Careful: Contains Important Content
The Diary of A Hāfiz - Issue #109
Bismillāh al-Rahmān al-Rahīm
Assalāmu ‘Alaykum!
Hope you’re all doing well. Allah grant ease and blessing.
Today I share some material from a sister and further updates. I also introduce a possible new project - I may or may not do it.
Requesting your prayers,
- Qāri’ Mubashir
🔗 9 Fast Ways To Memorize The Quran (7 min)
In this article, I had mentioned the 6446 method. Today, sister Umm ‘Abdullāh released an e-book about it. It’s worth a share:
THE 6446 METHOD FOR MEMORIZING THE QUR’ĀN
The pre-memorizing process
Get rid of any potential distractions
Seek the Aid of Allāh. Indeed, every Āyah that we memorize from the Qur’ān is only by the Mercy and permission of Allāh, and when we complete our portions for the day, we should also thank Him. As He says: “If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favour].” (14:7)
Listen to a reciter 3x (of your portion)
Read the Tafsir once
Read the whole lesson by yourself from the Mus-haf to ensure that there are no fluency mistakes
Start memorizing using the 6446 method (explained next)
The 6446 method
Start with the first Ayāh: Recite it 6x from the Mus-haf. Then close your eyes and recite it 4x from memory. Then recite it again 4x from the Mus-haf. Then recite it again 6x from memory. This equals to 20 repetitions per Āyah.
Move on to the second Āyah and repeat 6446 (the steps above).
Now join them: Read the 1st and 2nd Ayāt 3x from the Mus-haf and 3x from memory
Then move on to the 3rd Āyah and memorize it using the 6446 method, then join it with Āyah 1 and 2 by repeating the step above. And repeat with all of the Āyāt until you’ve completed the Sūrah/portion.
After completing the 6446 method of memorizing, repeat it (your portion) at least 5 times (or more).
It’s similar to the “mirror method” I shared with a student.
Reflections From Qāri’ Mubashir
I was reflecting with a Hifz student on how it’s important not to feel like you need to make up for lost time and so have an urge to memorise faster and to do more and more.
I gave him an analogy to help explain this.
Modern medicine has made huge strides in the last 200 years. Antibiotics, antiseptics, vaccines, robotics, etc. But, modern medicine comes with a lot side effects.
Modern technology and modern ways of living has made huge strides. From the internet to the internet of things, to machine learning and AI. A lot of this including many things has given rise to many illnesses. There are side effects.
What do they have in common? Speed.
We want quick fixes. We want instant painkillers. Got slow internet? Grow impatient. Got a headache? Take a painkiller. Now that gives you constipation. The cycle continues. Side effect to side effect. Whether you believe it or not. There are side effects to every single thing we use today.
Opposing this, are those who practice functional medicine and medicine rooted in tradition and nature. They operate in the opposite manner. It’s long. It take time. It takes effort. You change your diet. You change your habits. You change your mindset. You change you feed yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But there are hardly any side effects (if done properly).
Trying to memorise quickly vs memorising slowly is like this. Memorising quickly will have more side effects. Memorising slowly will have less side effects.
There’s a saying, “old is gold”, it’s because the ways of the past were stable, they built things to last, they did things to last. Take gold and silver for example, we traded in it and they are stable. But cash inflates like crazy. It’s artificial. Likewise, there's a saying that whoever abandons the old, gets lost. This applies to your memorisation as well. If you neglect the past, you fall. If you don’t memorise to be stable and to last, you start to crack its glass.
A lot of the memorisation and revision methods were made to cater for a certain type of student. These methods are in essence frameworks and these frameworks offer you a base. You can take those and adjust them. You can take them and create a combination. You can take them and shape them to your strengths and circumstances.
But do one thing.
And do it well.
Always show up.
We wouldn’t be where we are today without our elders showing up.
They did it.
We can too.
📖 THE DIARY OF A HĀFIZ
This is where we try to learn by watching others memorise. A roundup reporting the progress of two brothers and a sister in their pursuit of memorising the Qur'ān:
👳🏼♂️ Muhammad, 36, founder
Background: After forgetting what he memorised (half the Qur'ān) and kept struggling to start again. So he decided to share his diary and mission with us. After 19 weeks of struggle, he finally started. It took him a few months to do a few Juz’. He’s a few months away from having a years diary complete.
What he accomplished last week (1 year, week 35):
“Alhamdulillah, I have done 12 pages of the 7th Iuz’, 3 up from the 9 last week, not what I was hoping for. I should have be towards the end of the Juz’ but I’ll be honest, I have struggled this week. Struggled to recall and revise which in turn shot my motivation down. My observations last week were that:
(1) I felt sleepy so I should change my timings and walk. I did this for some days only. It felt better to do it early. So I’ll need to make this my new habit.
(2) No revision so I said to use other times for it with accountability - This didn’t materialise and I digressed. This is at the top of the agenda from today I will reverse the process by doing revision first and then doing memorisation. With accountability, I made a little progress by tasting what it’s like to have a teacher with whom I spent an hour with on Sunday. I noticed that it pushed me to do and make effort to learn. So this is also at the top of the agenda. I spoke to a Qari from Egypt who has some top students including competition winners but he charges 200 USD per month for 20 days, 35 min sessions. What you think?.”
🧕🏿 Halima, 47, school teacher
Background: A 47 years old Black American Muslim school teacher. She has 3 adult children who are in university and grad school, Alhamdulillāh. She began memorizing the Quran about 5 years ago. It's been on and off with different teachers and motivation levels. She was inspired as a child to memorize Quran but my family lacked the access to a madrassah due to financial costs. She is the oldest of eight children. As a child she had never read more than the last ten surahs. Later in life, she rekindled her connection with Allah swt, and began taking tajwid classes in 2011, then finished her first reading of a khatam of Qur'an to her teacher in tajwid, from then her hifz struggles eased a bit. Currently, she is memorizing Surah al Maidah with Ustadha Sofia.
Week 23:
"Alhamdulillah, it was a beautiful week. Revision pages 1-16. New ayat 2.5 pages. Goal this week to revise pages 17-41 and to strengthen the 2.5 pages and add it to the beginning of the Surah, inshaAllah. “
🧑💻 Hasan, 27, busy full-time engineer
Background: Hasan memorised the Qur’ān when he was young but unfortunately he forgot it. Just over a year ago, he tried to resume his memorisation and managed to do up to 7 Juz’. But then life threw it’s challenges and his memorisation came to a stop. He got in touch last week with Qari’ for his time and has resumed his memorisation with a new plan.
Week 9: He restarted with me for 2 sessions last week as he was just about recovering after losing his voice and he did a session with me yesterday - he is now doing the 5th Juz’, a rukū’ at a time and has done the first 3. I also test him randomly every session. This is for around 30 minutes as I head to the madrasah.
👉 If you have any questions, just drop a reply to me and I'll feature the questions and answers in relevant issues.
Allāh grant us all success and ease on this path!
⭐ COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS & UPDATES
🎉 What’s new / recent 🎉
Hifz Camp: I reached out to most those that have submitted to the waitlist and I’m currently deciding on the next steps.
Finding My Half has now around 40 profiles and there have been a few people that have connected. I have updated the search engine with some new male profiles. Get your profile on there! If you want to get involved in this project let me know.
Check out Impact and share your thoughts.
I’ve had some feedback from the collection of tools - in particular the Hifz Tester. There are some bugs that need sorting out that I noticed this week! Also looking into making this into an app. I also had a brother send me one that he built and it seems brilliant: Quran Memorization Test.
The community groups (WhatsApp / Telegram, etc) are growing quickly, we now have 24/7 zoom hifz focus rooms and finding teachers groups. If anyone wants to get involved as admins/mods please let me know.
The Hifz Buddy Finder now has over 150+ people and it’s growing fast. I have updated the search engine. Get your profile on there!
IMPORTANT - Potential new launch - I’ll only do it if people want it!
I have taught Qur’ān and the Islamic Sciences for over 16 years. I’d created charities. Allah has made me a means to help many people and I cannot thank Him enough. I have had few breaks, and have always taught free of charge (regardless of whether I have income or not), I never really had a job or salary in my life per say, but I’ve used many of my skills to further causes such as this project. I like to build things, I like to tackle problems and to do them well.
So in order to take things to the next level and help you all even more, I have many ideas. I have many things that can be done. I’d love to make them happen. And I want to be able to continue to offer as much as I can for free. That also goes for the Hifz Camp. Most people wouldn’t do this, the work would filled with ads, sponsors, and all sorts. I’m not saying that’s wrong but I try to avoid this. It’s not me. It’s not why I started this.
One of the ways is Aabdah. I can offer design to help you grow and create your own projects with high quality.
It’s the skills I used to take @qarimubashir from 500 followers to 17k in a year. Everything you see on How To Memorise The Quran, all the website, the design work, the writing, the coding, all the designs on qarimubashir, and there are other sites and works - all of them has been done by myself. There’s no team. All the channels, groups, and everything is handled by me. You can see some snippets of work in this portfolio.
It’s a waitlist. If I get enough interest and demand, it will feed this project. Share it. And if you’re a designer, and want to be involved. Get in touch.
📢 📢 Requests
1️⃣ My request is also on-going, share your usual hifz schedule with me. Please fill in the Form. (I have had several which I will add online soon)
2️⃣ Those of you that are teaching or have an institute can get listed on the Teachers directory.
3️⃣ Finding My Half has now around 30+ profiles, it needs a push, would you mind sharing it?
If you have anything to add, have hifz stories, want to share your own journey, have tips, have teachers, have anything you want to add to the weekly emails, do let me know.
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