QforQuran — My journey from grief to homage
Family isn’t always blood; it’s the people who want you in their life, who want to see you excel and grow, and who love you unconditionally.
Sheikh Abdul Qadir was the avid gardener who nurtured me from a sapling into a vigorous tree. In reality, I was the child of the couple he had employed to assist his family with their household chores.
Sheikh Abdul Qadir chose me to be a part of his family. I was not even born when my father got employed by him. He and his wife, Mrs Zubaida Qadir took me and my siblings under their wing and sponsored our education, they fanned the flames in my heart to carve a name for myself, and made sure that no matter how hard things got, I could always ask them for advice and assistance.
He passed away in 2014, and it felt like a part of me died with him, it was a grief that I can never explain. I lost a father figure, one who took me out of poverty and ignorance and landed me in Europe as a highly skilled immigrant.
Join Khatm ul Quran for Sheikh Abdul Qadir (3 min Quran Reading)
I could never repay him for his kindness and generosity in his life, the least I could do for him was to organise a Khatum ul Quran to raise his spiritual status in the afterlife. I was thousands of miles away with limited resources in a non-muslim country, so I decided to use the tools available to me to accomplish the task of a Khatum ul Quran. I started a popular online task scheduler tool (doodle.com) to invite 170 of my contacts, with the intention that at least 30 of them will respond favourably and will recite a juz each.
Eager as a child waiting for Eid, I refreshed my page and email account every half an hour, hoping that my friends would answer my call and be a part of fulfilling the rights of my mentor. Hours turned to days and the recitation was still pending. Finally, about 20 people agreed to recite; and I must add that some of them were kind enough to recite more than one juz to help me complete one Quran. It took five very long days before I could send the rewards to my much-loved mentor.
This exercise troubled me, for I thought surely, there would be enough people willing to recite and share the rewards of a Khatum ul Quran. I decided to ask all of my invitees what was it that stood in their way. I received every excuse imaginable, but there were some common themes:
- It had been too long since they had recited the Quran and they didn’t feel comfortable or confident in reciting it for the deceased.
- It takes too long to recite one juz, they didn’t have enough time, juggling work and family commitments to spare 40 minutes, even on the weekends, and;
- The invitation to the event went to their spam, and they never saw it.
One month later, a friend of mine called me with the sad news that his dear uncle had passed away. Unlike me, he didn’t have a vast social circle or the financial means to organise a traditional Khatum ul Quran followed by a dinner for the attendees. Armed with the knowledge from my previous experience, I braved creating another online event using doodle. This time, I modified the parameters, I requested a shorter reading time, i.e. half a juz, and I followed up the emailed invitations with phone calls and text messages. Much to my surprise, even fewer people participated. The significant hindrances this time were:
- There is an ambiguity about where the half juz ends or begins.
- There was no accountability, collaboration or coordination.
Needless to say, my friend and I were both heartbroken when we had to give up on this event before completion.
Death and grief impacts people in a variety of ways. These two deaths in the space of one month had the most significant footprint in my life. There had to be a way for people like my friend and myself to organise a Khatum ul Quran without the heartbreak, and if there wasn’t one, I decided that I will create it with the help of Allah.
I still remember the day QforQuran became a real and viable project goal for me, one whole year after I started drafting the documentation for it. On October 18, 2015, I embarked on the colossal mission of constructing a hassle-free online platform for online Quran events. The memory of my mentor and my conscience could not allow me to let another day go past where people suffered emotionally and financially for not being able to conduct complete recitations of the Quran.
My target audience were hundreds of thousands of Muslim diaspora in western countries with a very small circle of Muslim friends and the revert Muslims who probably had no-one they could rely upon to help them. I also wanted to focus upon the financially challenged Muslims in Muslim majority countries who found the cost of a feast prohibitive and finally, time-constricted people like my friends. I wanted to give them all an opportunity to have the rewards and blessings of Khatum ul Quran in all times of joy and grief.
With Allah’s help, in June 2016, my team and I were able to launch QforQuran version 1.0. It felt like I had paid some of my debt to my dear mentor, Sheikh Abdul Qadir. For now, there was an easy online tool for anyone to use, it catered to most of the obstacles that people faced in conducting online Quran events, but best of all it was available to readers on the go to recite as much or as little they could spare the time for.
My team and I have been refining it ever since the launch. By the grace of Allah, we have close to 300k followers and readers, and hundreds of Qurans have been completed to send rewards to the deceased, to celebrate many births, and to seek Allah’s mercy for major life events.
QforQuran is a significant part of my life, just like Sheikh Abdul Qadir was. I pray that Allah raises his station in Jannah and that his memory will always fuel my passion for serving the people through the word of Allah.
Join Khatm ul Quran for Sheikh Abdul Qadir (3 min Quran Reading)
