On Quran Memorization

Every morning, after Fajr, everyone, including Baby Z would be seated in the kids' room, doing something related to the Quran. It came about rather gradually, I think, because it wasn't really planned. It just happened. After the post salah zikr, hubby would pick one of them to review a memorized surah with him, or do a new one. To optimize time, he would instruct the other two to pair off and have one of them check the other's memorization on a memorized surah. Alhamdulillah they are big enough to be able to read the mushaf and check each other's memorization, well...with the exception of N, who still pretty much depends on everyone. Usually, it would be her who is picked to review with hubby, or if she is one of the paired, she would be the one who is checked. Sometimes, hubby would also instruct the pair to read from the Quran instead of check memorization.

As for Baby Z, who has been up for Fajr since he was only a few months old, he would break into a big wide smile whenever he sees the big green mushaf being opened and put on the rehal. With glee, he would crawl to it, and put his hands over the pages. Before, he would actually try to flip the pages, but after several explicit exclamations from us, he would now approach, watch us, and gently touch it. His interest though, has moved from the big green mushaf, to the small pocket mushaf that we use for checking memorization. May he be of the likes of Zayd Ibn Thabit, his namesake, Ameen.

My memorization process, sad to say, has been going on very slowly. Now, at one ayah per day, I have yet to finish a surah that I started memorizing in the summer of 2006, astaghfirullah! Ever since I started memorizing it, we have been playing Saad Al Ghamidi's recitation of that paricular surah over and over again, such that the kids accidentally memorized parts of it. Funny how Quran memorization seems to happen rather accidentally with them. Their bedtime ritual, when they were younger, was me reading the three Quls and ayatul kursi to them. S was around 3 and N was about 2 years old. Everytime I tucked them into bed, I would recite the surahs to them, not expecting them to memorize it. Before long though, they were chimig in with me, and in joy, I recited the verses halfway, letting them finish off the ends. Before I knew it, they were memorising the surahs, with no big effort on my part, subhanallah. However, after we moved, I didn't keep up the review, and they forgot.

When we decided to resume their memorization, it required more than one person, as we got to the longer surahs. Even checking their reading alone was too much for me, as each kid required a different kind of patience from me. I had started out assigning one child to read one page of the mushaf, but we would end up spending about up to an hour per person just to read that one page. I gave up, stopped for a while, fretted, mulled, and bounced back with a new solution; half a page per child.

When I was teaching them to read using the IQRA series, it was the same way; we would spend so much time on one page per child, that I would be stripped of all patience (not that I had much to begin with anyway) by the end of the session with just one child. I remember telling a close friend,

"Don't do a long session with her. A short one is more effective, and it will keep you from burning out."

She had told me of her daughter's refusal to read, and after what I had gone through, I told her the above. It truly did work better; short sessions. Subhanallah, the best deeds are those that are done consistently. I was too ambitious trying to have each child read one page, in the hopes that they would get more practice, but I only ended up with three cranky children, and a very cranky mother. A revamping was definitely in order. And revamping we did, alhamdulillah with much better results.

When I got pregnant, sessions grew more difficult, as I needed to leave or rest. After Baby Z arrived, it gre even more difficult, hence hubby's intervention, or should I say, take over! Alhamdulillah, at least now, we're utilizing after Fajr rather productively, and all without planning too. I'm a planner by nature. I cannot function well without proper planning, but there are just times when what you plan don't pan out, you lose your head. I have many of those moments, and so I have learned to let things go at times, and not be too uptight. I consider this a test of my 'perfectionism'. I have learned to overlook what seems to me to be imperfections, and just keep my mouth shut. Alhamdulillah, it wasn't easy, but I think I have managed to be a little flexible, maybe even too flexible at times.

Suffice it to say, H has moved on very well with regards to memorization. He did say,

"I'm going to memorize the whole Quran when I'm ten!"

after hearing Safi Khan's lecture on Imam Ahmad Hanbal.

I have noticed that he seems to have a knack for memorizing, to which hubby would simply roll his eyes and snort, since he is the one who has to work with H so painstakingly. Nevertheless, whether it's a natural tendency, or something that has developed through hard core training (courtesy to Abu H), H does seem to pick up on Quran memorization rather easily, at least compared to the rest of us!

One morning, as they all rushed downstairs to have breakfast, I lingered behind, repeating the ayah I was working on over and over again. I was having trouble memorizing it, and kept getting stuck at one particular point. H happened to still be standing there, listening to me struggling to get my ayah of the day. S had finished memorizing the surah last Ramadan. Hubby made her memorize it since she had already accidentally memorized it through audio absorption. So sometimes, I would work on the surah, and have her check me, or just plain depend on her to tell me what was next. That morning, she wasn't there, but H was. Out of frustration, I casually trailed off and asked H to continue the rest of the ayah for me. He responded. I checked my small mushaf, and he was correct. Elated, I worked on it again, relying on him to correct me. He did, a couple of times, until I moved on to another part of the ayah, to which he said to me,

"I'll call S."

He grew tired of helping his poor old mother I suppose.

On another occasion, S was checking my memorization, and again, I was painstakingly struggling to get the ayah. H was sitting next to us, fiddling with something, and at one point, he gave me a look that appeared to me to say,

"What's so difficult?"

Later on, I asked him why he looked at me like that, and he said,

"It was easy."

Subhanallah! Alhamdulillah...may Allah make it easy for him, and eradicate any pride in him. Ameen.

I have two more ayah to finish the surah. It has been a very pathetic crawl, but inshaallah I'll finally finish it and retain it. With much needed assists from the kids. Ameen.