Reading Ability of Taysir Musthalah Al-Hadith among University Students (A Multisite Study in Indonesia and Malaysia)

Kemampuan Mahasiswa dalam Membaca Kitab Taysir Musthalah Al-Hadits (Studi Mutisitus pada Universitas di Indonesia dan Malaysia)

Abstract

The ability to read unvowelled Arabic texts constitutes a core academic competence in Ulumul Hadith, particularly when engaging with Taysir Musthalah al-Hadith. This study provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of students’ reading competence in Indonesian and Malaysian Islamic universities and identifies contextual patterns across institutions. A qualitative multi-site case study design was employed. Data were collected through performance-based reading tasks, classroom observations, and semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal that students in both institutions demonstrate basic fluency in reading unvowelled texts; however, conceptual comprehension varies. Key challenges include integrating hadith terminology into paragraph-level meaning and analyzing complex syntactic structures requiring applied knowledge of Arabic grammar. Indonesian students display stronger mechanical decoding skills, whereas Malaysian students show greater familiarity with disciplinary terminology. Overall, reading classical Arabic texts requires integration of linguistic competence and disciplinary literacy, highlighting the need for contextual, integrative instructional models in Ulumul Hadith pedagogy in contemporary higher education contexts globally.