Islamic Education 2 Teacher License Test Content: 8 Domains, 17 Standards and Weights
Content of the Islamic Education 2 teacher license test: the eight domains and weights (transactions, family and criminal law 21%, Qur'an 16%, worship 16%), all 17 standards, and ETEC's question style.
- Questions and time
- 88 questions · 120 minutes
- Pass mark
- 50%
- Exam fee
- SAR 100 for the subject test
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Teacher License – Islamic Education 2
Start with 10 free questions to find what needs more work. No sign-up, with answer explanations.
Try 10 free questions and see your levelLast verified: 31 October 2026. Our sources are the candidate guide for the Teachers' Professional License test in Islamic Education 2 and the Islamic Education 2 teacher standards, both published by the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) (1441 AH / 2020 edition; the latest edition, and the guide is a trial edition). This guide is independent: it is not affiliated with ETEC, Qiyas (the National Center for Assessment), the Ministry of Education or any government body.
In short: the Islamic Education 2 test covers 17 standards in eight domains. Fiqh in its three branches (worship 16%, transactions, family and criminal law 21%, and usul al-fiqh and legal maxims 9%) is 46% of the questions, the largest block in the test. Then the Qur'an and tafsir 16%, creed and sects 15%, hadith and its sciences 8%, Islamic culture and Shari'a etiquette 8%, and teaching the Shari'a sciences 7%.
Islamic Education 1 and Islamic Education 2
ETEC offers two separate Islamic Education tests, each with its own guide and standards. Islamic Education 2 is for intermediate and secondary school teachers, while Islamic Education 1 is for primary school teachers. This guide covers Islamic Education 2 only, so check before you register that the subject matches the stage you teach.
Test format
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Number of questions | 88 questions |
| Question type | Multiple choice with four options; each question measures one indicator of a standard |
| Duration | 120 minutes (two hours) |
| Format | Paper or computer depending on the subject, shown in your profile |
| Language | Arabic |
| Calculator | Not allowed |
| Scoring | Criterion-referenced; wrong answers carry no penalty |
| Score levels | 50 Practitioner Teacher, 70 Advanced Teacher, 80 and above Expert Teacher (Professional License Regulations, Article 4) |
The eight domains and their weights
The weights come from Figure 1 and the table on pages 6 and 7 of the guide. Page 6 says fiqh in its branches is 44%, but the table on page 7 adds up to 46% (16 + 21 + 9), and we use the table's figures.
| Domain | Official weight | Standards | Questions out of 88 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qur'an and Tafsir | 16% | 2 | 14 |
| Hadith and its Sciences | 8% | 1 | 7 |
| Creed and Sects | 15% | 2 | 13 |
| Fiqh of Worship | 16% | 2 | 14 |
| Fiqh of Transactions, Family and Criminal Law | 21% | 4 | 19 |
| Usul al-Fiqh and Legal Maxims | 9% | 1 | 8 |
| Islamic Culture and Shari'a Etiquette | 8% | 3 | 7 |
| Teaching Shari'a Sciences | 7% | 2 | 6 |
| Total | 100% | 17 | 88 |
Each question measures one indicator, and the test does not have to cover every indicator. ETEC publishes the weight of each domain but not of each standard, so the weight of a single standard inside its domain is not known.
The 17 standards one by one
The standard names come from the standards document, and the "What it measures" column is our summary of their indicators. Standard numbers in the document are printed like this: 6-1-1 to 6-1-17.
Qur'an and Tafsir (16%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.1 | Reverence for the Qur'an, correct recitation (tajwid), memorisation and its etiquette | Reciting without mistakes and telling clear from hidden errors (lahn jali and khafi), letter articulation points and attributes, rules of noon sakinah, tanween and meem sakinah, kinds of madd, Qur'anic orthography and stop signs, memorising al-Mufassal, teaching tajwid |
| 6.1.2 | Tafsir, its types, the sciences of the Qur'an, reflection and deriving lessons | Types of tafsir and the methods of exegetes, the conditions and etiquette of the mufassir and the rules of tafsir, the sciences of the Qur'an (Makki and Madani, muhkam and mutashabih, general and specific, absolute and restricted, abrogating and abrogated, mantuq and mafhum, kinds of miraculous inimitability), deriving lessons from verses, using tafsir books and reasons of revelation |
Hadith and its Sciences (8%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.3 | Status and authority of the Sunnah, hadith terminology, sources, Sira and Shama'il | The status and authority of the Sunnah, classifying hadith by transmission (mutawatir and ahad), attribution (marfu', mawquf, maqtu') and acceptance (sahih, hasan, da'if), the history of recording the Sunnah, its sources, the Sira and Shama'il, memorising at least 40 concise hadiths, understanding and tracing hadiths |
Creed and Sects (15%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.4 | The Ahl al-Sunnah method, pillars of faith, its nullifiers, raising students on faith | The concept, importance and sources of creed, the types of tawhid, the Ahl al-Sunnah position on the Companions, leadership, loyalty and disavowal, tawassul, intercession and the awliya, kinds of kufr, shirk, hypocrisy and innovation, creedal deviations and assessing them, raising students on faith |
| 6.1.5 | Religions, sects and contemporary ideologies, and the Shari'a position on them | The concept of religions, sects and schools and comparing them, the order in which sects arose in Islamic history and the basis of each, the Shari'a approach to those who differ, contemporary currents of thought (such as secularism, orientalism and Westernisation) and their foundations, and responding to them by the Ahl al-Sunnah method |
Fiqh of Worship (16%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.6 | Purification and prayer: rulings, evidence and rationale | Purification (wudu and what breaks it, ghusl and what requires it, fitra practices, tayammum, wiping over footwear, impurities, menstruation, postnatal bleeding and istihada), and prayer (its status, times, adhan and iqama, conditions, pillars, obligatory acts and sunnahs, Friday, Eid, eclipse and rain prayers, people with excuses), and voluntary prayers ranked by emphasis |
| 6.1.7 | Zakat, fasting and Hajj: rulings, evidence and rationale | Zakat (its status, zakatable wealth, recipients, applying it to modern cases, zakat al-fitr), fasting (what invalidates it, makeup and expiation for people with excuses, night prayer and i'tikaf, voluntary fasts), Hajj and Umra (conditions, miqat times and places, ihram and its prohibitions, order of rites), and the difference between hady, udhiyah and aqiqah |
Fiqh of Transactions, Family and Criminal Law (21%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.8 | Financial transactions: valid and invalid, evidence and rationale | Permitted and forbidden financial dealings, the causes of prohibition (riba, gharar, harm), sales and their conditions, types of option (khiyar), riba and its modern forms, contracts of exchange, donation and security, usurpation and interdiction, partnerships, found property and gifts, murabaha, tawarruq, instalment sales and insurance |
| 6.1.9 | Marriage, divorce and their consequences; inheritance | The wisdom of marriage, engagement, dowry, cohabitation and maintenance, the differences between talaq, khul', ila', zihar and li'an, the waiting period, nursing and custody, the causes, conditions and barriers of inheritance, fixed shares and their amounts, residuary heirs and exclusion, dividing an estate |
| 6.1.10 | Food, clothing, oaths and vows | Permitted and forbidden food and drink, hunting and slaughter, the awra of those under and not under obligation, the conditions of hijab, permitted and forbidden clothing, imitation, and the difference between oaths and vows with their rulings and expiations |
| 6.1.11 | Jihad (Shari'a concept), crimes and penalties, and judiciary | The concept, legitimacy and rulings of jihad, hisba, the types of killing (intentional, quasi-intentional, accidental) and their rulings, qisas and diyat, the difference between hadd and ta'zir, the hudud (zina, qadhf, theft, drinking), apostasy, rebellion and hiraba, the judiciary, claims and evidence, the wisdom of penalties |
Usul al-Fiqh and Legal Maxims (9%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.12 | Principles of jurisprudence, major legal maxims and the objectives of the Shari'a | The difference between fiqh, its usul and its maxims, agreed and disputed evidences, the schools of fiqh and causes of disagreement, ruling of obligation versus enabling rulings and impediments to capacity, ways of deriving rulings, conflict and preference between evidences, ijtihad, taqlid and fatwa, the major and minor legal maxims, the objectives of the Shari'a |
Islamic Culture and Shari'a Etiquette (8%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.13 | Islamic culture: concept, characteristics, sources, and preserving identity | The concept, characteristics and sources of Islamic culture, its role in building a student's character and facing challenges, the pros and cons of globalisation, Islam's view of the universe, life, humankind, morals, the family, the political system and human rights, and a moderate stance on contemporary issues |
| 6.1.14 | Valuing Shari'a knowledge, studying it and mastering its sources | Taking pride in Shari'a knowledge and striving to learn it, revering the Qur'an, the Sunnah and Shari'a rulings, respecting scholars and scholarly and fatwa bodies, the sources of Shari'a knowledge and the history of its branches, distinguishing the fixed principles of religion from matters open to ijtihad and disagreement, and using thinking, research and reasoning skills in the Shari'a sciences |
| 6.1.15 | Morals, etiquette and rights in Islam, and raising students on them | The place of morals in religion and the evidence for it, the rights of parents, relatives, neighbours and Muslims, adopting virtues and good habits and avoiding vices, handling desires by the Shari'a method, raising students to love their religion and keep its etiquette, guidance, dialogue and persuasion |
Teaching Shari'a Sciences (7%)
| Standard | Name (summary) | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1.16 | Applying modern approaches to teaching Shari'a sciences | Setting objectives and content for each stage, modern teaching strategies (such as concept maps) and varying them, predictable learning difficulties and how to treat them (such as dyslexia and teaching tawhid to young students), organising how pillars of worship, rules and exceptions are presented, practical training in worship, technology for teaching and correcting recitation, modern learning theories, and assessment methods |
| 6.1.17 | Respecting the nature and particularities of teaching Shari'a sciences | The foundations of teaching the Shari'a sciences, the principles and methods of teaching the Qur'an, using the Prophet's teaching methods, planning the teaching steps of each branch (such as tajwid and tawhid), comparing how the branches are taught, and developing habits and skills of thinking |
The question style in ETEC's guide
The guide gives ten sample questions with the reasoning for each answer, then twenty-five practice questions with an answer key linking each question to its standard and indicator. From these we can see the style of the test:
- Qur'an and tajwid: the length of the heavy letter-based obligatory madd, telling clear from hidden recitation errors in recitations attributed to different people, and completing the next verse.
- Hadith: completing the text of a memorised hadith, such as Ibn 'Abbas's hadith "Young man, I will teach you some words: guard Allah and He will guard you..." (Forty Hadith of al-Nawawi, no. 19), with options that swap the order of the sentences.
- Creed: sorting practical scenes into those that amount to major shirk and those that fall short of it, a question that separates closely similar options.
- Worship: a description of wudu followed by identifying which of its obligatory acts and sunnahs it mentions, and an analogy question (the relation of the farewell tawaf to Hajj is like the relation of the first tashahhud to prayer), which rests on telling pillar, obligatory act and sunnah apart.
- Transactions and crimes: the difference in the ruling on fulfilling a vow and an oath, and sorting four killing cases into intentional, quasi-intentional and accidental.
- Usul al-fiqh: the five major legal maxims (matters are judged by their intentions, no harm and no reciprocating harm, certainty is not removed by doubt, hardship brings ease, custom is a basis for judgment) and telling them from the minor maxims.
- Islamic culture and teaching the Shari'a sciences: the most precise statement on how thinking skills relate to teaching the Shari'a sciences, and picking which of four passages from the Sira illustrates active learning.
ETEC itself notes that the guide's examples do not cover every aspect of the test and do not reflect how hard the real questions are.
How to use this table when you study
- Start with the free questions to see which domain is weakest for you.
- Order your time by weight: transactions, family and criminal law first (21%), then the Qur'an and tafsir and the fiqh of worship (16% each), then creed and sects (15%). The eight-week plan is built on these weights.
- Do not neglect the small domains. Hadith, Islamic culture and teaching the Shari'a sciences together are 23% of the questions (about 21 questions), and they include standards on teaching and thinking skills that need a different kind of reading from memorising rulings.
- Answer each fiqh question with the ruling first and then the evidence or rationale, because ETEC's indicators ask for "evidence" and "rationale" alongside the ruling itself.
Your score on our questions is an estimate of readiness, not an official result. Every unit in unit practice is one of these eight domains, so if the free questions show a weakness in usul al-fiqh or creed, say, practise that domain on its own.
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Sources and references
- ETEC – Professional License Test for Educational Professions (dates, scoring, FAQ and e-services) etec.gov.sa
- ETEC – Candidate guide for Islamic Education 2 teachers (2020 trial edition): domains, weights and sample questions media.etec.gov.sa
- ETEC – Subject standards for Islamic Education 2 teachers (1441 AH / 2020) media.etec.gov.sa
- ETEC – Professional License Regulations for Educational Jobs (1445 AH revision) media.etec.gov.sa