To find a Qur'an verse by text, paste the exact words you were sent into a Qur'an search tool — the Arabic if you have it, otherwise the translation — and read the surah and ayah number off the match. If nothing matches, the quote is most likely from a different translation, or it has been reworded along the way. Then try the Arabic, a longer passage, or a few distinctive words in a keyword search. Below: why translations differ, how much to paste, a walkthrough in Aydeen Verify, and other ways to search.
The everyday problem: a verse with no reference
It usually arrives in a family group or a friend's status: a beautiful line, introduced with "Allah says in the Qur'an", and nothing else. No surah, no ayah number. You'd like to read it in context, share it with the reference, or simply be sure it is from the Qur'an before passing it on.
Checking is not suspicion of the person who sent it. It is care for the words of Allah, and it takes very little time once you know how.
Why the same ayah reads differently across translations
Every translation starts from the same Arabic and carries its meaning into another language, and translators choose differently on vocabulary, register and how much to add for clarity. Marmaduke Pickthall even named his 1930 English rendering The Meaning of the Glorious Koran, noting that a perfect translation of the Arabic was not possible.
Here are two short ayahs from Surah Ash-Sharh in two of the translations bundled with Aydeen Verify:
فَإِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا
إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًۭا
For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease. Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease.
Surah Ash-Sharh 94:5–6 · Sahih InternationalBut lo! with hardship goeth ease, Lo! with hardship goeth ease;
Surah Ash-Sharh 94:5–6 · Pickthall
The Arabic is identical in both cases, yet the English shares only three words. Pickthall writes in the older English of his day. Sahih International, first published in 1997, uses modern English and puts words it adds for clarity in square brackets. A quote from memory may match neither.
So a search can come back empty even when the verse is real. Compare the Arabic, not every English word. The Quranic Arabic Corpus shows seven English translations of a verse side by side, which is a quick way to see how widely the wording can vary.
Paste more rather than less
Notice that 94:5 and 94:6 differ only in their opening word. Short, memorable phrases often recur, so a fragment of a few words can fit more than one place. A whole sentence narrows it down. A few habits help any Qur'an verse finder, including ours:
- Paste the full line, not a fragmentAydeen Verify won't attempt very short inputs and asks you to "paste at least a full sentence".
- Keep the wording exactly as sentRetyping from memory adds differences. Copy and paste instead.
- Use the Arabic when you have itIt doesn't change from one translation to the next. Harakat, tatweel and different alif forms don't stop a match in Aydeen Verify.
- If there is no match, trim the commentaryA forwarder's own words around the quote lower the similarity score.
How to find a Qur'an verse by text in Aydeen Verify
Aydeen Verify is our app for checking forwarded verses and hadith. Its Qur'an check runs entirely on your phone: 114 surahs and 6,236 ayahs, in Arabic plus eight translations — Sahih International and Pickthall in English, and Urdu, Indonesian, Turkish, French, Bengali and Malay. It is free and unlimited, and it needs no account and no signal.
Open the app to the check screen.
The check box is the home screen. There is no sign-in for the on-device check.
Paste what you were sent.
Tap the clipboard icon or type. Arabic, English or both all work. If you paste both, the app matches on the Arabic, so if the Arabic in a forward looks garbled, paste the English on its own.
Tap Check.
As the app puts it: "Runs on this device. Free, unlimited, and nothing is sent anywhere." It looks for your text word for word first, then for close wording.
Read the reference.
A match shows "AUTHENTIC — QURAN", with "EXACT MATCH" for verbatim text or a percentage when the wording is close but not identical. You get the surah name, number and Arabic name, the ayah, the Arabic text, and each of the eight translations. When more than one ayah fits, the ranked matches are listed together.
Find it again later.
Every check is saved to History on your device, searchable by wording or reference.
An exact match in Aydeen Verify Exact match, surah and ayah reference, Arabic and translations: an on-device result in Aydeen Verify.
Not a ruling
Finding the reference tells you where a verse is. Understanding it — its context, its tafsir and how it applies — is the work of scholarship. As the app says, confirm anything you rely on with a qualified scholar.
Other ways to search
You don't need an app to identify a Qur'an verse. Each of these suits a different starting point:
| Method | Start from | Good for | Keep in mind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aydeen Verify (on-device) | Pasted Arabic, or text in one of its eight translations | Reference, Arabic and translations together, offline | Needs close wording; not in the stores yet |
| Quran.com | Keywords or a topic | Finding verses "by topic or keywords across the entire Quran" | You choose among results yourself |
| Quranic Arabic Corpus | An Arabic word, root, exact phrase or verse reference | Arabic-first searching and word-by-word study | The search syntax takes some learning |
| Printed concordance | An Arabic word | Every place a word occurs, with no device at all | You need to know the Arabic; slower |
The classic printed concordance is al-Mu'jam al-Mufahras li-Alfaz al-Qur'an al-Karim by the Egyptian scholar Muhammad Fu'ad 'Abd al-Baqi (1882–1968); the scan linked here is a 1364 AH edition. Look up a word and it points you to the surah and ayah of each occurrence.
Honest limits
- Exact or near-exact wording only, on-device. The matcher looks for your text within an ayah (or a whole ayah within your text), then for strong word overlap. Below its threshold it says "Could not confirm" rather than guess a reference.
- Eight translations. An English quote from a translation that isn't bundled may not match. Use the Arabic.
- "Could not confirm" is not a verdict. It means the text wasn't found in what the app searched, nothing more.
- Reworded quotes need the server. At launch, Aydeen Verify also offers a server "second opinion" for paraphrases and other translations. It needs sign-in, uses OpenAI (the app asks your consent first) and counts against a monthly allowance.
- Pre-launch. Aydeen Verify isn't in the App Store or Google Play yet.
Hadith forwards are a different problem. Our guides on how to read a hadith reference and the six major hadith collections explain what a citation like "Bukhari 5027" points to and the books behind it, and our walkthrough shows how to check a forwarded hadith image in the Aydeen app.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find which surah a verse is from if I only have the English?
Paste the English exactly as you received it into a Qur'an search tool. If it matches the wording of a translation the tool searches, you get the surah and ayah. If nothing comes back, the quote is probably from another translation or has been reworded: try a few distinctive words on Quran.com, or find the Arabic and search with that.
Why does the verse I found read differently from the one I was sent?
Because translations differ. Pickthall's 1930 English and Sahih International's 1997 English can render the same ayah in quite different words. What should match is the reference and the Arabic, not every English word.
Can I search the Qur'an by text offline?
Yes. A printed concordance works with no connection at all, and Aydeen Verify's on-device check searches the full Arabic text and eight translations without a signal or an account. Aydeen Verify is not in the app stores yet; Verify is also built into the Aydeen app.
What does a percentage match mean?
It means your words largely overlap with an ayah's, but the wording is not identical. Compare the Arabic and translations shown before you rely on it. Below its similarity threshold, Aydeen Verify says it could not confirm rather than guess.
Found a verse the check missed, or a translation you'd like to see bundled? Email hello@aydeen.com — we read everything.