Ibrah

Ibrah answers questions about the prophets' stories from one book: Ibn Kathir's al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya. Every claim in an answer points to the paragraph it came from, with the volume and page of the printed edition, so you can open the passage and check it yourself. You can also read the book, page by page, in Arabic with an English or Indonesian translation.

The name is Arabic. QS Yusuf 12:111 says the prophets' stories hold 'ibrah, a lesson for people of understanding, and are no invented tale.

Ask, and see the page

• Ask in Indonesian, English or Arabic, for example "Why was Prophet Yunus swallowed by the whale?" or "What did Musa learn from Khidr?"
• Ibrah finds the stories in the book that hold the answer, shows which ones it's reading, and retells only what they say. Every paragraph of the answer cites the book's paragraphs by volume and page.
• Under the answer are the passages themselves. Tap one to read it whole, in Arabic and translation, then open the full story or the page it's on.
• Quran verses are taken from the Tanzil.net text and placed by the app's code, never typed by the AI.
• Switch on Book only to get the passages without the AI's summary.
• While reading, touch and hold a paragraph and choose Ask about this paragraph.

Checked against the book

Ibrah doesn't cut the book into fixed-size chunks, which can separate a report from Ibn Kathir's verdict on it. A map of nearly 2,000 stories keeps each report together with what he says about it, so a hadith he calls gharib, or a report he traces to the Isra'iliyyat, is never told as plain fact. The answer says when he doubts a report, and the passage carries a label.

Before an answer gets its Checked against source badge:

• Code checks that every quote matches the book word for word, that every citation points to a passage the AI was given, and that every verse exists.
• Two more checks read each sentence of the answer against the passages. A sentence cited to the wrong paragraph gets the right citation. A sentence that goes beyond the book, with an added detail or a dropped doubt, is rewritten from the passages, and the answer is checked again.
• An answer that still doesn't pass is replaced with a message saying so.

What Ibrah won't do

• Rulings: Ibrah gives no fatwas. A question about fiqh gets a polite suggestion to ask an ustadz.
• Disputes: it takes no side between groups.
• Guessing: if the book doesn't answer a question, Ibrah says so. If the answer is in a volume Ibrah doesn't have yet, it says that instead.
• Personal crises: a question about self-harm or abuse gets a help line, not a religious answer.

Every answer carries the line "An AI retelling of Ibn Kathir, not a fatwa."

The Library

• Read volumes 1 to 8 of al-Bidaya: the beginning of creation, the prophets from Adam to Isa, the nations after them, the Arabs before Islam, and the Sirah to the Prophet's death ﷺ. You can ask about everything in these volumes.
• Pages follow al-Turki's printed edition (Dar Hajar, 1997–2003), so page 265 in Ibrah is page 265 in the book, and every citation leads to the right page.
• Show Arabic and translation together, or either one alone. Choose the text size, and a light, sepia or dark page.
• Open a volume by its chapters, by story or at a page number, and search it in Arabic or in translation. Mark chapters as read, and Continue reading takes you back to where you stopped.
• Touch and hold a paragraph to bookmark it, copy it with its citation, share it as an image, or send feedback about it.
• A volume downloads the first time you open it, and after that it opens offline.

Translations people check

The English and Indonesian translations are Ibrah's own, made from the Arabic with AI and then reviewed by people. Each passage says whether it's a Machine translation or Reviewed.

Found a mistake? Touch and hold the paragraph, select the words, and send feedback: suggest a better translation, or report wrong Arabic text, a wrong page or a wrong answer. A person checks every report, and a fix reaches everyone without an app update, marked Revised. Your feedback, in Settings, shows what happened to each report and the team's replies.

Three languages

Ibrah is in Indonesian, English and Arabic. In Arabic the whole layout runs right to left, and the book shows in Arabic only.

Free, with an optional account

Ibrah is free, with no ads and no in-app purchases. It works fully without an account. Sign in with an email code, Google or Apple to back up your reading position, chapters read, bookmarks, settings, feedback and chats, and to sync them to your other phones.

The book's Arabic text comes from the OpenITI corpus, and the Quran text from Tanzil.net; Settings lists every source and licence. See the Ibrah privacy policy, and Ibrah support for help and answers.