Try this: open a tafsir lecture on YouTube. The sheikh references an ayah. You want to capture what he says — tied to that verse, so future-you can find it. What do you actually have to do?
Pause the video. Open a Quran app. Find the surah. Find the ayah. Copy the Arabic. Paste it into Google Docs — where the right-to-left formatting breaks. Reformat it. Retype or paste the translation. Now, finally, type your note. By the time you unpause, the sheikh is three verses ahead.
Multiply that by a 60-minute lecture. By a semester of classes. By a daily tadabbur habit. Most people give up and go back to half-legible scribbles in a paper notebook that they'll never open again. That is the problem we built Tafsir Notebook to solve.
The Core Idea
Your notes should live on the ayah. Not in a separate doc. Not as a screenshot. Not on a scrap of paper.
Tafsir Notebook loads the entire Quran — all 114 surahs, all 6,236 ayat — ready to be written on. You don't copy, paste or type out a single verse. You click the word, ayah or surah you want to note, and you type. The note is saved, attached to the exact place in the Quran it belongs to, and waiting for you the next time you open that page.
Three Levels of Note, One Click Each
Word note. Click any word in an ayah. Perfect for a root meaning your teacher just explained, a vocabulary note, or a grammatical observation — tied forever to that exact word.
Ayah note. Click the note icon under any verse. Ideal for tafsir points, reflections from tadabbur, or a quote from a scholar on that ayah.
Surah note.At the top of every surah is a notes panel for the big picture — themes, structure, a summary you'll want before next week's halaqah.
Who It's For
Students. Sitting in a tafsir class or watching lectures online. Your notes keep up with the teacher instead of five ayat behind.
People doing tadabbur.A journal that already knows which ayah you're reflecting on. Reopen the same verse in six months and read your own heart back to yourself.
Teachers and halaqah leaders.Walk through the surah you're teaching, attach each point to the right verse, export a clean PDF before class. No stitching documents together at 11pm on a Friday.
Privacy Isn't a Feature — It's a Default
Your notes are private by default. They are never shared with other users, never sold to third parties, and never used to train AI models. What someone writes while doing tadabbur is often the most personal thing they'll write all week — we built the system so that it belongs to them, not us. You can delete your account and everything in it at any time.
Export Is a First-Class Citizen
When you've finished a surah, export your notes as a formatted PDF — ready to print, share with your study group, or hand out to students. JSON and Markdown exports are also available. Your notes are yours: take them with you.
Free During Beta
Tafsir Notebook is free during the beta. We're opening spots gradually so we can keep the experience tight and respond to early users. There'll be a paid plan afterwards — £4.99/month, one plan, no tiers — but the core workflow will stay exactly what it is today.
If you've been writing ayat into a Google Doc, screenshotting verses to annotate, or just giving up on note-taking altogether — try this instead.