How to keep reading the Quran after Ramadan

The last night of Ramadan comes, then Eid, and within a week the mushaf that was open every day is back on the shelf. If that’s happened to you, you’re not alone. It happens to most of us, most years.

The good news is that the hardest part, getting into the habit, is already done. Here’s how to keep it alive after the month ends.

Why reading drops after Eid

In Ramadan, the whole day pushes you towards the Quran. You wake for suhoor, the evenings are built around iftar and taraweeh, and everyone around you is reading too. Your reading depends on that structure more than you realise.

After Eid, the structure goes. Work and school return to normal hours, the phone fills the gaps, and the daily juz suddenly feels enormous. So it stops.

The fix isn’t more willpower. It’s a smaller, more stable structure of your own.

1. Shrink the goal

A juz a day made sense in Ramadan. For most people it doesn’t outside it. Instead of dropping from 20 pages to zero, drop to something you can keep on your busiest day.

Twenty verses a day sounds modest after Ramadan. Kept for a year, it completes the whole Quran.

The Prophet ﷺ said: “The most beloved deed to Allah is the most regular and constant even if it were little.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 6464 (sunnah.com)

2. Keep the time, not just the intention

The most useful thing Ramadan gave you might not be the amount you read but when you read. If you read after Fajr in Ramadan, keep reading after Fajr. If it was after taraweeh, read after Isha.

A habit tied to a moment that already happens every day (a prayer, your morning coffee, the commute) survives far better than one that waits for free time. Free time rarely arrives on its own.

3. Carry on, don’t start over

If you didn’t complete the Quran in Ramadan, there’s no need to start from the beginning. Carry on from the verse you stopped at. You’ve already read part of the Quran, and that progress is yours.

If you did complete it, alhamdulillah. Many people start again from Al-Fatihah straight away. Others choose a surah they want to understand more deeply and read it slowly with a translation. Either way, don’t let the end of one reading become the end of reading.

4. Plan for the bad days

There will be days when you’re ill, travelling or simply exhausted. Decide now what you’ll do on those days:

• A minimum. Even one page or a few verses keeps the chain unbroken.
• Listening. On days you can’t sit and read, listening to the recitation of the surah you’re on keeps you close to it.
• A gentle restart. If you miss a day, read the next day without trying to make up everything at once.

Allah says: “Allāh does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity.” (Al-Baqarah 2:286, Sahih International)

5. Put the Quran before the phone

After Ramadan, the phone quietly takes back the hours it lost. The first thing you open in the morning sets the tone for the day. If that’s the Quran, you’ve already won the most important part.

Practical ideas:

• Keep your mushaf, or your Quran app, where your phone usually is.
• Leave social apps off your home screen.
• Use iPhone’s Screen Time to limit social media at your reading time (see our Screen Time guide, which works all year).

6. Read with someone

In Ramadan you read alongside the whole community. After Eid, you can keep a little of that. Agree a daily goal with a friend, a sibling or your spouse and check in with each other once a week. Join a weekly circle at your mosque or university Islamic society. Or read the same surah as a family after one prayer each day.

You don’t need to read together every day. Knowing someone else is reading too, and that they’ll ask how you’re getting on, is often enough to keep you going on the days your own motivation runs low.

How Qurb helps after Ramadan

Qurb was built for exactly this. Set a new daily goal after Eid, and Qurb picks up from the verse you stopped at, keeps track of every verse you read, and shows on Home how far through the Quran you are and when you’re on track to finish. Your streak and your week at a glance make consistency something you can see.

If you want a firmer hand, Qurb Premium keeps the apps you choose locked until today’s goal is done, on iPhone. The reader itself is free, with Arabic, translations, transliteration, audio and offline reading, and there are no ads.

A habit for the whole year

Ramadan is a training ground. What you practised for thirty days, reading every day, putting the Quran first, is meant to carry on. Keep it small, keep it daily, and let next Ramadan find you already reading.

For more on making it stick, see how to build a daily Quran habit and how to read the Quran daily with a busy schedule.