Abstract: Recitation of the Holy book of Muslims, The Holy Quran, is a regions duty and hence is done with utmost care such that no mistakes are made while reading it. These mistakes may include the wrong utterance of words, misreading words, and punctuation and pronunciation mistakes. Believers of Islam are spread all over the world and hence there also can be a difference in accent. To avoid this, tajweed rules are implemented to ensure that the utterance is done according to some rules. These rules ensure that there is no variance in the recitation of the Holy book for different reciters. For further improvements, the people are encouraged to memorize the whole book and the person who does that is called a Hafiz. Having known the whole book by heart down to every word with Tajweed rules he/she can a guide to correct other learners who intend to learn by listening to learners and correcting their recitation. But the availability of a Hafiz can be a problem where Islam is not a dominant religion. Furthermore the competency and level of expertise are of epic importance. To get around this problem we have designed and developed a system E-Hafiz. It is based on an idea that Tajweed rules are used to train learners how to recite Quran. To achieve this we used on Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) technique. We extract the features of recorded voices using MFCC and compared with experts’ voices stored in database. Any mismatch on word level is pointed out and ask the user to correct it. [Aslam Muhammad, Zia ul Qayyum, Waqar Mirza M. Saad Tanveer, Martinez-Enriquez A.M., Afraz Z. Syed: E- Hafiz: Intelligent System to Help Muslims in Recitation and Memorization of Quran. Life Science Journal. 2012;9(1):534-541] (ISSN:1097-8135). Keywords: The Holy Quran, Islam, Muslims, Tajweed, Hafiz, Voice recognition, feature extraction, MFCC. 1. Introduction As Islam is the second largest religion of world’s population, and their Holy book being in Arabic with only 3.12% of the world’s population speaking Arabic (https://www.cia.gov).The adherents of Islam are 1.57 billion in 200 countries all over the world in the year 2009 (http://pewforum.org). Such diverse geographical distribution leads to the fact that most of the Muslim population does not have Arabic as their primary language. Regarding to problems in understanding and reading Arabic, the religion binds Muslims strongly to Arabic as their Holy book is in Arabic. The Holy Quran also gives an insight in science, engineering, social sciences, law and management (Abdul Rashid Sheikh, 2000).This fact encourages people to read and understand the Quran for both religious and scientific purposes. The Holy Quran was compiled as book nearly 1400 years ago. During this time Arabic as all other languages evolved and underwent changes. So the text reading is not same as Arabic we know today. To solve this barrier, some rules are implemented to ensure the correct reading of the Holy book. These rules have come to be known as Tajweed rules (H. Tabbal et al., 2006) (M.S. Bashir et al.). The recitation of Holy Quran by use of Tajweed rules is an art and reciters follow the Tajweed rules to build their recitation attractive (H. Tabbal et al., 2006). If someone wants to learn the Tajweed then he/she has to consult an expert Hafiz at some Learning institute. Learning is done manually as the student and Hafiz have to sit face to face and the learner recites and the Experts points out and corrects the mistakes if any occur. Presently, there exist institutes and websites that teach the recitation in manual method. The main problem consists here is the accessibility and feasibility of a Hafiz expert. Availability of Hafiz in countries where Islam is not a dominant religion can be quite less to come across. In addition, Hafiz’s level of expertise is a big issue. As a human being a Hafiz can also make mistakes while listening, so not all Hafiz can be tutors. The goal or objective for the development of E-Hafiz system is to facilitate the learning/memorizing of the holy Quran, minimizing errors or mistakes of all kinds, and the systematization of the recitation process. Using this system any reciter can learn the recitation skills at any place and any time. The presence of an expert hafiz would not be needed. Consequently, this system helps the Hafizes in preparation of recitation for 5 times prayers and Traveeh prayer in the month of Ramdhan. Many audio enabled applications are available in the markets which offer the Holy Quran as audio streams. One of the most popular and commonly used is the Quran Auto Reciter (QAR) (http://www.searchtruth.com/download.php). QAR provides a user interface where user can select the verse they intend to listen and the verse can be played stopped and paused. And as the words are played the text also gets highlighted. QAR can help learn the Quran and recitation improvements can be made as well as some basics can be learned. But it cannot judge the user’s accuracy and performance as there is no way QAR can indicate or detect the mistakes made by user. If software has the utility to detect and correct the mistake the learning and expertise can be improved substantially. So, the learning process through QAR is one only sided. A user can only listen his desired surah many times to improve recitation ability however he cannot know about the mistakes if any he made during his own recitation. Therefore, to solve this problem, he must consult to a hafiz/expert of Quran to know either he recite the holy Quran correct or make any mistake. So, reliability on other person is still exists in this system. Hence this system fulfill required objective in limited area not completely. (Hassan Tabbal et al., 2006) introduce an automated delimiter that can extract the verses from the audio file using the open source Sphinx framework and speech recognition techniques. In whole processing, two models acoustic and language are discussed. These models takes parts with feature vectors to generate search space for HMM nodes. These two models are: Acoustic Model: A set of phonemes symbols was used to train the state of HMM that corresponds to the acoustic model. For generating the Acoustic model for the application, the audio recitation of surah Al-Ikhlass (The Holy Quran) (recited by different reciters near about 1 hour) alongside with corresponding dictionary mapping is feed to the sphinxTrain application that generate acoustic representation of each word. Language Model: It was not easy to choose a language model for the holy Quran, as the high precision and accuracy required for recognition. So, for this system, a language model based on the Java Speech Grammar Format (JSGF) specification was chosen that is compatible with sphinx framework and fulfills all the requirements of the system. The JSGF rules used for this system are similar to those used for conversational system and generated them as such to reflect the structure of the Surah. The sphinx frame work automatically provides the core recognition process by using appropriate language and acoustic models. For this purpose, the sphinx frame work is configured by an xml based configuration file that includes the feature extraction algorithms and all other aspects that needed by any speech recognition systems. The system design phase is divided into two sub phases. Data Preparation: The frame of 10ms and a threshold of 10db were selected for speech segment extractor. To make the recognition ratio more accurate, a 2-stage pre-emphasis filter with factor values (0.92 and 0.97) is used. A raised cosine widower with the 512 points FFT analysis is used for the system and a Mel Filter Bank followed by a Discrete Cosine transformation is used for extracting MFCC features. MFCC have the ability to transform the frequency from a linear scale to a non linear one which can be achieved by this system by using set of 30 triangular Mel filters. Finally, to reduce the distortion effects produced by the microphone, the Cepstral Mean Normalization (CMN) operation is performed. The CMN is achieved by subtracting the mean vector from each vector. System Settings: The frontend phase output is feed to sphinx core recognizer which uses HMM as a recognizer tool. To translate the result of recognizer into common Arabic language, a hash map was used. The breath first search combined with beam search algorithm is used by the decoder to search to the same words obtained from the recognizer. When the words matched with the stored words, the audio verse correspond to the obtained combination is extracted. As we have seen, the above discussed application can help users to search a required verse form audio files but unfortunately it is not useful for the users who want to learn the recitation. This application is only used by those persons who know the recitation skill well but not for those who not know how to read the holy Quran. Fortunately, this application helped us very much in our research as it also uses MFCC feature extraction techniques for its implementation. So, the brief study of this application helps us a lot in establishing our ideas and solves the problems we faced. (Zaidi Razzak et al., 2008) wrote a review paper presents techniques used in Quran Arabic verse recitation recognition and also mention there advantages and disadvantages by comparing them. The objective of this research is to found more effective and efficient technique of Quran Arabic verse recitation recognition for their system that will used to support in j-QAF learning process. According to the paper, process of recitation recognition is commonly divided into: pre-processing, feature extraction, training and testing, feature classification, as well as pattern recognition. Preprocessing: In Pre-processing the information is organized to simplify the task of recognition. Three steps are performed: -End Point Detection specifies the start and end points of recorded words. -Smoothing reduces noise from the speech. -Channel normalization used to train a recognizer with recorded speeches. The recognition process is depending on speeches recorded from different microphones. Feature extraction: To differentiate words, the unique, discriminative, and computation efficient features are extracted from the speech signal. Four techniques are treated: (a) Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) that is not considered as a good method, since LPC reduces high and low order Cepstral coefficient into noise when coefficient are transferred into Cepstral coefficient, (b) Perceptual Linear Prediction (PLP) that is better than LPC, since the spectral features remains smooth within the frequency band in PLP and the spectral scale is non-linear Bark scale, (c) Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC), based on the frequency domain of Mel scale for human ear scale. MFCC is considered the best technique because behavior of acoustic system remains unchanged during transferring the frequency from linear to non-linear scale. (d) Spectrographic Analysis is used for Arabic language phoneme identification. Arabic phonemes are identified by spectrograms that are represented by distinct bands. Training and Testing: Speech sample is enrolled in the system database after constructing a model based on features extracted from the speech. Testing process determines similarity between score of newly speech word with the speech stored in DB. Three training and testing methods discussed are: a) Hidden Markov Model (HMM) in which each word is trained independently to get the best likelihood parameters and for this several utterances is performed to train each set of model. b) Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is a based mathematical model, that recognizes speech in such a way that a person applies to visualizing, analyzing, and characterizing the speech to measure its acoustic features. Here, we show that ANN is not well equipped with respect to HMM that solve problems. c) Vector Quantization (VQ) that uses a set of fixed prototype vectors called codebook and each vector in codebook is known as codeword. Quantization is performed by matching input vector against each codeword using distortion measure. d) Features Classification and Pattern Recognition that classify the object of interest into classes. The goal is to know patterns and classes referred to individual words. There are three methods for this purpose: HMM, VQ, and ANN. This process is also referred as feature matching. The author recommends HMM the best approach for feature extraction and HMM or VQ is for training and testing. HMM is used when Arabic language recognition has to perform and VQ for English language. There are many different methods suggested by (Zaidi Razzak et al., 2008) in to extract the features from the speech, the system suggests rules and regulations that should be followed during recitation. Again the basic learner is ignored. The system is useful for people who already know the correct pronunciation and Holy Quran rules. But, it is not suitable for non Arabic speakers. So, a system to help naïve learners to recite the Holy book but also is effective for expert users to know Tajweed rules, pointing out mistakes made during recitation is suitable, tasks achieved by our E- Hafiz system. We designed, implemented, and tested E- Hafiz application that helps learning like a Hafiz expert. Speeches signals will be gained by a sound speak by a person in microphone. By means of Mel- Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) (Noor Jamaliah Ibrahim et al., 2008) transformation, voice features are extracted from the signal emphasized for further processing. MFCC transformation technique produces remarkable results, because the emulation of an auditory system behavior. The linear scale frequency is transformed to non linear one. MFCC is implemented by use of MATLAB framework. The extracted features are used to form a model of speech by use of Vector Quantization (VQ), and are stored in the Database which also contains a large number of speech vectors, obtained from different Quranic verses passed through the above process. Basically, the speech vector is an array of MFCC features. When user utters any verse, it is compared with the stored verse. Verses that are not matched with any registered one are considered as mistakes and pointed to user. 2. Material and Methods Voice content matching is the process of comparing the voice content of a speaker with the relevant voices contents stored in database of system and make decision on the bases of this compression. At abstract level the content matching system has two phases: Training phase and Testing phase. During the Training phase, the system is trained with the experts’ voices and during testing phase a user records his voice and this voice is matched with the experts’ voices to generate results. If we analyses the current method of teaching in existing organizations/institutes, we can find that most of the Islamic institutes follow the manual method of teaching recitations. In manual process, the teacher and student sit in front of each other and student starts recitation. Whenever student makes mistake, teacher point it out and correct it like a real time system. The developed system does not work in this real time mode, but it can help the user to know his mistakes after he complete his recitation. The reason behind the development of this non-real time/offline mode system is that at initial level we have some kind of issue which we cannot resolve during user recitation like removing silence from the voice and filter out signals etc. The figure 1 shows the core architecture of E-Hafiz system. In this system, the MFCC feature extraction techniques is used to get the feature vectors of some specific verses read by some experts and store in the system’s database. In order to test the performance of the system, the voice sample of same verses read by ordinary persons are taken and the feature of these voices are taken too by using MFCC techniques. Then, these vectors are compare with the vectors stored in system’s database to detect the mistakes if exists. The current system has the ability to detect mistakes on word level as the back end database is made at word level. So, any mistake made at word level can be identified. This is done by a word extraction module which extracts the words out the audio stream recorded. Whenever, a mistake is found the system gives option to the user to listen the verse again as in real life a Hafiz does. The user listens to the verse again to comprehend the right pronunciation and after that he again reads it until he passes the minimal criteria .This criteria however, provides more flexibility especially in Tajweed rules for beginners. But, they are stricter for experts. The dataset of E-Hafiz consists of 10 experts with database of first 5 Sorahs of the Holy Quran. Figure 1. Architectural model of E-Hafiz. The principal phases in E-Hafiz architecture are: data preparation, feature extraction, and modeling, storing and comparison. Data Preparation: In data preparation phase, the raw data (input speech signal) contains silences and noises, are filtered out in order to avoid the errors which may occur during processing and disturb the accuracy of results. The data preparation is subdivide into three steps: Silence Trimming: The first verse of Surah Al- Fatiha (sorah-1, verse-1) (The Holy Quran) of holy Quran is uttered as an input audio. The recorder audio signal of this verse is shown in figure 2. As it is widely possible that at start time and end times in which the user may have recorded his/her recitation may contain long or short silence gaps. A module trims these silence gaps. This gives a content rich stream for processing. In order to remove silences trimming, the short-term energy method (Mark Greenwood et al., 1999) is used. In short-term energy method, the energy of a speech signal can be calculated at any instance of time. So, the energy of each frame is calculated and removed all those frames whose energy is near about to zero. Figure 2. Audio signal of 1st verse of Surah “Al- Fatiha” Word Extraction: The next module separates the words that are content of the audio stream on the basis of silence threshold that enables the system to store all words uttered separately into the database. This is done to ensure that we can match the error on word level as the comparison done is not on the whole audio stream but on the words that have been uttered. Figure 3. Audio signal of 1st verse of Surah “Al- Fatiha” after extracting words The detection of words is also performed using short-term energy method (Mark Greenwood et al., 1999). Here, we calculate the energy of each frame and whenever a set of 16 frames having energy approaches to zero is found it is consider an end of word and all the consequent zero energy frames after that are removed. On moving forward where the set of 16 frame having energy greater than threshold founds, it is a sign of starting next word and all the consequent frames are included until again found zero energy frames. This process continues till the end of speech and finally we got all the available words in the speech (see Figure 3). Once words are extracted each of them undergoes these following steps. Pre Emphasis: After extracting all available words, the next step of data preparation is the pre emphasis each sub-signal/word, giving raise to higher magnitude frequencies with respect to lower in order to improve the signal to noise ratio. The echoes lies in the signal are also eliminated and due to this quality this process is also known as noise canceling filter. To perform the pre-emphasis, the application of first order Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter is imply on digitized signal. The equation used to apply FIR filter is: 1 1)( zzH (1) Where α represents the pre-emphasis parameter, which may have value close to 1, in our case 0.935, it gives rise to the high frequency spectrum to more than 18dB amplification. Feature Extraction: The voice features are extracted by means of Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) (Noor Jamaliah Ibrahim et al., 2008) transformation for further analysis purpose. MFCC is one of the best techniques used for feature extraction purpose that produces remarkable results in the field of voice content matching systems. It is because, it simulate the behavior of human ear and uses Mel Frequency scale. Here the Feature Extraction technique is performed on each extracted word of speech one after another to get their codebooks. The MFCC feature extraction technique consists of seven major components which are: Pre-Processing: This is the process in which we prepare data for processing and make it ready to operate. In section 3.1, some necessary initial processing is performed. So, our date is already prepared and no further operation is needed. Framing: Each word’s signal is segmented into 23 mS frames to convert non-stationary signals into qui-stationary format. Also, theses frames are further blocked overlap i.e. every frame contains the 11.5 mS of its previous frame’s data. The overlapping is performed to reduce the chances of losing information lies at the end of each frame, which may crash during segmenting of speech. Windowing: Performing windowing means, multiplying each frame with Hamming Window. Windowing shrink the signal values toward zero level at the boundaries of each frame and hence, it reduces the discontinuity. The Hamming Window is obtained by: 1 2 cos46.054.0 N w n n (2) In this equation N is the total number of samples in each frame and n is any value from range 0 to N-1. Windowing is performed by multiplying each sample of each frame with each corresponding element of hamming window. Discrete Fourier Transformation: In order to transfer each windowed frame from time domain to frequency domain, Discrete Fourier Transformation is applied by use of FFT algorithm. The windowed signal obtained from previous step, is given as an input to DFT and the output of this is a complex number, representing each frequency band (0 to N-1) having magnitude and phase of that frequency component in original signal. The DFT is obtained by the following equation: Nnkj N k ekYnY /2 1 0 12 (3) Where k= 0, 1, 2, 3, …, N-1 and Y2[n] is the Fourier Transform of Y1[k]. Mel Filter Bank: Often low frequencies in speech signal contain more useful and important information as compare to higher ones. So, to emphasize these low frequency components, Mel scale is applied. The formula used to calculate Mels for a frequency f in Hz is: ) 700 f +(1 log10*2592 = Scale) (MelFrequency (4) Logarithm: By use of logarithm, the multiplication effect of the magnitude of Fourier Transform is changed into addition. The Matlab command log is used to take the natural log of the Mel filtered speech segments. The effect of taking natural log is that it reduces the values of Mel filter bank. Inverse Discrete Fourier Transformation: IDFT converts the speech signal back to time domain from frequency. (5) Here x[k] is the logged value of each Mel filtered speech segment gained from previous step. L is the required number of Mel Cepstral Coefficient taken from N filtertapes of each frame and in our case L is 12. Modeling, Storing and Comparison of Codebooks: The output of second phase is used to generate model (a features codebook) of speech, and is stored in the Database. Basically, the feature vector is an array of MFCC features. As the speech have a large number of frames and each contains 12 feature vectors. So it is not easy to use all these feature vectors to form codebook. Hence, the numbers of features vectors are reduced by getting highly representative vectors which is achieved by Vector Quantization (VQ) technique (R. M. Gray et al., 1984). Vector Quantization is the data compression technique in which probability density functions are modeled by the distribution of prototype vectors. In this technique a large set of vectors having similar number of points are grouped together and these group are represented by their centroid point gained through clustering algorithm. In this system LBG algorithm is used to implement VQ. LBG algorithm works by clustering the similar vectors and finding a single representative value (centroid) for each cluster. This centroid value is also called a code vector and collection of all code vectors correspond to a specific voice is called codebook. For generating codebook, Mean is calculated for all features vector. So, to calculate the mean of a set of K vectors, the following formula is used: , k x M k 1i i (6) Here we have a single Mean value representing the whole data. Now this Mean is split into two Means and for this, a very small positive number let say (read as epsilon) is used as follow: M M 1 (7) M M 2 (8) Figure 4. Process of VQ Codebook Generation Now by use of these two Means two clusters of features i.e. Cluster1 contains all feature vectors having values close to M1 and Cluster2 contains all feature vectors having values close to M2, are created. In order to generate clusters of vectors, the distance between each feature vector and Means values is calculated through Euclidean Distance Formula. Now these two clusters are further divided into four clusters according to method discussed above. This iterative process will continue till 32 clusters are created as shown in figure 4. In every cluster there is a mean value called the code vector of that cluster and all code vectors in all clusters is called a codebook. Now for testing the system, an interface is given to user to selects the Sorah and verse she/he intends to recite as shown in figure 5(a). The system also gives him the option to select his expertise level. On this expertise level, the system decides that with how many experts’ voices, his voice is compare. For beginner, the voice of user is compare with all 10 experts’ voices. Figure 5(a). Main screen of E-Hafiz application When user utters any verse, it is compared with the stored verses read by number of different experts; this number however depends on the difficulty level selected. The comparison is performed on word level and in case of any word not matched with any registered one is considered as mistakes and pointed to user. The whole process is as follow: Figure 5(b). Result screen of E-Hafiz application 1. Gets the utterance of a selected verse recited by any user. 2. Extract the words from the voice sample taken. 3. Extract features of each word using MFCC technique discussed above. 4. Generate the codebook of these words and form an array represents whole verse. 5. From system’s database, extract the codebooks array of the same verse recited by experts. 6. For each word of Expert’s codebook array and user’s codebook array, compute their averages and calculate distance between them. 7. The resultant distance value is compared with the Threshold value. If the distance is less than the threshold value (Dependant on the skill level of user value is set to 2.6 for beginners) it is considered matched, else mismatch word. 8. If all the words of one expert’s array are matched with the user’s array, also the number of word in both arrays and their sequence is same then 1 match is considered. 9. In case of beginners at least 3 matches must be found and if not it is consider wrong utterance and pointed to user. 10. In case of wrong utterance result, the word which is found most mismatch is consider as wrong uttered word and that word is highlighted in result screen as shown in figure 7(b). In result screen option given to user to listen verse in expert voice so that he can found where he misread the word and then he given another option to try it again. User does this process again and again till he recites the whole verse correctly. 3. Results For experimentation, three groups of reciters men, women and children are chosen. Each reciter was asked to read some specific verse of the Holy Quran and his recitations were tested against the expert’s recitation. All these experiments are performed in the presence of an expert Hafiz. It is because an expert hafiz knows better either a user recite correct or wrong. So, when any candidate recites any verse, the expert listen his utterance along with E-Hafiz. After evaluating the utterance of candidate, expert tells his decision which is actually the true result of user utterance. The result generated by E-Hafiz is compared with the expert’s result. This comparison tells us the accuracy rates of E-Hafiz i.e. how much results generated by E-Hafiz are correct. Figure 6. The accuracy rate of E-Hafiz against each candidate The accuracy rate of E-Hafiz against each candidate is calculated by use of the following formula: 100 . . versesofNoTotal HafizEbytionidentificacorrectofNo RateAccuracy (9) The accuracy rate of each candidate is shown in the figure 6 in which x-axis contains the candidate IDs and y-axis contains results. Also the global mean of all type of candidate is calculated by dividing the sum of all results of one type of candidate to the total number of candidate in that group as shown in table 1. These results make us inspire and encourage us to make more improvements in this system and enhance its performance much more than the current ones. Table 1. Accuracy evaluation of E-Haiz Type of Reciters Number of Reciters Accuracy Rate Men 10 92% Children 10 90% Women 10 86% 4. Discussions The system solves a huge problem of arranging Hafiz for learning Quran or in cases where Hafiz could not be arranged learning in fear of mistakes. Users of the system have the possibility to finding mistakes and enhance recitation skills. After meticulous testing of system on many verses and test subjects the results obtained inspire us to further develop the system. With addition of word extraction feature E-Hafiz not only tackles the whole verse but also can identify the mistakes on word level. Our next endeavor is going to make this system capable of identifying the notes which are uttered, taking the recognition ability to letter level, where even a miss pronounced letter can be identified , further more a model assistance can be given on how to pronounce the word as per guided by rules in phonetics is underway. https://faith.consulting/provider/nabwy-mostafa https://youtube.com/shorts/PjzwOyNV8hA?si=KsNVmAsU_Y0ZChO8

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Educational researchers are putting more and more effort in finding out new and improved ways of teaching and learning. I was surprised to find out about one research that has received much media attention – a research on 100 key words. “An ongoing study at the university of Warwick says 100 will do to read most written English, including books intended for adults.” (BBC) Adding another fifty words to these hundred increased children’s understanding of the text by only 2%. What this means is that most of our written English consists of the same words repeated over and over again. These high-frequency words are called instant sight words, which means that we can recognize in maximum one second. Try out these to see if it’s true: live, take, went, make. How do we develop such rapid recognition ability for these words? Simply due to repetition. We encounter the word “make”, for instance, once every 3 pages of reading on average. So the more we read, the more we are bombarded by these sight words, and the more familiar they become, and that in turn results in increase in our reading efficiency. Now let us see how Understand Quran Academy has taken advantage of a similar concept in designing its courses in learning Arabic. The course “Understand the Quran 50% Words” takes 9 hours to complete. That sounds kind of absurd and impossible at first glance. But in fact, the claim is absolutely true. Here’s how: The course will teach you a total of only 125 words, and these 125 words (or their variants) occur about 40,000 times in the Quran. But the course will not give you this 125-word-vocabulary and have done with it. It will teach you to plant these firmly into your head using educational techniques such as TPI (Total Physical Interaction). It will also teach how variants are made and used from these words, such as the different forms of the same verb. In short, if you do the course thoroughly and follow the teacher’s guidance and practice a lot, then you’ll at least get a sense of what the Quran is telling you each time you open it in sha Allah. Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind while doing the course: Be constantly aware of what you’re doing and why. Learning to understand the Quran is immensely rewarding. The Quran is the last and final Book, sent to all humanity. The purpose of the Prophet’s mission was to teach the Quran: Just as We have sent among you a messenger from yourselves reciting to you Our verses and purifying you and teaching you the Book and wisdom and teaching you that which you did not know. [Quran, 2:151] In fact, his mission started with the Quran . . . Recite in the name of your Lord who created. [96:1] . . . and reached its climax with the Quran: This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion. [5:3] The Prophet’s (sa) mission was not just to convey the Quran but to teach it and show us how to implement it, not just to Arabs but to the entire humanity. And for the rest of us non-Arabs, we have to take an extra step at the beginning – and that is learning Quranic Arabic. This makes it more challenging and consequently more rewarding. So always reminding yourself the great importance and virtue of what we’re learning. Practice, practice and practice! Remember what we just learned about instant sight words in English. We probably won’t be reading as much Arabic as we read English, and so the only way we can turn these 125 Arabic words into instant sight words is by practicing what is taught in the lessons. This will reduce the time your brain takes to recognize these words when you come across them in the Quran, and thus improve your understanding of the text. “When less effort can be put into decoding [interpreting] during reading, there is more short-term capacity for comprehension of text . . . When words are recommended automatically, this maximizes the capacity available for understanding.” (Pressley 2000) https://youtube.com/shorts/PjzwOyNV8hA?si=KsNVmAsU_Y0ZChO8

What does role does the Quran play in our lives? Here’s a short list. Please add your own views in the comments section below! The Quran: Teaches Muslim parents to create homes that are safe and nurturing— emotionally, physically, and spiritually— for Muslim children. [Quran, 2:233] Teaches us to treat our parents well. [Quran, 6:151] Encourages us to be loving spouses— patient, kind, affectionate, and just. Encourages us to respect life and all that Allah has created, to be responsible with the resources with which He has provided us. Discourages us from devoting our lives to envy and competition. Teaches us gratitude, enhancing our joy in the dunya. Builds unity in the ummah. Teaches us to avoid conflict and seek peace. Encourages us in halal work. [Quran, 18:110] Teaches us to be faithful to our employers while not compromising our obedience to Allah. Teaches us to be good students of the message. [Quran, 7:158] Encourages us to enjoy the good things that Allah has given us. Teaches us to be grateful for tests that may come in the form of trials and hardships. Saves us from becoming enslaved to pleasure. [Quran, 3:14] Teaches us to be truthful. Obliges us to be fair and honest in our dealings with others. Inspires us with a love for the beauty of nature. Discourages racism, showing us how Allah judges us according to our righteousness alone. [Quran, 7:168] Unites people of many cultures. Shows us the folly of violence. [Quran, 59:14] Helps us focus our minds on what’s most important. Encourages intellectual integrity. Gives us examples of heroically righteous men, women, and children. [Quran, 12:22] Counters the world’s attempts to make heroes of sinful people. Teaches us how to pray. Gives us dietary guidelines. [Quran, 2:173] Obliges us to be clean. [Quran, 5:6] Prevents us from committing shirk. Compels us to remember Allah always. Dispels sadness, fear, anger, and worry just by the hearing of a recitation. [Quran, 3:108] Aids us in decisionmaking. Exhorts us to care for the weak, the poor, those with challenges, the vulnerable, the young, and the aged. [Quran, 2:3] Changes us in positive ways, transforming us into the persons Allah created us to be. Exhorts us to remove ourselves from the countless distractions of worldly life in order to spend time alone with our creator, praying and reflecting on His words. Gives us hope of a beautiful reward. [Quran, 3:136] https://iou-russia.com/instructors/zahra-anwer-copy-copy-copy-copy-copy-copy/# https://youtube.com/shorts/PjzwOyNV8hA?si=KsNVmAsU_Y0ZChO8

Ever burnt a kettle on the stove? Forgot all about your clothes in the washing machine until days later? Promised to meet someone and remembered only the day after the appointment? If you’ve got a leaky memory like me, then you must be somewhat familiar with situations like these. It’s not an easy thing to tackle with, having many implications for yourself personally and for those around you. “How could you forget?” is a common reaction we get from others. Some people even think that we forget intentionally (the irony is self-evident, but still). Well, all we can say is that no one can be as angry at this as we ourselves, because ultimately we’re the ones who suffer with this chronic issue. It brings in religious implications as well, as one of the essential characters of a believer (mu’min) is that he or she keeps a promise. How in the world are you supposed to keep a promise when you keep forgetting all about it? It creates a lot of guilt, and the more you forget, the more that pile of guilt keeps increasing. But think: Is that guilt doing any good? In fact, it only adds to your stress level, and stress is one of the things that hampers memory. Thus the cycle goes on and on: the more we forget, the more guilty we feel, the more our stress level increases, the more we forget, the more guilty we feel, and so on. Now that we understand our situation, what we need is a rational, objective, problem-solving approach, free of all guilty feelings and anger and suffocation. Allah is the One who understands you the most, and then you yourself. So it’s only you who can solve this problem, but here are some tips you might like to consider. Accept your weakness. No human being is perfect. Those who berate you about your weak memory aren’t perfect – there’s 99 percent chance that they have at least one weak point that’s your strong point. Accept that Allah has given you this test, this obstacle in your way to success, and it will clear your vision, so that you can find a way to get around it. Ask Allah for help. Allah is able to do all things. Ask Allah to improve your memory, and have complete trust that He will respond to your dua. Allah said: And your Lord says, ‘Call upon Me; I will respond to you.’ Indeed, those who disdain My worship will enter Hell [rendered] contemptible. [Quran, 40:60] But we can’t leave it at that. We must try to help ourselves and not wait passively for things to change. Allah helps those who try to help themselves in the first place, and then leave the results of their efforts to Allah. Find out possible reasons for the memory problem. There could be some unexpected reasons than just “having some wires lose in my brain”. Chronic stress, depression, anxiety and such mental problems can significantly reduce your memory and problem-solving capacities. Thyroid conditions can affect your memory too. Talk to a doctor and try to figure out if there are any medical or psychological causes, and if treating them will improve your memory. Set-up an artificial system of reminders. Sometimes the problem is not that you have overall weak memory, but just your natural alarm clock has got some battery leaks. So all you need is set up an artificial system of reminders. An obvious one is the use your mobile phone to set up alarms for important meetings, or even such household tasks as checking the laundry or boiling milk. However, too many alerts can raise our stress levels very high, so we also need to use other alternatives. One alternative is to use memory queues – keeping things at certain places to make them visible at the right moments, or sticking notes as self-reminders. To-do lists are also great, so long as we have made the habit of remembering to check the lists regularly in the first place. Create habits. Once something becomes a second nature, you’ll find it difficult to forget it, even if you want to. But making habits is a gradual learning process, and you can form too many habits at once. So if you’re forgetful of reciting surah al-Kahf on Fridays, plan to make it a habit. Fix a specific time for it and make conscious effort to continue doing it for a few weeks. Soon your own natural alarm system will catch up on you and take over the reminder-setting task, in sha Allah. https://iou-russia.com/instructors/zahra-anwer-copy-copy-copy-copy-copy-copy/# https://youtube.com/shorts/PjzwOyNV8hA?si=KsNVmAsU_Y0ZChO8

The definition of belief in the Qur'an is complete devotion to Allah and Allah alone. The Hereafter is absolutely inescapable. The believer is devoted to Allah because he knows he will certainly give an account of everything he did in the world. Everything a person owns in the world such as health, intelligence, beauty, wealth, career, good standards of living, spouse, children, and other blessings such as food and clothing are all from Allah and is defined by Allah down to the finest detail. There is no provider other than Allah. The true believer knows this undeniable fact and so loves and glorifies Allah ceaselessly. Surely the one who has given everything is deserving of the greatest love and respect. He never dares to attribute the source of these blessings to any worldly being, to himself, or anyone else, nor does he love any being as he loves Allah. “Allah is most compassionate and most merciful to mankind” (Qur’an 22:65) When people forget Allah and pay no heed to the true religion, they begin to love and chase after objects in life thinking they exist independent of Allah, deceived into thinking that these objects have an existence outside of Allah, who is the One who actually originates them. In Quranic terms, being devoted to objects independent of Allah is associating partners with Allah. "...Then, when We grant him a blessing from Us he says, 'I have only been given this because of my knowledge.' In fact it is a trial but most of them do not know it." (Qur'an 39:49) Love for Allah "The believing men and the believing women, they are the friends of one another. They command what is right and forbid what is wrong.” (Qur’an 9:71) For a believer, the good things in life given to him or her by Allah, are merely ways to get nearer to Allah. He does this by praising Allah for each and every blessing no matter how disguised it may be. For example, the believer is grateful to Allah for his healthy heart and eyes, this leads him to work more righteously in life as Allah requires him to do so. If he 'loves' anything or any being in life, he does so only so he can increase in his love for Allah and to render thanks to Him. Indeed, that is the purpose of all the blessings Allah has provided people. For example, the believer may love his spouse, this makes him thank and love Allah even more and in no way does he consider this love to have originated from any other than Allah. It is all from Allah. In this way, everything on earth is given to us so we can be more devoted to Allah, and follow His commands as described in the Qur'an. "He said, Mary, who gave you all this? She said, 'they are all from Allah'..." (Qur'an 3:37) If the believer looses anyone or anything of attachment in the world, he really has not lost anything so long as he has love for Allah and continues to be devoted to Him. When love for objects or human figures, living or of the past, take an independent standing outside the realm of Allah, a person's purpose of living is faulty and he is only following his own vain desires and not Allah. For instance, a person acquires material wealth without duly thanking Allah or a person who ‘idolises’ an individual due to love for that person outside and beyond the love of Allah, for instance, celebrities, football players, family, scientists, and religious figures. “Have you considered the one who has taken his own desire as his god? Allah has, knowing him as such, allowed to be strayed? Sealing his ears and heart and covering his eyes – who can guide such a person after Allah has done this? Will you not take heed?” (Qur’an 45:23) The believer’s only motive on earth is to earn the good pleasure of Allah and only Allah’s approval, no one else’s. Having now seen the kind of superior understanding of faith and way of life of a true believer, it becomes easier to see that disbelievers are always committing great wrong when they consume Allah's blessings without making it a way to increase in love of Allah and draw nearer to Allah. Indeed, they are arrogant about accepting Allah as the originator of the blessings and deny Him altogether. They begin to venerate human beings and themselves for every blessing they are given and chase after objects thinking they are outside of Allah's originating power. Allah explains this in the Qur'an: "Yet, there are those who chose to worship others beside Allah as rivals to Him, loving them as they should love Allah, but the believers have greater love for Allah" (Qur'an 2:165) Love for Allah Knowing that Allah is the source of every single blessing on earth, the true believer derives the greatest pleasure from the worldly blessings Allah has provided for him, while also earning Allah's Paradise in the Hereafter. The hidden idolatry committed by most people is because their hearts do not reflect on the Qur'an which calls them to true faith by providing necessary lessons and admonitions. They therefore have given themselves no possibility of bringing themselves to true faith. Only the Qur'an explains to people the true sense of faith. Unfortunately, this form of hidden idolatry we are discussing is not just restricted to disbelievers. Even many so-called Muslims, who think they are practising religion, also fall into this hidden idolatry. For example, some Muslims profess their love for Prophet Muhammad readily and are full of praises and glory for the Prophet. Amazingly, the same does not hold true for Allah. Upon a closer analysis, we find that their case is no different from all the other ignorant people who fail to accept true faith in Allah and fail to love and glorify Allah independent of anything else. "When you mention your Lord alone using the Qur'an, they turn their backs and run away." (Qur'an 17:46) Islam is purely and simply a complete surrendering of ones soul to the Almighty Creator and His purpose in Creation. This is actually a comprehension more than anything else. Only the Qur'an provides accurate information on how to attain true faith and comprehension, which is free of corruption, the kind required by Allah in order to be successful in the Hereafter. All Muslims must make sincere attempts to understand what true faith is by taking serious responsibility to study faith directly from the Qur'an, before it is too late. Until a person does this, there can be no chance of true faith. https://faith.consulting/provider/nabwy-mostafa https://youtube.com/shorts/PjzwOyNV8hA?si=KsNVmAsU_Y0ZChO8

There is a prevalent culture among Muslims where they only view the Qur'an as a way of gaining reward for reciting out loud the Arabic words correctly. Such people think that they hold the Qur'an in high esteem, but this only keeps them away from studying the Qur'an as they should. Parents teach their children how to pronounce the Arabic words and send their children to evening schools to learn to recite the Qur'an correctly. Such people do not deny the importance of the Qur'an, but their idea of the role of the Qur'an is extremely mistaken and shallow. It is merely to either gain reward for each letter recited or to validate Salah by reciting some short chapters. Members of this majority group may even enjoy listening to recitations of the Qur'an, not because of the message in the verses, but to appreciate the melody, or for relaxation purposes! What Islam is, is merely everything else they hear outside of the Qur'an. Such people consider themselves highly religious, while they hold such an ignorant approach to the Qur'an. They recite the Qur'an frequently, but the recitation does not have any bearing on them. Then, they take all their religious guidance from outside the Qur'an - they think those practices amount to fulfilling their duty to the Qur'an. Many of such ignorant people's ideas and practices are even against what the Qur'an has to say, while they are not aware of it - or are aware of it but deliberately ignore thinking about it, laying excuses such as 'I am not knowledgeable enough' or 'I am a laymen, more knowledgeable people have said this, who are you and me to question?' Purple flowerThe real purpose of the Qur'an is to give guidance to the individual human being who has been created to worship Allah. The Qur'an's guidance is in its meanings, not in the pronunciations of its Arabic letters. The guidance of the Qur'an is a mercy, cure and light for the true believers as it reveals many unknown secrets such as Allah's power, reasons to happening of events around us, and the true nature of Allah's religion. The Qur'an has been necessarily made easy to understand. But this majority have been bereft from this blessing, all while they are deceived into thinking they are following religion perfectly as they are fulfilling their own idea of what the purpose of the Qur'an is. "We have sent down to you a Book containing your message. Do you not understand?" (Qur’an 21:10) Thinking one is fulfilling their obligations toward the Qur'an by simply carrying out rituals such as prayer and fasting, without making the effort to find out what the Qur'an actually says about religion is a great deception. This is because the Qur'an is a Book to reflect upon, to learn from and to gain the necessary insight and wisdom it gives to be a real believer, this is a duty upon anyone who wants to be a Muslim. One cannot possibly be a true Muslim without having necessary knowledge and understanding of the Qur'an. If one only learns about the Qur’an from books written about the Qur’an, written by people, and does not feel the necessity to learn from the Qur’an directly himself, he is only deceiving himself. Allah mentions this ignorant approach in the words, “Or do you have another book which you study?” (Qur’an 68:39). Worship based on make-believing that Qur'an is being followed in the flow of the majority and under blind trust of leaders without a personal attachment to the Qur'an and knowledge of the Qur'an, holds little or no value in Allah's sight. Koran beadsLet us ask ourselves: how much do we know about the Qur'an? Not superficial knowledge like the number of chapters or verses, or which city a chapter was revealed in, but the message in its verses and their many intricacies and secrets. How much wisdom have you gained from the Qur'an? Have you read the entire Qur'an even once in your own language? How many times a day do you refer to the verses of the Qur'an as you lead your day to day life? Are you sure whether any of your outlooks are from the Qur'an, or is your religion muddled? “The words of your Lord are complete in its truth and justice. Nothing can change His Words – He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. If you obeyed most of those on earth, they would lead you away from the path of Allah. They follow nothing but speculation – they are merely guessing.” (Qur’an 6:115-116) "This too, is a blessed Book which We have sent down – follow it, and be conscious of your Lord, so that you may receive mercy – lest you say, ‘Books were sent to two communities before us: we were not aware of what they studied’, or ‘if only the Book had been sent down to us, we would have been better guided than them.’ Now your Lord has brought you clear evidence, guidance, and mercy. Who could be more wrong than someone who rejects Allah’s Revelations and turns away from them? We shall repay those who turn away with a painful punishment." (Qur’an 6:155-157) It is clear that being heedless of the Qur'an will lead to losses in this life and the Hereafter as Allah will call all people into account their level of adherence to the Qur'an. “Surely, the One who decreed the Qur’an to you will summon you to a predetermined appointment. Say: 'My Lord is fully aware of who it is that brings the guidance, and who has gone astray.' " (Qur’an 28:85) As stated in the verse, all people are responsible for adhering to the way of life decreed by Allah in the Qur'an. Without direct knowledge of the verses, practising alleged claims about the Qur'an and following the majority, may not have any value in the sight of Allah. Many people who do not have any Quranic insight or wisdom spread claims about the Qur'an's verses which are a far cry from the verses' true meanings. They usually get away with it as their audience have also been conditioned to simply follow 'sayings' about the Qur'an, rather than the Qur'an. It is only when one opens his eyes and begins to comprehend the verses of Allah, can he begin to follow the Book of Allah and hope to become a true Muslim. "...Indeed there has come to you from Allah a Light and a Clear Book. With it Allah guides whoever follows His good pleasure to the ways of peace and brings them out from the darkness into the light by His permission: He guides them onto a straight path" (Qur'an 5:15-16) That is why all Muslims must consider their position in religion in relation to the Qur'an. Reciting the Qur'an without a sincere effort to understand the verses directly will not enlighten the human soul. Ask those who Know - Where is it in the Qur'an?

The majority of the people assume that if one understands the Arabic language, it means he is capable of understanding the Qur'an. They are also quick to dismiss anyone who has a point to make about the Quran's verses, if they are not an Arab or do not speak Arabic. A consistent feature of these sorts of people is that they themselves know little about the Qur'an because they never attempt to research the Qur'an directly. This is because of an intentionally induced inferiority complex of not knowing Arabic which gives them the excuses they need to stay distant from the Qur'an, as well as due to some other vain excuses. They never attempt to understand the verses of the Qur'an themselves. All of their views on the Qur'an are formed entirely by following other people and texts written by those whose trust they assume. They have only read the Qur'an's verses in text books in the context created by their trusted writers, or otherwise read the Arabic verses in ritualistic recitation, or in prayer without understanding them. Sometimes, he feels he has done enough by reading the translation of the few verses he recites frequently in prayer. As stated above, their excuse is that the Qur’an is not in their language and only an Arab or an Arabic speaker can understand the verses. The truth is however far from their mistaken beliefs. A believer can understand the Qur'an and live by it even while possessing little or no Arabic knowledge. Surah Al-FatihaHistory is witness to many people who are proficient in the Arabic language, yet made very twisted and perverted interpretations of the Qur'an, all while they are accepted to be well skilled by the majority. The majority being the group we have identified above. These interpreters of the Qur'an consider themselves Muslims, yet made countless erroneous interpretations - even while knowing Arabic. This begs the question, does knowing Arabic mean one can understand the Qur’an? The disbelievers of Makkah were expert in the language of the Qur'an, but they did not understand many of the concepts and similitudes of the Qur'an. They thus rejected it as being words of a madman. What one needs to comprehend is that understanding the Qur'an means to understand correctly what is being told in the verses, the concepts, lessons, signs, admonitions metaphors and imagery. All of these aspects of the Qur'an hold true regardless of the language used. When one does not understand the Qur'an, that is, makes erroneous interpretations, he is incapable of understanding these lessons, admonitions and true purposes of the verses. One may even be in possession of great Arabic skills, yet be incapable of understanding the verses due to his or her lack of comprehension of what is being told in the verses. We can compare this with the following scenario. Imagine you are explaining a concept to someone in perfect English. The person you are explaining to can also understand English perfectly. However, due to a lack of comprehension on their part, that person fails to understand what you are explaining to them despite your perfect explanations in English and their ability to understand the language. Likewise, the same can be said about the Qur'an. Even an expert Arabic speaker may well be incapable of understanding and interpreting the verses correctly as a direct result of that missing comprehension. This comprehension is given by Allah to whoever He pleases. A verse identifies this: "...But the disbelievers say, 'what does Allah mean by such a similitude?' Through it, Allah misguides many and He also guides many. But He misguides only the rebels." (Qur'an 2:26) The comprehension we have mentioned is actually a gift from Allah to His sincere believers only. A believer who does not know Arabic may be endowed with this ability to understand the Qur'an. When the verses of the Qur'an are explained to him by another true believer in his language, he grasps them correctly, even though he does not know Arabic. And it is probable that a person fluent in Arabic could not understand the same verses correctly even in his own language. Skill in the Arabic language did not afford him the true interpretations of Allah’s verses, and so he remained bereft of Allah’s guidance. Another person who is a more sincere believer could understand the verses, even though he did not speak the language of the Qur'an. Allah explains this 'veiling of perception' in a verse: Quran close-up"When you recite the Qur'an, we place an invisible barrier between you and those who do not believe in the life to come. We have put covers on their hearts that prevents them from understanding it, and heaviness in their ears." (Qur'an 17:45-46) That is why a true believer can live by the Qur'an without knowing Arabic. It is true that a non-Arabic speaking believer will need to overcome the obstacle of language, but with his sincerity and motivation, he overcomes them without difficulty. Today, there are many translations of the Qur'an available in almost any language. It is possible to draw a fairly accurate understanding of the Qur'an by studying different translations. In conclusion, people who speak Arabic do not automatically posses the comprehension to understand the meanings of the Verses of the Qur’an. The comprehension is given by Allah to whom He wills regardless of ones language. All people who consider themselves Muslim must not hide behind excuses from gaining a first-hand understanding of the Book revealed by Allah, which is a guide, mercy and cure for them if they only make the effort to understand it themselves. Allah has held everyone responsible for adhering to the Qur'an, regardless of their spoken languages.

An ijazah (Arabic: الإِجازَة ‎) is a certificate used primarily by Sunni Muslims to indicate that one has been authorized by a higher authority to transmit a certain subject or text of Islamic knowledge. This usually implies that the student has learned this knowledge through face-to-face interactions “at the feet” of the teacher. At our institute the Ijazah is limited to recitation of the Qur’an only. This program enables students to get one-on-one Tajweed and Hifz coaching from a member of our certified Hifz instructors. There is no age limit on attendance of this program and it is mostly used by older students. The current student base age ranges from 9 years old to 60 years old. The convenience offered with this program is that the students can be taught phone or via Skype according to their personal choice. The goal of is for students to graduate with full memorization of the whole Qur’an with excellent Tajweed and become certified to teach others themselves. https://faith.consulting/provider/nabwy-mostafa