Quran Kareem

About the project

Anyone who wants to read the Quran on a phone usually faces two poor options. Either the app shows each page as a flat picture, so no verse can be copied, nothing can be searched, and tapping a word tells you nothing; or it shows the text in its own layout, which breaks the visual memory readers build of where a verse sits on the page. And the moment a reader pauses at a verse and wants its meaning explained, or wants it in another language, they leave the app for a website or a printed book, and the reading is interrupted all over again. This app opens on exactly the page a reader already knows: 604 pages in the Madinah Mushaf script, in the Hafs reading and the classical Uthmani spelling, turned one by one like paper. A short tap on a verse brings up a small card with its details without covering the page, and a long press opens a full panel holding the verse's explanation, its translation into another language, and the historical occasion of its revelation. The reader stays exactly where they were instead of hopping between apps. What makes it practical is that the script is real text rather than an image, so a verse can be copied and shared as it is. From the library section the reader downloads only what they want: eight explanations of the verses in Arabic and English, nine translations of the meanings in English and Turkish, and the revelation accounts. More than one explanation or translation can be selected at once so they appear side by side when a verse is opened, making comparison a single glance. The interface itself is available in Arabic, English and Turkish, while the Mushaf page always stays right to left whatever language the reader chooses. Two real constraints shaped the work. Downloading every explanation and translation at once would have been far too heavy, so each one is a separate optional download and a reader only carries what they actually read. The second was the special pages: the opening chapter, the start of the second chapter and the short closing chapters had lines stretching across the screen and losing the shape of the printed page, so their layout was corrected to sit line for line as it does on paper. Today the app runs on phone, desktop and the web, with the complete Mushaf, the commentaries, the translations, the revelation accounts and a contact and sharing page, and it has not yet been released publicly on the stores. Next come recited audio with a choice of reciter, and the ability to switch between Mushaf editions from the settings.