e-Arabic Teachers Portal (eATP)

Job Vacancy | Lecturer in Arabic, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London UK

Mourad Diouri | مراد الديوري — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:49:17 +0000

Lecturer in Arabic

Application Address: Department of Graduate StudiesThe Institute of Ismaili Studies210 Euston RoadLondon NW1 2DA

Location: LONDON

Start date: as soon as possible

Salary: £47 p/h comprehensive rate

Contract type: Part time

Contract term: Temporary

Lecturer in Arabic
Application Address: Department of Graduate StudiesThe Institute of Ismaili Studies210 Euston RoadLondon NW1 2DALocation: LONDONStart date: as soon as possibleSalary: £47 p/h comprehensive rateContract type: Part timeContract term: Temporary

The Institute of Ismaili Studies

Hourly Paid Lecturer in Arabic
London based
£47 p/h comprehensive rate
To start as soon as possible

The Institute seeks a part-time, hourly paid Lecturer in Arabic to teach 5 hours a week over 30 weeks during term-time.

The Institute of Ismaili Studies was established in 1977 with the object of promoting scholarship and learning of Muslim cultures and societies, historical as well as contemporary, and a better understanding of their relationship with other societies and faiths.

The Institute is seeking to appoint an appropriately qualified Arabic lecturer to teach on the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities. As a Lecturer, the appointee will be expected to contribute to the overall development of the materials and curriculum, the design of programme modules, preparation, teaching, administration and assessment.

Candidates must have: native fluency in Arabic; a formal qualification to teach Arabic as foreign language as well as experience of teaching Arabic as a foreign language at post graduate level and proven record of designing and delivering modules at post graduate level.

To apply, please email a CV and covering letter outlining your suitability for this role, including details of two referees, to Dr. Laila Halani, GPISH Course Director at lhalani@iis.ac.uk or post to Dr. Laila Halani, Department of Graduate Studies,The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 210 Euston Road, London NW1 2DA.

The closing date for applications is Monday 13 September 2010.

For more information about the Institute please visit our website at www.iis.ac.uk

015654(93913)

News: Lebanon tries to retain Arabic in polyglot culture

Mourad Diouri | مراد الديوري — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:48:51 +0000

Lebanon tries to retain Arabic in polyglot culture
By ZEINA KARAM (AP) – Aug 15, 2010

BEIRUT — Maya Sabti’s children were born and raised in Lebanon but they speak only broken Arabic and cringe when presented with an Arabic book to read.

“I try to get them interested, but I don’t blame them that they’re not,” said Sabti, whose children are 8 and 10. “Mobile phones, Facebook, movies — all that’s important to them is in English.”

In Lebanon, where everyday conversations have long been sprinkled with French and English, many fear the new generation is losing its connection to the country’s official language: Arabic. The issue has raised enough concern for some civil groups to take action.

Source: Google.com/hostednews/

News: Muslim man recites entire Quran from memory

Mourad Diouri | مراد الديوري — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:41:00 +0000

Muslim man recites entire Quran from memory

South University student continues 1,400-year-old tradition of committing Islamic scripture to memory
Posted: August 14, 2010 – 12:18am | Updated: August 14, 2010 – 6:21am
By Dana Clark Felty

Ammar Haq has all 6,236 verses of the Quran committed to memory. At any moment, he can dial up a chapter in his mind and recite it, word for word, in Arabic with the same pronunciation and accent as someone from Asia or the Middle East.

“For him to have memorized it is amazing,” said Dr. Masood Ahmed, a leader at the Islamic Center of Savannah. “It’s not his language.”
Haq is Muslim, but he doesn’t understand Arabic. He doesn’t know how to translate the tens of thousands of words he has committed to memory, starting as early as middle school.
But knowing the meaning of the words isn’t as important as his faith that they are the words of God.
“It’s a purely spiritual and ritualistic thing,” said Haq, a 24-year-old graduate student at South University.

Source: Savannahnow.com

News: ‘Death’ of Arabic language greatly exaggerated

Mourad Diouri | مراد الديوري — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:39:04 +0000

‘Death’ of Arabic language greatly exaggerated
Arabic language ‘never been used by so many people in so many different situations’ as today.

By Elias Muhanna – BEIRUT

In the late 13th century, a North African judge and chancery official named Ibn Manzur, who served in the imperial administration of the Mamluk sultanate, was putting the finishing touches to the greatest Arabic dictionary ever compiled. Spanning 20 volumes, Lisan al-Arab (The Arab Tongue) represented the pinnacle of a centuries-old lexicographical tradition, and would not be surpassed in size and scope by another dictionary for 500 years.

Ibn Manzur was driven by a belief that Arabic’s position as the ultimate language of social prestige, literary eloquence, and religious knowledge was under threat. “In our time, speaking Arabic is regarded as a vice,” he wrote in his preface. “I have composed the present work in an age in which men take pride in [using] a language other than Arabic, and I have built it like Noah built the ark, enduring the sarcasm of his own people.”

If Arabs living at Ibn Manzur’s time didn’t speak Arabic, then what language did they use? The Mamluk territories of Egypt and Syria lay at a continental crossroads attracting immigrants and invaders from around the world, but this did not change the basic reality that Arabic remained the lingua franca of a vast area stretching from the Iberian peninsula to the Indian subcontinent. A preeminent vehicle of culture, the language was studied in places as far afield as medieval Europe, where scholars sought access to the scientific and philosophical patrimony of Ancient Greece through the intermediary of Arabic commentaries.

Source: Middle-east-online.com

News: Algeria’s leading Arabic-language writer Tahar Wattar dies

Mourad Diouri | مراد الديوري — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:36:03 +0000

Algeria’s leading Arabic-language writer Tahar Wattar dies

By Aomar Ouali (CP) – Aug 12, 2010

ALGIERS, Algeria — Tahar Wattar, one of Algeria’s leading Arab-language writers, who used his novels to explore his nation’s struggle for independence from France and its post-colonial history, has died, a friend and the official APS news agency said. He was 74.

A noted writer and friend, Wassini Laaredj, told The Associated Press that Wattar died Thursday after a “long illness.” Wattar had been hospitalized for cancer treatment on various occasions in Paris.

Wattar was known for his adversarial position toward Algeria’s French-language authors, whom he at one point denounced as “vestiges of colonialism.”

One of the North African nation’s most prolific Arabic-language authors, Wattar revisited Algeria’s post-colonial history in his novels, sometimes using symbolism and allegory, as the nation tried to form an identity following its 1962 independence after more than 130 years of French rule and a bloody war.

The Arabic language, along with the Islamic faith, was a crucial component of the one-party state in forging the identity of a newly free nation.

Among Wattar’s best-known novels are “Al Laz,” his first novel — written in 1974 — and named after the lead character in the book, “A Mule’s Wedding” (1978) and “The Fisherman and the Palace” (1980).

While he appeared to support the nationalist movement, and had the blessing of the state, Wattar subtly evoked the downside, for instance portraying in some instances the disappointment that reality delivered as compared to the ideal.

Source: google.com/hostednews/