Arabic is one of the most dynamic international languages of the world, spoken by more than 300 million native Arab speakers living in 22 states and used by the UNO officially in their associative organizations as one of the most widespread languages of the world. Moreover, it is a language of religious practices for more than one billion Muslims all over the world.
In today’s world, Arabic has gained the utmost importance due to the economic significance of the oil producing Arabic countries in the global scenario.In India about 85 universities offer B.A. M.A. M. Phil. And Ph.D. courses and more than 250 colleges teach B.A. course as part of it.
However, in West Bengal 7 universities provide Masters’ degree in Arabic and about 40 colleges offer Arabic course in under graduation. To cater the growing need of students, University of Calcutta published a selection of Arabic prose and poetry entitled “Arabic Selection” in 2014 which currentlyruns out of stock. This was the only book available for B.A. Arabic course in West Bengal. After the publication of the said selection, many universities modified their syllabi time to time. But no updated book hits the market as of today. As a result, students of the subject feel a dire need of such kind of selection which wouldcontain texts of updated syllabi in all colleges in West Bengal.
Therefore, we are happy to announce that we have taken initiatives to produce a handy-book to serve the purpose. And we hope that it will help the students and scholars of Arabic alike to avail the texts coveringboth prose and poetry pieces taught at Under Graduate level in different colleges underthe University of Calcutta, Aliah University, West Bengal State University, University of Burdwan, University of Gour Banga and University of Kalyani.
While continuing with the laborious task a number of discrepancieshave been found in texts in “Arabic Selection” published by University of Calcutta in 2014 with the original book. In such cases we have tried to modify them as long as the main theme of the story or poem is not altered.
To err is human. Therefore, if any mistake is observed by the reader and brought to our notice, we will be highly obliged to him or her and will try to minimize errors, if any and will try to make it error free in next edition. We owe our sincere thanks to those who helped us and offered valuable suggestions in completing the project.
Dr. Abul Kalam & Mr. Wasif Ali