Member-only story
Quran Study
I Completed Reading The Quran in Arabic for the First Time at Age 30
It took me one year and three months
Read for free here.
My accomplishment of completing the Quran in Arabic for the first time at 30 might seem unremarkable to many Muslims raised in a faith-filled home. Their experience would likely paint my 15-months journey as a slow crawl.
For me, it represents the most significant achievement of my life so far.
My story isn’t one of a childhood rooted in Islamic traditions. We weren’t raised with the melodic call to prayer or the comforting rhythm of Quranic recitation.
My parents’ generation, born under the iron fist of Albanian communism, had a different reality. Religion was forcefully forbidden, and only survived in the hearts of people like a flickering candle.
Owning, let alone studying, the Quran was a death sentence — a one-way ticket to an internment camp, leaving your family ostracized and persecuted.
Even after the fall of communism in 1991, the scars ran deep. The fear lingered, a shadow left by the past. Religion remained a foreign concept, and the idea of religious education for children like me? Unimaginable.
