'al'islaam

(a guide to survive in the same world as Islam)

"We get acquainted with another culture in the same manner as with another person: at our first meeting we look for commonalities in order for an acquaintance to become possible, and later we look for differences in order for the acquaintance to become interesting"
(Averintsev)

This website is supposed to teach you a few things about Arabic language, which is the language of the Arabs. It shouldn't even mention 'al'islaam, which is the religion of most Arabs, were it not for the fact that not knowing them can turn writing Arabic letters into a dangerous activity.

There are a few basic facts about Islam that are mainly ignored in the media, but, if you are reading this page, you are probably already of. Contrary to popular belief...

Not all Arab-speakers are Muslims, some are Christians or Jews, and many have no religion.
Not all Muslims are Arabs; in fact, most of them are Indonesians, Pakistanis, Turks, Nigerians, UnitedStateans...
Like mostly all other religions, the main teaching of Islam is the same of E.T., namely, "be good". Islam forbids bad things like murder, theft, gambling, drunkenness... and enjoins good ones like work, prayer, marriage...
Most Muslims don't believe killing innocent civilians or beating women to death to be good things.

There are also a few other facts about this religion that you should know if you are planning to write something in the Arabic script but your plans don't include being stoned by an angry mob.

The fundamental belief of Muslims is that a certain book, called the qur'aan, contains the literal words of God itself. Though Muslims believe that's so, they will respect your freedom not to believe it's true, and to say that you aren't sure. However, they will not respect your freedom of opinion if you go "too far".
Owing to a strange quirk of the culture, the Constitution of the U.S.A. and its Amendments are traditionally not taken into account by Muslims when deciding when somebody has gone "too far". In particular, whatever your ideas abour freedom of speech, according to them you have gone too far if you
- say that the qur'aan is not the Word of God,
- say that God's Prophet, muhhammad, lied (God's prophets never lie),
- say that any of the several people that Muslims acknowledge as prophets of God died nailed to an instrument of torture (true prophets never die like criminals),
- or make fun of those who believe the above. You should show respect to their freedom of belief.
As God himself used the Arabic language to speak to mankind, it is a sacred language to Muslims, and non-believers are not supposed to play with certain things that Muslims consider their own. In particular, the Holy Names of God and His Prophet, written in Arabic, must never come near entities that Arabs traditionally consider unclean (such as shoes, Claudia Schiffer, and many others). For that purpose, you may use any other simbols of God ("God" written in some other script, such as Roman or Jewish or Chinese, or in other languages such as Latin or Asamese, or symbols like a cross, a hindu "Om" monogram, an image of Vishnu or Shiva, a picture of the Yggdrasil...) and Muslims won't give a damn.
The literal words of God in the original Arabic are Most Holy. As a non-believer, you are not allowed to make fun of the Holy Book, read it, copy it, write passages from it, or even lift from the ground a box containing a copy of it unless a Muslim has taught you about the right procedure.

This last rule applies to the literal Word of God in the original Arabic, but not to translations. Unlike Christians, Muslims don't believe that the Divine Spark in a Holy Word can survive the doubtful process of translation, however "inspired by God" the translator is. So, if you don't know any Arabic and you are not near any Arabic text taken from the qur'aan, you are unlikely to break any of the several taboos relating to it. This does not apply to translations; Muslims don't feel any emotional attachment towards them.

But if you know Arabic enough to be able to spell the names of God and His prophet in the original Arabic, playing with these names is very dangerous.

So, don't copy by hand (and don't print out) any of the Arabic letters you'll find in this website unless you're sure they don't contain the Arabic names of God ('allaah), His Prophet (muhhammad), or any text from the qur'aan. You have been warned.

As this website's author, I am reasonably sure I've not broken any of the taboos by writing this website. But you might break them accidentally simply by printing the website in dirty paper or something like that. I don't personally care, but this planet contains about one giga of people who do care, so please try to be PC and respect their feelings.

the Arabic Alphabet the Arabic Alphabet
atrás Modern Standard Arabic
arriba a Few Notes on Arabic Culture
adelante Drawing the Letters