The Institute
IQSL — the Institute of Qurʾanic Sciences & Leadership — is a nonprofit institute that takes students from recitation to applied leadership. We teach online and onsite, for students across North America and beyond, and we issue our own certification in the tradition of the ijāzah.
What we are
Three words are easy to put on a homepage. Here is what each one commits us to — and, where the detail is still being settled, we say so instead of filling the gap.
Online and onsite, across North America and beyond.
Serious Qurʾanic study should not depend on whether a qualified teacher happens to live nearby. IQSL teaches online and onsite, so a student with no teacher of qirāʾāt within reach studies under the same faculty as one who can walk to class.
Formats, intake, and timings are announced in the community first, before they appear anywhere else.
A structured curriculum with real standards.
Accessible does not mean lightened. Recitation is corrected until it is right, meaning is studied rather than summarized, and mastery is verified directly with a qualified teacher — not assumed from attendance.
Curriculum and certification are led by Dr. Shaykh Mamdouh, alongside a faculty of qualified instructors from around the world.
Certification in the tradition of the ijāzah.
IQSL is a certification-issuing institute. Students who complete the path earn a recognized ijāzah — a traditional certification carrying a chain of narration (sanad) that reaches back to the Prophet ﷺ — conferred by Dr. Shaykh Mamdouh.
That is not a record of attendance. It is authorization to carry — and one day transmit — what you have learned.
Our name
Institute of Qurʾanic Sciences & Leadership
The institute’s name in Arabic. Read right to left, it sets the two halves of the work side by side — the sciences of the Qurʾan, and the forming of those who will lead.
معهد
Maʿhad
Institute — a place of settled, sustained study rather than a course.
علوم القرآن
ʿUlūm al-Qurʾan
The sciences of the Qurʾan — recitation, tajwīd, qirāʾāt, tafsīr, and the context of revelation.
وإعداد القادة
wa-Iʿdād al-Qādah
And the forming of leaders — the second half of the name, and the second half of the work.
How we teach
Curriculum and certification at IQSL are led by Dr. Shaykh Mamdouh, alongside a faculty of qualified instructors from around the world. Classes are taught online and onsite — where a class meets does not change what it asks of you.
Meet the faculty & instructorsOnline study puts the same teachers in front of students across North America and beyond. Recitation is still heard and corrected by a teacher — the transmission is oral, and it stays oral.
Onsite study keeps the older half of the tradition intact: sitting with a teacher, in a room, reading until it is right. Onsite sessions are announced in the community as they are scheduled.
Where we are
IQSL is a nonprofit institute in its founding stage; 501(c)(3) status is pending. The doors are opening now, and the founding community is forming around the first students.
That stage is worth being honest about. Some of what you would expect to find on a page like this is genuinely not settled yet. Rather than publish a plausible answer, we name what is still to come — and announce it in the community the moment it is real.
Still to come
The WhatsApp community is our only confirmed channel for now — it is where each of these is announced first.
Begin
Recite, understand, lead, serve — four movements of one journey. Walk through the path, or join the community for program details and enrollment dates as they are announced.