Why English Fluency Matters for Islamic Scholars Today

For centuries, Islamic scholarship in South Asia has been carried in Arabic and Urdu — the languages of the texts themselves and the languages of the communities scholars serve. That has never been the problem. The problem is what happens the moment a scholar's audience, opportunities, or conversations extend beyond those two languages.

English today is the language of the internet, of international conferences, of publishing platforms, of the global Muslim diaspora, and of most of the tools scholars now rely on to research and teach. A Mufti or Aalim without English is not any less knowledgeable — but that knowledge often stays confined to the rooms it was taught in.

This is exactly why MINBAR Labs begins its roadmap with Spoken English. Not English for its own sake, and not English that asks anyone to change who they are — but English as a bridge, so that decades of study in Qur'an, Hadith and Fiqh can be heard, read and respected far beyond the walls of a madrasa.

Fluency does not happen through memorised phrases. It happens through real conversation, real practice, and real feedback — which is exactly how we teach it, one project and one conversation at a time.