Classical Arabic, Hafs and Reading Without Harakat — Ali Shukri Amin
First published on my writing site: www.aliamin.info/2026/10/classical-arabic-hafs-and-reading-without-harakat/
By Ali Shukri Amin. I first wrote this as comments on r/learnArabicSecular, in the thread “Prove me wrong: Saudi Arabic is the closest spoken dialect to Classical Arabic (Fus’ha) today”, copied here as written.
Comment 1
Classical Arabic is often conflated with post-Ottoman Hafs ‘an Asim Arabic, which is codified about 150 years after the time of the Prophet and is not the likeliest representation of the Hijazi Arabic the Quran was Revealed in.
Comment 2
From r/learnarabic, on reading Arabic without harakat:
The more you read with harakat the more you’ll have basic patterns memorized. Learning sarf & nahw will help along with memorizing vocab. That being said, for fluidity, you need a lot of practice /with/ harakat first
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