Great idea

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), May 17, 2007 at 06:39

However I would worry about the rule of Islam is such school. I think that most of us forget that Arabic is the lingua sacra of Islam here and every where. And yes there is indeed such thing as Christian and Jewish Arabic but I susepct that almost all Arabic speaking Christians and Jews will not send their chirldren to such school so you will end by having a school with a Muslim population and in due time Islam will creep in. Not a good idea.

I still believe that the best way to learn Arabic is for eager college students to take a year ot two off and go to let us say Egypt and live and study Arabic.

Now is learning Arabic the gateway to learning Urdu and Persian? Not really. The fact that 20% of Persian words are Arabic words and that both Urdu and Persian languages both use Arabic alphabet does not mean at all that one will be able to read write and make sense of Persian and Urdu. It is not true as you still have to deal with grammar that is so different from Arabic. This is like saying learning English will be a gateway to learning let us say Italian which is also not true.

So what should be done for Urdu and Persian? The only way out is to find young people who would be willing to spend a year or two in Iran or Pakistan learning the languages and we pray to God that you do not get some crazy nut wanting to convert them to islam!

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