ITQAN: A Mobile Based Assistant for Mastering Quran Memorization

The Holy Quran forms one of the basis of the Islam religion. Prophet Mohammed "peace be upon him" asked Moslems to pay attention to The Holy Quran by learning the Quran texts and understanding the Quran meaning. The Holy Quran consists of 114 chapters which is called a sura (plural: suwar). Each sura is divided into verses. Currently, there are many applications released in the market to facilitate the Quran memorization process. However, these applications are still limited and focus only on the direct use of technology without using more innovative techniques to help Quran memorizers to interact, memorize, understand and connect with the topics in the Quran. This paper will shed the light on ITQAN, a mobile-based application, which has been developed for helping memorizers to master their memorization skills by taking advantage of the "Topical Interpretation" of the Quran that utilizes visualization techniques such as mind mapping to connect the various verses with each other and their topics, and display them in an orderly manner. ITQAN was developed for Android platform using Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE), Android developer tools (ADT) plug-in and Android software development kit (SDK). The application was tested on twenty subjects from the "Dar Makah" Quran memorization school. The results showed that 85% of the students found the application useful in remembering the learned verses and memorization while 80% found the application useful in retaining their interest in the completion of the Quran memorization.