Older Testimonials
All of the reviews below were submitted in 2003-2004 when we first began offering classes in the Toronto area. Since then, our methods have only gotten more refined and focused. We initially started with a 5-year format, before eventually settling on the 2-year “Foundations Program” described on the curriculum page. For this reason, in some of the reviews below, you might come across references to a “5-year course”. That no longer is applicable. Additionally, titles have been added by us to ease readability.
Unparalleled by anything else out there
As with many Muslims born and raised in the West, the heritage of the Islamic intellectual tradition is one that I was brought up to revere, venerate and consider my own. Surrounded both at home and in the mosque by stories of luminaries like Abu Hanifah and al-Ghazzali, it was impossible to escape without a distinct impression of the vastness and sophistication of Islamic scholarship, as well as its central contribution to the history of both the Eastern and Western worlds.
Yet, despite being an integral part of my identity, the reality of a truly comprehensive Islamic education was always just beyond my reach. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that I, like the vast majority of North American Muslims, was in fact divorced from a true understanding of our own intellectual history. Content with stories and anecdotes, or at most a rudimentary knowledge of basic fiqh, we were, and continue to be, deprived of the deep and profound insights of the scholars of the Islamic world.
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Granted, I was able to catch glimpses of our tradition here and there: reading books, frequenting halaqas, attending conferences, and occasionally visiting Muslim lands. Yet, these were isolated rarities, providing no systematic method of tying together the subjects of our study in any intelligibly cohesive manner.
I enrolled into the Shariah Program in late May 2003 and went in the evenings 3 days a week for just 3 hours a session. I noticed sizable improvements in the comprehension of Arabic in a very short time. In fact, just after 3 months, we had covered in profound detail about 60% of all of Arabic Morphology (Sarf) and about 50% of intermediate Arabic grammar (Nahw), and all of this without the loss of detail or comprehension.
For me, then, the Toronto Shariah Program has brought the Islamic tradition, my tradition, to life. Beginning with a study of the Arabic language that is unparalleled by anything else out there, the program has already given me a facility with classical Arabic texts I never thought possible without sustained study in an Arab country. Comprehensive, detailed, and systematic, Mufti Yusuf Mullan draws upon the centuries-old curricula of the madresa system in the Indian-Pakistani Subcontinent and combines it masterfully with modern teaching strategies and a keen understanding of the level of the students he teaches to produce a serious knowledge of the language in a minimal amount of time — a good year of regular study and attendance will provide you with the essentials of the Arabic language, as well as enough practice to start feeling comfortable with the texts.
The focus on Arabic in the first year is indispensable for advanced study in subsequent years, but is not exclusive to other disciplines. Already, we have had lessons in tajweed, seerah, fiqh, and tafseer, as well as exposure to such masterpieces as the Ihya’ of Imam Ghazzali. Due in large part to the encouragement of Mufti Yusuf and his teaching staff, I now look forward to exploring more and more of the classical texts in the hopes of continuing to bridge the divide that has separated me from a comprehensive understanding of my intellectual heritage thus far. The organization and guidance of the Shariah Program is an essential part of that journey.
The Shariah Program is convenient, rigorous, affordable and of the highest quality. It is an incomparable initiative on the North American Muslim scene; our duty now is to see that it continues to be a success. Those of us in Toronto no longer have an excuse to neglect our tradition of knowledge and scholarship.
Junaid Quadri
Waterloo, Ontario
why i like this course
Before I start I just want to say that the contents of this brief text are entirely from me, and none of the course organizers had anything to do with its content.
Why be interested?
• Have you been sporadically going to halaqas for years, but have little or nothing to show for it?
• Do you crave a serious course that doesn’t seem like a “guilty conscience assuager” but actually teaches you something?
• Do you want to go beyond the numerous lectures/ conferences but don’t know where to go?
• Do you want an organized curriculum, with textbooks, punctual, regular sessions, a clear path and a beginning and an end-goal?
• Have you been raised here and can’t access courses in foreign languages? Do you constantly dream of going overseas for Islamic education but don’t have the time/money/freedom-from-responsibility to do so?
If you answer Yes to any of these questions then you should seriously consider this course.
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Course Material
Sessions are organized into sarf (morphology), nahw (grammar), seerah, tajweed, and a reading/vocab session. The pace is fast but reasonable. I have previously studied some Arabic in Damascus and in comparison to my previous course this one is very thorough and systematic. What we cover, we cover comprehensively without leaving out bits and pieces. The emphasis on the “gurdans” i.e reciting the verbs aloud makes a big difference in comprehension, although it can be nerve-wracking in the beginning.
We use several textbooks, some of which are very hard to find here. We cover subjects and use the relevant part in the textbooks. There is no single text for any of the subjects. The first few months are spent mostly on Arabic (and Tajweed) before starting the Shariah portions of the course.
Why I like the course
• I don’t know of anything comparable being offered elsewhere in Canada or the US in English. WHAT YOU COVER IN THIS COURSE IS WHAT PEOPLE GO OVERSEAS TO SYRIA, PAKISTAN AND ELSEWHERE FOR. I spent 9 months in Damascus studying Arabic and this course is better organized and more thorough, and you can take it without quitting your job. If this had been offered then I wouldn’t have needed to go (for the Arabic-there are benefits to being in a Muslim country). And once you finish you’ll have a solid foundation to go abroad and study further.
• Sessions run every week from 8am-2pm and are REGULAR. I have never seen last-minute cancellations or teacher no-shows (barring snowstorms).
• The teachers know the materials inside out and are very well qualified to teach it. This isn’t your well meaning but busy/not-so-knowledgeable local brother teaching a “micro-halaqa” in his spare time. Nor is it a “feel-good” conference or seminar that lasts a few days at most. It is a systematic, rigorous, sustained 5 year course that starts with the basics and builds on that for a good grounding in the basics of the Shariah.
• The teachers are committed to the course and give it priority. There are 4 teachers so the burden isn’t unreasonable on any individual, and nobody cancels because they have other engagements.
• It has textbooks so one can (and is encouraged to) read ahead and prepare for what’s coming next. You can also refer back once the material has been covered in class. No danger of coming late and missing the handout because there weren’t enough copies. No photocopied, handwritten, disorganized class notes reinventing the wheel.
• The only foreign accent you’ll hear from the teachers is British! No struggling to understand/make yourself understood.
Conclusion
I’ve attempted to give my honest view of this course here, and contrast it to (in my opinion) the sorry scene of Islamic education in Toronto in general. I’ve left out detailed course descriptions because you can read that elsewhere. I hope I haven’t put the Eye on it, so let me say Masha’Allah, and may Allah bless and reward the teachers and organizers for their efforts!
Follow-up on Oct 2003
Well, it’s been about 10 months from the start of the course, and we are now nearing the end of the first year of the Shariah Program. It’s been a long, tough journey, but well worth it. I’d advise new students to stick with it no matter how tough the first few months seem. The electric shocks to the brain definitely take some getting used to, but the payoff is immense. The majority of the first year has been spent on Arabic, but we’ve also done reading from Imam Zarnuji’sInstruction of the Student as well as started our first fiqh book, the famous Mukhtasar al-Quduri. We’ve also been translating the Qasas an-Nabiyeen series of books; all in their original Arabic of course! In addition, the grammar books we have been using the last few months are themselves in Arabic. We’ve also had the privilege of listening to an occasional series of guest lectures from Sidi Hamza Karamali on the Ihya Uloom ad-Deen. All in all it’s been the longest sustained Islamic education I’ve had the blessing to receive and insha’Allah things will only get better in the second year when we start to translate the last third of the Quran itself in class and move deeper into the Quduri.
For anybody contemplating joining the program I’d say: GRAB THE OPPORTUNITY! And if you can make it for the full-time program go for it! It’s not everyday this chance comes along in North America. With the dearth of qualified traditional scholars, the opportunity to study full-time with one in a small class is not to be missed. May Allah reward the teachers for their sacrifices—and without a doubt, they have made heavy sacrifices for this course—and allow us to benefit fully from this unique chance to pursue Islamic education right here in Toronto.
gain mastery of Arabic
In the Name of Allah Most Merciful Most Compassionate
Assalaamu-Alaikum!
I am currently a student of the Shariah Program in Toronto. I have previously studied some Arabic language in Madinah University and Zaytuna Institute, and would like to comment on the Shariah Program.
Summary:
This is a new and innovative program that began approximately 2 ½ months ago. The following are some of the salient features of the program:
Instruction in English
Classical approach to the Religious Sciences
Teachers who have Ijaza in their respective subjects
Part-time schedule (12 hours every weekend, for 5 years)
The initial focus of the program has been, of course the Arabic language, with the aim that as soon as possible, textbooks will be read in the original Arabic language. This will enable the students to study the advanced subjects from the source (Usool-ul-Fiqh, Usool-ut-Tafseer, Hadith, Tafseer, Mantiq, and Balagha).
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Evaluation:
Since classes have been in session for 2 ½ months, at this point I can only comment on how the Arabic language is being taught. This program is very intensive. It requires complete dedication and commitment. That being said, it is as far as I know, the only program of its kind in North America. It provides an opportunity to learn the Arabic language via a methodology that has been used by non-Arab students for centuries. As such, it is the most efficient way to learn the Arabic language.
For those students who have had some exposure to the Arabic language at Zaytuna, or elsewhere, the Shariah Program is a natural extension. In the Zaytuna Arabic Intensive we got a firm understanding of what the Arabic language consists of. In this long-term program we have the opportunity to go into much more detail.
In the Shariah Program, we start with the basic definitions of Sarf and Nahw, discuss the overall framework of the Arabic Language, and then proceed to study in detail, each aspect of the language. Concurrent with the study of the Morphology and Syntax, we read simple texts such as “Duroos-ul-Lughatul-Arabiyyah”, and “Qasas-un-Nabiyyeen”, with emphasis on pointing out and understanding the application of the grammatical theory. This includes up to 4 levels of parsing on sentences, to fully understand their construction.
This course is not for the faint of heart, nor for those merely wishing to “pick up some Arabic”. It is for students who can memorize, are seriously committed to learning the sacred sciences, and who realize that this is not possible without some level of mastery of the Arabic language.
Wassalaamu-Alaikum!
Asim M. Javed
asimmjaved@hotmail.com
totally dedicated format
Assalamu-aliakum Wr. Wb.,
Name: Saeed Shaikh
Education: Bachelor of Applied Science and Engineering (Computer Engineering) University of Toronto (9T7)
Profession: Independent PeopleSoft Technical Consultant
My interest in learning the Arabic language came to light during my post graduate years. Reflecting on these past years, I had spent about 4 years, more or less, in what I would call my many ‘failed attempts’ and ‘false starts’ in learning this beautiful language. Alhamdulillah, these many attempts were of course generally beneficial and I pray to Allah s.w.t to reward all those teachers who had taught me over the past years. With all the previous classes though, I was disappointed to find the classes would either dwindle down in attendance and then stop or the methodology of teaching lacked an overall direction and structure and the students would eventually lose interest and hope.
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At the same time, I would also ponder on how students who went abroad to study were able to grasp the most difficult concepts and be able to read Arabic with understanding in such a short time, usually within the first year of their studies. It was only until I enrolled in the Shariah program here in Toronto that I came to realize the key to understanding this language from an instructional perspective was in 2 fundamental points, namely the methodology (i.e. how it is taught) and the dedication of the teachers. Based on the Dars-E-Nizami School of Methodology, the Shariah program is being taught using the same classical methodology that Scholars have used over hundreds of years in various parts of the world. With concurrent emphasis on Sarf and Nahw along with various interactive and intense group exercises (with lots of repetition), the student can expect to engrain and embody a solid foundation of even the most difficult concepts of the Arabic language in a very short time. To supplement the intense Arabic component, the Shariah program also provides much needed sessions in Tajweed and in the Seerat of our beloved Prophet Muhammad, Peace be Upon him. These sessions provide for a concurrent spiritual element in the midst of the Arabic learning and puts to light the purpose of our studies and a reminder of our service to Allah s.w.t. At present, there are 4 dedicated scholars teaching in this program and their commitment and dedication to teaching is what makes all the difference. May Allah s.w.t reward my teachers most generously and grant them the best abode in the hereafter.
Wassalam
Saeed Shaikh
who am i and what brought me to this course
Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu,
My name is Ziring Zurar and I am an elementary school teacher at the Islamic School of Hamilton. I was born in Canada twenty-five years ago and have been living here ever since. I have recently enrolled in the new and only one of its kind Sharia Program organized by Sheikh Yusuf Mullan. I have previously studied some Arabic in Damascus, Syria where I stayed for seven months and continued studying Arabic using a different methodology when I returned to Canada. When I first saw the advertisement for this course I was very sceptical that anything of this nature could be available in Canada. This is something that many people travel overseas for extended periods of time for. Upon my return from Syria I have had my eyes on many masjid billboards and internet sites looking for something even remotely similar to this. To my disappointment I couldn’t find anything. The closest I found were 6 months courses or online Sharia courses, which were not even teaching traditional Islam but rather reformist twentieth century “visions” of Islam.
Fortunately, there were the deen intensives and rihla programs imparting traditional knowledge. May Allah reward those who have been working so hard to provide this avenue of traditional learning and spiritual development. However, once you’ve been to a couple of these, you’ve been to all of them. The same program is essentially repeated over and over again every year, without a substantial development of previous knowledge experiences. I was looking for something which would give me an accumulation of knowledge in a systematized fashion, with the goal of removing my disability and illiteracy, allowing me to access my Islamic heritage myself rather than just be told about it. I found the weekly Halaqa’s of benefit as well, but they are also not comparable to a systematized Sharia Program. Nor do I believe they were intended for such. Halaqas for the most part covered snap shots of a wide variety of issues. They are beneficial in helping you keep to the straight path. In short they gave a little of everything. It seemed like they were giving a taste of the sacred sciences. I found the Halaqas in some respects like the deen intensives on a smaller scale, the icing on the cake, but I still had not found the cake.
When I saw the advertisement of this course I thought it would be another of the propaganda reformist courses. But although my hope of finding something of this nature in Canada were just about dead, my curiosity motivated me to write the internet address down. I was confusingly surprised when I looked at the proposed curriculum on the internet. Not only was this a serious program which had a definite and clear goal ahead of itself, it surprisingly looked traditional, using classical relied upon texts agreed upon by the ummah. My years of failing to find such a course in the west, made me a little pessimistic so I literally thought it was a trick and didn’t pursue it. A couple of months later and a couple weeks before the course had begun I heard some friends talking about the Sharia program happening in Toronto. I naturally asked what Shaira Program?!? To my astonishment it was the one I saw a few months ago. It turns out it was legitimate after all, and the organizer and head teacher Sheikh Yusuf was a student of Mufti Taqi Usmani!! Needless to say, I called him up right away and joined the class.
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The course:
I mentioned previously that I had studied some Arabic prior to this course both in Damascus and upon my return here in Canada. I wanted to give you some idea of how I find this class in comparison to my previous experiences. First you should know that there are different methodologies of studying Arabic. The methodology used in the University of Damascus relied on a submersion into the language straight away, kind of a jump into the deep end, and the hope that you will figure out how to swim. There was virtually no explanation of grammatical constructs and it was expected that with enough exposure you will get the hang of how things work. It may have worked when I was a child learning to swim, but as an adult trying to learn this language, I found myself drowning in the ocean of Arabic and becoming frustrated with my attempts to learn. The other attempt was to provide you with the tools of understanding the language, an emphasis on grammar (nahw). I did this when I came back to Canada, and it consisted of learning the classical nahw text known as the Ajroomiyyah. I found this more rewarding because unlike English, Arabic is a language which has a strong emphasis on grammar. It gave me the life jacket or tools to attempt my jump in the ocean of Arabic but at the same time I didn’t have much opportunity to try the life jacket I was now given.
The methodology used in this course is a mixture of the two. There is a strong emphasis on grammatical concepts but without neglecting the practical application of these concepts. I find the strong and unique emphasis on sarf (etymology) which you don’t get in the grammatical/nahw based approach very useful in helping me tackle the language. Among the many unique features of this course is their traditional approach of testing done before each class. The teacher goes around asking each student to recap what was done last week. This enforces the concepts and engrains them within the student.
As far as the subjects taught I think they speak for themselves. Could anyone imagine learning Usul, Fiqh, Hadith, Tafseer, Logic, Rhetoric etc. in a thorough manner anywhere in North America? I also like the initial focus on Arabic so that these subjects may be studied through the Arabic medium enabling us to be independent of translations and allowing us to gain access to the classical books written on these subjects.
As far as teacher’s expectations are concerned I think they are very reasonable. An hour a day of homework for someone without any backround would be more than sufficient. You may easily find someone in the course that just learned to recognize the alphabet prior to the course and is now able to recognize grammatical constructs, translate sentences, and conjugate verbs into the various types of past, present, future and imperative tenses. A testimony to the methodology of the teachers and their sincerity insha’Allah. May Allah reward them and all of us.
Please do not hesitate to call or contact me if you have any questions.
Zirng Zurar
(905) 648-7298
ziring@hotmail.com
review by sister who attended 6-month intensive in 2005
I started my undergrad at harvard in the NELC department learning arabic, and a few years later went to the toronto Shariah Program for a 6-month arabic learning intensive. There is NO comparison.
here’s the difference: in the Al Kitaab method that most universities follow, the approach to language learning is very random. Each unit/lesson starts with a word list that you learn, then you see those words in some sentences, then you learn some grammar rules that were in those sentences. The vocab is not what a student of deen really needs (there’s little religious vocab), and it’s not what someone who wants to communicate with arabs really needs (because it’s not colloquial). So to be honest, I see it as being totally useless unless one’s interest is just to read the news or listen to political speeches in arabic.
Contrast that with the traditional, time-tested way that developed of teaching arabic to non-arabs as islam spread to non-arab countries. This is what the Shariah Program in toronto uses and I TOTALLY WHOLE-HEARTEDLY (not shouting, just gushing) recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to read arabic in general (for any purpose whether news/religious books/etc) as well as anyone who primarily wants to learn arabic for future religious studies. It is a totally cohesive, top-down method of teaching arabic. The early classes are just about explaining the language, eg: ” ‘Lafz (لفظ( refers to every sound that comes out of the human mouth. Sound can be meaningful or non-meaningful. If it is meaningful, it can be a single meaning (one word) or a compound meaning. If it is one word, it is either an ism(~noun), a fi3l(~verb), or a harf(~preposition). If it is a verb, it is either maadi (past tense), mudari3 (present), amr (command), or nahy (negation). etc.etc.” – creating a tree diagram so every possible word type in arabic is broken down and you understand exactly how the language fits together.
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Because of that, in one day of class I learned more than I learned in an entire _year_ of harvard al kitaab-style arabic. It put everything into perspective alhamdolillah. The focus is on grammar and conjugations, not on vocab. Anyone can learn vocab on his own with a dictionary and flashcards. What you need in a class is someone to explain to you how the language WORKS. You need someone to force you to read from an unvowelled book, so you learn to infer the vowels as you read and then have to translate later. You need someone to drill you in verb tables so it becomes second nature for you to conjugate a verb and recognize what conjugation a verb is in when you read it in the Qur’aan or any other arabic book. You CANNOT read without this information. In only a few days of the Shariah program, people were starting to read arabic fluently (understanding was yet to come for people with no prior arabic exposure, but they had already learned what each part of the sentence was, like: this is a past tense verb/this is a noun/ this is a command to a man/ this is an adjective referring to the feminine noun). That does _not_ happen in university arabic until well after the first full year. Once you get that foundational knowledge, you are totally set to learn vocab (which you can do easily on your own, or just read w/ a dictionary) and begin understanding what you read.
If you want more info on the Shariah Program, just google it (Mufti Yusuf is an amazing web optimizer besides being the best teacher I’ve ever had :P maa shaa Allah, so you’ll find the site whether you want to or not lol). I took the summer online class before moving to toronto for the 6-month program and they were both incredibly valuable. (the online class gave me about a 3-week headstart for the class, so I wasn’t drowning like the other students alhamdolillah. it’s very intense). You could also google “Fundamentals of Classical Arabic” by Husain Abdul Sattar because it includes most of the early verb charts that you learn in the Shariah Program classes (and it’s used in the classes).
Side note: I just want to mention that both of these brothers are non-arab, and their teaching method is probably most predominant in madrassas in pakistan. At first I had learned from arabs because I thought they would have an advantage in terms of greater fluency or familiarity with the language. But after having many different teachers, my personal experience is that a non-arab teacher who learned fusHa can often help you more than an arab can, at least in the earlier stages of learning arabic. Because non-arabs have gone through the arabic learning process from beginning to end, usually in adolescence or adulthood so they remember all of the steps of learning, I think they can explain the basics better. (arabs usually start learning fusHa before they know it’s happening, in early elementary school, so they’re not as clear on how to learn from the beginning). After non-arabs have helped you “learn how to learn” arabic at the basic-intermediate levels, there are other advantages to having a native arabic speaker at more advanced levels. Now I hope no one has taken offense at any of this, I’m half arab and my husband is fully arab and I love pakistanis and all other muslims. just to cover all the bases ;)
may Allah reward Mufti Yusuf for his teaching, which totally changed my life and opened my world.
والحمد لله رب العالمين
Originally posted at the AlMaghrib.org Forums by Sister Asma
The above reviews are a small sampling of those submitted over the years. As mentioned at the top of the page, our teaching methods have only improved and become more refined in this long period of seven years. Feel free in contacting any of the individuals who have disclosed their contact information, if you want to learn more about the program.
