Arabic literaturehad played an important role in contributing to the spread of Islamic knowledge and culture among the Malay society. Its contribution continues until the development of modern Malay literature. Most literary researchers agree that the novel entitled Faridah Hanom (1926) represents the first Malay novel. Nevertheless, the novel which was written by Syed Sheikh Al-Hadi, a prominent Islamic reformist in the country in the early twentieth century, has long been debated by scholars for its authenticity, whetherthe novel is originally written by the author, or it is merely a translation of the famous Arabian novel, Zaynab. Thus, it is the purpose of this study to examine the impact of novel Zaynab’s themein the emergence of Malaysian novel’stheme. Based on theresults obtained, it is found that theme of novel Zaynabcontributed to the emergence of the theme of novel Faridah Hanom. KeyWords: Arabic language, Faridah Hanom, comparative literature, influence, Arabic novel.

Students who learn Arabic as a foreign language in a foreign country usually face difficulties to achieve proficiency in the language. This is primarily because of the lack of Arabic language resources. However, this situation does not hinder the emergence of a group of outstanding students who achieve fluency in Arabic by using their own methods. This study investigated the methods used by these students to be used as a guideline for other students. To collect the data, a set of questionnaire was developed from the Imitation Strategy Instrument introduced by Rosni Samah (2014). The questionnaires were distributed to 50 outstanding final year students from the Arabic language department, Faculty of Major Languages, Islamic Science University of Malaysia. The results showed that effective strategies for learning Arabic language as a foreign language were gathering, enhancing and applying. The targets are new vocabulary and sentence. The tools to perform the strategies were Arabic materials and language activities. This study recommends that in learning Arabic language as a foreign language, the three methods mentioned above should be applied. The Arabic materials should be provided and language activities should be organized. The effective methods used by outstanding students should be used as a guideline for other students to be more proficient in Arabic Language.

UAE poet Maneaa Saeed Al Otaiba; a PhD in economics, has appointed as UAE Minister of Petroleum and then as Special Advisor to the Emir of the United Arab Emirates. There are few books written about him, but they were mostly translations of his life. He is one of the modern Arabic poetry Knights, enriched the library of Arabic poetry in many of the poetry, of more than (60) Diwana, singled out Nabatian poetry with (22) Diwana. He organized poetry for various political, social, economic, and metaphysical purposes, in addition to several novels. The poem at Otaiba was excellence by its smoothness, tenderness, the truth of its feelings and clarity. Human life was the most significant factor affecting his poetry. Al Otaiba cared about the human being in his poetry, he became very interested in drawing for him the material of his poetic image that he painted in his poems. The material was an image of multiple and wide sources, while inspired by the nature of its image materials. He also influenced his poetry by his economic orientation; when he had several oil poems collected in his Diwana (oil poems).