Professor Yasir Suleiman-Malley speaks about the complexities of Arabic tracing his personal journey with the language, from early struggles with grammar to a deep appreciation for its richness. We explore the historical and pedagogical challenges of teaching Arabic, especially given its sacred status connected to the Quranic text and the socio-cultural resistance to modernizing its grammatical teaching methods. The conversation also delves into the dual nature of Arabic, the spoken and the written forms, their impact on education, everyday use, and the broader implications of Arabic as a cultural and identity-defining symbol in the Arab world. 

00:00 Introduction 

00:05 Professor Suleiman-Malley's Early Relationship with Arabic

01:24 Challenges in Teaching Arabic Grammar

05:34 Cultural and Historical Context of Arabic Pedagogy

11:30 Arabic as a Symbol of Identity and Conflict

15:43 The Health of the Arabic Language

23:50 Decolonization and Language

29:45 Reviving and Managing Languages

38:26 The Role of Language in Identity

39:19 Language as a Membership Card

41:04 Diversity and Unity in the Arab World

42:50 Cultural Arabness vs Racial Arabness

45:39 Historical Perspectives on Arab Identity

54:01 The Concept of Diglossia

01:03:08 Challenges of Written vs Spoken Arabic

01:07:11 The Future of Arabic Language and Identity

01:13:30 Final Thoughts

Professor Yasir Suleiman-Malley is Chair of the Panel of Judges, British-Kuwaiti Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies. He serves as Trustee on the Boards of Arab-British Chamber Charitable Foundation, International Prize for Arab Fiction (in association with the Man-Booker Prize), Banipal Trust for Arab Literature and is trustee of the Gulf Research Centre-Cambridge. He is also Chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World, Chair of the Centre for the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa (CIRMENA), Board Member of the Islamic Manuscript Association, Member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Evaluation and Research in Muslim Education, Institute of Education, Member of the Advisory Board of The Doha Institute, Qatar and Member of the Advisory Board of Our Shared Future. He is a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals and book series. He is also Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, formerly Head of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies.

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