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85-662: The Mosque of the Andalusians or Al-Andalusiyyin Mosque ( Arabic : جامع الأندلسيين , romanized :  Jama' al-Andalusiyyin ; Berber languages : ⵎⴻⵣⴳⵉⴷⴰ ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ ), sometimes also called the Andalusian Mosque , is a major historic mosque in Fes el Bali , the old medina quarter of Fez , Morocco . The mosque was founded in 859–860, making it one of the oldest mosques in Morocco . It

170-610: A battle against Kharidjite Berber tribes in 971, the Fatimid Caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah appointed Buluggin ibn Ziri as Emir of the Maghreb. In addition to the attributions of his father Menad Abu Ziri, he received the regions of Zab and M'Sila that the defector Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī ruled. The honours bestowed on him would provoke the jealousy of the Kutamas . Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah left

255-562: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as

340-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By

425-533: A cursive inscription panel above its double doors, appears to have served as a library and was founded by one of the last Marinid sultans, Abu Sa'id Uthman III , in 1415 (816 AH). Terrasse also dated several other elements of carved wood in this area, in and around the imam's door and the Funerary Mosque ( Jama' al-Gna'iz ) at the back of the mosque, to Abu Sa'id Uthman III. The mosque also provided seven courses for education and contained two libraries, similar to

510-1077: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to

595-436: A few months after successfully capturing Fez, the minbar was partly re-crafted with new parts in a very similar artistic style, including an upper section (the backrest) with an inscription recording the date of 375 AH (985 or 986 CE ) and the names of Ibn 'Abi Amir and Hisham II. Presumably, the components which identified the minbar as Fatimid were deliberately removed and replaced with Umayyad components. Terrasse suggests that

680-403: A large number of Moroccan slaves; while his lieutenant paraded them in the streets the people of Ifriqiya were shocked as they had never seen such a large number of slaves before. Little is known about the personal life of Buluggin however chroniclers state that he had many women around him and that prior to his rule of the Maghreb he had 400 concubines and one day he received the good tidings of

765-454: A large part of the city before reaching the mosque), Al-Nasir also created a new water channel to bring water from outside the city directly to the mosque. The façade of the tall northern gate is decorated with zellij tiles and an elaborate canopy of carved wood, though these were likely restored at a later time and little of the Almohad decoration remains today. Scholar Georges Marçais praised

850-483: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic

935-677: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb  [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak

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1020-534: A request for repairs to the Marinid sultan Abu Ya'qub Yusuf , who agreed. Repairs were carried out in 1295-96 (695 AH). Much of the structure, including its pillars and ceilings, was restored at this time. The next sultan, Abu Thabit , who ruled briefly between 1307 and 1308, had the Almohad water canals to the mosque repaired and also installed the ornate fountain in the north wall of the mosque's courtyard. Although not mentioned in historical sources, Terrasse believed that

1105-576: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from

1190-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",

1275-465: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for

1360-437: A square base with one main shaft, crowned with small merlons and topped by a dome. It is similar to the minaret of the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque, which was also built at the same time, although it is slightly smaller and simpler. Both were likely related to the grander minaret which Abd ar-Rahman III had built earlier in the same decade. The construction of both minarets was carried out by the local Zenata governor, Ahmed ibn Abi Said,

1445-424: A suburb in the city of Algiers, is named after him. Buluggin was born in the region of Titteri , in what is now Algeria . While his father Ziri ibn Menad was emir of the central Maghreb , Buluggin ibn Ziri founded the city of Algiers on the site of the ancient Roman Icosium in 960, but also Médéa and Miliana . He also rebuilt the villages destroyed by the various revolts. On the death of his father, in

1530-503: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means

1615-499: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as

1700-504: A vassal of the Umayyads, but it is unclear exactly what personal involvement Abd ar-Rahman III had in the project beyond providing the funds. In 980 after northern Morocco had fallen under the control of Buluggin , a Zirid amir who ruled on behalf of the Fatimids (whose base had moved further east to Cairo ), he commissioned a new minbar (pulpit) for the mosque, symbolizing the victory of

1785-470: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted

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1870-727: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic

1955-535: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak

2040-542: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It

2125-469: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in

2210-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon

2295-468: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and

2380-546: Is located at the heart of a district which was historically associated with Andalusi immigrants, from which it takes its name. It has been renovated and expanded several times since then. Today, it is one of the relatively few remaining Idrisid -era establishments and one of the main landmarks of the city. According to historical sources like al-Jazna'i , the mosque was founded in 859-860 (245 AH) by Maryam bint Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Fihri (sister of Fatima al-Fihri , who founded

2465-566: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference

2550-786: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not

2635-559: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As

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2720-584: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that

2805-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into

2890-516: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while

2975-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary

3060-513: The Qarawiyyin Mosque at the same time). Construction was also aided by additional funds donated by a group of local residents of Andalusi background, which gave the mosque its current name. The latter had come to the city as refugees in 818, fleeing the city of Cordoba after a failed uprising which resulted in severe repressions from the Umayyad emir al-Hakam I . The original construction

3145-741: The Shi'a Fatimids over other factions like the Sunni Umayyads of Cordoba. An inscription with this date (369 AH ) has been preserved on one of the minbar's original panels, rediscovered in the 20th century by Henri Terrasse during restorations. The new episode of Fatimid domination did not last long, however. In 985 Ibn 'Abi Amir , the vizier of Caliph Hisham II and de facto ruler of Cordoba (known in Christian sources as Almanzor), sent his cousin Askalaja with an army to retake Fez and northern Morocco directly. Within

3230-561: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to

3315-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic

3400-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In

3485-722: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c.  8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Buluggin ibn Ziri Bologhine ,

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3570-525: The 10th-century Umayyad restoration, was preserved in place, perhaps indicating a certain respect the Almohads held for the former Caliphate of Cordoba. Terrasse remarks that the masonry used in the Almohad construction was of mediocre quality, requiring that it be repaired and restored in the late 13th century under the Marinids . The khatib of the mosque, Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Abd al-Qasim ibn Hassuna, made

3655-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to

3740-562: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of

3825-812: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ    [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized

3910-577: The French scholar Henri Terrasse, who worked on several monuments during the French Protectorate period (1912-1956) conducted a full study of the mosque and its minbar, which was published in 1942. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )

3995-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around

4080-672: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from

4165-561: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With

4250-553: The Zenatas) and the Mazata. The prisoners were resettled in great numbers in the settlement of Ashir. The Fatimids transferred their court from Mahdia to Cairo . Buluggin was then appointed viceroy of Ifriqiya with Kairouan as its capital. The Fatimids had taken the treasury and fleet with them to Egypt, so the first priority of the Zirid government was to consolidate its rule. However,

4335-669: The Zirids was therefore to strengthen their power, but the displacement of the Fatimid fleet towards Egypt made the conservation of the Kalbide territories in Sicily impossible. Bologhine Ziri received from the Caliph the titles of Abu al-Futuh , "Father of Victories" and Sayf ad-Dawla "Sword of Empire". In 977, Abu Mansur Nizar al-Aziz Billah , the successor of Al-Muizz li-Dîn Allah, attributed to Bologhine

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4420-592: The al-Qarawiyyin Mosque, making it the second most important mosque in the medina of Fez. The Marinids also founded at least two madrasas nearby in the early 14th century: the Sahrij Madrasa and Sba'iyyin Madrasa . Like the madrasas near the Qarawiyyin Mosque, they offered courses but also served to house students from outside the city who came to study at the mosque. The mosque itself has been restored many times over

4505-525: The architecture as a masterpiece of Moroccan architectural style . Lastly, Al-Nasir's also restored the mosque's old minbar. Once again, rather than replacing the minbar entirely, the Almohads opted to restore and reuse the old one. Most of the minbar, especially its sides, were covered with new wooden panels decorated in the Moorish style of this period, strongly influenced by Andalusi craftsmanship. The upper back panel, however, which featured inscriptions from

4590-511: The cities of Tripoli, Ajdabiya and Sirte in addition to his previous attributions. He conquers Fez, Sijilmassa and but stopped before Ceuta. When he saw the square, which he considered impregnable, and the reinforcements of the Zenatas coming from Andalusia by sea, he turned back. He punished the sovereign of the Barghawata, who was declared prophet, in an expedition in 979 in which he brought back

4675-425: The city . According to al-Jazna'i, when the caliph was informed that the Mosque of the Andalusians needed repairs, he ordered its restoration and expansion. Construction occurred between 1203 and 1207, and the mosque's anaza was installed in 1209. Terrasse remarked that this long period, as well as the relatively homogenous fabric of the current building (which has brick pillars instead of stone columns), suggests that

4760-567: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after

4845-559: The earlier inscription of 369 AH (which does not include any names) was left in place at the time because the local craftsmen, who may not have been able to read Kufic well, might not have realized its significance. The mosque was not modified again until the early 13th century, during the Almohad period. Muhammad al-Nasir (ruled 1199–1213), the fourth Almohad caliph , took a greater interest in Fez than his predecessors, in particular by fortifying

4930-403: The eastern gate of the mosque, near the minaret, was likely built or decorated in the 14th century, perhaps also under Abu Thabit. The Dar al-Muwaqqit , an apartment for the timekeeper built on the second floor, on the southeast side of the minaret, probably also dates from the Marinid period, when such structures began to be added to mosques. A large storage space at the back of the mosque, with

5015-577: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of

5100-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around

5185-593: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From

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5270-501: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and

5355-777: The governance of Sicily and Tripoli to members of his family. Buluggin continued the fight against the Zenatas . The Maghrawa asked for the help of the Umayyads of Cordoba to take back their territory and their cities. Buluggin then took control of almost all of the Maghreb under orders of the Fatimid Caliph. Buluggin defeated the Maghrawa , the Hawwaras (branch of the Branis), the Nefzawas (branch of

5440-420: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward

5525-419: The khutbah was also transferred from the Shurafa Mosque to the Qarawiyyin Mosque on the other shore of the city. In 956 Abd al-Rahman III , the Umayyad caliph in Cordoba , sponsored the construction of the mosque's minaret , which survives up until today. Henri Terrasse believed that the minaret's location would originally have been the northwestern corner of the mosque (before its later expansion). It has

5610-558: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about

5695-550: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c.  603 –689)

5780-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA

5865-583: The loss of the fleet meant loss of control over the Kalbids in Sicily . Buluggin took Fez, Sijilmasa and most of Morocco to the Atlantic coast. During a campaign in Morocco, he fought against the Bargawata . The Caliphate of Córdoba was, however, able to retain the fortresses of Ceuta and Tangiers . Nevertheless, Buluggin remained a vassal of the Fatimids, to whom he had to pay tribute, and he remained surrounded by advisors who were there to support him as much as to watch over him. The Fatimids took with them wealth and military equipment. The absolute priority of

5950-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya

6035-404: The mosque was almost entirely reconstructed at this time. Additionally, the mosque's current qibla alignment appears to be different from the alignment of its 10th-century minaret, suggesting that the latter is still aligned with the mosque's older orientation. In addition to expanding the mosque's layout, the Almohad reconstruction added a monumental northern gate, a fountain, a new entrance for

6120-768: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum  [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve

6205-573: The new Zenata governor of Fez, Hamid ibn Hamdan al-Hamdani, a vassal of the Fatimid ruler Ubayd Allah , transferred the venue of the khutbah (the religious sermon during Friday prayers ) to this Mosque of the Andalusians, replacing the older Mosque of Al-Ashyakh , the first mosque built in Madinat Fas by Idris I , as the main mosque of the Andalusian Quarter of Fes el-Bali . At the same time

6290-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on

6375-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on

6460-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within

6545-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there

6630-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of

6715-541: The southern qibla wall instead of perpendicular to it. The mosque had access to abundant water from an artificial water channel known as Oued Masmuda . During the 10th century, Fez was caught in the rivalry between the Umayyads of Cordoba and the Fatimid Caliphate . However, this benefitted the Al-Andalusiyyin and Al-Qarawiyyin mosques, which both received patronage by rival factions during this period. In 933

6800-556: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of

6885-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to

6970-474: The women's prayer hall, and an apartment for the imam located on a floor above the women's prayer hall. An ablutions house, or dar al-wudu , was also built across the street, similar in form to another dar al-wudu built at the same time for the Qarawiyyin Mosque. In order to supply water for this ablutions facility, and perhaps because the water of the Oued Masmouda was judged too polluted (since it crossed

7055-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study

7140-482: The years, allowing it to preserve its form. The present appearance of the mosque's monumental gate likely dates from a restoration during the Alaouite period. Moulay Isma'il (ruled 1672–1727) renovated the Marinid fountain in the mosque's courtyard, where his name is still visible. The mihrab's carved stucco decoration was also remade at some recent period and is no older than the 18th century. Among more modern restorations,

7225-432: Was modest. According to the 12th-century Andalusian geographer Al-Bakri , the mosque consisted of a hypostyle hall with six aisles (or seven, according to al-Jazna'i) formed by parallel rows of horseshoes arches supported on stone columns. It contained a small sahn (courtyard) where a walnut tree and several other trees were planted. Unlike many later Moroccan mosques, the rows of arches ran east-to-west, parallel with

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