Hafidh of the Qur'an. Diploma in Arabic Language Teaching, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah — graded 90% (Excellent). One student, one teacher, from your first letter through to reciting, memorising, and understanding the Book in its own language.
Jibreal, UK — learning to read from zero. In his own words, not a script. See why, specifically →
One-to-one, never groups. A real limit, not a marketing one UK · Europe · North America friendly Beginners welcome Personalised plans — quoted around your goals 14-day refund if you change your mind Not a marketplace — one named teacher, always
Not ready for lessons yet?
Start with Reconnect With The Qur'an — a free 7-page booklet for when you still believe, but feel far. Sent to your WhatsApp.
Finished Book 1 — Madinah Arabic ReaderFinished Sūrah al-Kahf — his first time everNow reads the Qur'an with real understandingReading with real confidence, starting from zero
Every student gets a personal Hifdh tracker — the whole muṣḥaf, page by page, marked as it settles in your heart. Not “I think I'm around Juz 25.” The actual, real number, always in front of you.
It can't catch a mispronounced letter, or tajwīd slipping quietly in — that's still what the lessons are for. But tracking your own progress, honestly and clearly, is free from day one.
Illustrative example
254 of 604 pages memorised
Memorised · In progress · Not yet started
Our programs
A path, not just a menu.
Every plan is one to one. How many lessons a week is entirely up to your schedule and budget, not ours. Most students follow this order — tell us where you're starting from.
Step 1For absolute beginners
Qaidah An-Nooraniyah
Starts at the letters and builds up. No shame in starting at zero — most students do.
30-minute lessons, however often suits your schedule and budget
Practice assignments to work through before each lesson
Progress tracked by reading speed and accuracy
What free content misses
Free apps teach the letters. They can't hear that you're mispronouncing a makhraj — you can repeat the same mistake for months before anyone catches it.
Monthly subscription
Step 2For reading beautifully
Qur'an Reading & Tajweed
You practice the rules of tajweed letter by letter. Ayah by ayah, until it becomes natural.
30-minute lessons, weekly or more — whatever fits your life
Weekly homework recording, reviewed and corrected
Before and after recordings, so you hear your own progress
What free content misses
Free Tajweed content is everywhere, and it can teach you the rule. It can't tell you that you personally aren't applying it — that gap only shows up when someone actually listens to you recite.
Monthly subscription
Step 3For memorising the Qur'an
Hifdh Coaching
Once your reading is solid, you get a personal memorisation plan. We review and adjust it together every week.
30-minute lessons, weekly or more — whatever fits your life, plus a recorded correction
A clear revision schedule to follow between lessons
Monthly mastery test across everything memorised
What free content misses
Self-testing has a real, well-known blind spot — verses you half-know always feel more solid than they are until someone else tests you on them, not you.
Monthly subscription · together or separately with Arabic for Islamic Studies
Step 3For strong Qur'an readers, ready to go deeper
Arabic for Islamic Studies
Once your Qur'an reading is solid, you start real classical Arabic. It's the same course taught at the Islamic University of Madinah — just spread gently across 8 books instead of 3.
30-minute lessons, weekly or more — whatever fits your life, checkpoint by checkpoint
Madinah Arabic Reader, Book 1 through Book 8
Followed by A Commentary on al-Ājrūmiyyah, in English
What free content misses
A free course can teach you that the mudāf ilayh takes a kasra. It can't tell you that you specifically keep putting a fatḥah there instead — until that becomes the way you read, permanently.
For students who've memorised, and want to keep it — and read it fluently.
30-minute sessions, weekly or more, focused on revision technique
A clear Juz-by-Juz revision plan
Time-stamped corrections on your recordings
What free content misses
Practicing alone doesn't catch drift — the small errors that creep into memorised recitation over months without anyone there to notice they've crept in.
Monthly subscription
Separate trackFor families following the Saudi curriculum abroad
Saudi Islamic Studies Syllabus (Grades 1–9)
The official Saudi Ministry Islamic Studies curriculum, taught grade by grade. For families outside Saudi Arabia who want their children to keep pace with it.
30-minute lessons, following the official curriculum grade by grade
Previously taught full-time to four students in Ireland for a year
Now starting again with a new UK-based student
What free content misses
The textbooks themselves (كتبي) are free and online. What's missing outside a classroom is someone to explain what a child doesn't follow, check they've actually understood it, and keep them honestly on pace with their real grade level.
Monthly subscription
Most students take one path at a time — but if you'd like to combine two or more, we're happy to arrange a single personalised rate for both.
Tell us what you want to work on and how often — we'll message you back with a plan built specifically around your goals, not a number pulled from a price list.
Reciting it is the beginning. Understanding it is the point.
Learning to recite beautifully is a real achievement, and it comes first for a reason — fluent reading makes everything after it easier. But recitation was never meant to be the finish line. Allāh sent this Book down in Arabic so it could be understood, and a bond built only on sound is not complete. Understanding the meaning is the other half.
You can't connect to what you can't understand.
That's why Arabic isn't an optional extra here, or a separate course sold alongside. It's the second half of the same journey — the same classical path, taught in the same order students have followed for centuries: the Madinah Arabic Reader across eight books, then al-Ājrūmiyyah. Not conversational Arabic. The Arabic that opens the Book.
If any of this is familiar
Standing in prayer, reciting words you can't quite hold on to.
Tarawih, night after night, catching maybe a word here and there.
Making du'ā in English because the Arabic never became yours.
None of it means your faith is lacking. It means you have not yet learned the Arabic that would let you understand it fully.
You should know exactly what you're working through before you start. These are the same texts taught in classical institutions — studied in order, at your pace, with someone taking you through them page by page.
Stage 1
القاعدة النورانية
Qā'idah An-Nūrāniyyah
Before the Reader begins
The letters, their sounds, and joining them into words. Where every beginner starts, whatever their age.
Stage 2
دروس اللغة العربية
Madinah Arabic Reader
Books 1 – 8
The core of the Arabic track. Eight books, worked through in order — vocabulary, grammar and reading built up gradually rather than all at once.
Stage 3
الآجرومية
Al-Ājrūmiyyah
With commentary
The classical primer of Arabic grammar, taken up once the Reader is complete. Studied with a commentary, the way it has always been taught.
Qur'an, Tajweed and Hifdh run alongside this on their own track — see the full programme breakdown for how the two fit together.
From a real lesson
One rule. Half the Qur'an unlocked.
You can sound out the letters. You've probably been able to for years. But sounding out isn't understanding — and somewhere along the way, you stopped expecting to.
Every word in the Qur'an is doing something to the word next to it. Ayman wasn't shown what, either — until Lesson Five.
Ayman — Germany, on Lesson Five, unscripted.
Three of the ten lessons
01
هٰذا — "This"
Pointing at something and naming it. No "is," no "a" — Arabic sentences start bare.
Trip-up: The indefinite ending (tanwīn) is barely marked in normal print, so learners get used to nouns "sounding finished" without it — and can't hear it later when it matters.
05
Idāfa — how Arabic shows possession
Ayman's lesson
“Muhammad's book” — no apostrophe, no “of,” just word order and a vowel change. Behind a large share of Qur'anic phrasing.
Trip-up: The required case ending on the second word is almost never printed with vowel marks, so students often don't know there's a rule to get right — until someone listens and hears them get it wrong.
09
Adjectives as the whole sentence
“The book is old,” not “an old book” — a shift in definiteness that changes what the sentence is doing.
Trip-up: Confusing "an old book" with "the book is old" — they look almost identical on the page.
Lessons 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 & 10 are in the Roadmap below.
A fair question
"Why not just use the free ones?"
Free video courses of this exact book exist. They're genuinely good — same material, explained properly, at no cost. If you're someone who reliably finishes what they start alone, they might be all you need.
Most people who start a free video series don't finish it. Not because the material gets harder — because life gets in the way, and no one is expecting them on Tuesday at 6pm.
And a video can teach you that the mudāf ilayh takes a kasra. It can't tell you that you specifically keep putting a fatḥah there instead — until that becomes the way you read, permanently.
Same book. Someone checking your Idāfa in real time.
This is what that actually looks like — a real exercise, marked right and wrong as it happens. Not staged for the camera.
Free — sent to your WhatsApp
Your Book 1 Roadmap
All ten lessons, mapped — what each one covers and the specific place students trip without noticing. The same starting point Ayman had.
One Teacher · Since 2018
معهد الشريف
As-Sharif Institute
Qur'an · Tajweed · Arabic
Online · 1-on-1
Who you'll be learning from
Certified to teach it, not just to know it.
Most online Qur'an teachers are agencies. You pay them, they assign whoever is available, and you may never speak to the same person twice. This is different. One teacher, one student, every lesson — and that teacher's name, credentials, and chain of transmission are on this page for you to verify.
Faris is a Hafidh — not a self-given title, but a certified qualification, examined and scored 90% (Excellent) by an accredited body. His diploma in Arabic Language Teaching is from Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah, specifically for teaching non-native speakers. Both certificates are on this page, unredacted except for ID numbers.
Before any of those certificates, there were years of memorisation sessions at Masjid Al-Aziziyah in Jeddah — one of the oldest and most respected learning circles in the city — under more than one teacher, in the classical tradition of direct transmission. That chain goes back to the Prophet ﷺ. It is what distinguishes someone taught properly from someone who figured it out online.
The curriculum is the same one used at the Islamic University of Madinah — the Madinah Arabic Reader through all eight books, then al-Ājrūmiyyah. Most online Arabic courses stop at Book 2 or 3 and call it fluency. This goes all the way through. Explanations are kept in plain English by default, no idioms, no assumed fluency, so a student in Germany or Canada follows just as easily as someone in the UK.
Every student gets a personal Hifdh tracker — the full muṣḥaf, page by page, updated after every lesson. No other online teacher offers this. You always know exactly where you are, not roughly. That matters when you are trying to memorise something you plan to carry for the rest of your life.
Qur'an
Taught by a Hafidh who completed the memorisation himself and sat the examination for it, so the corrections come from someone who has walked the whole road.
Tajweed
Certified to teach Qaida An-Nooraniyah, the method built precisely for getting the letters right before anything else is layered on top.
Arabic
Madinah Arabic Reader through all eight books, then al-Ājrūmiyyah. The same classical sequence, taught by someone trained in delivering it to non-native speakers.
Led by
Ustādh Faris Sharif
Fluent in Arabic, English, Urdu and Hindi, Faris works with students from their very first letter through to full memorisation. Teaching follows the Qur'an and Sunnah, upon the understanding of the Salaf.
“I'd rather you truly own one page than rush through ten. The Qur'an isn't a race.”
When a student stumbles, the question isn't just what they got wrong. It's why. A shaky word is often a vocabulary gap, a lost place, or last week's page not fully settled. Find the real cause, and the mistake usually doesn't come back.
Completed Intermediate studies — Dar Al-Hadith Al-Khairiyah, Makkah
Hafidh of the Qur'an — certified, 90% (Excellent)
Certified to teach Qaida An-Nooraniyah — Furqan Group for Education & IT
Diploma in Arabic Language Teaching for Non-Native Speakers — Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah
Bachelor's student, Faculty of Sharī'ah, distance learning — Islamic University of Madinah
The chain of transmission
In the Islamic tradition, knowledge of the Qur'an is not self-taught or acquired from books alone. It is passed directly from teacher to student, in an unbroken chain that goes back to the Prophet ﷺ himself. This is called the isnād, and it is what distinguishes a properly transmitted recitation from someone who simply memorised on their own.
Before any of the certificates above, Faris spent years in memorisation sessions at Masjid Al-Aziziyah in Jeddah — one of the oldest learning circles in the city — under more than one teacher. What he teaches, he received directly. What he received was transmitted across an unbroken chain going back to the Prophet ﷺ. That is what you are connecting to when you learn here.
2016
Began at Dar Al-Hadith
Years of memorisation, under more than one teacher, at Masjid Al-Aziziyah, Jeddah.
2018
Began teaching
As-Sharif Institute formalised what had already begun.
2020
Certified to teach
Qaida An-Nooraniyah, Furqan Group for Education & IT.
Shared directly by students, with their permission.
Real students, across 6countries — every outcome below is a student's own words, not a summary.
Finished Book 1 — Madinah Arabic Reader
“I just finished the first book of Madinah Arabic Reader with Ustadh Faris, and it went really well. He explained things clearly and made sure everything was easy to follow.”
Hamza Sohaib · USA
Read Al-Fātiḥah and a page of Al-Baqarah, on his own
“Last night around 2 AM, I grabbed my Arabic Qur'an and subhannallah with already what you have taught me I was able to read surah al Fatiha and a page of Surah al Baqarah, slowly but I got there in the end.”
Ismael (Flavio) · UK · revert
Recitation and memorisation both strengthened
“I really appreciate the lessons given by Ustadh, he explains very well and simply the concepts of tajweed, he helped me a lot to better my recitation and to strengthen my memorization.”
Mansour · France · revert
Now reads the Qur'an with real understanding
“Now when I read the Qur'an, I understand much more of it. Even when I read normal text, I find myself understanding so much better. Truly the best lessons I've ever had in Arabic.”
Amir Niazi · Germany
Finished Sūrah al-Kahf — his first time ever
“After these lessons I have been able to finish Sūrah al-Kahf for the first time in my life. I was never able to get close to finishing it. And my relationship with the Qur'an has gotten way stronger.”
Berkay · Netherlands
His son's tajweed has improved
“My honest review about the lessons so far is that Zakariya has improved in his tajweed, Alhamdulillah.”
Abu Zakariya Hussain Said · UK · parent
Says the teaching style is ideal for beginners
“I really think these classes are helping me learn Arabic properly. The teacher always asks if I'm understanding, and asks me questions which jog my memory on things I can't remember. Overall, his style of teaching is very beneficial for beginners trying to learn.”
Muhammad Faateh · USA
Reading with real confidence, starting from zero
“I feel more confident with reading now. I want to get to the point where I don't struggle at all, and with you, Alhamdulillah, I think I'll get there. So far, so good.”
Most people who stall with the Qur'an aren't lazy. They downloaded the app, bought the mushaf, made the intention, and meant every word of it. Then a week got busy, and there was nobody who noticed they'd stopped.
That's not a character flaw. It's what happens to everyone without a person on the other side of it. Learning the Qur'an has never been a solo activity — it was passed from a teacher's voice to a student's ear, in a set place, at a set time, with someone waiting.
“No matter how حريصyou are — however eager, however sincere — if you don't have someone expecting you, it doesn't hold in the long term.”
I say that as someone who sat in madrasa five days a week, three hours a day, for years. Even then, what kept it going was never willpower on its own — it was a teacher who noticed when I didn't show up.
A set time, every week
Not whenever you get around to it. A slot in your week that already has your name on it.
Homework that gets checked
Sent after every lesson, reviewed at the next one. Nothing disappears into the gap between sessions.
Someone who notices
If you go quiet, you'll hear from us. That's the part an app has never been able to replace.
Said plainly, not as a selling point
What we don't do.
Trust isn't a feature to advertise — it's tested by what happens when nobody's watching. Here's what that actually looks like here, named plainly instead of left for you to hope is true.
No manufactured urgency
One teacher genuinely has a limited number of students he can take at once — that's stated as what it actually is, not dressed up as a countdown.
No discount games
The rate you're quoted isn't inflated so it can be 'reduced' for you. If there's a real constraint, that's a personal conversation — never a marketing tactic.
Every testimonial is real, and consented
Named students, their own words, permission asked before anything is shared — on camera, in writing, every time.
No automated chasing
You won't get bulk WhatsApp follow-ups. If you don't reply, that's respected, not pursued.
Free means free
The guide, the Tajweed Companion sample, the roadmap — nothing is a bait-and-switch for a harder pitch later.
How lessons work
From first salaam to first lesson.
Every plan is personal, so there's no fixed price. We agree it together before anything begins.
01
You reach out
Answer a few quick questions, or message us on WhatsApp directly — whichever you prefer.
02
We talk it through
Your goals, your level, and how often you'd like to learn.
03
We agree your plan
A plan shaped around you. Nothing starts until you're happy with it.
04
We sort out payment
The method that suits you best. Monthly, if that's easier. A genuine constraint is a conversation, not a negotiation.
05
Your lessons begin
One teacher, just for you. Online, one-to-one, on a platform you know.
A few quick questions helps us match you with the right plan — and reply at the right pace.
Most people who mean to start never do — not for lack of sincerity, but because there was never a set time and no one expecting them. Six questions is where that changes.
Question 1 of 6
A little about you
A glimpse from page one
A familiar evening.
It's almost midnight. The house is finally quiet. You're lying in bed with your phone, halfway through a video you won't remember tomorrow.
Your mushaf is on the shelf across the room. Same place it's been since last Ramadan. You scroll past a clip of a qari reciting Surah Ar-Rahman. For a few seconds, something tightens in your chest. Not quite guilt. More like seeing an old friend you've been avoiding.
This isn't a faith problem. You still pray. You still believe. The bond is still there. It's just buried under tabs and deadlines and group chats, and a world that doesn't slow down for anything holy.
Nobody built this bond for you here. There is no adhan calling from a nearby mosque, no grandfather reading Qur'an on the porch each evening, nothing around you that naturally pulls you back to the Book. In the West, you have to build that bond yourself, on purpose.
The longer we wait, the harder it gets to come back.
But here is the mercy. Allah is not counting your distance. He is waiting for your return.
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ
“And when My servants ask you concerning Me, indeed I am near.”
Surah Al-Baqarah · 2:186
The booklet keeps going from here. Six more pages. The four reasons we put it off, the five steps to reconnecting with the Qur'an, and a 7-day starter.
What's inside the booklet
A short read. Then a plan you can start.
It's a 12-minute read. Open it tonight, on your phone. By tomorrow you'll have a clear path to start.
I.See
Where you actually are
Why the Qur'an feels far, even when you still believe. What a busy life is quietly costing you. And why this isn't a faith problem.
Why this isn't a faith problem
Something no app or playlist can fix
Why nothing else can replace this Book
Pages 02 · 03
II.Believe
Four reasons we put it off
The four things we tell ourselves to put it off, and why none of them actually hold up.
Why putting it off never works
Why none of these reasons hold up
Real proof from the Qur'an and Sunnah
Page 04
III.Act
Five steps, in order
A short, simple way back. The same path we walk every new student through. Includes a 7-day starter sheet you can print.
The single most important first step
A system that doesn't rely on willpower
A 7-day starter, ready to print
Pages 05 · 07
The whole booklet · free
You can read all 7 pages tonight.
Get it below — we'll WhatsApp you the PDF.
For students already reading Qur'an
Already reading? Perfect your tajweed.
The Tajweed Companion is the actual curriculum reference our students use — every core rule, worked in full, with real Qur'anic examples and visual rule-maps instead of dense tables. Not a taster. The real thing.
It also shows you exactly where the rules alone run out — 14 real, documented cases in Hafs's recitation that no written guide can fully teach. That's not a gap we're hiding. It's the honest reason this is a companion to a teacher, not a replacement for one.
Ustādh Faris Sharif · As-Sharif Institute
