How Much Quran Should I Read a Day? Pick a Number
You open a search bar and type the question: how much Quran should I read a day? One page? A juz? Ten minutes? Every site seems to give a different number, and none of them knows your week.
Here is the plain answer. As a planning question, the right amount is the one you can repeat on a normal day: for most people, that is somewhere between a few ayahs and two pages. An ayah is a single verse. If you are asking whether a certain amount is required of you, that is a question for a qualified teacher or imam, not for an article or an app.
Three numbers to look at
Choose your daily amount using what is true about your life, not what sounds impressive.
- Your time. Read a page aloud, or silently, with a timer running. That is your real pace. Do not guess; the same page takes very different times for different people.
- Your worst realistic day. Not an emergency, just a tired Tuesday. What amount could you still do?
- Your reason. Do you want to finish the whole Quran, or to spend a few calm minutes with it every day? These lead to different numbers, and both are fine.
Start from the second number. A goal you keep on a tired Tuesday beats a bigger goal you drop by Friday.
What common amounts add up to
The Quran has 6,236 ayahs in 114 surahs (chapters), in 30 juz (equal parts), and about 604 pages in the common Madinah mushaf, the printed copy. Ayahs vary a lot in length, so treat these as rough:
- 5 ayahs a day: about 1,247 days, a little over three years.
- 10 ayahs a day: about 624 days.
- 20 ayahs a day: about 312 days.
- 1 page a day: about 604 days.
- 2 pages a day: about 302 days.
- 5 pages a day: about 121 days, a little under four months.
- 20 pages a day (one juz): about 30 days.
If you want to finish in a set time, divide. For a year, 6,236 divided by 365 is about 17 ayahs a day, or a page and a half. Our other article on how to read Quran daily shows how to tie a small goal to a habit you already have.
Count the time, not only the pages
Pages can mislead. Some are slow, some quick. If you read with English beside the Arabic, a page may take much longer than a page in Arabic alone. That is normal. If you would rather think in minutes, set a timer for five or ten minutes and note where you stop. After a week you will know your own pace in ayahs per minute, and you can plan from that instead of from someone else's.
Raising the number
Keep the same amount for two weeks. If it feels easy, add one small step: one more ayah, or half a page. If a week goes badly, drop back to the old number without comment. The amount can go up and down over a year. Nothing is lost by lowering it.
When a plan starts to feel heavy, many readers keep this ayah in mind:
إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًۭا
It is only a reminder to make the plan lighter, not an instruction about your goal. For what any ayah means, ask a teacher you trust.
One thing to do today
Time yourself on one page, or on five minutes of reading. Write down what you got through. Then choose a daily number about half of that, and use it for the next seven days.
If it helps to keep that number in front of you, Scroll the Quran is an iPhone app that shows the Quran one ayah at a time, in Arabic and English, with a daily ayah goal you set yourself, a streak and a reminder. It is not on the App Store yet, but the goal slider on the home page lets you try your numbers today.
Keep reading
- How to Build a Quran Reading Habit That Sticks Build a Quran reading habit by attaching it to something you already do. A simple cue, a tiny first step, and a plan for the days it goes wrong.
- How to Read Quran Daily: A Goal That Survives A practical way to read the Quran every day: pick a goal small enough for your worst day, tie it to a habit you have, and do the math.