As a mum, I get so engrossed in making sure my children learn and read the Quran that sometimes I forget that I also have a duty to read. By the end of the day, I’ll be sitting exhausted on the couch and realise that I havn’t read anything for myself!
I need to first work on my own relationship with the Quran if I want my children to bring it into their lives. If they see me preferring my phone over the Quran, they will too! I know I am not alone in this struggle. Where are we putting our efforts? Where are we spending our time? On the Day of Judgement, I definitely don’t want to regret time spent mindlessly flicking through pointless videos.
Now is the time to take action. Today. Not tomorrow. We need to fulfill the Quran’s requirements the best we can. They are not too hard and with a bit of effort we can easily fit them all into our daily routine:
- Daily recitation – by this I don’t mean reading Surah Mulk and Yaaseen (keep that up though!). Daily recitation is when you start from Surah Fatihah and every day you start reading from where you stopped the previous day, until you reach Surah An-Naas. And then do it all over again. The entire Quran needs to be completed at least twice a year.
- Reciting correctly – Find a teacher. Face to face or online, it doesn’t matter. The point is that we need to be continually improving ourselves
- Memorising enough – what is “enough”? That’s up to your own judgement. A bare minimum would be the amount required to perform Salah. I think this is also something that we need to be improving upon continually and never be satisfied with what we have. Memorising an ayah a day isn’t too hard.
- Understanding the Quran – It doesn’t make any sense that we read the Quran daily and we don’t understand it. The Quran is our life manual. There are books available, classes, or if you are time poor (i.e. a mum) then you can listen to audio tafseers.
- Apply in practice – When we have any decision to make in our lives, do we turn back to the Quran and see what guidance is there for us?
I hope I didn’t overwhelm you. The last thing I would want is to push you further away from the Quran. Just take a deep breath. YOU CAN DO THIS!
Reach out to me if you want to discuss any personal hurdles in your quest towards Quranic literacy.
May Allah guide our actions and allow us to be of His close servants.
It was narrated that Anas bin Malik (RA) said “The Messenger of Allah (SAW) said: ‘Allah has His own people among mankind.’ They said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, who are they?’ He said: ‘The people of the Qur’an, the people of Allah and those who are closest to Him.'”
Sunan Ibn Mājah 215