Where the halaqa comes from

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About this history

The history is taken from the books named at the bottom. The hadith are short summaries in plain English, not word-for-word translations; each one links to the full narration. The last section, marked Reflection, is ours.

The word

Halaqa (حَلْقَة) is Arabic for a ring, or a circle. People sit around a teacher in a circle, close enough to hear, and learn together. In Indonesia we often say halaqah or pengajian.

The first circle, in Makkah

In the early years in Makkah, Islam was not safe to practise in the open. The sirah books report that the Prophet ﷺ met the first Muslims in the house of al-Arqam ibn Abi al-Arqam, near the hill of Safa. There they prayed and he taught them. Many writers call it the first school of Islam. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab accepted Islam there.

In the mosque, in Madinah

After the Hijrah, the Prophet’s mosque in Madinah became the place of learning. At one side of it was the Suffah, a shaded area where poor companions lived. They had no family and no money, and they stayed close to the Prophet ﷺ to learn. Abu Hurayrah was one of them.

The word halaqa itself appears in a hadith about one of those gatherings.

Hadith summary

Three men and a gap in the circle

The Prophet ﷺ was sitting in the mosque with people when three men came. One found a gap in the circle and sat in it. The second was shy and sat behind the others. The third turned and left. Afterwards the Prophet ﷺ said that the first came close to Allah, so Allah brought him close. The second was shy before Allah, so Allah was shy of him. The third turned away, so Allah turned away from him.

Narrated by Abu Waqid al-Laythi · Sahih al-Bukhari 66 · Book 3, Hadith 8
Full narration on Sunnah.com ↗

Hadith summary

Why people gather to study

Part of a longer hadith. When people gather in one of the houses of Allah to recite His Book and study it together, tranquillity comes down on them, mercy covers them, the angels surround them, and Allah mentions them to those who are with Him.

Narrated by Abu Hurayrah · Sahih Muslim 2699 · Book 48, Hadith 48
Full narration on Sunnah.com ↗

The companions and their students

After the Prophet ﷺ, his companions kept teaching in the same way. In Makkah, Ibn ‘Abbas taught the meaning of the Qur’an. His student Mujahid said he went through the whole Qur’an with him three times, stopping at each ayah to ask about it. Another report says thirty times. Mujahid’s own students carried it on. Much of what we read in the classical tafsir today, in Tabari and in Ibn Kathir, came down through circles like these.

The great mosques

For centuries, the big mosques of the Muslim world were also its classrooms. A scholar sat in one place in the mosque, and students sat around him to read a book with him. The al-Azhar mosque in Cairo was finished in 972. In 988 the vizier Ya’qub ibn Killis arranged a regular living for a group of scholars there, so they could teach. Those circles slowly grew into al-Azhar University, one of the oldest places of learning in the world that is still teaching.

In Indonesia

The circle came to the Nusantara too. In the pesantren, two old ways of learning are still used. In bandongan, the kiai reads a kitab, translates it and explains it, and a group of students listens and takes notes. In sorogan, one student reads to the teacher and is corrected.

In Minangkabau, the surau did this job. Young men traditionally slept in the surau rather than at home, and learned the Qur’an and the basics of the religion there. Many of our parents and grandparents learned to read the Qur’an in a surau, a langgar or a musholla, or at a pengajian or majelis taklim in someone’s living room.

Circles today

Reflection: Many circles today meet on a video call, not on a mosque floor. But the shape is the same. People sit together, listen to the recitation, read what the scholars said, and ask questions. A circle like this can start with your family, your friends or your masjid.

There is always room in a circle for one more.

Sources

Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari 66 and 6452 (on the people of the Suffah); Sahih Muslim 2699.
The house of al-Arqam: Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah; Ibn Sa’d, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra.
Mujahid and Ibn ‘Abbas: Ibn Sa’d, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra.
Al-Azhar: al-Maqrizi, al-Mawa’iz wa’l-I‘tibar bi-Dhikr al-Khitat wa’l-Athar, the chapter on al-Jami‘ al-Azhar.
Pesantren: Zamakhsyari Dhofier, Tradisi Pesantren (Jakarta: LP3ES, 1982).
The surau: M. H. D. Natsir and Achmad Hufad, “The Function of Surau in Minangkabau Culture”, 2nd International Conference on Educational Science (ICES 2018).