About

 About the Noorani Qaidah Program

Mastering the art of Qur’anic recitation and the rules of tajweed is no easy task for any Muslim, particularly if Arabic is not his or her native language.

This well-known program has been a staple of tajweed students for over 2 decades, and has proved immensely successful throughout the world due to its incredible effectiveness and comprehensive methodology. It is highly effective for non-Arabic speakers as well as native Arabic speakers; children as well as adults.
You do not need to know one word of Arabic in order to master this program and when you have completed all of the lessons you will be able to read and recite the Qur’an from cover to cover. The Noorani Qai’dah program follows an easy, gradual system from a beginner’s level to intermediate and through to advanced. It includes the Noorani Qai’dah book and the accompanying set of 6 CDs.

The Noorani Qai’dah book uses the ‘Uthmani script as handwritten by the renowned calligrapher ‘Uthman Taha, who also beautifully penned the internationally distributed Mushaf al-Madina (Qur’an) by King Fahd Qur’anic Complex.

It starts with the Arabic alphabet and how to connect the letters, then proceeds to short and long vowels, small words, vowel-less letters, doubled letters (shaddah), short sentences from the Qur’an, application of tajweed rules, and special observations for reciting according to Hafs ‘an ‘Aasim by way of Shattabiyyah.

The CD set is an integral part of the Noorani Qai’dah program. In the CDs, Sheikh Muhammad ar Raee (More about Sheikh here) provides learners with clear, accurate and complete modeling of every single lesson in the book. The sheikh says every lesson with “spell-reading” and without spell-reading (More about Spell-Reading here).
Following along in the book, the learner listens to Sheikh ar Raee’s voice on the CD, and then is given a pause to repeat after the sheikh. In the classroom setting, the CDs reinforce proper pronunciation and spell-reading techniques once taught by the teacher, and should be used as a practice tool during class.
Listening to the CDs should form the basis of daily review and practice at home. We recommend students use the CDs to review previous lessons and practice current lessons for at least 20 minutes every day.

Spell Reading

Spell-reading is an effective tool for teaching non-readers how to read. It is an essential part of the Noorani Qa’idah program, from beginning to end. The Noorani Qai’dah program features a balance of both spell-reading and reading-without-spell-reading. Sometimes it might be tempting to drop the spell-reading part, especially as the student gains facility in reading without spell-reading. However, spell-reading should not be dropped along the way before the program has been completed.Spell-reading not only teaches how to read, it provides a tool for integrating the tajweed rules into the same process — i.e. how to read with tajweed altogether. So, there is no need to first learn how to read Arabic, and then go back again and learn how to read Arabic with proper tajweed. Further, using the spell-reading tool eliminates the problem of “guessing” when reading from the Mushaf (Qur’an).

Even after the Noorani Qai’dah program has been completed and the student is reading from the Mushaf, he or she will come across a difficult or unfamiliar word or phrase, especially in the beginning. At that point, if the spell-reading tool has been mastered, it can still be used with confidence to figure out how to accurately read – with tajweed – any word or phrase in the Mushaf.
On the other hand, students who have not learned how to spell-read the entire Noorani Qai’dah book will often resort to guessing – and unfortunately often guessing wrong – in such a situation. Again, the Noorani Qai’dah program features a balance of both spell-reading and reading-without-spell-reading. We urge teachers and students using this program to keep up the spell-reading part until the very end of the program.