Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569888215

Novel Educational Information System for Holy Quran Using QR Codes

1King

2Jordan

Heider A. Wahsheh1, Yarub A. Wahsheh2, Reem A. Wahsheh3
Khalid University/ College of Computer Science, Computer Science Department
Abha, Saudi Arabia heiderwahsheh@yahoo.com University of Science and Technology / CIT Faculty, Network Engineering & Security
Department
Irbid, Jordan y_wahsha@yahoo.com 3Yarmouk

University / Faculty of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Irbid, Jordan reem_ahmad_wahsha@yahoo.com ABSTRACT
Quick Response Code (QR code) is a matrix barcode that can be read using smart phones, increasingly used in education, industry, virtual stores, product tracking, item identification and advertising. In educational fields a collection of resources can be encoded using QR codes, mobile devices can be used as an effective educational tool in the classroom. It can contain additional resources supporting multimedia, URLs and other related information. One special type of education is the Holy Quran learning. In this paper we propose novel educational information system that attaches QR code labels to each page in the Holy Quran, with specific proposed structure to help in Holy Quran education, linking the hard copy pages to audio streaming links, translation, interpretation and other related information. QR codes can contain control data and even parameters for database searching in the Holy Quran.
1

INTRODUCTION

Holy Quran is the religious book of Muslims, it is the first main source of legislation in the
Islamic religion. Muslims believe that the Holy Quran is the words of Allah that contain the commandments, rules for their social and moral behaviour, and religious philosophy to organize their life. Holy Quran is consist of 114 chapters (each chapter is called Sura), and each chapter includes number of verses called ayat (the total number of verses in Holy Quran is 6,236) [1].
Arabic is the language of Holy Quran and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him (pbuh)
Sayings (which is the second main source of legislation in the Islamic religion). Holy Quran hard copies are spread all over the world, and other related books for interpretation (Tafsir) and translation to other languages are widely spread too.
As a result of the wide spread of communication systems and information technology, electronic copies of Holy Quran are used daily. Electronic copies offers multimedia services (like listening to Holy Quran as audio), interpretation, meanings translation and other services. Electronic copies are accessible using digital devices such as PCs and smart phones.
Since Arabic is the Holy Quran language; Non-Arab Muslims can face problems in Holy
Quran learning. A study done by the Malaysian Ministry of Education, reveals that 42% of primary
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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569888215

school Muslim students do not know how to read the Holy Quran [2]. Even Arab Muslims need to learn the rules of reading Holy Quran (Tajweed) and Holy Quran interpretation (Tafsir).
Holy Quran learning can be more useful if we link Holy Quran hard copies with electronic copies that offer audio listening, interpretation, translation and other related resources. This can help
Muslim students in Holy Quran learning process. Also; linking hard copies text to its corresponding audio resources can help visually impaired people in reading and learning Holy Quran in a simple way, with a specific application and mobile device.
Quick Response (QR) code is a two dimensional barcode that can be read using smart phone camera and specific reader application. QR codes are used to link physical objects to electronic resources, Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), addresses, contact information or other specific parameters. QR codes are used in many life fields such as: items identification, education, marketing, advertisements, virtual stores and Website login [3].
QR codes can store numeric, alphanumeric, binary and Kangi data, with a size up to 4296 characters for alphanumeric data [4].
In this paper we propose a novel educational information system for Holy Quran, using QR codes and smart phones. The proposed system aims to standardize common rules that link the Holy
Quran hard copies with electronic resources that include: audio, interpretation, translation and other resources. The proposed system is important to help Muslims in Holy Quran learning especially for students and visually impaired people. We propose a specific structure for parameters encoding in
QR codes. Finally we organize resources accessibility algorithm.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section two presents a brief of the related studies. Section three explores our proposed system structure. Section four presents the proposed system algorithm. Finally section five presents the conclusion and future works.
2

RELATED WORK

The study of [5] presents a suggested workable model for electronic teaching of Holy Quran.
The proposed model depends on animations and computer graphics in Holy Quran teaching. The proposed model offers training contents and evaluations. It supports both teachers and learners to achieve the educational goals and enhance the teaching of Holy Quran and related sciences.
The study of [6] explores an educational environment for blind and manual-disabled people.
The educational system depends on voice commands and voice recognition, without the need of writing or using the mouse.
The study of [7] develops a virtual learning system for Holy Quran (Electronic Miqra'ah). In this system students can interact with the scientists in a real time connection. The system aims to improve Holy Quran memorize (Tahfeez) process, It creates virtual class rooms for Holy Quran learning. The system can be controlled using normal inputs (using mouse or keyboard), or using voice commands. Voice commands can help blind and manual-disabled people to use the system easily. Holy Quran Transfer Protocol is an application layer protocol that aims to organize a secure, reliable and effective way to transmit Holy Quran for both text and audio over the Internet. It offers many other services like Holy Quran translation and interpretation. Also HQTP gives Muslim governments more power to control the process of publishing electronic versions of the Holy Quran
[8].
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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569888215

3

PROPOSED SYSTEM STRUCTURE

In this part we define the proposed system components, then the common rules to encode parameters in QR codes, and how to use these QR codes in our proposed Holy Quran educational system. Figure 1 shows our proposed system main components, which are:


Holy Quran hard copy.



QR code that is attached to each page in the hard copy of the Holy Quran.



QR code scanning device (smart phone or other specific device for visually impaired people). Figure 1: Proposed System Components.
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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569888215

Our proposed structure of parameters encoding in QR codes uses specific tags like the
Extensible Markup Language (XML) tags. In general these tags are defined as follows:
1.

From tag: identifies the starting parameters of this Holy Quran page, for both chapter (Sura) and verses (Ayah) parameters.


2.

To tag: identifies the ending parameters of this Holy Quran page, for both chapter (Sura) and verses (Ayah) parameters.


3.

Includes two sub tags: Sura and Ayah.

Includes two sub tags: Sura and Ayah.

URL tag: contains URLs of specific resources such as: audio, interpretation, translation or other services links.


May include several sub tags.

Figure 2 shows an example of QR code data encoding for specific page in the Holy Quran.
The needed parameters are encoded in tags and the generated QR code is in the right side.

Figure 2: Example of the Proposed System Structure.

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569888215

While Table 1 shows the main tags, sub-tags and description of our proposed system.
Table 1 QR tags and description
Main Tag
From
TO
URL

Sub-tag
Ayah
Sura
Ayah
Sura
Audio
Interpretation
Translation

Description
Number of the first verse (Ayah) in this Holy Quran page.
Number of the first chapter (Sura) in this Holy Quran page.
Number of the last verse (Ayah) in this Holy Quran page.
Number of the last chapter (Sura) in this Holy Quran page.
Link to an audio file of this Holy Quran page
Link to an Interpretation file of this Holy Quran page.
Link to a translation file of this Holy Quran page.

The proposed structure is important to identify the page parameters; once the page identification parameters are read from the specified application, there is three scenarios to get this page resources, as the following:


Use the parameters (From and To tags) to search local database for the wanted resources.



Use the URL tags to start Web browser and access Web pages that contains the needed resources. 

Use the parameters (From and To tags) to request the wanted resources from Holy Quran
Transfer Protocol (HQTP) server.
The integration with HQTP is important to solve the problem of expired URL links.

4

PROPOSED ALGORITHM

Figure 3 shows the framework of the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm consists of the following steps:
1. Attach a QR code for each page of the Holy Quran, this QR code will identify the parameters of this Holy Quran page.
2. Read QR code content using a scanner device (normally smart phone). Reader application is responsible to get the identification parameters.
3. The user will chose the needed resource type; such as audio resource, interpretation, translation or data search. (In the case of visually impaired people the reader application will chose the audio file directly).
4. There are two main options to get a specific page resources:


Offline Resource Get: The user application will search the local database. If the needed resource is being cached or downloaded before; then it will get the needed data from the local database.



Online Resource Get: the user application will use the Internet connection to get the needed page resources; whether by visiting the specified URLs encoded in the page
QR code. Or by requesting the needed data from authorized HQTP server using the
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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569888215

identification parameters. In online resource get the user has the choice to save the downloaded data locally or not.

Figure 2: Proposed System Framework.

5

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

In this paper we propose novel educational information system that attaches QR code labels to each page in the Holy Quran. We define a specific structure to encode identification parameters to each page of the Holy Quran. Our proposed system links the hard copy pages of the Holy Quran with audio streaming links, translation, interpretation and other related information. It offers both online and offline modes to get resources.

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Zaytoonah University International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Sustainability 2014
(ZEC Infrastructure 2014), May 13-15, 2014 Amman, Jordan
Paper Code. No. 1569888215

The proposed system has integration with HQTP protocol; which is important to solve the problem of expired URL links. The system aims to make the Holy Quran educational process easier for students and visually impaired people,
In the future we plan to add more features and take feedback from system users to improve the system. Also we plan to communicate with the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs and other
Islamic foundations to add QR code to the printed hard copies of the Holy Quran.

REFERENCES
[1] Wikipedia, Retrieved March, 12, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran
[2] Mohamed M, Ismail Z, Saad R., “Al-Quran Awareness: Challenges Reality and in Islamic
Education in Schools”, Problems of Educations, Volume 31, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 241-253.
[3] Wikipedia, Retrieved March, 12, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code
[4] QR code ISO/IEC 18004:2000.
[5] Basuhail, A., “A Model of Implementing eTeaching Objects for the Holy Quran and Related
Sciences using Animations”, Proceedings of Taibah University International Conference on
Advances in Information Technology for the Holy Quran and Its Sciences, Al-Madinah AlMunawarah - Saudi Arabia, December 2013, Pages 89-94.
[6] Mohamed S, Hassanin A, Ben Othman M., “Learning System for the Holy Quran and Its
Sciences for Blind, Illiterate and Manual-Disabled People”, Proceedings of Taibah University
International Conference on Advances in Information Technology for the Holy Quran and Its
Sciences, Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah - Saudi Arabia, December 2013, Pages 107-112.
[7] Mohamed S, Hassanin A, Ben Othman M., “Virtual learning system (Miqra'ah) for Quran recitations targeting blind, illiterate and manual-disabled students”, Proceedings of Taibah
University International Conference on Advances in Information Technology for the Holy
Quran and Its Sciences, Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah - Saudi Arabia, December 2013, Pages
113-118.
[8] Wahsheh H, Wahsheh Y, Wahsheh R., “HQTP: Holy Quran Transfer Protocol”, Proceedings of
Taibah University International Conference on Advances in Information Technology for the
Holy Quran and Its Sciences, Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah - Saudi Arabia, December 2013,
Pages 365-370.

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