The Ibn Jabal Institute was born in the summer of 2001 out of the convergent vision of two students. Having completed their legal and political education at the LSE and Manchester University respectively, it was just and right for them to develop a most intensive (but tractable) Arabic course.

They set themselves the task to develop an approach for teaching the material normally taught in a full-time undergraduate degree programme in only fifteen lessons. Drawing from their collective experiences of previous teaching and combining traditional approaches from the Arab world and the Indian sub-continent with conventional language teaching techniques used in the West, they arrived at a very effective synthesis. The comments of former Ibn Jabal students bear testimony to the success of this approach.

The Ibn Jabal institute is a charitable organisation. Half of the proceeds from course fees goes into a scholarship fund to sponsor promising students who don't have the means to go abroad to study Arabic. Over the last few years, bursaries have been granted to a substantial number of students.

Mountain Morphology
So why have we called it the Ibn Jabal Institute?

Ibn Jabal means 'companion of the mountain'. The mountain is of great significance in Arabic tradition and literature. We also find the mountain in other traditions, such as in the popular English adage, 'if Mohammed will not go the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed'. The Mountain of Light on the outskirts of the ancient town of Mecca in Arabia houses the cave to which Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, frequented and engaged in his spelunchaen meditations. It was on the mountain that he received revelation from the heavens: iqra, read!

Mountains as land formations play a vital role in stabilising the otherwise undulated earth. We see the Ibn Jabal Institute as presenting an ascendant challenge to beginners who thrive on a steep learning curve as well as providing a foothold on firm ground for already adept climbers on a potentially precipitous path. We provide gradience to students who feel they have reached a plateau in their learning.

Mountain, within its semantic range, comprehends a host of conspicuous projections, from substantial hillocks and elevated tracts to single isolated eminences. The epithet 'jabal' is attributed to the great, and we believe that all our students, despite their morphological diversity, deserve this honorific title. Even the hillocks among them would be mountains in a less formidable setting.

We know from the Quran as well as geology that mountains are pegs, firmly established in the earth, but that they also travel, ploughing stealthily through the ground. The Ibn Jabal Institute also enjoys a peripatetic existence, having based its courses over the last few years at the London School of Economics, University College London and Imperial College. We are in the clouds and firmly established in the ground; yet we enjoy a degree of latitude.

Ibn Jabal was the name of the illustrious companion of the Prophet Muhammad, Mu'adh ibn Jabal, who is celebrated for his tradition of engaging the mind in deductive intellectual endeavour to resolve questions of social and doctrinal importance. We are honoured to be heirs to that tradition.

The companion of the mountain sees the world differently from his elevated vantage point. Mecca is visible through the gap in the rocks.


Salman Badrul Hasan & Muhammad Motiur Rahman
(Co-founders)