The study concentrates on the origins, developments and current directions of the discipline called Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL) within the Arab world and partially outside of it during the last sixty years, namely between 1958 and 2018. The most influential scholars, authors, educators and those significant works that contributed to the development of the discipline are taken into account. In addition, special attention is paid to the TAFL institutes, which are considered as epicenters of the activities and that hosted important meetings, allowing scholars to gather around the same table and discuss approaches, trends and methods used in the field of TAFL. All these aspects converge in one comprehensive research, which is enriched by the narration of the main socio-political changes that affected the Middle Eastern region recent history.