Tips On Memorising Qur'an

As promised, here's a post dedicated to tips on memorising Qur'an. It is by far an a comprehensive list. In fact, this list has little worth seeing as I'm only gonna be listing things that help me when I try and memorise. But nonetheless, maybe someone else will be able to benefit from it.. (and I'll get some of the reward... x70 because it's Ramadan :) - LOL just kidding).

• Pick a specific time every day to just sit down with the Qur'an and try to memorise. For a fixed time as well (I'd say ideally an hour, but you might be able to do more or less). Recently, when I went to India, I found that the first night I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. I woke up at Fajr, and then just stayed up. So I went and picked up the Qur'an from the shelf, and sat at my musallah (I think I sat for more than an hour the first day, I was feeling quite eager :)). I did this for about 3 days, and managed to memorise Surah al-Qiyamah (I'd already memorised some ayaat before I had got there). For some, that may seem like a long time, but for me it was a pretty big achievement. I found that in each hour, I managed to commit to memory around 7 verses. Alhamdulillah, I found memorising that way to be extremely beneficial, it's unfortunate that I never kept it up after that. If you do stay up after Fajr to memorise, why not just stay seated on your musallah until the time for Salatul-Duha? That was my intention in India, but I didn't know the correct time or fiqh of praying it (I had, and still have, never prayed it before - in my defence, I had no access to any books or the Internet to figure it out, although I'm sure I still could have made more of an effort to have prayed it...).
• Load your iPod (or whatever MP3 device you inevitably have :)) with what you're trying to memorise. Personally, I like editing that specific track on my laptop before, so I can just get it to repeat a few verses at a time, and then when I've learnt it, I'll make it repeat over the next few verses (it's easy to do on iTunes, right-click, Get Info..., Options, Start/Stop Time - it's a bid fiddly).
• Listen to several qurraa'. Be it on YouTube or on your iPod again. I always find that that particularly helps with pronunciation, and it's nice to hear different styles at once - it helps you to develop your own style.
• When you've commited a portion to memory, recite it in your salah. This is a good way to make sure you don't forget anything. When I'm trying to memorise something, I'm constantly reciting it to myself throughout the day. And I mean constaaaantlyyyyy. The wajib length of recitation of a surah after al-Faatiha in salaah is the equivalent of 3 short verses (hence the allowance for reciting ayat al-Kursi, which is longer than, for example, surah al-Kawthar, which is only 3 verses long).
• Even after you've committed some ayaat to memory and moved on, make sure to refer back to what you've learnt every now and then. It's really easy to miss out some of the finer details, like holding down that shadda, stopping at that hamza, elongating that mudda, etc.
• Finally, make du'a to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to aide you. I must admit that this isn't something I remember to do all the time, but as the hadith goes, "prayer is the weapon of the believer", and how can we expect to be able to memorise the book of Allah wa ta'ala without requesting His help. This is definitely something I need to remember and do more often also.

A lot of these pointers I got myself from this article: http://muslimmatters.org/2009/10/27/13-steps-to-memorize-the-quran-by-yasir-qadhi/. There are a few extras there which will undoubtedly be helpful, so I highly recommend checking out that link, even before reading this post (hmm, maybe I should have put it at the beginning... well, I'm too lazy to cut and paste so it can just stay where it is).

There are a few websites I sometimes use also when trying to memorise Qur'an. The websites can all be found on my Islamic Link page, but here they are anyway:

• www.quranbrowser.org
• www.searchtruth.com
• www.mounthira.com
• www.tanzil.info

Like I said before, this is by far a comprehensive list. Who am I to give pointers, I'm too ashamed to say how little of the Qur'an I know by memory. Nonetheless, maybe something I've written will be of benefit for you, and that in turn will also be of benefit to me. InshaAllah.

Ramadan Goals

I don't know how many people already do this (you might do it without the formality of sitting yourself down and thinking about it), but I think it would be a good idea to set some goals for this holy month. Attainable and realistic goals, but goals that will still push us a little... and that we'll try to surpass. These goals could be a number of things, such as:

• re-memorising some surahs (the real plural is suwar, as I learnt from Dr. Abu Ameena Bilal Philips, so I'll use that from now on) that you may have forgotten.
• learning a certain number of shorter suwar if you dont't already know a lot (the number you pick totally depends on the amount of free time you have, but be a little ambitious).
• if you already know quite a few of the shorter suwar, try memorising the entire juz' 'amma.
• learn some longer suwar, or segments, who's rewards have been specifically mentioned in the ahadith of our Rasool sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, such as the first 5 and last 3 verses of Surah Baqarah (there are numerous ahadith discussing the virtues of various ayaat of this surah) , the first 10 verses of Surah Kahf (protection from ad-Dajjal), Surah Ya-Seen (a surah to recite when somebody is near to death), Surah ar-Rahman (has got to be the most YouTube'd surah), Surah Mulk (which will intercede for one on Yawm al-Qiyamah if they have memorised it), and so many others.
• waking up to stand and pray tahajjud as much as one can.
• praying Salatul-Tasbih as much as one can (inshaAllah I'll try to write a post about the method and benefits of Salatul-Tasbih).
• learning a new (prophetic) du'a a day.
• praying all of your sunnah and nafl salaah.
• increasing other superogatory salaah, eg. praying 2 rak'ah when entering the masjid (Tahhiyatul-Masjid), or praying 2 rak'ah after making wudu (Tahhiyatul-Wudu).
• trying to stay in a constant state of wudu, (even going to sleep with wudu).

These goals don't have to be limited to 'ibadah (although this is where most of our focus should be). We can seek the pleasure of Allah 'azza wa jal in so many other ways, from helping our mothers prepare suhoor and iftaar (this one's for girls AND boys :)), to just simply practing a bit of sabr in this month of jihad when the people around us run short on theirs. Even just keeping the TV off would be beneficial, think of the blessed minutes that we would be able to reclaim and spend in worship, rather than sitting glued to a (religiously questionable) box (inshaAllah one day maybe I'll write a long-winded post about how I feel about TV). This list is by far exhaustive, but I just wanted to throw a few ideas out there. I know some of the ones I wrote are a bit ambitious, and I know that I won't be able to do most of them, but I just thought of a list that would be suitable for people of different capabilities.

The goals I have made for myself are to complete memorising Surah ar-Rahman (I'm about 30ish ayaat through), and inshaAllah I want to try and memorise Surah Mulk also. That second one I think is a bit ambitious, but inshAllah if I make the effort Allah tabaraka wa ta'ala will make it easy for me, as He will for all of us if we make the effort. There is a hadith qudsi (the words of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but unlike the Qur'an in that they are expressed in the words of our Rasool sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam rather than being the direct words of Allah 'azza wa jal) where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us "Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you." SubhanAllah. Knowing this, any goal would seem a lot easier. InshaAllah I intend to write a post in the coming days with some tips that have personally made it easier for me to memorise Qur'an. InshaAllah, it'll be beneficial for you as well.

As a last point, I just wanted to include a hadith on the performance of Tahhiyatul-Wudu. It is recorded in Bukhari and Muslim that Sayyiduna Abu Hurairah radiAllahu ta'ala 'anhu related that the Messenger of Allah sall-Allahu 'alayhi was-sallam said to Sayyiduna Bilal ibn Rabaah al-Habashi, "Tell me from which of your acts you are most hopeful (the act with which you hope to receive the most reward from Allah 'azza wa jal) since your acceptance of Islam, because I heard the sounds of the steps of your shoes in front of me in paradise." Sayyiduna Bilal radiAllah ta'ala 'anhu replied, "I do not consider any act more hopeful than whenever I make wudu at any time of day or night, I offer salah for as long as was destined for me to offer." SubhanAllah, the wording of course is not an exact translation, but nonetheless I hope I was able to somewhat convey the beauty of the hadith.

A Revelation (not THE...)

I don't exactly remember how this moment of genius came to me, but I know it happened at some point within the last academic year. This post will mainly appeal to those readers with origins from the subcontinent and other close by areas (ie. all you pakis, darkies, and banglas - in geographical order (BTW don't think I'm racist, it's OK, I'm one of them:))), so I apologise if you can't relate to it, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless. So over here in England, well in London anyway (I gotta stop assuming that London is representative of the whole of England, it really isn't... the rest of the country pretty much sucks), when we just start school as little cute Muslims and Muslimahs, we normally start learning the Qur'an too. We normally go after school, or during the weekends, to the local masjid, a madrassa, or (as in my case) one of the kids' house where an imam (we'd call him molvi sahib) would come and teach us. Maybe I'll write about that in detail in another post, but that isn't really what this one is about (I actually learnt from a woman, but that's besides). So anyway, now that I'm older and wiser (and went from adorable to ahem dashingly handsome), I've come across a lot more books and other copies of the Qur'an besides those that we (Asians) have at home. It didn't hit me at first, but over time I think it just came to me. And I'm sorry to say it. I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you. But we've (Asians) been duped. We've been duped hard. OK so it's bad enough that when people ask us if we know Arabic we have to settle with saying that we can only read it (and I sheepishly say I can write it, too) and don't know what we're actually saying. But here's the newsflash: WE CAN'T EVEN READ IT. WE CAN'T READ ARABIC. All those copies of the Qur'an you have at home... they're not in Arabic! They're in URDU!! That's right, Urdu. Urdu Urdu Urdu. Think about it.. Remember those concurrent Urdu classes you took (which I never payed attention in, so I can't even do anything with that language), you ever wondered why the writing looked exactly the same? That's because it's the same script! OK, so they are very similar. Urdu contains all the same letters, with about 6 more I think (like I said, I'm no expert). But still, when we learnt how to read it, we were told all the Urdu names for the vowels. We weren't told that this is a fatha or that's a dumma. It was this is a pesh and that's a zabar. Even in terms of pronounciation, unless we learnt at the masjid or with a real imam (I didn't), we most of the time were given Urdu pronounciations. So 'ayn was just a norm alif sound, and dhaal was a za sound. I mean, talk about lazy! Like in Arabic, normally the vowels are ommitted in Urdu sentences. And it's normally written a lot more curly and flowery (which I think makes it a lot more confusing... BTW I've realised I use brackets wayy too much). I think things are changing these days, although I don't have any kids I can check that with, but it seems in general a lot of things like that are changing for the better now... AFTER my generation. Typical. Seriously though, go and pick up a Qur'an now. A Qur'an printed from an Arab country, and I guarantee you that at some points you'll just stop and errr for a few seconds. And I've got another one for you. Pick up a copy that has a transliteration in it. Go to surah 93, ad-Duha. How is it spelt? How is it spelt?? It says az-Zuha right!!! I KNOWWW! How messed up is that? I mean, ok, if you pronounce dhaal with a za it's forgivable, it's accpeted. But the emphatic daad (or duaad as we were taught) being pronounce as a za. Come onnn, that just ain't happening. That's not cool. You can't have us pronouncing it so obviously incorrect, that just defeats the whole purpose.

The point of this agonisingly long and brackets-filled post: Oi! Asians! Go learn your whole Arabic alphabet again, 'cos we don't know it! We don't even know the Urdu one.. we're missing about 6 letters :P.

(InshaAllah at some point I'll include a post on commonly mispronounced letters, although don't expect me to provide all the tajweed rules, I ain't that good...yet............................. inshaAllah :)).