A man on a mission of spreading Arabic language

In a small classroom in Kokand, a city five hours from Tashkent, a group of Uzbek schoolchildren who had only ever seen Oman as a dot on a map listened intently as a man from Shinas spoke to them in flawless, flowing Arabic. By the end of the hour, they were not just repeating words; they were asking how they could one day visit the Sultanate.
That man is Huzaim Al Manei, and for more than 18 years, he has been on a quiet but determined mission to take the Arabic language, and Omani culture with it, far beyond the borders of the Arab world.

“I am in this field now for over more than 18 years in teaching and training teachers,” says Al Manei, a native of Wilayat Shinas, the border wilayat near Dubai. “Teaching native speakers and training them as well on how to become teachers. I've trained foreigners and Omanis who want to teach.”
Al Manei holds a Bachelor’s degree in the field and a Master’s from the University of Nizwa in Teaching Arabic to Native Speakers. He is now preparing for his PhD in the same specialisation. But his classroom has long expanded beyond Oman.

His recent Central Asian journey began not with a conference, but with a wedding invitation.
“In early September, we flew to Kazakhstan to attend the wedding of a student who had studied Arabic with us at the Sultan Qaboos Institute for Teaching Arabic to Non-Native Speakers in the Wilayat of Manah,” he recalls.
In Kazakhstan, he found himself part of a beautiful cultural exchange. There, it is customary for the groom’s teacher to address the guests. Al Manei did, speaking about his student, but also sharing the warmth and traditions of an Omani wedding with his Kazakh hosts.

From the wedding hall, he travelled to Uzbekistan, a country with deep Islamic heritage but where Arabic is still a new bridge, to conduct a series of workshops and lectures on teaching Arabic to foreigners and introducing Omani culture.
His itinerary was intense. On the second day, he headed to Kokand to the Dhikrullah Alam Balaghi Centre, where he taught Arabic and introduced the Sultanate of Oman to school students who previously knew little about the country.
He then spent several days in Tashkent, moving between a number of educational institutions, including Awwal Study Center, the University of Journalism and Mass Communications, and Tashkent University of Oriental Studies.

“At each of these institutions, we shared our expertise on teaching Arabic to foreigners and pedagogical methods, while introducing Omani culture to our hosts in Uzbekistan,” he told the Observer.
The tour was not just academic. In Samarkand, the ancient Silk Road city, he visited its religious and historical heart, including the Mausoleum of Imam al Bukhari, the turquoise-tiled Shah-i-Zinda Complex, the Hazrat Khizr Mosque, the Mausoleum of Islam Karimov, the Amir Timur Complex and the bustling Siab Bazaar, drawing parallels between Oman’s own historical openness and Central Asia’s legacy of scholarship.

The journey concluded on a symbolic note at the Oman Embassy in Tashkent, under the auspices of Oman’s ambassador Wafaa al Busaidi. There, Al Manei delivered a lecture on the Sultanate’s role in teaching the Arabic language and promoting Omani culture to foreigners.
The response, he says, was overwhelming. Following the lecture, many attendees inquired about how to visit the Sultanate of Oman for the purpose of study and residence.
For Al Manei, such curiosity is the real success. He is not just teaching grammar and syntax; he is teaching a culture of tolerance, peace and hospitality that Oman is known for.
From Shinas to Manah, from Manah to Tashkent and Samarkand, Huzaim Al Manei carries with him a simple belief: When you teach someone Arabic, you give them a key not just to a language, but to an entire civilisation.