Samiul Islam (Abū Amānah)
I teach Qur'an foundations and Arabic in English, for the people I once was.
London-based, teaching online across the UK and beyond.
Pick your path →01Who I am
I was born and raised in the UK, in a Bengali family, and studied law at the University of Warwick. Arabic is my third language.
Like many of us, I went to maktab from 5 to 14. I came out of it feeling distant from the Qur'an and from my religion. I didn't have the confidence to read it properly, and I didn't understand its language. I felt like a tourist in my own religion, relying on whatever was passed on to me, without being able to check it myself.
In my late teens I went back to the start: tajwīd and makhārij with teachers, one letter at a time. That second start is why Al-Asās exists.
Arabic came later, and it didn't come easily. For my first six months of classes I wrote everything in transliteration. Eight years of part-time study on, at institutes in the UK, online and with teachers from Egypt and Nigeria, I read, write and speak Arabic comfortably, and I read classical texts to benefit first-hand from our rich intellectual tradition. I'm upper-intermediate (B1–B2). I'm not a scholar, and I don't teach as one.
I work full-time and have a family, so I know what studying around real life looks like.
A native speaker knows Arabic. I know how to learn it.
02How we teach
One-to-one for Al-Asās. Groups of no more than 7 for Al-Jisr. Everyone is seen and heard.
Study plans, progress reports and check-ins, so you keep going when motivation dips.
No promises of fluency in weeks. You'll always know where you stand, what to study, how much, and in what order. When something isn't our specialism, we'll say so and point you to resources and people who can help.
03One path: from the letters to the scholars
Each programme has one clear objective, and each one prepares you for the next.
Read any page of the muṣḥaf fluently, write every letter, and apply every tajwīd rule, practised across the whole of Juz 'Amma.
Leads to: ḥifẓ with a teacher at your level, or Arabic. 2Al-Jisr · The BridgeUnderstand ArabicReach an intermediate level in reading, writing, listening and speaking over 18 months, in a small group.
Leads to: studying fully in the Arabic medium.Study directly in Arabic. I can introduce you to some of my own teachers, with years of experience in marākiz and private teaching, and to mashāyikh from al-Azhar for private study in the Islamic sciences.
Getting you to those teachers is one of the outcomes we work towards. The introductions are free, and we take no commission. The work after that is yours.
Choose the path that fits you, and the page will take you through it.
04Serving the language
I'm passionate about Arabic, and about serving it. My hope is to help revive it as the shared language of Muslims everywhere, as it once was. So alongside teaching, I build tools that make it easier to learn and love:
Al-Dīwān: 11,000+ classical Arabic poems in one place (in beta).
Riwāyah: Arabic vocabulary learned through hadith, with spaced repetition.
The Arabist on Telegram: the resources I actually use.
Why it matters to you: Arabic isn't just something I teach; it's where my spare hours go. You'll be learning from someone in this for the long run, and still learning every day.
05Get in touch
The easiest first step is a free 15-minute chat. No pressure, no obligation.
Pick your path and see exactly what you'll learn, how it works and what it costs.