The Best Way To Memorize The Qur’an — In A Car?
By Qari Mubashir Anwar
This question always comes up and you might have asked it once before too. So what is the best way to memorise the Qur’an? If you’re looking for the ONE best way, well there isn’t one! The problem lies in the question.
What you should be asking what is:
“What is the best way I can memorise the Qur’an to help memorise in the best way?”
There are many methods to memorising the Qur’an all which have their own advantages and disadvantages. I will be posting something soon with more on this but, here’s the deal. You have your strengths and you have your weaknesses. You should know these and with memorisation in particular you should know what might suit you best.
There are four aspects to memorisation methods:
(1) senses;
(2) technique (how);
(3) use of time; and
(4) supplements.
Senses
When I talk about senses I am talking about sensory memory. Iconic (visual stimuli), echoic (auditory sense), or haptic (tactile sense) etc.
When I memorised the Qur’an I knew within an instant that I was good at “listening”. I noticed when I would hear reciters that I liked, I picked up on melodies but remembered the verses too. I’ve always been a good imitator so that helped with melodies. For some people they need to combine listening with movement and visuals. It depends. I’ve seen many strange methods.
Technique
Senses are important because recognising where your strength is will define your technique. Having a grasp over what aids your memorisation is important but technique is crucial. This is the how part.
So when I began memorising I would learn by listening, and repeating without looking as I would pick it up. Then I would go to the verses repeat them, combine them, repeat them and then read to the teacher. This was by no means the way I carried on. I always changed.
Technique is dependent on a few things. You will have to ask yourself:
(a) Choosing one copy of the Qur’an you are comfortable with and sticking to it.
(b) How much do you want to learn?
(c) How much you can realistically memorise for you to be able to claim “I know this with perfection”? Remember the aim is not how much you memorise but it’s perfection and internalisation.
(d ) What is your goal? Time-wise when are you aiming for completion?
(e) How much time do you have to commit? Can you memorise 2/3 pages a day to reach a goal of 6 months completion? If so how much time do you have in a day?
(f) The way you make repetition.
These are some of the things technique is defined by in my opinion. Let’s see a real life example.
Muhammad in Cairo memorised the Qur’an when he 28 years old. He used to go to work driving his own car in what was an hours journey (30 minutes commute there and back). Muhammad recognised he liked a particular Qur’an (15 lines, Madina ‘Uthmani Mushaf). He also recognised that he was a good listener. He knew due to work and family he didn’t have time to memorise. He made the ingenious decision to use his commute as his memorisation time.
His daily commute back and forth from work became an agreement between a chauffeur. The agreement was that he would instead of driving he would have a Hafidh drive him to and back from work. On the way there he would read to him and on the way back he would read to him. He set a target of 1 year for complete memorisation. Taking out holidays, and taking out sick leave etc he calculated what he would need to learn to achieve that. It so happens that he did it! He memorised the entire Qur’an in a car!
For him to do that he had to refine his technique. So he figured out a way to combine the help of the driver (listening), visual aid of Qur’an and time. This meant he had to figure out a way to memorise as best as he could within the time frame he had. The technique had to match it. For example, if you wanted to memorise a page you might take an hour, two hours or three doing it. This could can be smaller if you use the right sense aids but also experiment with technique.
I talk about all of this and more in a book the first of its kind, “How We Memorised The Qur’an: A Primer on Memorisation, Revision & Teaching.” Where I talk about actionable methods and advice in order for you to memorise the Qur’an as best as you can through the 99 names of Allah.
Sign up to read draft work and join in the journey of the production of the book.
And there is no power or acceptance expect with Allah.
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Originally published at howtomemorisethequran.com on August 20, 2014.
