By Ribāṭ Communications
We hear and engage with Arabic daily—in salah, in our time spent with the Quran, and in other cultural and social contexts. We talk about learning and mastering it, but often it remains something relegated to the list of things we’ll get to “one day, when things slow down.”
Ribāṭ University, under the guidance of President Dr. Tamara Gray and Anse Dr. Anna-Maria Ramezanzadeh with a team of Arabic curriculum experts, built the Arabic program to meet you where you are on your Arabic journey and guide you forward with clarity and structure. It has been designed to help you understand the language, engage with it, and have real access to a language used within Islam and across regions, industries and wider communities today.
President Dr. Tamara Gray developed a sudden urgent awareness of the need to learn Arabic when she was putting together a presentation for a talk. She found a hadith that she wanted to share and looked up the translation, only to find someone had translated it incorrectly, in a way that significantly altered its meaning—particularly for women reading it. That, coupled with the fact that she met Christian missionaries who learned and spoke classical Arabic fluently as part of their mission to convert Muslims, filled Anse Dr. Tamara Gray with an urgency to build a university-level Arabic program. This program would enable Muslim women to connect with the Quran again, for it to enter hearts and tongues, so it is not only memorized but spoken with understanding. The goal is to build a generation of women who can teach, write, read and communicate in Arabic with confidence, not having to depend on interpretations of others.
A Program Designed for Real Learning
The Arabic program has been designed around how language is actually learned and with the needs of Muslim women in mind. One of the programs is offered through Ribāṭ Riverstead, which offers courses for lifelong learners who want to work at their own pace to be able to access the Quran and traditional Islamic texts, as well as improve their Arabic fluency. The program is structured to allow students to study full or part-time depending on their circumstances, so they can balance learning with the realities of their lives. This doesn’t come at the expense of academic depth. Students are expected to engage seriously with the material and Ribāṭ University is committed to helping them do this in a sustainable way.
For those interested in earning a degree or certificate, Ribāṭ University offers multiple options:
Bachelor of Arts in Arabic Language, Literature and Linguistics: This holistic curriculum resulting in a bachelor’s degree within a traditional 4-year timeframe also offers a part-time option. Whether you’re beginning from scratch or have some Arabic knowledge, our placement tests will get you started on the level that’s right for you.
Associate of Arts in Teaching Arabic: If you’re a native or fluent Arabic speaker who wants to teach Arabic, this is the degree for you. A two-year associate’s degree that equips you with a values-based framework to teach Arabic effectively in a variety of educational settings.
Certificate in Arabic Language and Cultural Fluency: You already have a bachelor’s degree and this postgraduate certificate grants you a certificate in Arabic language along with access to cultural classes that delve into Arabic media, translation, and exploring the linguistic and historical features of sacred texts.
Developed by Dr. Anna-Maria—Departmental Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Oxford University, language researcher, and curriculum developer—the program is benchmarked against the ACTFL (American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages) framework so that your progress is measurable and transferrable. Dr. Anna-Maria has lived the process of learning Arabic, not just teaching it, and she considers language learning as not something you “complete,” but something that you build gradually, layer by layer, like painting over a surface. The program takes a wide angle lens at Arabic, not just as a literary language, a language of history, a language of sacred text, but a living language.
The Paths that Studying Arabic Opens
Despite the advancements of AI, power is going to be in the hands of people who can read, write, and communicate, especially in another language. Language skills also go hand-in-hand with critical thinking skills—you’re forced to reformulate your thoughts frequently in order to facilitate comprehension. You haven’t just learned a language; you learned how to communicate, to understand the mechanisms by which language works, and gained cultural competencies by learning and studying the regions in which that language is taught. Arabic gives you the additional advantage of being able to take your skills to the Arab world and look for job opportunities as someone who has mastered Arabic and English.
Arabic has always been a part of our lives, but for many of us it has remained out of reach for the longest time. Whether you’re starting from the very beginning or returning to it with renewed resolve, Ribāṭ University offers pathways to engage with the language in a way that is structured, meaningful, and sustainable. If you’re ready to move Arabic from “one day,” to now, explore our Arabic programs and find the one that fits where you are on your journey. We look forward to walking this path with you.