At The Shariah Program We Believe Arabic Is The First Thing The Scholars Study And They Continue Studying It For The Rest Of Their Lives.
We also believe, however, that a dedicated student should not have to continue spinning his or her wheels for years and years.
Instead, every hard working student SHOULD experience immediate results in the opening weeks of class.
We believe the biggest reason students struggle and fail is they are not given a big picture understanding of how the language works.
They are not immediately exposed to those elements that make Arabic unique and superior. In other words, they remain unaware of WHY Allah azza wa jall chose Arabic as the medium for his final message.
Consequently, no emotional connection to the studies is created.
Absent this strong emotional connection, they are taught random rules and told to memorize isolated lists of vocabulary.
This naturally overwhelms them, confuses them and kills their enthusiasm.
So what we do here is, instead, we set a goal of beginning an actual Arabic book within 21 days. And then we get to work teaching only those elements of grammar and morphology that are needed to begin the book, which incidentally also happen to be the most fascinating aspects of the language.
This achieves a number of objectives such as creating momentum, exciting and fascinating the student, as well as giving them very quick results so they no longer need to wait for a payoff.
The program stretches for 2 full years with an average weekly commitment of between 5-7 hours (live classes included) which is definitely reasonable.
The classes themselves have been in session since 2001 uninterrupted with over 6000 students. If you’d like to experience the method first hand please click here and sign up for a free 3-part mini-class we’ve put together focusing on the core of how the language works. It’s roughly 2 and a half hours of actual teaching, but covers more than a year’s worth of university Arabic.
Once you go through the free mini-class, you’ll have a very good idea of how we teach. And then you can consider registering formally, inshallah.
Alternatively, you can read this article on the topic of Arabic grammar and it will also give you an idea of our approach.
Mufti Yusuf Mullan’s Bio
Shaykh Yusuf Mullan is the founder and head instructor of the Shariah Program. For the last nineteen years, he has been dedicated to teaching Classical Arabic to Western students, running both a two-year online ‘Foundations Program’ and an on-campus ‘Six-Month Intensive’ based in Canada.
Beginning his formal Islamic education at the tender age of thirteen, Shaykh Yusuf memorized the Holy Qur`an in the Islamic Institute in Dewsbury, U.K. He then undertook a rigorous program in Arabic and Islamic studies, completing the Darse Nizami curriculum under the auspices of traditional scholars in Flintham, Nottingshire.
After completing his stay in England, he travelled to Pakistan to further his studies, completing a detailed course on the science of tafsir, Qur`anic exegesis, at the Badr al-Ulum Institute in Rahimyarkhan. He then proceeded to complete his ‘Alimiyyah degree (Masters in Islamic Theology) and specialization in Ifta` (Islamic legal verdicts) at Dar al-Ulum Karachi, one of the world’s premier institutes of Islamic learning, ranking amongst the top students in his class in both programs and receiving authorization to issue legal rulings in the Hanafi madhab. Moreover, the shaykh had the honor of earning ijazat (licenses) to relate numerous books, such as the six famous collections of hadith, from some of the most renowned scholars in the world, including Mufti Taqi Usmani and Mufti Rafi’ Usmani.
After over a decade of religious education overseas, Shaykh Yusuf returned to his home in Canada. In order to address the apparent need for quality instruction in the Arabic and Islamic sciences in the West, he established the Shariah Program. Building upon many years of experience studying and teaching the Arabic language and observing the success and failures of the various techniques employed by both teachers and students, he has adjusted and honed these different approaches to devise a methodology to learn the Arabic language in the most efficient possible manner, avoiding the pitfalls that one usually encounters on his journey to Arabic proficiency.
Ustadh Yusuf currently lives with his wife and children in Toronto, Canada and devotes most of his time to teaching and administrating the Shariah Program.
Mohtanick Jamil’s Bio
Mohtanick Jamil is the Chief Curriculum Director of Arabic studies at the Shariah Program. He joined the Shariah Program as a student at age 16 to study under Sheikh Mufti Yusuf Mullan. Upon completing the (then) three year program, Mohtanick graduated at the top of his class. He then enrolled in advanced Arabic linguistics at the University of Toronto, where he spent another four years studying the language. Having graduated with high honors at the top of his university class, Mohtanick finally returned back to the Shariah Program to complete his studies at the highest levels for another two years.
Having achieved advanced specialization in the Arabic language, Mufti Yusuf Mullan subsequently awarded Mohtanick the post of Chief Curriculum Director at the Shariah Program.
Today, Mohtanick writes prolifically on various topics of the Arabic language for students of all levels. He has authored approximately one hundred original articles, including original research papers, and his teaching methods are enjoyed by students and are replicated by scholars around the globe.