Arabic has a unique historical experience spreading in record periods outside the Arabian Peninsula, and the Arabic language has lived for centuries, learned and taught by its children in a unique historical experience in which the language fought many battles and won. The spread of Arabic did not take the nature of learning a foreign language or teaching, but instead turned into a fusion, so that it became the first language of people whose native languages were not Arabic.
This must have resulted in a unique approach to teach the language. We have not sought to know its historical origins, whether it happened through direct interactions or through some form of formal instruction. In any case, the result exceeded the normal human perception. It is not normal to see a large number of senior scholars who excelled in more than one field of the Arabic studies who did not have Arabic as their first language. Two great examples of that case are Sibawaih and Ibn Gini. For any learner of the Arabic language nowadays, it is very strange to know that the most important book in Arabic grammar, “Al-Kitab”, was written by a non-Arab; which is the book that remained the first source of the scholars of Arabic grammar throughout centuries.
