Memorizing Quran Hacks And Reflections From A Transformative Journey I Ust Asim Khan

I remember it very clearly. I was sat on my comfy sofa in the front room with the Qur’an propped up on the lyrics stand. I had just finished memorizing another juz and was excited to see how close I was to the finishing line. I lifted the mushaf off the stand and rested it on my thighs as I flicked through the remaining pages.

I had bought the large mushaf hoping the big-sized font would ensure I didn’t misread anything. I measured the amount of Qur’an there was left to memorize by pinching it between my finger and thumb (this was the most satisfying way for me to check). That is when I felt something strange, something I didn’t expect.

For the last five years, I had been on a mission to complete my hifz as quickly as possible. I felt like I was playing catchup as I hadn’t done my hifz as a child, and now I was married with kids and a job. Still, I soldiered on, focused solely on completing it. But in that moment, when I saw how few juzz remained, I felt sad and upset; not happy and excited, as I usually would. Why was that?

It dawned on me that the journey of memorizing Qur’an had transformed my life. For instance, I would wake up early and sit after fajr to learn my set portion of hifz -usually half a page-, and then I would jump in the car and head to work. I would have the Qur’an app open with the phone mounted on the dashboard as the journey was my chance to revise and cement what I had learned earlier. Each salah I would get to read that new portion of Qur’an and hopefully taste the satisfaction of having acquired more of the words of Allah in my heart.

It wasn’t always the case. Sometimes it was a big fail, and I would have to take out time during my lunch break to re-memorize that passage. Either way, salah would feel special because of that. Weekends would often be about long sittings revising and asking my wife to sit with me and listen out for any mistakes. There were many more ways my life had changed; some more subtle than others.

For instance, I would find myself being more patient with my children; something I put down to the discipline I was developing because of the hifz journey. In any case, when I saw how close I was to completing, it made me sad because I realized that many of these changes would slowly vanish, leaving me bare; the way I felt before I started. I could not allow that to happen, and so I decided to switch things up.

From that day I slowed down the pace and stretched out the last leg of the journey from three months to a year. Alhamdulillah after six years I had done it, and during the last years, I had committed to leading tharaweeh at my local masjid which would help me stay connected to the Qur’an all year round; even after I had completed.

You can imagine I must have picked up a lot of tips, techniques, and hacks along the way. Here are a few I wanted to share:

1. For tough verses with uncommon words I’ll read the English translation. This helps me memorize with the meaning in mind. I use this for my taraweeh prep.

2. For similar-sounding verses in close proximity, I’ll bring them side by side and focus on the subtle differences. Eg. This one has no ما whereas the other does.

3. For verses I can’t recall how they start, I’ll go back to the previous verse & re-memorize it as joined to the next verse; basically pretending as though there’s no stop between them. Once I caught hold of how the beginning sounds I re-introduce the verse ending in between. Eg.4. Lastly, for long verses, I’ll listen to a Qaari who recites it with a catchy rhythm. When I’ve internalized how that rhythm goes, I fix my own recitation onto that template. This also works for the suwar that have many short/snappy verses.

There are a few more neat tips I could share but the key to success was simply being consistent; even when I couldn’t stick to my daily goals. For instance, on special occasions like Eid or during days of sickness I wouldn’t skip my hifz commitment entirely, instead, I would scale it back to what was manageable. If I couldn’t find the time to do half a page, I would do 2 or 3 lines. The reason why I stuck to this rule of never taking a break, was because I learned earlier on that as soon as you take a break, the shaytan begins to break down your resolve. He drives a wedge between you and the Qur’an and tries to disrupt the momentum of your hifz program – which by the way you’ve worked so hard to build, until he places you in limbo.

Now that you’ve been away from memorizing new portions of Qur’an for a few days (or weeks) and revising old parts, you start to build up rust. This is where you get caught out, because a part of you feels rotten for forgetting what you’ve learned and so you tell yourself not to continue moving forward in the program. ‘What’s the point learning new portions when you’ve forgotten the old?’ – You are now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Shaytan has got you.  

The best thing to do is continue moving forward and figure out a way to do extra revisions to get back up to speed. In the end, the goal for me was not to get to the end, but to live with the Qur’an with as much interaction and contact as possible. This would qualify me to be from the best of people. As the Prophet said,

 “The best amongst you are those who learn the Qur’an and teach it”  [Al-Bukhari 5027]

And Allah the Almighty knows best.  

Related:

– Beginning My Quran Memorization Journey In Ramadan – MuslimMatters.org

– On Maintaining Work-Life Balance While Memorizing The Quran – MuslimMatters.org

– My Journey of Memorizing the Qur’an in the United States | Part 1 – MuslimMatters.org