An Arabic app of puzzles and thinking
Learn freely. Answer patiently.
Arabic puzzles solved by reflection, not speed, and a library that opens the way without giving the answer. It began as a book written by two friends and never published, and this app was born out of it. For ages nine to ninety-nine.
- more than800 puzzles
- 14 kinds of puzzle
- more than300 short articles
- Coming soon to theApp Store
Try it
A small puzzle, right here
Choose a kind of puzzle from the app and try it. Take your time: there is no clock here, and the answer stays hidden until you have tried.
A puzzle you will not find in the app, new every three days, in Arabic like the app.
In the app every puzzle has its time, its attempts by section, and after the solve an explanation that teaches the reasoning.
What comes next? · Hard
What comes next?
The explanation
These are the perfect numbers: each equals the sum of its divisors other than itself: 6 = 1 + 2 + 3, 28 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14, and 496 likewise. The next is 8128; there is none in between. Each has the form 2 × 3, 4 × 7, 16 × 31, 64 × 127: a power of 2 times a prime one less than twice that power.
In English: What comes next: 6, 28, 496?
Why: These are the perfect numbers: each equals the sum of its divisors other than itself: 6 = 1 + 2 + 3, 28 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14, and 496 likewise. The next is 8128; there is none in between.
And Jump Square, on a small board
Start on the top-right square and jump horizontally or vertically by the number you stand on, never diagonally and never off the board. The squares you can reach light up.
The app holds thirty boards of this kind. The arrow keys move you too.
Jump Square · a 5×5 board
Jump by the number you stand on: exactly 5 jumps to the flag.
The board needs JavaScript.
Jumps: 0 of 5
And Word ladder, from one word to another
Change one letter at each step, and every word stays a real word. Press the letter you want to change, then choose the new letter from the board.
The puzzles are Arabic, two of the full edition’s, not in the free one. Here the board accepts the words near this puzzle’s routes; the app has a wider dictionary.
The board needs JavaScript.
And From the root, words of one origin
Build different words derived from the same root, and repeat none. The root’s letters keep their order in each word.
The puzzles are Arabic, two of the full edition’s, not in the free one. The board accepts the derivatives the author approved for the root, not every word that comes to mind.
The board needs JavaScript.
The challenge
Fourteen kinds of puzzle
Each kind is a section with its own rules and its own library, its puzzles graded from easy to hard. These are real boards from the app, with no answers.
Which one doesn’t belong?أيّ عنصر لا ينتمي؟
Four items, one unlike the others: find the hidden rule.
Ditloidsالأرقام والحروف
A number and initial letters hide a familiar phrase or a fact, as “24 H in a D” hides “24 hours in a day”. Decode it.
What comes next?ماذا يأتي لاحقًا؟
Numbers, letters or words that follow a pattern: find it, and say what follows.
Symbol Sudokuسودوكو الرموز
A 6×6 grid with six pictures for digits: each picture once in every row, column and box.
Letter orderingترتيب الحروف
Rearrange all the letters of two words into a new word the context points to.
Jump Squareمربّع القفز
Jump horizontally or vertically by the number you stand on, and reach the end in the exact number of moves.
Symbol sumsجمع الرموز
Every symbol has a value; the sums of the rows, columns and diagonal reveal it, step by step.
Missing operatorsالعلامات الناقصة
Put +, −, × or ÷ in the gaps; the operations run in the order they are written, with no precedence.
Symbol scalesميزان الرموز
Balanced scales and one question: how many does it take to balance the last one?
Logic puzzlesالألغاز المنطقيّة
Problems solved by reasoning, one careful step at a time.
Language puzzlesالألغاز اللغويّة
Synonyms and opposites, a verse with a missing word, meanings to infer: puzzles of the Arabic language.
Who said it?من القائل؟
More than a hundred sayings from Arabic poetry and the world’s wisdom, each with five names: listen to the voice, and strike out those who could not have said it.
Word ladder
Go from one word to another by changing one letter at each step, and every word on the way is a real word.
From the root
One root and four words derived from it.
Discover
A library that opens paths
More than 300 short articles across every section, to read before a puzzle or after it, as you wish, with exercises and their answers. No article tells you which puzzle it solves; the connection is yours to find.
And twenty-nine reading paths gather articles from different sections around one idea. Thirteen of them open on the web (in Arabic):
- فكّر بالعكس
- حين تخدعنا الأرقام
- الأنماط حولنا
- اللغة التي نفكّر بها
- المجهول والمعادلة
- ابدأ بما تعرفه
- الوقت والتقويم
- أصواتٌ تُعرف
- حروفٌ مبعثرة
- قفزاتٌ على رقعة
- قبل الضرب وبعده
- سلّم الكلمات
- جذرٌ واحد وكلماتٌ كثيرة
All 29 paths (their titles are in Arabic)
- فكّر بالعكس
- حين تخدعنا الأرقام
- الأنماط حولنا
- اللغة التي نفكّر بها
- أرقامٌ صنعتها الحضارات
- المجهول والمعادلة
- ابدأ بما تعرفه
- عُدّ دون أن تعدّ
- الوقت والتقويم
- أسئلة الطبيعة
- من الأرض إلى السماء
- للأعداد شخصيّات
- في صحبة الشعر
- أصواتٌ تُعرف
- كيف نقيس العالم
- منعطفات التاريخ
- كيف نرى الضوء؟
- مقامٌ ووزنٌ وإيقاع
- حين يلتبس السبب
- شعراء من قرنٍ واحد
- من القيروان إلى تونس
- شبكةٌ وقلم رصاص
- حروفٌ مبعثرة
- قفزاتٌ على رقعة
- رموزٌ تحلّ نفسها
- قبل الضرب وبعده
- ميزانٌ في كلّ مسألة
- سلّم الكلمات
- جذرٌ واحد وكلماتٌ كثيرة
From the library of “Ditloids” · an excerpt
لماذا تنضج البيضة ببطء في القمم؟
لو سلقت بيضةً على قمّة جبلٍ عالٍ لانتظرت أكثر ممّا تنتظر في البيت، وقد لا تنضج كما تريد أبدًا. الماء يغلي ويفور وتتصاعد منه الفقاعات، ومع ذلك لا يطبخ. فالماء في الأعالي يغلي وهو أقلّ حرارةً منه في بيتك.
“Why does an egg cook slowly on mountaintops?” The opening of an article in Arabic, as in the app.
الغليان وضغط الهواء
يغلي السائل حين يصير ضغط بخاره مساويًا لضغط الهواء فوقه. عند سطح البحر يضغط الهواء بثقله كلّه، فيحتاج الماء إلى حرارةٍ عالية ليدفعه…
Read the openings of the free edition’s 65 articles on the web (in Arabic) →
Two editions
Start free; then open the whole book
No account, no advertising. A few anonymous counts to improve the puzzles, which you can switch off.
The free edition
145 puzzles and 65 articles in fourteen sections
- From all fourteen kinds, at every grade from easy to hard.
- With articles from every section’s library.
- Free for good: no trial period, no subscription, no advertising.
- Coming soon to theApp Store
The full edition
More than 800 puzzles and more than 300 articles
- Every puzzle and every article, in one payment.
- One optional in-app payment: no subscription, no advertising.
The full edition in one payment, from US$1.99 depending on your country.
- Coming soon to theApp Store
- No account
- No advertising
- No subscription
And in Ramadan, the Ramadan section opens in full in both editions.
In its season
Ramadan nights
A puzzle and an article for every night.
Thirty puzzles and thirty short articles for the nights of the month: the crescent and the calendar, suhoor and iftar, generosity and patience, and days from history. Each night, a puzzle from the book’s families and an article to read at leisure. It is free in both editions.
Its first night begins on 8 February 2027.
It opens in the app on the first night of the coming Ramadan, and leaves after it.
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.Seneca, Letters to Lucilius