Tahaddi · the rulesHow to play

A card game for the whole table, in the spirit of Hitster. Scan a card and a passage of the Qur'an is recited. Name the surah and take a pearl card. Then stop, or go for the card itself: recite on from where the reciter stopped, give the juz, then the ayah number. All three right and the card is yours. Miss one, and the others may call Tahaddi.

2 to 10 players, or teams · ages 6 and up · 30 to 45 minutes · one phone, no app, no account

The decks

300 Qur'an cards in three colours, with every surah on at least one card, and four story decks that play the same way, with questions drawn from Buruja's library.

Setting up

• · Begin together with Bismillah.
• · Shuffle each deck and lay the piles out: green, blue, red, and the story decks.
• · Put the 40 pearl cards in a pile in the middle. Everyone starts with none.
• · Open Play on one phone. It plays the cards and asks the questions, and keeps no score: the cards and pearl cards in front of you are the score.

A turn

1. 1

   Pick a pile

   A green card won is worth 3, blue 5, red 10, a story card 5. Pick the risk you want. A Beginner plays green and chooses the surah from three options.

2. 2

   The Checker scans

   The player on your left is your Checker. They draw from your pile and scan the card's code, or type it. A Qur'an card plays its passage, which may be replayed once. A story card shows a clue for the Checker to read aloud.

3. 3

   Name it, for a pearl

   Name the surah (in Arabic, in English, or by its number), or the moment, the prophet, the companion, the meaning. Right: the Checker says "Ahsant", which means "well done", and you take a pearl card. It is yours to keep. Wrong: Tahaddi.

4. 4

   The bonus, for another pearl

   Straight after comes a two-way question. On a Qur'an card: Meccan or Medinan? Right, and you take another pearl card. Wrong costs nothing, and it is not a miss.

5. 5

   Stop, or go for the card

   Stop, keep your pearls, and the card goes back into the middle of the deck. Or answer the card's three questions in order: recite on from where the reciter stopped, the juz, and the ayah number. A Beginner answers just the first.

6. 6

   Win the card

   All of them right, and the card is yours: keep it in front of you. One miss, and it is Tahaddi. Either way you keep the pearls you took.

Tahaddi

Tahaddi means challenge. A miss on the name, or on any of the card's questions, opens it.

• · It goes round to the left, starting with the player after the Checker. Each player says "Tahaddi!" and answers, or passes.
• · The challenger carries on as if it were their turn, from the question that was missed. On a missed name, that means naming it, taking the pearl, then stopping or going for the card.
• · All right, and the challenger wins the card. A miss, and it moves on to the next player.
• · Calling costs nothing, and each player gets one try per card.
• · The Checker never calls Tahaddi: they hold the phone and have seen the answers.
• · If nobody gets it, the card goes back into the middle of the deck. It will come back.

The end of the game

The 40 pearl cards are the clock. When the last one is taken, finish the round, so that everyone has had the same number of turns; the rest of that round is played for cards only. Then everyone adds up what they hold, and the most points wins.

A tie goes to the player who won the most cards.

Ways to play

Adab: respect, built in

The game should feel like a way to learn and remember the Qur'an, never like a toy made of it.

• Begin with Bismillah. Say it together before the first card. For the player who recites on, the Qur'an itself says how a recitation begins: "When you recite the Qur'an, seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the outcast" (16:98).
• Listen first. When the Qur'an is recited, listen to it and be silent (7:204). The table is quiet while a passage plays, and nothing is ever played over it. There is no music. The only other sound is a voice saying "Ahsant" after a right answer, once the passage has ended, and it can be turned off.
• No Qur'an text on the cards. A card carries a code, a colour, a surah's name and numbers. The ayat stay behind the code, so the cards can be handled, shuffled and stored like any others. The Names deck prints no Name of Allah for the same reason.
• Nothing is staked. Points and pearls are worth nothing outside the game and are never exchanged for anything.
• Losing is gentle. A pearl you took is never lost, and a slip in recitation is corrected kindly. A missed card goes back into the middle of the deck, the phone plays it again with its name, and when it comes back the player usually knows it.

Words used in the game

Bismillah

In the name of Allah. Said before beginning something good.

Ayah

A verse of the Qur'an. Plural: ayat.

Surah

One of the 114 chapters of the Qur'an.

Juz

One of the thirty equal parts the Qur'an is divided into for reading.

Mushaf

The written Qur'an. The Line follows its order.

Meccan, Medinan

Whether a surah was revealed before the hijrah or after it.

Hijrah

The emigration of the Prophet ﷺ from Makkah to Madinah.

Hafiz

Someone who knows the Qur'an by heart.

Tahaddi

Challenge. Called out to take over a card another player missed.

Halaqa

A circle of people learning together.

Adab

The manners that suit a thing. Here, how the Qur'an is treated at the table.