Poetry: Ashraf AboArafe
Arabic—
O breath of meaning
when the universe first learned how to speak,
O river of sense
from which thought drank
and was made whole.
God did not choose you
for the abundance of your sounds,
but for the weight your letters could carry,
for a language able
to hold revelation
without breaking.
The Qur’an descended in Arabic—
not because other tongues were barren,
but because yours was vast enough
to embrace the infinite,
precise enough to guard truth,
pure enough to mirror the divine.
Through you, hearts were addressed
and trembled,
minds were called
and awakened,
verses were written
and became light
that does not age.
Arabic—
language of the Qur’an,
altar of eloquence,
secret of the miracle
where rhetoric bows
and meaning kneels.
Yet what has become of your people?
Why did they turn away,
as if you were a burden,
as if dignity were written
in borrowed accents?
They boast of foreign tongues,
stumble in their own,
memorize the language of others
and forget the names of their meanings.
They speak fluently
when identity is absent,
and fall silent
when roots are questioned.
Shop signs glow in alien letters,
children learn the voice of elsewhere
before learning how to say,
This is who I am.
Arabic is treated
as the language of yesterday—
for sermons and ceremonies,
not for science,
not for tomorrow.
And the irony cuts deep:
Nations rose
by honoring their native tongues,
while we declined
the moment we abandoned ours.
So what is the remedy?
The cure is not in slogans,
but in action.
Not in praise alone,
but in production.
To write modern knowledge in Arabic,
to think, research, and innovate through it—
not to imprison it
in nostalgia and ritual.
To teach our children
that mastering other languages is strength,
but losing their own
is defeat.
To read the Qur’an
not only with voices,
but with understanding,
and to grasp
why God chose this language
above all others.
Arabic is not an enemy of progress;
it is its compass.
Not an obstacle to modernity,
but its foundation.
Arabic will not die—
but it waits
to be rescued from neglect,
to return from the margins
to the center,
from memory
to life.
If we protect it,
it will protect us.
If we abandon it,
we lose the first step of the path.
Peace upon Arabic
the day revelation spoke through it,
the day its people turned away,
and the day it rises again—
a language of knowledge,
identity,
and civilization.
