The Best Books to Learn Arabic: Six Classics, in Order

Start with Gibran's The Broken Wings: it's the shortest of the classics here, a love story you'll want to finish, and its Arabic is modern enough to feel familiar. Then read Kalila and Dimna for its short fables and shortest sentences, and keep the two long historical novels by Jurji Zaydan for last. None of these books was written for learners, so read them with a translation beside the text from about an intermediate level.

Before the classics

Real literature in Arabic is harder to reach than in Spanish or French, for two reasons. Most books are printed without short vowels, and the written language of a century ago uses words that today's newspapers don't. So build the base first: the alphabet, core grammar, and short graded texts at A1 and A2. Once you can follow a simple text without vowel marks, you're ready to try a classic with help.

The six books, measured

We counted the words in the Arabic text of each book in our own library, and the average sentence length:

Book	Author	Written	Words in our edition	Average words per sentence
The Broken Wings (الأجنحة المتكسرة)	Kahlil Gibran	1912	About 16,200	26
A Tear and a Smile (دمعة وابتسامة)	Kahlil Gibran	1914	About 21,000	33
Kalila and Dimna (كليلة ودمنة)	Ibn al-Muqaffa	8th century	About 38,800	20
al-Nazarat (النظرات)	Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti	1900s and 1910s	About 37,200	38
Armanousa the Egyptian (أرمانوسة المصرية)	Jurji Zaydan	1890s	About 61,900	27
The Maiden of Ghassan (فتاة غسان)	Jurji Zaydan	1890s	About 109,300	32

Take the sentence column as a rough guide. Older Arabic runs clauses together with وَ (wa, and) and فَـ (fa, so), and the full stops in modern editions were added by editors. Long sentences in Arabic aren't always hard, either: many are simple clauses chained one after another.

In what order to read them

1. The Broken Wings, Kahlil Gibran

The shortest book here, and the one we'd open first. A young man falls in love with Salma Karama in Beirut, and a bishop's ambition and an arranged marriage break them apart. Gibran's Arabic is early 20th century and poetic, full of similes with كَـ (ka-, like), but the vocabulary is mostly about feelings, nature and family, words a learner meets early. We've written a whole post on reading The Broken Wings in Arabic.

2. Kalila and Dimna, Ibn al-Muqaffa

The oldest book here and, surprisingly, one of the most approachable. Its animal fables are short, full of dialogue, and repeat the same formulas: زعموا أن (zaʿamū anna, "they say that") opens a story, and وكيف كان ذلك؟ (wa-kayfa kāna dhālika?, "and how was that?") asks for the next one. The vocabulary is classical, so expect animals and court words you won't see in a newspaper. The opening chapters are a long frame story before the fables start, so it's fine to skip ahead. More in our post on Kalila and Dimna.

3. A Tear and a Smile, Kahlil Gibran

Short prose poems on love, nature, death and the soul. Each piece is short enough for one sitting, which helps. The language is lyrical and repetitive, which also helps:

حياة الغيوم فراق ولقاء، دمعة وابتسامة.

The life of the clouds is parting and meeting, a tear and a smile.

The harder side is abstraction: souls, eternity and beauty take more effort than a plot.

4. al-Nazarat, Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti

Essays and moving stories from early 1900s Egypt, on virtue, mercy and everyday life. Each piece stands alone. Al-Manfaluti loves long, balanced phrases and rhetorical questions, which makes for the longest sentences in our table, so read it once you're comfortable with Gibran.

5. Armanousa the Egyptian, Jurji Zaydan

A historical novel set in Egypt at the time of the Arab conquest in the 7th century. Zaydan serialised his historical novels in his own magazine, al-Hilal, for a wide readership, and his prose is plain and narrative. The first pages are a history lesson rather than a story, and it's long: almost four times The Broken Wings.

6. The Maiden of Ghassan, Jurji Zaydan

A Ghassanid princess and a young Arab nobleman, in Syria and Arabia at the rise of Islam. The longest book here, at over 100,000 words, and full of names, tribes and places. Save it for when reading Arabic has become a habit rather than a task.

How to read them

• Use a translation side by side. These are classics in unvowelled Arabic; reading without help at intermediate level is frustrating rather than useful.
• Read a little every day. A few paragraphs a day add up, and The Broken Wings is short enough to finish in a few months that way.
• Collect roots, not just words. When you look up a word, note its root. You'll see the same roots and patterns again and again across all six books.
• Read the free opening first. Every book in the table links to its opening pages on our site, in Arabic with a translation under every line. If you can follow the first page with the translation, it's a good fit.

If you're wondering why reading matters this much, we've looked at what research says about reading to learn a language.

Our Learn Arabic app has all six books in the original with a translation, plus graded readings from A1 to B2 to get you there. It launches on 1 December: join the waitlist and start with Gibran on day one.