About Dr. V. Abdulrahim

DR. V. ABDULRAHIM

 

Profile:

* Received the Madihur Rasool Sadaqatullah Appa Award 2012 CE for outstanding Arabic Scholar, from the Department of Arabic, Persian & Urdu,  University of Madras, India;

* Received the national award for ‘Outstanding Arabic Scholar’ in 1997 CE conferred by president of India: Dr. S. D. Sharma;

* Deeply learned in the Glorious Qur’aan and Sunnah;

* Holds M.Phil. and Ph.D. Degrees in Arabic Philology from the University of Al-Azhar (Cairo);

* Majored  in English Language and Literature, University of Madras, India;

* Formerly Professor of Arabic Language for 30 years at the Islaamic University of Madinah;

* Formerly the Director of the ‘Institute of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language’, Islaamic University, Madinah;

* Served as Professor of Arabic at the Islaamic University Madinah, the Islaamic University Omdurman Sudan, the Khartoum University Sudan, and in Arabic Institutions in Germany, in Washington D.C. and in British Guyana;

* An expert in European languages: in their etymology, phonetic changes and semantic development.

* An expert in Arabic dialects: in their etymology, phonetic changes and semantic development.

* Currently the Director of the Translation Centre at the ‘King Fahd Glorious Qur’aan Printing Complex’ (Madinah, Saudi Arabia)


V. Abdur Rahim was born in the small town of Vaniyambadi in the state of Tamil Nadu, India in 1933. After finishing his secondary school studies, he joined Presidency College, University of Madras where he majored in English Language and Literature. He graduated in 1957. In 1964, he joined al-Azhar University, Cairo, where he did his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Arabic Philology.

It is to be noted that Abdur Rahim learnt Arabic by himself at the early stages. The school where he did his secondary school studies offered Arabic, but the lessons it offered consisted of only memorizing the conjugation tables. Abdur Rahim detested this method.  He thought that it was the most unnatural way of learning a language. Only dead languages like Latin, Syriac, etc. are taught this way. Living languages teach sentences straightaway. He decided to design a curriculum to teach Arabic to non-native speakers of Arabic.

In 1969, he joined the Islamic University of Madinah to teach Arabic Philology. Here, he was also associated with the Programme of teaching Arabic as a foreign language. The course he designed for this purpose is now known as   دروسُ اللغةِ العربيةِ لـغير الناطقين بـها Durûs al-Lughah al-‘Arabiyyah  li-Ghair al-Nâtiqîna Bihâ. (Now these books are popularly known throughout the world as “MADINAH BOOKS”.)

When he was learning Arabic by himself, Abdur Rahim studied the many problems that beset the non-native students of Arabic, and tried to solve them. He discovered that all these problems can easily be solved by applying the principle of taqdîm al- usûl ‘ala al-furû‘, i.e. teaching the primary elements before the secondary elements. The following are some of the manifestations of the application of this principle:

1.  Teaching the primary case-endings before the secondary endings, so you teach the masrûf noun before the mamnû‘ min al-sarf, and the al-af‘âl al-arba‘ah before the al-af‘âl al-khamsah.
2.  Teaching the sâlim verb before the other categories.
3.  Teaching  the al-mudâri‘ al-marfû ‘ before the al-mudâri‘ al-mansûb or al-mudâri‘ al-majzûm.
4.  Teaching the plural of intelligent nouns before that of non-intelligent nouns.

Another principle Abdur Rahim advocates is that rules of waqf should not be applied during the teaching stage, for in that case the student cannot learn the correct ending of the last word in the sentence as, ma smu-ka and ma smu-ki, for example, are both reduced to ma smu-k.