Programs - Jahiz Institute

Our Programs

Spring 2025 Course Offerings

Early Islamic Texts: An Intermediate-Advanced Arabic Course

Have you studied Arabic for a while and now want to try reading the Qur’an in the original Arabic? This course offers a linguistic introduction to the Qur’an, hadith and other Classical Arabic texts from the Early Islamic Period.

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Arabic through Music: An Intermediate Arabic Course

Do you love listening to Arabic music but don’t understand a single word besides “habibi”? In this course, you’ll finally get a chance to see what these lyrics are saying and improve your Arabic at the same time.

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Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

As a celebration of the pleasures of life in the face of death, the Rubaiyat became one of the most famous Persian poems ever translated into English. In this course, we will take a closer look at the Rubaiyat both in English translation and the original Persian.

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Introduction to Classical Persian Prose

From historical writing and travel memoirs to mystical treatises and humorous anecdotes, in this course we will survey the rich tradition of Classical Persian prose.

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Travels of Ibn Battuta

On June 14, 1325, Ibn Battuta left his hometown in Morocco to make the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. He would not return home again for another 24 years…

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Arabic Short Stories

Join us for our new reading circle, where we’ll be reading a different short story in Arabic each week. The perfect way to take your Arabic to the next level!

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Past Courses

1001 Nights: Beyond the Fairy Tale

Murderous sultans, magic lamps, genies and flying carpets. Fairy tales for children, right? Think again. In this course, we will unravel all the separate threads that go into this most intricate of tales…

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Sufism in its Original Texts

Sufism represents a paradox at the heart of Islam. Preaching ecstatic absorption in the divine, Sufis flirted with and sometimes even defied Islam’s taboos…

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A Community of Learners

Ongoing Programs

Reading Circles

Intermediate and Advanced

Read classic and modern texts in small groups guided by an instructor. Circles meet weekly on an ongoing basis and can be joined at any time. Topics include:

Arabic short stories

Persian fiction

Travel narratives

Classical Arabic literature

Qur’an and hadith

Arabic novels

Private Tutorials

All levels

Do you have a special interest not covered by our existing offerings? Tricky scheduling? Our private tutorials allow you to learn at your own pace through one-on-one classes with our expert instructors. Past tutorials have included:

Spoken Arabic

Iranian cinema

Ottoman Turkish

Classical Persian prose

Egyptian colloquial poetry

Arabic historical writing

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