Quran Hifz Tips

Words Amatullah Z. 
Painting Zaenab BS Imaduddin

 

 

Are you trying to hifz Quran? Here’s some help and advice from those that have been there.

Start young.

Shk. Murtaza bhai Badri is an instructor for Nisaab Mahad al-Zahra (Houston) ‘Start young’ was his first piece of advice. “Get them [children] in the habit,” he said. There are iPad programs that young ones can play, apps that teach the alphabet. To hifz the Quran you have to make it a part of your life, like brushing your teeth. Which brings us quite naturally to number two:

Do it every single day.

“If you move forward one step,” Shk. Murtaza bhai said, “and you take a week off hifz, you’ve gone two steps backward.” You make progress, then you take a long break and you forget what you learned. By the time you start again you’re back at square one. This is a recipe for getting frustrated at the slow pace of your hifz. Don’t skip days and make sure no matter where you are, you’re picking up your Quran every day. You travel with your toothbrush, don’t you?

Keep it positive.

Ummehani ben Hamid, muawin amil’s wife in Hutaib, Yemen, has finished hifzing the Quran herself, and teaches it to little children. “Doing Quran should give you sukoon and itminaan,” she says. “If it’s stressful, you’re getting something wrong. The first part of philosophy is the love of knowledge.”

Ultimately, this is about building a relationship with the Quran. “Every Muslim needs to have a relationship with the Quran – it’s the foundation of our religion,” Shk. Murtaza bhai says. “Ok, you don’t feel ready to embark on hifzing the whole Quran in four years. Step one could be just begin with tilawat. As your reading power gets stronger, eventually you can grow into hifz.”

Work smart.

“Use mnemonic devices for hifz,” Ummehani ben says. Make goals and try to meet them. Plan relentlessly and schedule your time. A big part of meeting your Quran goals every day is scheduling a chunk of uninterrupted time to work on Quran, and sometimes that can only happen by cutting out some other activity.

“Visualize your successful outcome and channel that positive energy into your work,” she added.

At the end, you are rewarded with the joy of doing what MaulaTUS encourages and all the manifestations of the barakat of that: carrying the Quran in your heart, stronger Arabi, discipline, focus, time-management skills, and the confidence you build when you see what you can do. That’s a life-changing project if ever there was one.