Quran Verse Widget for iPhone: How to Add One in a Minute

You glance at your phone dozens of times a day. Putting a Quran verse widget on the home screen turns some of those glances into a moment with an ayah. Here's how to set one up on an iPhone, what to look for, and how to fix the most common problems.

What a Quran verse widget should show

Before you add anything, it helps to know what "good" looks like. A widget is small, so every line has to earn its place:

• The Arabic text, so the ayah is there in the words it was revealed in.
• A translation in a language you read every day.
• The reference: the surah name and the ayah number. Without it you can't look the ayah up, check it, or read what comes before and after.

The source of the text matters too. Ayanur takes the Arabic from the Tanzil Project without changing a letter, and each translation word for word from QuranEnc.com. Nothing in it is written or reworded by AI.

Here's the kind of short ayah that fits even the smallest widget:

فَإِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا ﴿٥﴾ إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا ﴿٦﴾

⁵ For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease [i.e., relief]. ⁶ Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease.

Step by step: adding the widget to your home screen

1. Install the app from the App Store and open it once. Pick your translation language and a style. This first launch is what lets the app prepare the ayat the widget will show.
2. Go to your home screen and touch and hold an empty spot until the icons start to jiggle.
3. Tap Edit in the top corner, then Add Widget. On some iOS versions you'll see a + button instead; it does the same thing.
4. Search for the app by name, for example "Ayanur".
5. Swipe to choose a size (small, medium or large) and tap Add Widget.
6. Drag it where you want it and tap Done.

That's it. The ayah appears right away.

Which size should you pick?

Size	Good for	What you see
Small	A quiet corner of the screen	The shortest ayat; on a longer ayah, small and medium widgets show the translation when the Arabic doesn't fit
Medium	Most people	Arabic and translation together for most short ayat
Large	A full page devoted to the Quran	Room for both texts in a comfortable size

You can add more than one. Some people keep a medium widget on the first page and a large one on a page of its own.

Does it change without internet?

It should, and it's worth checking. iOS doesn't let widgets run in the background whenever they like. Instead, the app gives iOS a timeline: "show this ayah at 9:00, this one at 10:00", and so on. Ayanur lines up the coming ayat ahead of time, so the widget keeps changing offline, in airplane mode, and when you haven't opened the app for days.

In the app you choose how often it changes: once a day, 3 times a day, or every hour. The free plan changes once a day. The hourly and 3-times-a-day options are part of Ayanur Pro.

Putting an ayah on the lock screen too

The lock screen has its own small widgets since iOS 16: a rectangular one under the clock and an inline one above it. They're tiny, so only short ayat belong there. To add one, touch and hold the lock screen, tap Customize, choose the lock screen, tap the widget area and pick the widget. In Ayanur the lock screen widgets are part of Pro.

If the widget doesn't update

Most "stuck" widgets come down to a few things:

• The app was never opened. Open it once after installing so it can prepare the schedule.
• Low Power Mode. iOS may delay widget refreshes while it's on. The ayah catches up when it's off.
• The exact minute. iOS decides the precise moment a widget redraws, so a change can arrive a few minutes late. That's normal.
• An old copy of the widget. If something looks wrong after an update, remove the widget and add it again.

If none of that helps, the app's support page has a contact form.

A small habit that adds up

A widget won't replace sitting down with the Quran. It does something smaller: it puts a short ayah in front of you between messages and maps, many times a day. Over a week that's a lot of ayat you would otherwise not have read.