The Hedayet Institute for Arabic Studies (HIAS) is devoted to the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language and serves students' visiting from abroad and the larger expatriate community in Egypt. It also offers to advanced students other related subjects such as Arabic literature, history, political science, Islamic studies, oriental music, calligraphy, and women's studies.

There are twenty-two Arabic speaking countries in the Arab world and almost two billion Muslims who use Arabic in their daily prayers five times a day and many throughout the world who use it in their daily life. Nowadays, and more than any time before, especially after the events of September 11 in New York and Washington DC and in light of the negative and positive comments on the clash of civilizations, a bridge is needed between the Western cultures and Eastern Arab-Islamic cultures.