What others said about Arabic From the author's own Arabic
He said of the Arabs:
“Their language was the language of learning and authorship across the civilised world from end to end: the sacred, beloved language that people preferred to the languages they grew up with, in which they wrote their greatest and dearest works, and which they mastered as well as its own sons, and better.”
Abu al-Hasan ʿAli al-Nadwi
1914–1999
Indian scholar, head of Nadwat al-ʿUlamaʾ in Lucknow, who wrote his major works in Arabic.
The Arabic original
فكانت لغتُهم هي لغةَ العلم والتأليف في العالم المتمدّن من أقصاه إلى قَصاه، وهي اللغةُ المقدّسة الحبيبة التي يؤثرها الناس على لغاتهم التي نشأوا عليها، ويؤلّفون فيها أعظمَ مؤلّفاتهم وأحبَّ مؤلّفاتهم، ويتقنونها كأبنائها وأحسن.
Source
Abu al-Hasan al-Nadwi, Madha khasira al-ʿalam bi-nhitat al-muslimin, al-Mansura: Maktabat al-Iman, revised edition, n.d., p. 255
The English translation is Voice of Arabic's, made from the original.
Al-Nadwi wrote in Arabic, so this is his own wording; “their language” is that of the Arabs. The book first appeared in 1950. The English is ours.
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