Aqeedah in Year 1. Sahih Bukhari in Year 4. The three years between them exist so that the second one is possible. Anyone asking what subjects are taught in an alimiyyah course usually gets back a list of five words: Qur’an, Hadith, Fiqh, Arabic, Aqeedah. True and close to useless. What follows is the actual year-by-year subject list, the named texts inside it and the reason the order is what it is.
Quick Answer at a Glance
| Year | Focus | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Foundations | Aqeedah, Arbaeen Nawawiyyah, Usool Thalathah, Qawaid Arbah, Nawaqid al-Islam, Seerah, Introduction to Hadith, Quranic Arabic, Arabic Grammar, Islamic Manners and Etiquette |
| 2 | Intermediate | Kitab at-Tawheed, Lum’atul I’tiqad, Muqaddimah Usool al-Tafseer, Al-Waraqat fil Usul al-Fiqh, Fiqh Studies, Arabic Literature and Composition |
| 3 | The Qur’an | Full Qur’an Translation, Full Qur’an Tafseer, Usool al-Tafseer, Arabic Vocabulary of the Qur’an, Contemporary Lessons from Every Ayat |
| 4 | Advanced | Sahih Bukhari, Advanced Hadith Studies, Advanced Fiqh, Advanced Aqeedah, Da’wah Methodology, Research and Writing Skills, Teaching Skills, Contemporary Issues |
That is the four-year Madinah-based syllabus, subject by subject.
Year 1: Foundations
Year 1 does two jobs at once. It teaches you the basics of the religion and it teaches you the language you’ll need to study it properly.
- Aqeedah (Islamic Creed): Where the whole programme starts. What a Muslim believes about Allah, His names and attributes, prophethood and the hereafter, taught from short classical texts rather than from summaries.
- Usool Thalathah: The Three Fundamental Principles. A short text built around the three questions asked in the grave. Small enough to finish, deep enough to return to for years.
- Qawaid Arbah: The Four Principles, a compact treatise that sets out the distinction between what the earlier peoples affirmed and what they fell into.
- Nawaqid al-Islam: The nullifiers of Islam. A list of the matters that take a person outside the religion, studied carefully and with precision rather than as a weapon.
- Arbaeen Nawawiyyah: Forty-two short hadith covering the core of practice and character. The standard entry into hadith study across the Muslim world for centuries and the reason most students remember Year 1 fondly.
- Seerah of the Prophet, peace be upon him: The life, in order, with the lessons attached to the events rather than floating free of them.
- Introduction to Hadith: What a hadith is, how it reached us, what the terminology means. This subject is the reason Year 4 is possible.
- Quranic Arabic and Arabic Grammar: Two separate subjects, taught from the beginning, assuming nothing. No previous Arabic is required to enrol, which only works because these sit in the timetable from week one.
- Islamic Manners and Etiquette: Adab. Easy to treat as an extra and impossible to replace, since knowledge without adab has always been regarded as a failure of the student rather than of the syllabus.
Year 2: Intermediate
The texts get longer. The Arabic starts doing real work.
- Kitab at-Tawheed: The major creed text of the programme, chapter by chapter, each built on verses and hadith. Where Year 1 introduced creed, this examines it.
- Lum’atul I’tiqad: A concise creed text of the Hanbali tradition, studied with commentary. Short, dense and the sort of text a student returns to in Year 4 and finds twice as much in.
- Muqaddimah Usool al-Tafseer: The introduction to the principles of tafseer. What makes an explanation of the Qur’an valid, how the early generations explained it, where later confusion crept in. Taught in Year 2 so that Year 3 is study rather than listening.
- Al-Waraqat fil Usul al-Fiqh: The classical primer in legal theory. How rulings are derived, what counts as evidence, how general and specific texts interact.
- Fiqh Studies: The practical law of worship and daily life, taught alongside the theory rather than separately from it.
- Arabic Literature and Composition: The point at which Arabic stops being a subject and starts being a tool.
Year 3: The Qur’an
A whole year on one thing, which is unusual and is the strongest argument for this particular syllabus.
- Full Qur’an Translation: The entire Qur’an with English translation. Not selected surahs.
- Full Qur’an Tafseer: The complete detailed tafseer, studied through Akhsaru Tafseer, the concise explanation written by the teacher himself.
- Usool al-Tafseer: The principles from Year 2 applied across the whole text.
- Arabic Vocabulary of the Qur’an: Targeted vocabulary work, which is what turns a reader into someone who understands what is being recited in salah.
- Contemporary Lessons from Every Ayat: Most programmes sample the Qur’an. Completing it in translation and tafseer inside a four-year programme is rare and it is worth asking any institute you consider whether their syllabus finishes it or dips into it.
Year 4: Advanced Scholarship
Year 4 turns a student into someone who can serve.
- Sahih Bukhari: The most rigorously authenticated collection in Sunni Islam, studied properly, which is only possible because Introduction to Hadith came in Year 1 and terminology work came before.
- Advanced Hadith Studies: Chains, grading, the terminology in depth.
- Advanced Fiqh and Advanced Aqeedah: The Year 2 material revisited at a level that expects you to argue a position from evidence.
- Da’wah Methodology: How to convey, to whom, with what priorities and the errors that make sincere people ineffective.
- Research and Writing Skills: Uncommon in traditional syllabi and immediately useful.
- Teaching Skills: The programme’s stated aim is to prepare students to teach and benefit others so this is a taught subject rather than an aspiration.
- Contemporary Issues: The questions your community will actually bring you.
Why the Order Matters More Than the List
Three sequences run through the four years and each one is deliberate.
The creed sequence
Usool Thalathah, Qawaid Arbah and Nawaqid al-Islam in Year 1, then Kitab at-Tawheed and Lum’atul I’tiqad in Year 2, then Advanced Aqeedah in Year 4. Short to long, introduction to examination.
The hadith sequence
Arbaeen Nawawiyyah and Introduction to Hadith in Year 1, terminology and method after, Sahih Bukhari in Year 4. You do not open Bukhari in year one in any serious programme and where you do, you are reading translations rather than studying hadith.
The Arabic sequence
Quranic Arabic and Grammar in Year 1, Literature and Composition in Year 2, the vocabulary of the Qur’an in Year 3. By Year 4 the language is a tool rather than a subject.
A syllabus that lists the same subjects with no progression between them is a set of modules rather than a programme. That distinction is the single most useful thing to check when comparing institutes.
What This Syllabus Does Not Include
Worth stating, because assumptions cause disappointment. There is no hifz track. Memorisation of the full Qur’an is a separate discipline with a separate teacher and timetable and any programme promising both in four evenings a week is promising something it can’t deliver.
You will not find a comparative religion module, a formal Islamic finance specialisation or an accredited university qualification at the end. A certificate is awarded on successful completion of the course, which is a different thing and worth knowing before you enrol.
How Much Time Each Subject Gets
Three hours of class a week across Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, one hour each, for four years. Subjects rotate through those evenings rather than each receiving a dedicated slot every week.
That’s a lighter weekly load than many programmes and it works because revision sits on top of it. Arabic in particular rewards twenty minutes most days far more than two hours once a week.
Seeing the Teaching Before You Commit
You can watch this syllabus being taught without paying anything. The complete Qur’an Tafseer in English runs to ninety-eight video lessons, which is the Year 3 material in its public form. Eleven audio lessons from Sahih al-Bukhari give you a sense of the Year 4 method.
Watch one of each before reading another prospectus. A syllabus on a page tells you what is covered. Forty minutes of teaching tells you whether you’ll still be attending in year three.
About the Teacher
The syllabus is taught by Shaykh Suhaib Sirajudin, a graduate of the Faculty of the Qur’an and Hadith who completed his Fazeelat in Islamic Sciences and specialised in Hadith and Islamic Law under scholars in the UK and abroad. He has taught for more than fifteen years to over a thousand students across more than twenty countries and has written nineteen published works, including Akhsaru Tafseer, the tafseer studied in Year 3. Read more about Shaykh Suhaib Sirajudin.
FAQs
In this programme, yes. Year 3 covers the full Qur’an in translation and the complete detailed tafseer, alongside the principles of tafseer and Qur’anic vocabulary. Many programmes sample selected surahs instead so it is worth asking any institute directly whether their syllabus completes the Qur’an or covers part of it.
Yes. Quranic Arabic and Arabic Grammar are taught subjects from Year 1, which is why no previous Arabic is required to enrol. Arabic Literature and Composition follows in Year 2 and Qur’anic vocabulary in Year 3 so the language is built progressively rather than assumed at entry.
Year 4, alongside Advanced Hadith Studies. Studying Bukhari properly needs the terminology and method covered earlier, starting with Introduction to Hadith in Year 1. A programme that places Bukhari in the first year is having students read translations rather than study hadith as a science.
Aqeedah deals with belief: what a Muslim holds about Allah, prophethood and the unseen. Fiqh deals with practice: how to worship and how to act in daily life. Both run through the four years, with creed texts concentrated in Years 1 and 2 and Fiqh Studies and Al-Waraqat building the legal side alongside them.
No. Hifz is a separate discipline with its own timetable and teacher. The programme covers the Qur’an in translation and tafseer rather than memorisation and anyone wanting both will need to arrange hifz separately rather than expecting it inside three evening hours a week.
The named classical texts include Usool Thalathah, Qawaid Arbah, Nawaqid al-Islam, Arbaeen Nawawiyyah, Kitab at-Tawheed, Lum’atul I’tiqad, Muqaddimah Usool al-Tafseer, Al-Waraqat, Akhsaru Tafseer and Sahih Bukhari, alongside taught subjects in Arabic, Fiqh, Seerah and adab. The count matters less than the progression between them.
Where to See the Full Detail
What subjects are taught in an alimiyyah course comes down to four years with a deliberate shape: foundations and language, then the major creed and legal texts, then the entire Qur’an, then Bukhari and the skills to pass it on. The full year-by-year detail, including the study pathway and the book list, sits on the Alimiyyah curriculum page.
Have Questions Before You Begin?
If you have any questions or need further clarification before enrolling, feel free to reach out to us directly: