“Finding” the Time to Memorize Qur’an - A Practical Approach

There’s no secret to it – memorizing Qur’an is all about repetitions, repetitions, and repetitions. There are varying specific techniques to memorize, depending on different individual capacity and capability, but they all revolve around repetition. 

 

The science behind it is that repeated brain neurological activity helps build “bridges” across brain cells, making the connection stronger and thus easier to recall as more repetitions are made; much like how athletes and sportsmen get increasingly better at “praciticing” the same strokes/moves and perfecting them at professional levels, and thus is so easy for us to speak, as our ‘native language’ and ‘accents’ have been so engrained across years of repetitive use – likewise we need the repetition to ‘engrain’ the Qur’an in our minds and hearts.

But the million-pahala question is : how do we find the TIME to memorize Qur’an?

When we have professional and personal responsibilities to handle; full-time jobs, a family to care after, chores to complete.

As much as we should, not all of us can easily “make time” dedicated for memorization on a consistent basis. We don’t necessarily need to “sit down in front of the mushaf” to memorize, we can do it whilst walking, standing, driving, etc.. as long as we can get easy access to Qur’an reference to look at once in a while (e.g. mobile phone app is a HUGE blessing).

So that’s basically what I do, and am recommending to you all : ‘optimize’ and ‘scavenge’ the time that we have.

As busy as we are within our 24-hour schedule, not all 24-hours require complete brain function – much of our day actually involves of idle time, waiting and mundane tasks : leaving perfect opportunities for us to learn and continuously repeat our recitation of Qur’an, “alang-alang” whilst doing other activities; example :

- 3 minutes while waiting for the water to boil/preparing breakfast

- 5 minutes while waiting for your spouse/child to get ready

- 10 minutes while driving to the masjid/office/station

- 5 minutes while walking to office

- 20 minutes in LRT

- 3 minutes waiting for the train

- 2 minutes while walking up/down the staircase

- 4 minutes in the lift

- 15 minutes while waiting in line at the post office/bank/government office/clinic

- 30 minutes in boarding lounge before flying

- And many, many more depending on your daily routines..!

If we really put our minds to it, we can easily get 1-2 hours per day, every day (perhaps more) – all without even taking time off or altering our normal schedule.

A brother shared that he fully utilized the KL traffic to his advantage, by repeated recitation in the Qur’an in the car – and almost by this alone, he can steadily memorize one full page every week.

By half a year he would have memorized an entire juz’.

I personally picked up this tip from my mom – She would memorize/recite repeatedly whilst making her morning walks in the park/around the apartment.

This technique has other ‘side’ benefits to it: instead of wasting time during this ‘idle’ time by staring at our social media apps, instead we fully use it in the benefit and worship of Allah, in a way which He loves. The Prophet ﷺ said:

“وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ أَحَبَّ الْعَمَلِ إِلَى اللَّهِ أَدْوَمُهُ وَإِنْ قَلَّ”

“And know, that the most beloved deeds to Allah are those which are done continuously, even if they are small” (Narrated by Muslim, An-Nasa’I, also similar narration by Al-Bukhari)

Bearing in mind, as well, that Allah rewards us for every single letter we recite:

“مَنْ قَرَأَ حَرْفًا مِنْ كِتَابِ اللَّهِ فَلَهُ بِهِ حَسَنَةٌ وَالْحَسَنَةُ بِعَشْرِ أَمْثَالِهَا لاَ أَقُولُ الم حَرْفٌ وَلَكِنْ أَلِفٌ حَرْفٌ وَلاَمٌ حَرْفٌ وَمِيمٌ حَرْفٌ”

“Whoever recites a letter from the book of Allah then for him is a good deed “hasanat” each – and a good deed is multiplied by ten.

I do not say that “alif, lam, meem” is one letter – rather, “alif” is a letter, “lam” is a letter, and “meem” is a letter.” (Narrated by At-Tirmidzi, graded hasan)

And, we recite the Book and the Words of Allah, this should also have a “Self-Reminder” effect of keeping our actions in check; if we are busying ourselves with reciting Qur’an it should remind us to control our limbs and eyes from doing/seeing what is displeasing to Allah, which is, in essence – taqwa (consciousness of Allah).

With this in mind, “No time” isn’t really much of an excuse.. it’s about how much we want to achieve it. May Allah make us all huffadz of the Qur’an – ameen!