The claim that the Arabic language is difficult is a claim that is scientifically and religiously refuted.
From a religious perspective, they have either overlooked or deliberately ignored the statement of Allah Almighty:
“وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْنَا الْقُرْآنَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ” (Al-Qamar: 17)
Wa laqad yassarnā al-Qurʾāna li-dh-dhikri fa-hal min muddakir.
This verse is repeated four times in Sūrat al-Qamar. The Qur’an cannot be made easy for remembrance unless its language itself is made easy; and whatever is indispensable for fulfilling an obligation becomes itself obligatory. Hence Mujāhid said regarding this verse: “We have made the Qur’an easy for remembrance,” meaning We have made its recitation easy.
Al-Suddī said: We have made its recitation easy upon tongues.
Ibn Kathīr also reported from al-Warrāq that the phrase “فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ” (fa-hal min muddakir) means: Is there a seeker of knowledge so that he may be aided?
Thus, Allah Almighty has guaranteed assistance to every seeker of knowledge who sincerely wishes to understand the Qur’an and know its meanings—and this cannot be achieved except through learning the language of the Qur’an. This is what led Ibn Taymiyyah to affirm the obligation of learning the Arabic language.
Allah Almighty also says:
“كِتَابٌ أَنْزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ مُبَارَكٌ لِيَدَّبَّرُوا آيَاتِهِ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ” (Ṣād: 29)
Kitābun anzalnāhu ilayka mubārakun li-yaddabbarū āyātihi wa li-yatadhakkara ulū al-albāb.
And He says:
“فَإِنَّمَا يَسَّرْنَاهُ بِلِسَانِكَ لِتُبَشِّرَ بِهِ الْمُتَّقِينَ وَتُنذِرَ بِهِ قَوْمًا لُّدًّا” (Maryam: 97)
Fa-innamā yassarnāhu bi-lisānika li-tubashshira bihi al-muttaqīna wa tundhira bihi qawman luddā.
These verses clearly affirm the facilitation of the tongue (that is, the language) so that the Qur’an may be contemplated and reflected upon.
From a scientific perspective, the Arabic language possesses characteristics that significantly contribute to the ease of learning it. For example, Arabic writing is phonemic: every consonantal phoneme corresponds to a specific letter. Long vowel phonemes are represented by the letters alif, wāw, and yāʾ, while short vowels are represented by diacritics: fatḥah, ḍammah, and kasrah. Thus, Arabic orthography is self-sufficient in its correspondence between sounds and writing.
This precision allows even a student with no more than an elementary level of education to correctly write a meaningless word such as “دَيْز”
dayz
relying solely on the strict correspondence between Arabic phonemes and their written forms.
By contrast, the English language—despite receiving political and media support—lacks systematic regularity. It is largely built on irregularities, to the extent that irregular verbs in English are more numerous than regular ones.
Similarly, a French speaker does not rely on systematic rules when writing the word “monsieur” (meaning “sir”), which is pronounced “مسيو”
misyū
with a rounded vowel and nasalization; rather, they rely on memory rather than rules. The same applies to English.
For example, the long kasrah vowel phoneme, which in Arabic is written exclusively as ياء (yāʾ), can be represented in English in six different ways without any governing logic or rule:
(y, e, ie, ei, ea, ee).
Likewise, the letters (th) are pronounced as ث in some words, such as “thin”
thin → thīn
and as ذ in others, such as “then”
then → then.
In addition, there are letters that are written but not pronounced, such as (gh) in “right”, and (w) in “write”. Incidentally, the words “right” and “write” are pronounced identically, despite having completely different spellings.
At the phonological level this is evident, and at the grammatical and morphological levels the contrast is even clearer. Arabic is fundamentally a rule-based and analogical language; regularity is the norm, and irregularity is rare. Hence al-Kisāʾī said: “Grammar is fundamentally analogy that is followed.”
Conversely, English lacks such analogy; irregularity is the rule rather than the exception. For instance, the verb “cut” remains unchanged across its three forms, while “write” changes to “wrote” in the past tense and “written” in the past participle—despite the general rule being the addition of -ed to form both the second and third forms, as in “cover – covered – covered”. Thus, irregularity in English—phonologically and grammatically—is foundational, unlike Arabic, which is characterized by consistency and regularity.
At the semantic level, Arabic is a derivational language, meaning that multiple related meanings are derived from a single root. For example, from the root (ك ت ب)
(k–t–b)
we derive:
كتب (kataba – he wrote)
الكتابة (al-kitābah – writing)
الكتاب (al-kitāb – book)
المكتب (al-maktab – office)
المكتبة (al-maktabah – library)
الكاتب (al-kātib – writer)
المكتوب (al-maktūb – written object)
In English, which is an agglutinative language, these meanings are expressed by unrelated words with little or no morphological connection:
write, writing, book, office, desk, library, writer, letter.
Accordingly, comprehension and retention of Arabic vocabulary is easier for learners than that of English vocabulary. However, political support, media attention, and academic prioritization of English—combined with the psychological defeat experienced by Arab societies—have led many to view English with admiration and Arabic with resentment.
As the poet aptly said:
وعينُ الرضا عن كلِّ عيبٍ كليلةٌ
ولكنَّ عينَ السخطِ تُبدي المساويا
Wa ʿaynu r-riḍā ʿan kulli ʿaybin kalīlatun
wa lākinna ʿayna s-sukhti tubdī al-masāwiyā.
The eye of contentment is blind to every flaw,
while the eye of resentment reveals all defects