The Arabic language is considered the backbone of Islamic Studies and teaching Arabic has been emphasized in the Faculty of Theology since its foundation. Despite this, the department of Arabic Language and Rhetoric was established as an independent department only in 1989. Since then the department has not completed its academic structuring and thus has yet to open a graduate program. With recent additions to the teaching staff, efforts are currently underway to start
offering graduate level courses in the near future. Currently the department organizes and administers the one-year intensive Arabic preparatory curriculum, required of all students of the Theology and International Theology programmes, and offers supplementary Arabic courses in the upper classes of all programmes.