Islamic Classes in English

Shaykh Hafiz Muddassir teaches Quran, Dars e Nizami and the Arabic sciences in English, one-to-one and live, to students worldwide. He is a graduate of Tanzeem ul Madaris Ahl-e-Sunnat (Pakistan) with more than ten years teaching these books.

Instruction is available in English, Urdu, Hindi and Arabic, and the student chooses. For families abroad this usually decides everything: a child raised in London or Toronto may speak Urdu at home and still be unable to follow a technical grammar lesson in it, because conversational fluency and academic fluency are different things. Teaching the same classical material in the language the student thinks in removes that barrier without simplifying the content. Fees are quoted per student rather than published. Fees are quoted per student rather than published, since the honest figure depends on course, level and how many classes a week.

Why the language of instruction matters

A student can be fluent in conversation and lost in a lesson. Technical study demands abstract vocabulary, precise definitions and sustained reasoning, and those sit in whichever language a person was educated in.

For the generation raised outside Urdu-speaking countries that language is almost always English. Teaching them classical sciences through Urdu asks them to learn two difficult things at once and hides the harder one.

This page covers this in more detail.

About the teacher

The classical qualification here is a Dars e Nizami graduation from Tanzeem ul Madaris Ahl-e-Sunnat (Pakistan), the Ahl-e-Sunnat board that works with more than eighteen thousand affiliated madaris across Pakistan. Alongside it sit an MA in English, an MA in English Linguistics and an MPhil in English.

Teaching experience runs to more than ten years across these books, with students at every level from a child’s first Qaida lesson to advanced classical texts.

Classes are taught in English, Urdu, Hindi and Arabic, one-to-one or in small groups.

Class formats

Classes run in two formats. One-to-one sessions are built around a single student’s level and goals. Small group classes bring together students at a similar stage, commonly siblings, cousins or friends who want to study together.

Group sizes are kept small deliberately. The value of live teaching is the teacher hearing each student read and correcting them, and that disappears once a class is large enough for someone to stay silent through it.

Nothing is pre-recorded in either format. Recorded lectures remove the correction loop, which is the part that actually teaches.

How does scheduling work across timezones?

Classes are arranged around the student’s local clock. Teaching hours stretch across the day precisely so that a student in California, London or Melbourne is not forced into an unusable slot.

In practice this means after-school classes for children, and evening or early-morning sessions for working adults. British and European students have the easiest overlap; American and Canadian students are taught in their evenings, which fall in the teacher’s early morning.

This page sets out the workable windows by region.

Is this suitable for children?

Yes, and children are a large share of the students. Classes for younger children are kept short and interactive, because attention rather than ability is the limiting factor at that age.

The common failure with children is not slow progress but lost interest, usually caused by classes pitched at the wrong level or scheduled when the child is exhausted. Both are fixable, and one-to-one teaching makes them visible early.

This page deals with the age question directly.

What do classes cost?

Fees are quoted for each student rather than published as a price list, because the honest figure depends on the course, how many classes a week and the level involved. A child taking two Qaida sessions weekly and an adult reading advanced Arabic texts are not the same commitment.

For general context rather than as a quotation: Across online Islamic academies generally, tuition is priced either per class hour or as a monthly block of two to five classes a week, and one-to-one teaching costs more than group classes because the hour belongs to one student. Local currency, timezone and class length all shift the picture, which is why a real number needs the real details.

Message the student’s age, level and how often you would like to study, and you will get a straight answer for that situation. This page covers the question in more detail.

How do you start?

The first step is a conversation, not a payment. Send a message describing the student, their level and what you want them to reach, and you will get an assessment of where they should actually begin.

A trial class follows if it makes sense. It exists so the student and teacher can meet, so the level can be checked properly rather than assumed, and so the family can judge the teaching style before committing.

If a different course would serve the student better, you will be told that. This page explains what happens in a trial.

What happens during Ramadan?

Ramadan reshapes the schedule rather than pausing it. Many students increase Quran classes during the month and reduce other subjects, which is a sensible reallocation rather than a disruption.

Class times shift around suhoor, iftar and taraweeh, and those windows differ by country, so schedules are rebuilt for the month and restored afterwards.

Some families pause entirely and resume after Eid. That is arranged by message, with no penalty attached to stopping for a few weeks.

Why the order of study matters

The Dars e Nizami sequence is deliberate. Grammar comes before text reading because unvowelled classical prose is unreadable without it. Logic comes before theology and legal theory because those books argue in its terminology on every page.

Students who skip ahead can usually recite rules and cannot apply them, and supervised reading exposes that within minutes. The remedy is going back, which costs more time than starting correctly would have.

This page sets out the sequence year by year.

The problem families abroad describe

The pattern repeats across every country on this site. A child attends the local madrasa for years, recites acceptably, and cannot explain what any of it means. Parents assume the child is not applying themselves.

Usually the child is applying themselves to the wrong problem. Instruction arrives in Urdu or Arabic, languages they use at home for conversation and not for abstract reasoning, so they are decoding the explanation before they can engage with the content.

Teaching in English removes that layer entirely. The material does not get easier; the access does.

Straight answers

Fees are quoted rather than published because the honest number depends on details this page does not know. Any site showing one figure for every student is averaging rather than answering.

Timelines are estimated after meeting the student, not before. A teacher promising a fixed number of months to a stranger is guessing.

Where a different teacher, a different course or a local option would serve a student better, saying so costs one enquiry and keeps the advice worth having.

How does the classical method actually work?

Madrasa teaching has a shape that has survived centuries because it works, and almost none of it depends on buildings. A student reads aloud, the teacher corrects at the exact word where the reasoning failed, and the student explains back what they understood.

That third step is the one modern courses drop. Recognition is not comprehension, and a student who nods through an explanation can rarely reproduce it an hour later. Being asked to explain the passage back exposes the gap immediately.

The method transfers to a video call intact, because the essential part was never the room. What it will not survive is being turned into recorded lectures, since the correction loop disappears with the teacher.

How is the starting level decided?

By what the student can do, tested directly, rather than by a certificate or the year they were last enrolled in. Institutions vary widely in what a given level means, so paper qualifications are treated as context and not as a placement.

For Quran students that means reading aloud and being listened to. For grammar students it means parsing an unseen sentence. For Dars e Nizami students it means opening a text at the level they claim and working through a few lines.

Students frequently place themselves a stage or two above where supervised reading puts them. Starting at the flattering level rather than the real one is the single most reliable way to waste a term.

Why consistency beats intensity

Two classes a week with daily practice between them outpaces five classes with none. That holds across every course taught here, and it surprises families who assume more hours automatically means faster progress.

Memorisation and grammar both depend on frequent recall rather than total exposure. A student who revises for fifteen minutes each day retains far more than one who does two hours on a Sunday, because retrieval is what strengthens memory, not reading.

Long gaps are the real enemy. A month away undoes more hifz than most families expect, which is why the schedule is built around what a student can actually sustain rather than what looks ambitious in week one.

Frequently asked questions

Can the same course be taught in a different language?

Yes. English, Urdu, Hindi or Arabic, and the choice can change if the student finds another clearer.

Is English-medium teaching simplified?

No. The same books and the same depth, delivered in English rather than Urdu.

What if the student is more comfortable mixing languages?

That is common and entirely workable in one-to-one teaching.

Do you teach Arabic through Arabic?

For students ready for it, yes. Most begin with explanation in English or Urdu and move across.

How do we decide which language suits?

The trial class settles it quickly. Comprehension under questioning shows which language the student actually reasons in.

Last reviewed 29 July 2026 by Shaykh Hafiz Muddassir.