بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Targeting the Arabic language is an Attack on the Islamic Creed
(Translated)
1- Why this vicious attack on the Arabic language?
Arabic is the language of the Quran, it is the language of the best law (Shariah) revealed by Ar-Rahman. It is the language of the Deen that spread its glad-tidings over the east and west of earth. The language that translated the metaphor of the Quran and its eloquence and fluency, revealing its miracle that left the people of language and those proficient in it incapable of bringing its like.
(أَمْ يَقُولُونَ افْتَرَاهُ قُلْ فَأْتُوا بِسُورَةٍ مِثْلِهِ وَادْعُوا مَنِ اسْتَطَعْتُمْ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ صَادِقِينَ)
“Or do they say [about the Prophet], “He invented it?” Say, “Then bring forth a surah like it and call upon [for assistance] whomever you can besides Allah, if you should be truthful.”” [Yunus: 38]
Muslims took great care of the Arabic language due to its high status and its sacredness; they use it to understand the rules of their Deen and to remove all the difficulty in understanding the Book of their Lord and sayings of their Prophet. And because of this elevated status and its importance in the understanding of the Deen of Islam, it has not escaped the arrows of the enemies that were frequent to attack and strike and marginalize it, so that people lose its understanding, and to find it difficult, old and undesirable.
The West has always regarded the Arabs as Muslims, and that Islam is a real threat to Western civilization and its return signals their end. So, they worked and still work to fight it by all means and ways including its attack on the Arabic language is one of the best and effective means to achieve this. Samuel Huntington said, “As long as Islam remains Islam and there is not the slightest doubt about that, and as long as the West stays West, the conflict between them will remain, as it has been for fourteen centuries and no one expects that the West becomes the East”.
To complete this plan to exclude Islam from life, the West worked to strike this language (the tool to understand the rules of Islam) and called for the deployment of dialects and colloquial Arabic and hired its orientalists for this, like Wilhelm Spita and Dufferin and others, to call for the abandonment of this language and the development of dialects in its place. In addition, there was an important role played by some of our fellow Muslims who were smitten by the West, like Taha Hussein and Lutfi As-Sayyed in the consolidation of this scheme; they called - as they claim – for the promotion of this language and refining it, but they were working to demolish it and to exclude it from the lives of Muslims.
In the existence of the state, when Muslims were under the command of one Imam, the Arabic was the official language; its treaties with other countries and its dealings were in Arabic. This language had the same prestige as the State that was looking after it. But due to the fall of the Islamic State, and its control by the enemies, and its division, and being overcome by all predators and the solutions of the colonizers ... it (Arabic) was weakened; the colonizers approached this language as the best tool for understanding the Islamic ideology and worked on its marginalization and discounting it. In contrast, the colonizers imposed their languages and made them the official languages in schools and universities, thus creating generations that were not related to their languages and ignorant of the language of their Deen. They imposed their languages by force and dazzled the generations by it, and made it to be great, making those proficient in them viewed as intellectuals, modern and progressed. They (colonizers) put tremendous efforts to imprison the mother tongue, the Arabic language and bury the glory and victory of the Ummah and worked in removing it from their memories. They curbed visions and hopes and locked them up in the prison of their vision and outlook on life, and created generations affiliated to them, who implement their laws, follow their concepts and adapt their behavior according to these concepts. And so, they entered the lizard’s hole and followed in its footsteps!
2- Obliterating the Islamic identity by the absence of the Arabic language
The identity is defined as the essence of the object and its reality. When we talk about the identity of a nation, we mean the qualities that distinguishes it from other nations, to express its civilized personality. Thus, the issue of identity is a fundamental and central issue to ensure the survival of the nation and maintain its presence, and without it the nation becomes weak, insignificant, and a subordinate to others. This is why after the West destroyed the Islamic state, they directly targeted obliterating the identity of the Ummah, to eliminate its culture and be able to exclude it from life, and to impose its capitalist ideology and immerse the Ummah in it after it lost its identity.
Initially, they pointed their arrows toward the creed to destabilize it, for it instills the view point about life, and gives a clear view of the existence, and which the Muslim follows its light, and all his concepts and behavior are shaped according to it. Secondly, they worked on the exclusion of the main tool that expresses these concepts - the Arabic language- and threw it out to be replaced with their language. And thirdly, they questioned the profound History of the Ummah and imposed the history of their civilization.
They targeted these aspects and succeeded in achieving their objectives and managed to obscure the identity of the Islamic nation and demolishing the structure of its glory and prosperity. Richard Nixon said in his book, Seize the Moment, "We do not fear a nuclear strike, but we fear Islam and the ideological war that may destroy the self-identity of the West." The West has realized that Muslims are able to restore their glory and victory, if they redeem their lost stolen identity ... If they look at life with the correct outlook that makes them elevate in their thinking and rise and return to being the best nation brought to mankind, leading the world with the light of its Lord and guidance of its Prophet. This is why the West employed our fellow Muslims to carry out their evil plan to distort the Ummah's identity. They were described by Sheikh Jad Al-Haq Ali Jad, former Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mosque – May Allah's mercy be on his soul – as traitors and criminals, "The search for another identity of the Islamic Ummah is a high treason, and a grave crime".
At the head of the list is Mustafa Kamal, who was the first in the abolition of the Khilafah "Caliphate" and Sharia courts; replacing the Arabic letters with Latin. The objective behind these crimes is to obliterate the identity of the Khilafah "Caliphate" State and the empowerment of the Ummah's enemies, making its defeat easy and weakening it and wiped out its distinct and unique Islamic identity, and on the same path Taha Hussein, Dean of Westernisation, followed. He called for imitating and following the West in every step, even if it conflicted with Islam, stating: "If the Islamic religion stood as a barrier between us and our Pharoahism, we would reject it." It's a blind following that drops its follower into the lowest level. It is racing to satisfy the West and consolidate extraneous concepts that are meant to erase the Islamic identity of the Ummah and instilling addresses to strengthen division, nationalism, and abolish the fixed bond that unites the Ummah... Its ungratefulness to the Ummah and its safety, leadership, and sovereignty which prompted some to speak out of hostility regarding everything that suggests that the identity is Islamic. So, Ahmad Lutfi Al-Sayyed is not ashamed to describe the section in the Constitution as the "ominous text", because it stipulates that the state religion is Islam. There are many who served the West to obliterate the Islamic identity and implemented their plans to eliminate the Islamic state in exchange for a title or a handful of money.
If these have worked, and they still work, on the demolition of the Ummah’s structure and the empowerment of its enemies, to weaken it, leaving it without an identity, and buffeted by waves of Westernization, secularization, and the rotten concepts of capitalism, then the sincere sons of the Ummah and those working on defending it and its identity are also many, returning the arrows targeting them and seeking to install the identity, and defend it; Ibn Taymiyyah, Ar-Rafi’i and Mahmoud Shakir and others were at the top of that list.
Muslims live today in alienation between what ought to be their life and what it is... Therefore, they should live their life according to laws from their Aqeedah (creed) so that they can feel comfortable, secure and live a balanced life that makes them cherish their Islamic identity... But since the identity has been obliterated and replaced by other identities, far from the creed embraced by its people, it will be an abhorrent and painful alienation.
The identity of any society represents a secure fortress, which houses its members and protects them, and helps them to avoid instability and loss, and makes them feel safe and proud, also it instills in them confidence and strength. If the identity is lost, the society is lost, and becomes full of conflicts and contradictions and devoid of cohesion and a bond. If society does not protect its identity, it will be lost and melt into the other (identities) and its characteristics and advantages will be lost. Allah (swt) says:
(وَدَّ كَثِيرٌ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ لَوْ يَرُدُّونَكُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ إِيمَانِكُمْ كُفَّاراً حَسَداً مِنْ عِنْدِ أَنْفُسِهِمْ)
“Many of the People of the Scripture wish they could turn you back to disbelief after you have believed, out of envy from themselves [even] after the truth has become clear to them.” [Al-Baqarah: 109]
They are scheming night and day to obliterate the identity of Muslims.
It hurts what we see today in our Ummah's youth: their ignorance of their mother tongue, even how they look down on it and devalue it; racing to learn the other languages to be seen as cultured, in touch with civilization and progress, ashamed of the use of classical (fus’h͞a) Arabic fearing they would be mocked and ridiculed! Their confidence weakened in their own language and pride in their identity is shaken. And this is what was calculated by the West, so that it is easier to attract these strong forces and molding them as they want: Youth disconnected from their identity, immersed in the Western civilization and fascinated by it who promote it and its concepts knowingly or unknowingly.
The West protects its identity and strives to safeguard it from any threats; and in exchange they work to dissolve the Ummah of Islam and obscure one feature of its uniqueness, namely the Arabic language, which is fought and still is, to lose its uniqueness and to be dejected for being backward and not keeping up the pace with civilization and progress. The West is certain that the elimination of Islam can only be achieved by the elimination of the Arabic language.
3- Calling for the colloquial (al-aamiyya) Arabic is an exclusion of the Arabic language
To tighten their grip and capture their prey, the West - after the elimination of the State of Islam and the division of the unified entity to small fragmented entities – waged a relentless war on the classical Arabic language and sought to raise the status of colloquial dialects to develop nationalism so it would become easy to eliminate the Ummah's unity and identity that makes it unique. The division of the State of Islam and installing the borders of Sykes and Picot was not the end of their crimes, but it went beyond that reaching linguistic and historic division, to ensure that each country is isolated from the other, and to ensure the division of the Ummah.
What those intellectuals smitten by the West and its civilization did is unfortunate and it will remain a shame that will not be erased from their foreheads. They excelled to please the West and stabbed their Islamic identity and Arabic language. The first to call for the use of the colloquial language was Rafa’ At-Tahtawi, who stressed, "The language spoken that is called colloquial, that is used to understand transactions, it is acceptable for it to have principles that are easy and can classify the books of public utilities and home interests." As if the meeting of the brothers and the Orientalists for striking the elements of the Ummah of Islam is inevitable and was there constantly! In addition to what the delegation to the West provided of services to hit the mother tongue and encourage the use of the colloquial language, the orientalists also played an important role in support of this and publishing it, like what the Egyptian National Library director, Wilhelm Spita, did, he wrote the book, The Grammar of the Colloquial Language in Egypt.
The West have waged a war on the Arabic language, and revived nationalism and colloquial language in many countries to destroy the Ummah and eliminates what unites it on the same Deen, language, land, and history. Morocco had its share of this call; the Arabic language became the second language after French - the colonizer language. According to a report prepared by the Moroccan French work committee: "The first duty in this way is to reduce the importance of the Arabic language, and divert people away from it, by reviving local dialects and colloquial languages in North Africa".
The colonizer’s Orientalists scientists also wrote books in the rules of the dialects of the Amazigh language (Tamazight) to crowd Arabic. And this was explained by Shehadeh Khoury, in his writings, "The colonizer felt the impossibility of uprooting the Arabic language of the land of Algeria, and planting French in its place, they resorted to another means of assistance which is to suggest to the largest number of the sons of Algeria that the Arabic language is not the original language in Algeria, but the original language of the population of Algeria is the language of the Berber, the Amazigh language. And the French have volunteered to write down its alphabets so that it can be written".
In both great maliciousness and cunningness, the Orientalists manipulated their statements, so they decorated and packaged them with good intentions, while in fact it only carries the hazardous poison to the language of the Ummah of Islam and its pot of ideas and concepts, until they break it so that what is contained in it is lost, and the Ummah is lost and disappears. One of them declares saying: "What hinders the Egyptians of the invention is writing in classical Arabic ... what made me take stance is solely my love to serve humanity and my desire to spread knowledge!!" He continued to announce in the end of the lecture about a rhetoric contest in the colloquial Arabic, and promised the one who delivers a good successful speech to get four pounds!
This is the case of the Arabic language before its enemies, they know its impact and its prestige; and this why they worked on its removal and replacing it with the colloquial Arabic. And as usual, our fellow Muslims - who call themselves the educated class and irrigated from the Western concepts and sank in its seas – have been promoting this and raising is slogans, such as Salama Moussa and the Iraqi poet Jamil Sidqi Al-Zahawi, who said: "I searched so long in the reasons for the decline of the Muslims and I only found two reasons: the first is the Hijab, which I listed in my first article its disadvantages!!! And the second is the fact that Muslims, especially Arabs they write in a language other than that they speak". Some haters went to the extent to announce their rejection of the classical Arabic and spoke out for the need of the colloquial to become the only language of the country: "It is wise to let aside all the wrong judgement directed at the colloquial, and to accept it as the only language of the country." (Sildan Welmore, The Local Arabic in Egypt).
Among the means used in this war waged on the Arabic language for its replacement with the colloquial, is the issuance of newspapers, magazines and books in the colloquial and converting the theater from the classical Arabic into the colloquial. The Orientalists raced on the issuance of studies on the colloquial languages, such as the study by Stankovski about the colloquial in Morocco and Tunisia, and (Nallino) about the colloquial in Egypt, and other ...
Enemies of the language of the Quran did not stop at calling for colloquial, they have also transgressed so as to call for using the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic alphabet. What shame befalls you, O the Ummah of Islam, for your enemies to do all this to you? What humiliation inflicted you, O the best nation brought to mankind, for your situation to descend to such contempt, belittlement and abasement!!!
4- Usage of the Latin Alphabet: A continuous war on the Arabic language
Continuous and frequent calls launched by the advocates of the revival of the Ummah, while they are working for its decline and weakening, and are executing malicious and despicable plans. What malice to the Arabic language they harbor to demand writing it in Latin letters? What hatred from ungrateful children pointing these deadly poisonous arrows to their mother language?
Abdul Aziz Fahmy, is one of those who called in 1913 to write Arabic using the Latin alphabet and published a book, its publisher said, “The experience in Turkey was successful, and they read the Turkish language in Latin script, but the owners of petrified opinions cast it with blasphemy and heresy”. This awful call is shared by Anis Fariha Khoury, who called for the adoption of the colloquial dialect and even to write it using the Latin alphabet; to be an official language of the Arabs, because Arabic alphabet - according to his claim - is not fit to codify dialects.
The near and the distant have gathered on this language, which imposed itself for centuries and was the first language, and why not, for it is the language of the most powerful State led the world. They gathered against it (the Arabic language) as they have gathered against its State and abolished it, helped by ungrateful criminal children. They show affection, love, and loyalty, while hiding behind their arrows and darts which they throw to the body of the Ummah and its identity and language.
It is a great treason and malice for this language that the Arabic Language Academy - which is supposed to be the guardian eye of this language and its defender against any attack – becomes preoccupied for three years studying a proposal to write Arabic in Latin letters to satisfy some of its members who loathe it (the Arabic). And this is not surprising since the Academy was founded bringing together 20 members, half of them Egyptians (Taha Hussein, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed ...), and the other half are other Arabs and Orientalists.
Such attempts carried out by the enemies of this language, rather the enemies of Islam, are only successive desperate efforts to shake confidence in this language and its exclusion from Muslim’s life until it disappears; so as its comprehension is lost and its use subsides in certain aspects that are closer to stagnation and recession then to the movement, progress and development, which is what make it perceived by many as a language unfit to keep up with the modern time... An old, broken outdated language covered by dust, so it is no longer able to march in line with other languages.
5- Is the language of the Quran unable to keep up with the evolution of human science?!?!
The enemies of the Islamic Ummah have discerned that Islam and the Arabic language are two capacities complementary to each other, and that they are the two main pillars for the building of the nation. Hence, they worked on the separation of the two capacities, abolished the ruling by Islam, placed their man-made laws and implanted their languages in place the Arabic language. They created the deficit in the sons of the Ummah so as to tighten their control on them, and to direct them wherever and whenever they want. And to shake confidence in their Aqeedah and in their language, which they branded it as failing and inadequate to absorb modern sciences, for it is, as they claim, "an ancestral rigid language looking backward rather than moving forward."
The Arabic language has been marginalized and excluded particularly from everything that is science, like medicine and engineering, and deemed not able to express these sciences, which led the generations to deny it and the Islamic identity, and to fall into the seas of the languages of other communities, so to be affected by them and melt into them. The Arabic language became a dead language before these generations whose sights are concerned with everything that comes from the West: its culture and its language that has swept the world and surmounted the throne to announce its superiority and exclusivity in the absorption of modern sciences.
It is a lie and false accusation on a language that its vocabulary and expressions accommodated Arab Sciences.
Sciences, where its scientists excelled and distinguished in them, and held a great significance in the history, and the entire world benefited from them for centuries. Sheikh al-Bashir Ibrahimi says: "...The Arabic language accommodates minutes of Medicine in which the Arabs excelled, if we exclude a few words of Greek or Persian introduced by al-Farabi and Ibn Sina from the Persian legacy." This is the Arabic language: a large bowl whenever filled it becomes ever more expanding and more open to accommodate more vocabulary and derivatives. A language which is not in need of others because it is self-contained, capable of inclusiveness and honored by good belongingness: the language of the best that Ar-Rahman has revealed to mankind. Brockelmann said that Arabic due to the Quran reached a range of expansion that barely any other language of the world knows.
For centuries, the Arabic language has occupied a high status that proved its aptitude to contain the human sciences, and history books attest this. For the names of Muslim scholars, their findings, achievements and inventions have dug deep in the depths of these books to demonstrate that it is a viable and developing language, capable of expanding and spreading. For "the Arabic language is what introduced in the West the scientific method of expression, and Arabic is the purest of all languages, it was unique in the methods of scientific and artistic expression”. It is a vast rich language capable of inclusiveness and giving!! (French Louis Massignon)
6- Globalization and its role in the exclusion of the Arabic language
Globalization or rather neo-colonialism has changed the West’s colonial style to impose its domination on other nations, particularly the Islamic Ummah, which has become weak after losing its State and identity, raising the slogan of advancing, progressing and reviving it.
Globalization is multifaceted invasion: political, economic, social and cultural; aimed at striking the identity and obliterating the civilization. This invasion aims to impose the American hegemony in particular, that is the Americanization of the world and make it proceed according to its (American) policies to control the world and impose upon it its language, culture and Western capitalist civilization, and passing them either through promises and temptation or by intimidation and threatening.
The most dangerous type of secularization is what is called the globalization of the language, which aims to uphold the English language and its sovereignty over other languages, to become the chief language in the world and the champion of progress and modernism.
Because language is a vessel of concepts, with the states having immense concern for it and they worked on making their language an imposed language in use on countries they colonized. Thus, globalization was the method used by America to impose its laws and political, economic, cultural and social control. France and all the countries that share its language trod the Francophone trail, so, they sought to spread their language by participating in international conferences, and ensured that the French language played an important and key role in the African countries which allowed these countries to break through to the world and relate to it, since the Arabic language is unable to do that. Thus, the French were the best collaborators to these countries so as not to be isolated from the world.
On Wednesday, 25/05/1994, Anis Mansour wrote in Ahram Newspaper: "The French are very proud of their beautiful language, it is able to articulate everything in philosophy, literature and science; so they refuse to use American expressions or English names to signify what they want, for this is an indictment for the French language.
The French went beyond rejection and condemnation, to imposing sanctions on those who do so (i.e. use English and American words in the dialogue, or names of their stores), that is on those insulting the language ... The state would not allow licensing any store or company or institution that does not bear a French name. "
It is a war aimed at throwing in Arabic in a lost and forgotten pitch to be labeled out of contempt and disrespect as a weak outdated language and has become unsuitable to express what humans have achieved – today. It is a race to impose the English (American), or the French (Francophone) or other languages ... Active endeavor by the Western countries to impose their language and culture in order to preserve their identity and implant their political and economic domination ... So, where is the Ummah of Islam from all this? Where is it while the Kaffir worked - and still works - to impose his language and to exclude and marginalize the language of the Ummah?
It is by this work the Kaffir aims to excoriate the Ummah of its identity and Deen and to melt it in his concepts and his culture, thus ensuring his survival ... it is a struggle of a civilization against another, for the survival and for the sovereignty and leadership!!
7- Media and its contribution to the marginalization of the Arabic language:
Everyone is aware of the importance of the media in influencing people and changing their palates... What if these media become a mouthpiece for the Western civilization? What if the media becomes the optimal guide for the tendencies of people to ensure with distinction that they walk in the orbit of the civilization they are based on?
It is a great danger what the enemies of Islam and the enemies of the Arabic language do: employing these media to infuse poisons that would shake confidence in this belief and rip off its uniqueness and excellence, and even branding it with violence (and terrorism) and the digestion of human rights, especially women ... Cords they played on their desperate symphony, aiming through them to execute their malicious schemes to exclude this Deen from life and make it individual practices confined to some acts of worship.
What we see today are television programs making reference to secularism as the perfect solution to the problems faced by human and as the title for urbanization, progress and ascension, while in return these programs attack everything that inspires to Islam from the Hijab to beard, Quranic kindergartens, and curricula – modestly - alluding some phrases indicating Islamic culture. All of that makes us stand to reflect and assert that a war is launched and the media is one of its means in order to impose the hegemony of the West and its civilization and to totally eliminate the Islamic civilization, which has strained the Kaffir strength and steadfastness for centuries ...
The Arabic language has not survived this internecine war, and the media had the largest share in marginalizing it through the advertisements that came sweeping the satellite channels. These advertisements - the product of the capitalist civilization - had a great attraction that will provide a large profit for their owners. Malicious outlets the West infiltrated through to infuse its culture, for despite the huge difference and the wide gap between the two civilizations: Western and Islamic civilizations, the advertisements have reached Islamic societies, penetrated them and run into their body without regard to its distinctive qualities and its values. Almost no media outlet is devoid from publishing these advertisements that promote certain products that attract children and youth and make them imitate the movements of those perform in them such as, famous actors or singers, and even repeat sentences far from the classical Arabic language and bring imported terms many of which carry means contrary to morality and breach it.
Advertisement is an activity that presents visual and audible messages to community members, to entice them to buy a product or access a service in exchange for a payment, and it is a successful way to grab the recipient’s attention to push him to demand them. It is noticeable that the media oriented toward the use of colloquial language under the pretext that it is fluent, easy and capable to inform and access the recipient. And they became no longer hesitant to use it in the materials they present, to become accustomed to the ears and acceptable to the taste. Instead of these advertisements elevating the language of the people, which is pervaded by ineffectiveness and weakness, and using correct eloquent phrases, we find them adopting broken language, furthermore they deliberately spread dialects and terms that do not take into account people's tastes and not respecting their minds and the distinctiveness of their civilization. So here the capitalist system is not stirred except for guarantying to make a profit and benefit. Working with wits and cunningness employing this medium to "kill many birds with one stone"; it (the capitalist system) promotes its products, opens its markets and ties the Ummah with ropes of dependency on it, to become consumers of its goods and be nonproductive. Then it promoted the colloquial and other languages to eliminate the Arabic language and obscure its identity landmarks to melt in its world and emulate its example ... And thus, it has terminated it and ensured that it (the Arabic) will not return and work to restore its stolen glory, and ensure for itself the survival, sovereignty and leadership.
Through translated TV series, which have become as a series of iron that shackle people such that it becomes difficult for them to free themselves from its chains... Series, which satellite and television channels compete to exclusively broadcast, so they present them in colloquial language instead of the Arabic language which was the language of the translation. Indulging in exclusion and alienating it from the lives of Muslims, these series are promoted in order to tear the distinctive feature of this language - a comprehensive unifying language of the Islamic Ummah - to be replaced by dispersing dividing languages that install barriers and borders and turn the one Ummah into multiple scattered nations, each and every one of them with its own language, cultural and civilizational heritage.
8- The Arabic Language the title of Dignity of the Islamic Ummah:
"Whenever the language of the people is humiliated, its people are also humiliated, and whenever it is degenerated its affairs also leave and disappear. And for this, the colonial foreigner forcibly imposes his language on the colonized nation, and raids them with it, and makes them feel his greatness in his language, and annex them through it. So, he rules over them three verdicts in one action:
The first is to imprison their language in his own language for life, the second is sentencing their past with a death penalty, through obliteration and oblivion, and the third is restricting their future in shackles which they make, therefore, their affair will be a follower of his affair." (Wahi al-Qalam: Mustafa Sadiq Rafii, RahimahuAllah)
The attempts to humiliate, scorn and oppress the Islamic Ummah are strenuous, and the work to obliterate its identity and to marginalize its language is serious... It is a renewed old concealed hatred that will not disconnect until Allah inherits the Earth and all who are on it ... A struggle between the capitalist civilization and the Islamic civilization ... A western civilization fighting for its survival, and to impose its hegemony and control of the world, after those in charge of it have tasted the taste of control and the thrill of money and prestige ... And an Islamic civilization, absent by the absence of its State and the marginalization of its identity, working to return it (the state) and to restore the rule of Allah to the Earth, for the mankind to be content and live in security and peace of mind.
Muslims preserved their Islamic identity and the Arabic language during the days of their glory and victory, and never allowed them to be compromised or undermined. Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “The Salaf hated the change of the rituals of the Arabs, even in transactions which is speaking in other than Arabic, except under necessity, as stipulated by Malik, Al-Shafi'i and Ahmad. Malik even said: “Whoever spoke other than Arabic in our masjid, he would be expelled from it.”
They knew what an important status the Arabic language holds. So, if they squandered it they would squander their religion, because it is a strong bond that brings together the Islamic Ummah as a whole, from the ocean to the gulf, even though their lands varied and diverged:
ويَجمَعُنا إذا اختَلَفَت دِيارٌ *** بَيانٌ غيرُ مُختَلِفٍ ونُطْقُ (أحمد شوقي)
And when we disagree, homes and non-differing statement and pronunciation bring us together. (Ahmed Shawki)
Today, as the situation of the Islamic Ummah has come to what it is now, many calls emerge that denounce, deplore and condemn without any anticipated result; for the scholars of the Arabic language hold conferences calling for linguistic control, as it was called for the international monitoring for the crusade brutal violations committed against Muslims around the world. And they launch alarming shouts calling for linguistic security that revives in our memory the exclamations that silenced our ears, crying out and calling for food security for the plagued and oppressed Muslim peoples...
Monitoring, whether it was international or linguistic, and security whether it was food or language, does not change anything in the situation. For the honors of the Muslims are violated, their blood is spilled, hungry, homeless and stuck on the borders of countries. Whereas, the Arabic language is marginalized and is excluded from the modern sciences... The cause of what is happening to the Islamic Ummah is one, which is the absence of their state. The state that takes care of the people’s affairs in accordance with the rules of the Fair (Al-Adil) Creator, and the State that is the protector for the doctrine of the Muslims and their security, language and identity, which will raise their heads in front of their enemies and will return to the language of their Deen its sanctity, reverence, uniqueness and beauty.
French Ernest Renan said that the strangest thing happened in the history of mankind is the spread of the Arabic language. It was unknown, and suddenly existed very perfectly, smooth, rich and comprehensive, it had no childhood nor an old age. That language which surpassed her sisters in the abundance of its vocabulary, precise meaning and good system of its structures. "
That is the language of the Quran, known to its family so they preserved it, they cared for it and strived desperately for defending it as they strived desperately for the defense of their Deen... However, its enemies overcame it by the fall of the State and continued their quest to strike it, marginalize it and weaken it.
From here we send our warm call to all Muslims and we say to them: do not squander the Arabic language, for it is a sacred language; in the Arabic, our constitution and our Quran were revealed, and through it we understand the rules of our Deen. And let’s work with the sincere from the sons of our Ummah who work day (Caliphate) the method of the Prophethood and the rule by what Allah has revealed. Through this – alone - it will return to the language of our Quran its glory and luster, and by this solid edifice – the Deen is preserved, and the language is preserved, and do not dare them the weak, foolish agent enemies...!!
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Zeinah As-Samit