“My name is Amir ul Islam, I am from London, England. I work as an IT Consultant providing consultancy services to UK universities
Having travelled around the world to many Arabic speaking countries I felt a little left out that being a Muslim I was not able to communicate with others nor being able to understand the religious book, the Qur’an. There seems to be this understanding that all Muslims are able to speak Arabic which really isn’t the case. Based on this, I decided that I’d like to learn the Arabic language and undertook a few courses in the UK without much luck. The courses usually ran on a weekly basis for a few hours, are group based and there was very little opportunity for speaking Arabic
I decided it was important for me to try and find a suitable course that was tailored to my individual need and somewhere where the native language was Arabic so that I could immerse myself. I had visited Jerusalem and parts of Palestine during for two weeks between June and July in 2016. The hospitality of the people was amazing and it was definitely an important factor for my choice in studying Arabic in Palestine at the Excellence Center in Hebron.
Having arrived a few days ago I’ve already had the opportunity to visit two local sites; Arabham’s oak and a Greek Orthodox church. I had my first class today and I can tell that my teacher Duaa will definitely be pushing me. For now, I hope that after a month of classes I can increase my vocabulary and that I am able to have reasonable conversations in Arabic. However, my ultimate goal is to be able to read and understand the Qur’an without the need for the English language. How long that will take, I don’t know?”.
