Islam with Ease: does a learner come to understand what they recite?
Pre-registration iwe-understanding-2026-10, published before the first learner joins.

Question. Do learners who use Islam with Ease for two weeks understand more of the Quran's content
words, in ayat they were never taught, than people waiting to start?

Who. Adults (18 and over) who join from the public waitlist and consent. A family-and-community
pilot (wave 1) takes the same tests but has no comparison group; it is reported on its own and is
not part of the primary analysis. Test accounts are excluded.

Design. Waitlist-controlled. Joiners are randomised within each weekly wave, in blocks of four (two
start at once, two wait 14 days), in a seeded order fixed by the study id, the wave and the block.
Everyone takes three tests on joining (baseline) and again from day 14 to day 18. The waiting group
starts learning after its day-14 tests. Learners who started at once are tested again on days 28-33
and 56-63.

Tests. Each test asks what a marked content word means in its ayah, or which word fills a gap,
with four choices and one try each, 12 questions per form, four forms per test (baseline, day 14,
day 28, day 56), built once by a seeded procedure and pinned by word id. Meanings are Quran
Foundation's word-by-word English, fetched live; a question whose meaning has changed since the
forms were pinned is dropped and counted.
  1. Transfer (PRIMARY): words introduced by the first 14 lessons, asked in ayat of al-Bayyinah,
     at-Taghabun, al-Jathiyah and al-Ankabut, which no lesson teaches.
  2. al-Fatiha (secondary).
  3. Prayer: al-Fatiha and the short surahs most recited in prayer (secondary).
Pinned word-id list SHA-256: 88ab41f48e996c990e7506906268d749be542c0ab2ec0990cceaa343e3e4c109.

Primary outcome. The change in the share of transfer questions answered right, baseline to day 14,
learners who started at once versus learners waiting.

Pass bar. The difference in transfer gain (started minus waiting) has a point estimate of at least
10 percentage points AND a 95% bootstrap interval whose lower bound is above zero. We report the
result whether or not it passes.

Secondary outcomes. al-Fatiha and prayer gains at day 14 (same comparison); the started group's
gains at days 28 and 56; how many minutes and lessons each learner did.

Analysis. Per learner, gain = day-14 share right minus baseline share right. Group means with 95%
bootstrap intervals (10,000 resamples, seeded); proportions with Wilson intervals. Waves pooled,
and each wave also reported on its own. The features learners had in each window are named,
because the app changes during the study.

Stopping and missing data. Enrolment for the primary analysis closes on 2027-01-07; the
primary analysis runs on 2027-01-25. Target: at least 40 learners across the two groups. A
test not taken within its window is missing and is not filled in; how many are missing is reported.
A window extends by up to two days when the tests could not be served.

Contamination. The app is open to anyone. Exposure of a learner to any transfer ayah (reader,
player, coach, search) is logged, and that ayah's questions are excluded for that learner. The
day-14 test asks: "Since your first test, apart from the tests, have you used Islam with Ease?" A
sensitivity analysis excludes everyone in the waiting group who answers yes.

Withdrawal. Anyone may leave at any time; their data are then excluded. Deleting the account
deletes the data.

Publication. Aggregates only, on islamwithease.com/results, with no cell under 10 learners; this
text and its SHA-256 stay published beside the result.

Signed: the founder, Islam with Ease (signature recorded below once given).