We talked with two hafidhahs, Ms. Mega and Ms. Fatma, hafidhah and teachers at Shalihah Quran Center. Ms. Mega is currently a master student at Institute of Quran Studies (IIQ) after graduated from Islamic and Arabic College of Indonesia (LIPIA). Ms. Fatma was also studied at Institute of Quran Studies (IIQ) before then continuing her education at Institute of PTIQ. They not just teaches memorization of the Qur’an but also teaches about tahsin for other schools. In this interview, we talked about their experience and advice for memorizing Qur’an.
Q: please tell us when and how did you begin memorizing the Qur’an?
F: The first time I memorised Qur’an was when I just got accepted to IIQ. It is compulsory for IIQ student to memorise the Qur’an. We have three time slots per day to recite our memorisation in front of the teacher. But the very first time was when I memorised the last juz of the Qur’an in high school.
M: To received my high school graduate certificate it was required for the student to memorised the first and last juz. After high school I joined raudhotul hufad institution. We memorised one page of the Qur’an per day. Each year my campus also held dauroh raudhotul hufad, it was thirty days program where we go to specific place where our daily task is mainly to memorise the Qur’an. The minimum target is 5 juz and the maximum target is 10 juz.
Q: Who inspired you during your memorization of Qur’an?
F: I have a lecturer who is a really great Qori, she won international MTQ competition in Libya. I admired her and sort of inspired by her.
M: I don’t really have a person who inspired me. I think the inspiration need to come from yourself. But my family definitely supports me to become hafidhah, especially my siblings. When you memorising the Qur’an every single day, you will feel like you’re missing something if you stop doing it.
Q: How long did it take for you to memorize?
F: It depends on my mood. If I was in a good mood, it took one hour to memorise four pages. Otherwise, I only got to memorise two pages in one hour.
M: It took me one hour to memorise two pages of the Qur’an.
Q: What were the challenges that you faced during memorization?
F: The biggest challenge is my own laziness, also gadget and social media.
M: Some of them were homeworks, thesis deadlines, and laziness. But we can not use that as excuses. The other challenge is that sometimes we can not decide either to do murajaah (repeating the memorisation) of previous verses or to continue memorising new verses. The correct one should be doing both of them even though sometimes the progress is not that much.
Q: How did you stay focused on your goal?
F: I need to remember my motivation again.
M: Have target. Every day we need to spare some time to memorise the Qur’an. Fortunately I used to stay in Qur’an/Islam dormitory. The recite schedule in the dormitory was after Ashar, and because all the residents have the same schedule, it is mandatory for us to be there every time. My target was one hour per day.
Q: What / whom motivates you daily?
F: Remembering my parents always motivates me. I remember their struggle and them working hard to sent me to study here, and all the love they give me. I want to pay them back with this deed.
M: We need to keep motivate ourselves. My first motivation is from a hadist. Mu’aadh al-Juhani narrates that the Prophet (PBUH) said:
“Whosoever recites the Quran and practices upon its injunctions, the reciter’s parents will be given a crown on the day of Qiyaamat. The brightness of that crown will be more intense than the brightness of the sun in your actual house”.
What motivates me daily is my wish to give my parent a crown in akhirah. My second motivation is that memorisation is a kind of workout for our brain. Memorising is a practice in which you force your mind to to work hard by memorizing few passages which keeps it in good health, so InsyaAllah it will help our dunya matters as well.
Q: Do you have any favourite Al-Qur’an verse or surah?
F: Yes I have. One of my favourite verse is surah Al-An’am verse 74.
“And [mention, O Muhammad], when Ibrahim said to his father Azar, “Do you take idols as deities? Indeed, I see you and your people to be in manifest error.”
This verse is the beginning of the Ibrahim’s story finding God, it was easy for me to memorise this verse and the next verses because of the story behind it. My favourite surah is surah Ar-Rahman. I also like it because that Surah was easy to memorised.
M: Same with Fatma, my favourite surah is surah Ar-Rahman and my favourite verse is from Ar-Rahman as well, the staple verse,
“So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?”
This verse always reminds me to be grateful towards Allah.
Q: As a Qur’an teacher, what do you feel the biggest challenges on teaching students is?
F: I teach at Quran Islamic High School, where its compulsory for student to memorise the Qur’an. All students are go straight to memorising even though some of them does not have a good tahsin (tahsin could mean two things, tajweed and makhorijul huruf). It’s hard to correct the tahsin when they already had the verses memorised. Thankfully it’s not allowed to bring phone to this school so there’s not much distraction caused by gadget.
M: I teach old ladies, and some of their makhorijul huruf are already imprinted from decades of incorrect practice, so it’s hard to teach them the right one.
Q: What advise would you offer to those currently memorizing Qur’an?
F: Put your distractions (phone or gadget or etc) far away from you. Dedicate certain time for you to memorise the Qur’an, maybe only one hour per day or maybe one juz per day.
M: Plant a strong azzam (intention) and you must have target. Not only for memorising the Qur’an but everything in life need target. If you really really want to memorised the Qur’an you need to have a strong azzam and target, both need to be existed hand in hand. We also need to allot specific time per day to memorise and recite the Qur’an.
Q: What are the different ways that can be used to motivate our sisters or brothers to memorize the Qur’an?
F: We know that we can not repay all of the things that our parents did for us. We can make them proud and pleased by memorise the Qur’an. The parents of the child who strives to memorise the Qur’an also receive abundant amounts of rewards and blessings from Allah.
M: To those who want to memorize but feel that they don’t have the time, just start. Start even if it is just two lines a day. And don’t forget to be consistent with it. Allah will give us barakah and we will be amazed on how much we are able to achieve just through being consistent, no matter how little we are able to memorize. The key is doing with sincerity and consistency.
Do you have productive tips on memorizing the Qur’an? Share your tips with and let’s learn from each other!
Written by Retno Larasati for Learn Quran