12-year-old girl from Pakistan to launch her books in Oman

Energy Wednesday 22/February/2017 10:03 AM
By: Times News Service
12-year-old girl from Pakistan to launch her books in Oman

Muscat: Asia Arif, the youngest university graduate from Pakistan, will launch two of her books on the second day of the Muscat International Book Fair, opening today. Both the books are in Arabic.

Al Isary Group, one of Oman’s famous educational organisations, will be debuting Asia’s book, titled, ‘Arabic is Asia’s language,’ a self-learning book on how to learn Arabic.
The Deputy CEO of Al Isary Group, Bader Al Siyabi, said he was delighted to host Asia at the book fair, and hoped that she will inspire others as well.
“We are very excited to have her over, and we, of course, arranged her entire visit to Oman. We coordinated (with various people to ensure) her participation in the upcoming Book Fair. Her book will be officially launched on Thursday at the Book Fair.
“She has written a book in Arabic even though she is originally not an Arab. This shows her hard work, determination and resilience.
“This book can easily be a reference for all students and beginners studying Arabic,” Al Siyabi said.

Early start

Asia’s first book was written at the age of eight and she authored the second part of the book at the age of 9. Asia Arif is the only daughter of Pakistani journalist, teacher and translator, Dr Arif Siddiq, who took a special interest in his daughter’s efforts in the domain at an early age.

“I wanted to carry out an experiment by teaching classical Arabic language to her when she was just one-year-old. I started speaking Arabic with her and left aside my mother tongue, Urdu. I found after a few months that she was responding well in Arabic.
“I intensified my efforts and began to use Quranic words and phrases in our daily life and also started making her learn Arabic poetry by heart,” Dr Siddiq said.
According to Dr Siddiq, when Asia turned three, around 800 classical Arabic words were already a part of her vocabulary.
Through long distance learning, Asia took a Spoken Arabic course from the Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad when she was just seven years old. She received an Advance Diploma in Arabic from the International Islamic University, Islamabad when she was just nine years old.
“So, in brief, she is the youngest university graduate of Pakistan from two universities and the youngest writer of two books in a foreign language at the age of 9 years,” her father said.

As for 12-year-old Asia, her life as an author has been exciting so far. “It was a wonderful experience to write books in Arabic language. I was very excited when my first book was published in Pakistan and sold in the markets four years ago,” she said.

“Now both the books are being re-published in an Arab country i.e. the Sultanate of Oman. That’s a great honour for me and my country as well. I am very glad that I am travelling to Oman for the launching ceremony of my books in the Muscat International Book Fair,” she added.

While she thanked Al Isary Group for publishing her books, she also had an advice for Arabic speakers.

“We should prefer not to speak local dialects of Arabic rather we should use classical Arabic in our daily life. This way, we can protect this sacred language,” she said.