A Priority for all of us

Scholars throughout the ages, from the Companions to the present day, encouraged the Ummah to learn the Arabic language. Ubay ibn Ka’b (radi allaahu ‘anhu) said,

“Teach Arabic like you teach the memorisation of the Qur’an!”
Abu Bakr (radi allaahu ‘anhu) said:

“That I recite and forget (a portion of the Qur’an) is more beloved to me than to make a grammatical mistake!”
And ‘Umar (radi allaahu ‘anhu) once passed by a group of archers who missed their targets.
He admonished them and they responded that they were only beginners, but in answering back they made a grammatical mistake in their wording. He told them, “Indeed, your mistakes in Arabic grammar are more difficult to bear than your mistakes in archery!”
Imam ash-Shaafi’ee (rahimahullah) said:

"Therefore it is imperative that every Muslim should strive to learn Arabic as hard as he can, so that he can testify the shahada, and recite the Book of Allah and say the invocations that are mandatory upon him, such as the takbeer, tasbeeh, tashahud and other prayers. And the more he learns the language that Allah Himself chose to be the language of him who sealed the Prophets (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam), and to be the language of His final revelation, the better it is for him!”
The great 8th century scholar Shaykh-ul-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (rahimahullah) even went so far as to say that:

“The Arabic language is part of the Religion, and knowing it is an obligation.”
Unfortunately, we have become comfortable with simply relying on translations and spending all of our time and efforts in studying other things, (other languages even!) which may not even benefit us in the hereafter and have forgotten that the Qur’an is in a very approachable language and we all have the ability or rather the responsibility to study and understand it. If you knew that Allah (subhaanahu wa ta’aala) had a message for you, personally, then would you not want to understand it in its original form? Think about it… We have the last revelation to mankind, the only communication from our Lord and Master, which is preserved in its original form, and yet in a 70 odd year life we do not give it the attention which it deserves. We should realise that Allah has honoured us with the Qur’an and chosen for us the noblest of languages. Attention to Arabic is attention to the Book of Allah so we should make learning it a priority.

I remember the feeling of tasting the sweetness of Allah’s words in my salaah when I first embarked upon my Arabic studies. I just repeated the same aayah of the Qur’an again and again savouring the words and suddenly feeling a deep emotion that I’d never felt before though I had read the same aayah many times before studying Arabic, it was as though a light had been lit for me and I’d suddenly discovered a new part of a house that I’d been living in for years. One of the definite benefits of learning Arabic is that it aids Khushoo’ or consciousness in salaah and helps us to improve all of our worships. Taraweeh prayer in Ramadan becomes a new experience!