What Rafiq is
A patient companion for your first weeks as a Muslim. Ask anything in plain English — every answer shows you its source, and never makes one up.
Who this is for
Someone who has recently become Muslim, does not speak Arabic, and has questions they feel too shy to ask a person. How do I pray. What do I say. What does this word mean. What happens when I walk into a mosque. There is nothing too basic to ask here, and nobody is keeping score.
Rafiq is free, and there is nothing to buy. It is meant to sit alongside your local mosque and the people in it — not to replace them.
Five things that make Rafiq different
There are other places to read the Qur’an, and there are general chatbots that will answer any question you ask. These five are what Rafiq does that they do not.
- It cannot invent or misquote scripture
Every Qur’anic line comes from a canonical source and arrives with its citation attached. Rafiq never writes scripture from memory. When it cannot verify something, it says so plainly and points you to a person — rather than filling the gap with a confident guess. - It answers in plain English, assuming you know nothing
You can ask the way you would ask a patient friend. No Arabic is assumed, no prior knowledge is assumed, and every unfamiliar word is explained the first time it appears. - It knows its limits and hands you to a human
Ask whether you personally are allowed to do something and Rafiq will not answer it. It explains the general principle, with its source, and then helps you reach a qualified person. It issues no rulings, and its own words carry no scholarly authority. - It is built for your first weeks, not for everyone
The First 40 Days is ordered for someone who started this month. Most apps are built for people who grew up with all of it already in place. - It asks nothing of you
No account, no sign-up, no email, no payment, no advertising and no third-party trackers. Some people using Rafiq are keeping their faith private from their own families, so it is built to know as little about you as possible.
Where the words come from
Rafiq shows four different kinds of thing, and keeps them visibly apart so you always know which you are reading: the Qur’an’s own words, a translation of them, scholarly commentary, and Rafiq’s plain explanation. The first three are retrieved from canonical sources and cited. Only the fourth is Rafiq speaking, and it is never the authority.
Who checks it
A scholarly oversight board owns the content and safety policy, and reviews the teaching pages one by one. Engineering does not decide religious content and cannot overrule that review.
Rafiq is in its pilot stage. Pages the board has not yet signed off carry a visible “still under review” note, so you are never left guessing which is which.
The name
Rafiq means companion — the one who travels alongside you. It is named in memory of Rafiq, a friend of the Gungahlin Mosque community in Canberra, Australia.
A page you can print
A one-page introduction to Rafīq, with a code to scan. Made for mosques, community centres and anybody who meets new Muslims — put it on a notice board, leave a few on a table, or hand one to somebody who has just taken their Shahada.
Free to print and to copy, and there is nothing to ask us first. If you would like it in another size, or with your own organisation named on it, get in touch.