The First Piece Of Islamic Software

Our Brief History

The ISL Software Corporation, predecessor to The Alim Foundation, was founded on May 9, 1986 by Shahid N. Shah and Amir Jafri in Houston, Texas. In an effort to promote the learning of Islam through software, and with the financial assistance from the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH) and family members, they began developing an application called The Hafiz which was meant to be a simple indexing and searching application for Islamic texts in electronic format. The Hafiz was never released, but was the predecessor of the eventual Alim CD-ROM software for Windows.

In 1991 ISL Software launched the first version of The Alim, which revolutionized the Islamic software industry. It was the first program to combine the powers of Qur’anic translations, commentaries, an extensive subject database, and a host of other supporting information bases into one complete cross-referenced program. The Alim was also the first program with an open architecture that allowed for relatively infinite expansion. ISL freely made available all of the content that was included in The Alim to the public. The goal was to foster development and dissemination of Islamic literature in an electronic format, allowing others to develop services and products in the field of Islamic education.

In 1997 ISL added Arabic Playhouse to its line of products. Arabic Playhouse was designed to teach children and adults how to read Qur’anic Arabic in a way that is language independent. Hence, a person of any national origin can utilize it with the greatest of ease. Like The Alim, Arabic Playhouse quickly became a leader in its field.

Alhamdulillah, the Alim and Arabic Playhouse had successfully been serving the Muslim community across the world for almost two decades. Then, early in 2010, the people behind these products, along with a new management team, created the Alim Foundation with the intention of putting all of this content online free of charge and then enhancing it. Alim.org was born, a then a social networking platform was added to it along with tools to help facilitate learning, discussion and categorization of knowledge to help enrich the existing content and provide a means to expand it.

Alim.org also intends to create several microsites for news, Islamic literature, and community and Muslim services. If you have any suggestions or would like to discuss ideas with us, please contact us via the Feedback & Support button.