Q-Connect 2025-26: Q. 99 & Q. 100 (Full Course)
Note: registration for this event gives access to ALL sessions, including the first session (in-person and online) on 26th November. Please visit https://ceiuk.com/q-connect-overview/ for more details.
Q-Connect is an online programme of Qur’an study that combines guided reading of a pair of suras from Juzz Amma with structural analysis. These suras are powerful and succinct, widely recited and memorised but less widely studied in depth.
Over 5 years, we have studied 12 suras (Q. 87 - Q. 98) containing 180+ verses in depth over 70 hours through Q-Connect. This year we will continue our study of Juzz Amma focussing on Suras az-Zalzalah (Q. 99) and al-'Adiyat (Q. 100).
Course Aims
Q-Connect aims to expose attendees to:
- Guided reading of the Qur’an, with reference to classical tafsir literature
- Rigorous linguistic and thematic analysis of the Qur’an
- Theories of composition of the Qur’an, such as Ring Structures
- Relationships between suras
- Linguistic devices and syntagmatic relationships deployed
- Key spiritual and practical lessons in these suras.
Programme: Innovative and Accessible
CEI delivers several Qur’an programmes in
London and Oxford; Q-Connect’s innovative online format allows attendees, regardless of where they are based, access to detailed, rigorous analysis of the Qur’an.
Format: Guided Reading and Structural Analysis
Study of each sura will begin with a session of guided linear reading in English translation with a focus on rhetorical techniques, key words and themes including their wider use in the Qur’an. Once attendees are familiar with the thematic content, diagrams illustrating the structural composition of the sura will be used to facilitate pattern discernment in a subsequent session.
Cadence: Monthly Online
Seven monthly sessions will be delivered online, beginning in November 2025. Whilst the online format facilitates broad access, we appreciate the benefits of meeting in person and will offer attendees the opportunity to meet and network at the taster session and at a post-programme in-person gathering in September 2026.
COURSE OVERVIEW
Online: Creating Connections
Q-Connect has been designed as a bespoke online programme, and allows attendees to connect to accessible, prolonged and rigorous engagement with the Qur'an. The frequency and format of the sessions provide attendees with the time to take, review and reflect on notes to better understand the content and context of the suras. The post programme gathering will allow attendees and the tutor to meet and connect in person.
Mapping Suras: Syntagmatic Analysis
Q-Connect’s focus is on the identification of elementary constituent segments such as words, grammatical phrases and linguistic devices within suras to better discern patterns and themes. These patterns form a prism for analysis of meaning and elucidation of connections within each sura.
Diagrams detailing the thematic structure of each sura will be used to illustrate the connections between individual words and verses. The course moves through guided reading to guided structural analysis and an appreciation of how the interplay between words and verses helps to accentuate themes.
Plotting Constellations: Connecting Suras
Q-Connect aims to facilitate study and analysis of suras in Juzz Amma. These suras are shorter than those covered in other CEI programmes, and as such, attendees are able to complete a guided reading and structural analysis of two entire suras and explore the thematic connections between them.
Discerning Patterns: Composition
Q-Connect will
introduce selected theories about the composition of the Qur’an, such as Ring Structure and Semitic Rhetoric. The programme will also draw upon classical tafsir literature and highlight the spiritual and practical lessons revealed by linguistically determined structural analysis. Attendees’ exposure to analytic methodology will facilitate their own discernment of themes and connections within and between suras in their ongoing engagement with the Qur’an.
Course Prerequisites
Knowledge of Arabic is not required. Course material and diagrams will be made available to aid attendees when referring to Arabic words and verses and to clarify complex structural patterns.
Dates
After the initial taster session on Wednesday 26th November, sessions will take place online on the 3rd Wednesday of the month beginning 17th December 2025, from 8-10pm GMT, and consist of two 45-minute presentations with a 15-minute interval and time for comments and questions.
- December 17th 2025
- January 21st 2026
- February 11th 2026
- April 15th 2026
- May 20th 2026
- June 17th 2026
- September 20th 2026 (Sunday)**
*No session in March due to Ramadan
**In-person gathering
You will be sent a link to the webinar 1hr before the start time of 8pm.
Course Outcomes
You will complete the programme with an appreciation of the themes of a pair of suras from Juzz Amma. You will also gain an insight into Qur'anic structural analysis and an understanding of pattern recognition and thematic connections such analysis facilitates.
Tutor Profile
Dr S Ashraf completed his DPhil at St Cross College, University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis explored the literary function of the word qul in the Qur’an. Prior to this he completed an MA from SOAS, University of London with Prof. MAS Haleem and studied Arabic and the traditional Islamic sciences in Hadramawt and the UK. In addition to his Qur'anic study and teaching, he is a practising Architect and applies his architectural training to the communication of complex linguistic and structural patterns in the Qur'an.
Qx: CEI Qur'an Programmes
Since 2010, CEI has facilitated many innovative, stimulating, and well-established regular Qur'an programmes:
Q-Club: Fortnightly guided reading of a longer story based sura each academic year, Café Said dal 1923, Fitzrovia. Eight suras (>1000 verses) have been covered since 2013: https://ceiuk.com/q-club-overview/
Q-Conference: Annual conference exploring the Qur'anic exposition of a particular theme delivered by a range of renowned experts, Bloomsbury London since 2014: https://ceiuk.com/past-q-conference-2014-19/
Q-Immersion: Annual residential weekend Qur'an programme at the University of Oxford involving guided reading of a story-based sura on day one and facilitated analysis of relevant academic literature on day two since 2018: https://ceiuk.com/q-immersion-sura-taha/
Q-Read: Termly collective reading of the entire Qur'an in Arabic, The Lanesborough, Knightsbridge since 2017: https://ceiuk.com/q-read-overview/
London Academy: Tafsir of suras al-Kahf and Yā Sīn as part of the London Academy programme, Bloomsbury since 2010: https://ceiuk.com/london-academy/
Q-Connect is connected to yet distinct from these other CEI Qur'an Programmes. In Q-Connect, suras shorter than those studied in Q-Club and Q-Immersion are covered, with a greater focus on structural analysis and consequent elucidations of intra and extra sura relationships and meanings.