This post was submitted by Ponn Sabra of American Muslim Mom. AmericanMuslimMom.com is the first and only online magazine that offers free tips, tools, reviews, contests and resources for Muslim Moms living in America, or American Muslim moms living aboard.

My entire family (Mama, Baba, and our 9, 8 and 6 year old daughters) completely endorse QuranExplorer.com/Quran and HarfKids.com/en/Quraan as easy-to-use, easy-to-learn, easy-to-navigate, fun, interactive sites to learn how to read and recite the Qur’an based on the rules of Tajweed, while learning its meaning at the same time.

1. Qur’an Explorer – Review

Why we love Qu’ran Explorer:

• Tajweed color rules can be turned on or off,
• Multiple shaikhs to pick; such as Mishary and Abdul-Basit,
• Two different Arabic scripts to pick, Usmani and IndoPak,
• Different English translators, such as Dr. Mohsin, Yusuf Ali,
• Translations in multiple languages are also available, such as Spanish and Indonesian,
• The entire Qur’an is available,
• You can choose to search by Surah, Juz, Hizb, or verse (ayat),

• Advanced Options include,
  • Verse Repetition [How many times you want to play the verse before it goes to the next one],
  • Intervals Between Verse ["Continuous Play" means there are no pauses in between each verse, or "Duration of Verse" means how long it takes the shaikh to say the verse and it pauses that long, or you choose how many seconds you want to "Wait" for the pause in between the verses],
  • Auto Play, and
  • Colors.
• Audio sound and mute option,
• An option to bookmark the verse range where you are studying oo return back to the exact place you left off,
• Zoom text size, and much more.
• For a wonderful tutorial, click the “Help” button.

2. HarfKids.com Quraan – Review

While HarfKids.com Quraan is not nearly as complete as QuranExplorer.com it comes in a very close second at our home, especially for young children just beginning to memorize our Glorious Qur’an, for the following reasons:

• Everything is on one single screen,
• There is not an “Advanced Options” button to click and review,
• It’s colorful, more fun to look at, and has cuter buttons,
• For a verse translation, you click on “Explanation” for a pop-up box in English,
• Just like in QuranExplorer.com you can determine which verses you want displayed, and if you want a continuous play of the reciter or pause in between each verse,
• Shaikh AbdulBasit is the reciter,
• Made for those just starting to memorize the Qur’an, it lists Surah An-Nas (114) to Al-Qiyamah (75)

CONS

• It often locks up, and sometimes we can not even get it to work at all, and
• Since the Qur’an learning option is only one section of the large HarfKids.com website, the above navigation toolbar and bottom buttons are distracting, especially because they flash and scroll in real-time.