Read Like a Scholar - The Islamic Art of Deep Reading

Read Like a Scholar

The Islamic Art of Deep Reading

Many of us read widely. Far fewer have been taught how to truly enter a book: to recognise its architecture, follow its argument, detect the author’s subtle signals and transform what we read into lasting knowledge.

In this flagship workshop, Shaykh Ahmed El Azhary introduces the classical Islamic art of deep reading, drawing upon nearly two decades of research into traditional treatises and manuals on Adab al-Muṭālaʿah—the disciplines and etiquettes of reading as a scholarly practice.

Conducted over two Saturdays, the workshop presents reading as an acquired scholarly craft—not merely the ability to understand words—and guides participants through four essential stages: approaching a book, mapping its structure, interpreting its deeper meanings and integrating its knowledge. Participants first learn to encounter a book as a whole—its purpose, architecture and governing questions—before turning to its individual passages.