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Turkish people keen on learning Arabic language - academic

University of Gazi Turkish
University of Gazi Turkish

By Ridha Sardar

ANKARA, Oct 21 (KUNA) -- The Turkish people are very keen on learning the Arabic language to enable them to better understand the Holy Quran and Islamic values, said Turkish academic here Tuesday.
Speaking to KUNA, Head of the Arabic Language Department at the University of Gazi in Ankara, Professor Musa Yildiz said that historically, the Turkish people started learning the Arabic language during the era of Islamic conquests when the Turks began to have contact with Arab Muslims.
Sharing common social values and ethics, the Turkish people assimilated into the Islamic world and began to become vanguards of the Muslim nation, said the academic, noting that Islam played an integral role in the social transformation of the Turkish people.
Yildiz said that Arabic had a great impact on the Turkish language with the Turks adopting the Arab letters in writing for a long period of time before switching to Latin alphabets in 1928.
In regards to modern teaching of the Arabic language, Yildiz affirmed that the Arabic language was taught in all school levels before University as a selective subject, but it was compulsory for those willing to become Imams and scholars in the 1,001 religious schools in Turkey.
On the level of university and high learning institutions, Yildiz said that there were 2,500 university student learning Arabic while there were around 52,000 counterparts studying at higher Sharia (religious law) institutes. (end) rs.gta