IQ: Introduce Qur’an

We introduce Qur'an to young learners through pointers (group of ayahs), where each pointer has a topic. Learners experience stories, pictorial word meanings, sketching, recitations and many more.

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Inspiration

200-300 million non-Arab kids don’t know what they read when they start reading the Qur'an (Nazera Qur’an, the learning to recite Qur'an without understanding it). Computational tools like apps can help young learners feel connected to the meanings of the Qur'an. Also, these tools can make the learning process for young children much more effective.

What it does

Our goal is to build a tool that can help a young learner feel connected to what he/she reads from the Qur'an. To achieve this goal, we divide a page into a number of pointers, where a pointer is a group of consecutive verses with a common theme or topic. A young learner is introduced to Qur'an pointer by pointer. The learner can read or view a story related to a pointer theme, listen recitations to the ayahs in the pointer, listen recitations of each word or a number of consecutive words, can see the meanings of words with suitable pictures and enlarged word image, sketch words, and so on.

The goal is to have an introduction to a pointer in a few minutes. Please note that this is not a tafseer for children. The purpose is not to explain the verses but to read this part to a young learner (or record videos of this) before he/she starts reading the Qur’an so that he/she gets some idea of what is being read. We can’t convey the whole meanings in this small duration. However, the young learner will be reminded that in future years, he/she will InshaAllah learn the full meanings of the Qur’an.

How we built it

As a team, we have years of experience in teaching Qur'anic lessons to specially non-Arab audiences. In addition, we have developed applications and tools for Qur'an memorization and revision. Based on the experience, we have realized that there are basically no suitable app that helps young learners to connect to Qur'an, when they begin their journey with the Qur'an. With our computational tools used in the previous works, learning strategies developed over the years and research in image processing and speech recognition, we have developed the initial prototype for our dream project 'Introduce Qur'an'.

Challenges we ran into

We want to show the exact mushaf pages that are printed in real life. That will connect the app to the life experience directly. Also, to touch words in ayahs in images was a big challenge. Thanks to image processing techniques, we can now touch a word in any ayah using the images of the same mushaf pages.

Another big challenge is collecting suitable content (stories, explanation, examples), images and animated videos for different pointers. The overall division of pages based on pointers are completed, however, the creation of stories and animated videos with suitable pictures for words remains a challenging task. In the prototype, we have created these content for a small number of pointers. Creating such content for the whole Qur'an remains as a big project.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are alhamdulillah proud that we are addressing a vital task where virtually no extensive work has been done so far. We do not know of any suitable Qur'an app (especially for non-Arab children) that focuses on connecting the children with the Qur'an. When young learners are connected to the meanings from Qur'an, step by step, with lessons and stories, they would feel much more motivated, in-sha-Allah. In the prototype, we have demonstrated some key features that can enhance the learning process of young learners.

What we learned

The content for young children related to Qur'anic stories (especially for non-Arabs) and relevant pictures are not readily available. Also, the UI design for kids is a challenge. In addition, some ideas are excellent, but sometimes the development tools are limited to implement them.

What's next for IQ: Introducing the Qur’an

There are SO MANY features that we need and want to bring in!

The immediate work that needs to be completed is: content creation. This is a massive work, as we need to write stories for each pointer-topic, create animated videos from stories, select suitable pictures for different Qur'anic words, etc.

We have developed the needed framework, with the mushaf page segmentation and word level interactions. We need to design a UI suitable for children, in a way that makes the kids proud of their Islamic legacy.

A key point in child education is motivation. Children can learn much faster and effectively when they see other children learning with them, when they see other children like them are achieving success. Through our app, we want to connect the young learners with each other, so the learners feel that they are not alone on this path. There are many ways through which this goal can be achieved. Among them, we want to add recitations by kids, learning-stories of kids and children, young learners sharing their experiences, and so on.

In addition to the above, we want to add themes suitable for different age groups, basic grammar suitable for kids, step-by-step recitation of words or connected words, building specialized mushaf for young learners, Arabic writing tools, etc.

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