Top 5 Best Arabic Short Stories for Beginners
Arabic Short Stories for Beginners: With over 220 million native speakers, Arabic is one of the world’s major languages. If you’re interested in exploring the culture and literature of the Arabic-speaking world, you will love these Arabic short stories. Even though it might seem like a difficult language to master at first glance, reading Arabic is actually quite easy because all Arabic letters are pronounced the same way regardless of their position or combination with other letters. Arabic short stories are an excellent way to get started with learning Arabic. They give you a chance to practice your listening skills and build up your vocabulary in ways that aren’t taxing. These 10 Arabic short stories for beginners are perfect if you’re just starting to learn this complex language.
Why Learn Arabic Through Arabic Short Stories?
Arabic is a critically important language for the entire world because it is the language that God chose to reveal the Quran to Prophet Muhammad. Muslims use Arabic for their five daily prayers as well as the language of pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina for Muslims from all over the world. It’s also the language of the sacred texts of many other religions and spiritual practices, including the Jewish Torah, the New Testament, Gnostic and Hermetic writings, and the Hindu Bhagavad Gita. Beyond religion, Arabic is also a major language in the fields of mathematics and science, with terms like “algebra” and “algorithm” coming from the Arabic language.
Therefore, if you are interested in learning Arabic as a foreign language and you’re just getting started with reading in Arabic, one of the ways to master a language is through reading short stories. You can find short story collections at many public libraries. Short stories are also available as eBooks and online in Arabic. Reading short stories is also a great way for learners to continue reading in their native language as well as to feel more engaged with their studies. Short stories, especially Arabic ones, are more engaging than what is found in typical textbook material.
Types of Arabic Short Stories
Arabic short stories can fall into any of the broad categories of Arabic short story types:
- Coming of age
This type of Arabic short stories feature characters who are going through major life changes or facing challenging situations. An example of this is a 16-year-old boy in Egypt who must decide between pursuing a football career and becoming an engineer. Another example is a young Iraqi girl who must deal with the death of her sister.
- Horror stories
- Humor
Some stories are meant to make you laugh. Humor is a great way to learn a new language and culture, as it engages you in a very different way than studying does.
- Mystery
- Realistic fiction
This type of story is meant to show you what life is like for real people in a certain situation. It doesn’t have to have any sort of fantasy or supernatural element to it.
- Romance
These stories have a love story in them. Romance stories have been told in every culture since people have been around. Arab authors have published romance stories since the 1940s and 1950s. They are known for their passion for such literary work. Therefore, you will find hundreds of Arabic short stories that include this type, in which they use metaphors to flatter their love.
- Science fiction
This type of story has a futuristic or sci-fi element to it. It may involve time travel, robots, extraterrestrial life, or discovering new technology. It is really found in Arabic short stories due to their lack of interest in such fields because it is hard to imply metaphors and language aesthetics in such types.
- Suspense
- Tragedy
Arabic short stories of this type feature characters who have bad luck, and terrible fates, and generally end badly. Tragedies often try to make a point about the nature of life or the world we live in. Arabic stories usually are of this kind due to the authors’ interest in portraying a vision of the real-life around them to express the suffering of people.
5 Best Arabic Short Stories For Beginners
The Sad Bluebill By Tareq Al-Bakri
In this top best Arabic short story, a Lebanese author raises issues of life, time, happiness, and friendships. The narrative depicts the tragic tale of a bluebill with a lovely singing voice who loses hope and his sense of enjoyment for his existence on Earth. Will he get it back? How?
2. Adventures of the Good Boy, Hassan By Ahmed Mahmoud Najib
This award-winning Egyptian author is considered one of the first children’s book authors in the Arab world writes about Hassan, the protagonist of our tale here never gives up and holds high notions of honor and chivalry, and this strong sense of character makes for a really entertaining read.
3. Whisper of Sadness By Naguib Mahfouz
Najib Mahfouz, a world-renowned novelist, wrote this Arabic book. Najib Mahfouz is one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. He is the first Egyptian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The short stories in this book have a high level of literary quality. All of Najib’s literary works were carried out in Egypt, in which many social problems were discussed.
The book “Whisper of Sadness” has the most famous short stories by Najib Mahfouz. This novel has been well-known among intellectuals, readers, and critics, as well as the general public.
All the stories of the book take place in one orbit: the whispers of insanity that occur in the heart. It also presents the ideas of the healing of the mind from time to time and the complete insanity that sometimes befalls humans.
4. Short Stories of Joha
To learn Arabic it is important that you go through short stories that are known to the Arab world. An example of that is the short stories of Joha, who is a well-known character that people used to tell stories that have deep meanings. You can find these stories easily online. Therefore, it is a great choice for beginners, who like to learn the Arabic language and culture.
5. The Little Lamp By Ghassan Kanafani
This is a story by the greatest literary name in Palestine, Ghassan Kanafani. The short life of the famous Ghassan Kanafani brought forth numerous short and fascinating texts, which have brought satisfaction to researchers, historians, cultural scholars, and children alike. Besides writing about topical Palestinian causes and other issues of interest to adults, this author often wrote for a younger audience and discussed how children are indeed the future.
Great Collections/Books That Include Different Types of Short Stories
The Smell of Pain: A Great Collection of Different Types of Short Stories
The Smell of Pain by Dr. Mahmoud El Shafei, a non-Arabic story anthology, was recently published. “The Smell of Pain” addresses a collection of short stories from the Arab world and is devoted, in a way, to reading and speaking skills. This Arabic storybook is a great choice for non-Arabic speakers. While this book aims at enhancing reading and speaking skills, by understanding this kind of literary Arabic short story, it addresses these skills in the light of their relevance to the grammatical, synthetic, semantic, and multiple stylistic relationships underpinning the Arabic language system.
This book is characterized by the fact that its texts are fully tuned to make it easier for other Arabic-speaking learners to know the disposable structure of words and the synthetic grammatical structure of phrases and sentences.
Arabian Nights (1001 Nights): A Book With a Collection of Best Arabic Short Stories
These are a set of stories that were passed around by word of mouth and were later written down and published as a book. The original stories were in Arabic, and many of these stories were later translated into other languages. The Arabian Nights stories are often what people think of when they think of Arabic stories. This is likely due to the popularity of the 1001 Nights TV show, which was set in Baghdad in the 10th century. There have been many different versions of the Arabian Nights stories published. You’ll find many Arabic short stories in the collection.
Qabbani established himself as a poet for the common man, whose writing was accessible to all, therefore, you can be sure that these poems are a great choice for your first dive into Arabic Stories from One Thousand and One Nights. This edition collects all the most exciting and unique tales into one single book. In addition, it contains language hints and vocabulary lists with every story. As such, with this book as your guide, you’ll learn lots in no time at all!
Abridged Quran Arabic Stories
These are Arabic short stories from the Quran, the Islamic holy book. The Quran was first written down in the early 9th century and consists of 114 chapters and over 6,000 verses. There have been many translations of the Quran into English as well as other languages. If you want to read the Quran in Arabic, you can find many translations online. The Quran is a good place to start learning Arabic, as it is full of common words and phrases that you’ll find in other Arabic writings, such as the names of the first few caliphs, the names of prophets, and descriptions of God. You can find many abridged versions of the Quran’s stories or a full English translation.
In conclusion, we can see that there are numerous Arabic short stories that you can use to improve your Arabic language. Arabic short stories has also a lot of types. It usually has many lessons and details that could present the Arabic culture.