Hıfzhane

Hıfzhane is an educational strategy card game I designed for students memorising the Qur’an. It does not try to replace that training; it sits beside it. The idea is to add a table, some conversation and a little competition to the long memorisation days of a boarding course.

The terms come from the traditional method. Ham cards carry newly memorised verses; Has cards carry the revision of older ones. Both are dealt into the same hand, the way real days mix a new page with revision. Open Devam cards on the table decide how the memory is tested: the player on your left starts a verse and you continue it, you guess the surah, or you recite it. Succeed and the card stays in front of you, and you earn a Meal card.

Meal cards are there to close a gap. In memorisation, the words often come before their meaning; these cards bring the meaning back into play with short questions about what a verse says. The game is for students aged 10 to 16 and plays with 3 to 10 people, in teams when the group is large. There is a quick 30-minute mode and a standard one-hour mode.

The alpha version has 100 cards: 50 Ham, 20 Has, 20 Meal and 10 Devam. The first test print used the “İkiler” deck. The rules keep changing as they are tried at the table.