Sunday, August 14, 2005

Arabic Book of Mormon Scriptures

My wife and I recently ordered an Arabic copy of The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ for our Egyptian neighbor. We wanted to invite our neighbor to read some selected passages—the ones we always recommended when we were on our missions—but neither of us reads, writes, or speaks any Arabic, so this clearly posed a problem for us.

Fortunately, after comparing the Arabic and English translations, I was able to learn just enough to decipher the characters necessary to write down selected passages. I spent a few minutes scanning the Arabic words and characters into my computer, and I arranged them appropriately to create a nice, printable list of suggested readings.

For the benefit of others who might want to share an Arabic Book of Mormon with a friend, I decided to post a PDF copy of my suggested readings list for anyone who wants it. The suggested passages include the Introduction, the Testimony of Three Witnesses, the Testimony of Eight Witnesses, the Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 3 Nephi 11, Moroni 10:3-5, and 1 Nephi 1. Obviously I didn't know how to write in Arabic things like "start from the beginning once you've read the preceding passages," so I wrote those parts in English; hopefully either the reader understands some written English or can have someone else translate those comments. If not, at least it should be clear enough that the giver is inviting the receiver to read the parts written in Arabic.

Download the Book of Mormon Arabic Suggested Readings List.