources of the construction of the Arabic language is Ta’reeb (localization).

So we bring back a generation that is aware and proud of its own language and thus its creed.

Allah (swt) says:

﴿‏إِنَّا أَنْزَلْنَاهُ قُرْآناً عَرَبِيّاً لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ﴾

“Indeed, We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur'an that you might understand” [TMQ Yusuf: 2]

Shadia As-Sayadi

Member of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Tunisia