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S02E02 – The Quran Memorising Journey w/ Farhia Yahya P1
Date:
Channel: Muslim Life Hackers
Series: Muslim Life Hackers - Season 2
File Size: 13.29MB
Episode Notes
Mifrah speaks to Sr Farhia Yahya on the Quran memorisation journey and addresses issues such as finding the motivation to start, mindsets to overcome and practical tips to help you fit it into a busy schedule. This episode is the first part of a two part interview.
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Episode Transcript ©
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Season Two, Episode Two.
Welcome to the Muslim life hackers podcast, the weekly podcast providing you the knowledge, tools and connections to help you get ahead in life. And now, your hosts Mithra, Murph and mahane Malik
Assalamu alaikum Muslim life hackers. My name is Mira Mira, and I'm going to be your host for today's episode. In this episode, I interview sister for here yahia, who's the author of a popular blog called fudger literary now I hope I said that correctly because before we recorded the interview for the show, I to make sure that I didn't get tongue tied with that word and for here was telling us how some would pronounce it as the word literally. So I hope I'm not one of those unfortunate people fudger literary anyway, in this interview, we get deep into the topic of Qur'an memorization, the motivation behind it mindsets to overcome and practical tips to help you fit it
into a busy schedule. Now today's episode is the first part of a two part interview. So you'll be hearing about the Quran memorization journey today. And in the second part, which will be released next Monday, inshallah we get deep into the practical tips.
Okay, let's be honest here, when you set your goals, how many of them actually get achieved. If you're struggling with this, then check out the course visionary online. visionary is an online course combining goal setting with the power of thought to help you take your life to the next level. My co host and I have both taken this course ourselves and loved it. And I'm sure you will as well. You find out more by going to Muslim life hackers.com slash visionair. Now that's spelt his vision and then air with a he
Assalamu alaikum awesome life hackers. This is me from Arif here with our interview with our guests here today. We have four here. Yeah, here with us today. And this will be quite an interesting podcast on Qur'an, memorization and all about it. So first of all, let's welcome our guest, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast over here.
Thank you for having me to sekolah here and we are key. So one of the things that I just want to kind of, for our audience who are not familiar with your work would would you be able to tell us about yourself like a quick intro?
Okay, so I mean, my name is for hair. But I think because of all the work online, a lot of people just know me as fudger.
I, for a while now I've sort of been running the pleasure blog on mine is the name has actually moved now to find your literary blog. And it's basically a place where I stored a collection of my works predominantly in the field of translation. So it was from the Arabic translation to English of classical text,
a lot of it to do with Quranic sciences in Arabic. And as you know, just various literature, I guess, because I love writing. Yeah.
On that note, I mean, I've sort of moved into authoring now. So I've recently just finished authoring a book biography on one of the early scholars in Islam. Hopefully that should be out within two weeks, roughly, by the time this podcast goes live will probably have already been out there in Sharla.
Yeah, I mean, other than that, it's just more recently is about classes and courses, and the memorization of Quran course that recently launched in the past year, where, you know, my aim was to sort of really help systems with regards to their own health journey.
And just, you know, the law was quite successful, and also law to accept it from us and all the sisters and sort of help everyone be the last of us, but also so getting straight to the questions that we had here prepared with Quran memorization, there's so much to discuss. But first of all, I mean, I just want to put the question out there to you. Is memorizing the Quran? Something that's for everyone? Like, is it something that we should all do, regardless of our circumstances? and lifestyles? Or, like, Is it something that it's only you could do in a certain part of your life? Like, say when you're young and you have time, as opposed to late? Yeah. If you're asking me if it's
something for everyone, then my answer is definitely yes. I mean, I think if there's anything that is worthy of our time or effort, you know, our dedication and study then without doubt, it is the book of Allah azza wa jal, it is you know, the Quran, the words of Iraq man and so on and so forth. So, it from that aspect, it is definitely
for everyone, but, you know, we all tend to defy think in the capacity, you know, how much of an how much should we be memorizing? Or can we memorize. And this is just due to the fact that everyone has different capabilities and capacities, especially mental capacity to take on the Quran and the rate of memorization, especially at the beginning of one's heavy journey.
So in that case, you know, it is it does differ from person to person.
If you were to ask me, maybe from a field perspective, you know, is it something that we should all do, then it's not, it's not our job, and it's not our game.
It is something that, you know, it's enough with a few people or enough people from the do it. But
I think, you know, that doesn't, you know, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. The advice. Generally, you know, when we approach Islam is quite dangerous. If we sort of look at things from a Where do or non wager perspective, you know, so long, if something is something is, you know, mandatory, we do it, if it's not, we tend to leave it and that is not, you know, it's not advisable, because we do miss out on a lot of reward and how often occur and falls into this category. Historic case of white, why not, but yeah, it's more of a case of sort of the, you know, like distinction and virtue. And
this is basically the ranking system, your BMI, you know, we all, we all are ranked according to how much we strived how much we worked, and so on and so forth.
I think one of the things that
we sort of don't recognize is that each and every single one of us has already memorized for and at one point or another in our lifetime, you know, we usually memorize enough to pray, we memorize some sutras because we've just fallen in love with the surah, or the recitation, and we end up memorizing it, or at least partially,
memorizing or acknowledging it. So we do all have a capacity for him. And we sort of don't focus on that aspect, we just think of this mountain, you know, mammoth task of memorizing the entire core and, and that puts many people off.
You know, it puts many people off, but have this, you know, you mentioned something about personal circumstance, one of the one of the topics, I guess, of the course that I run, I really try to stress that heft of Quran is it's not something that you do, despite or regardless of your lifestyle and circumstances. It's something that, you know, you take on alongside your circumstance or your lifestyle, or whatever it is,
that you're doing. And the two that, you know, that's one technique of persisting on the path of history or an is you learn how to incorporate health in your, in your daily life. And once you do that, it doesn't actually become a burden anymore. It becomes part and parcel of your daily life. And that's when you have basically cracked it, you know, you're on your way in Sharla to just memorize the Quran fully, because it's no longer a struggle. I think this is where lots of people struggle, they don't know how to incorporate health into their daily life, they haven't found that balance, you know? Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, in terms of, whether it's something that's just for young people,
it's true that, you know, children do memorize or and quite easily now we all, you know, have a larger capacity for, I guess, data and knowledge and new information when when we're really young. I think that's mainly because those are the years of learning and the brain is ready to Yeah, it's ready to absorb and so on. And they have less mental stress than adults. Yeah, you know, yeah, definitely.
But, you know,
it doesn't mean that adult can't, you know, make that intention and memorize or an, it just means the way you go about it as an adult might be different. how you approach the Koran might be slightly different than then how a child would, you know, take it on, you might need to be more
consistent, you might need to be more of an organized person, and so on and so forth. But as adults, you know, unfortunately we do place a huge barrier for ourselves, we sort of convinced ourselves that Yeah, okay. is just for children is something that I should have done when I was younger. Now that I'm older, you know, I got an aging brain and it's not going to be easy. So we, we are our own enemies, to be honest, and we place up a barrier before anyone else has done sir and this hinders many people, it hinders them from actually getting started.
Have, yeah, getting started continuing, and so on and so forth. So, I mean, in a nutshell, I guess I would say, in terms of the question it is for everyone, the capacity will differ and so on. But really, it's not a question of whether
the Quran or hifter is for us. I think the question is more about Are you up for the challenge? And this is actually a question not from me, but more from a lot of hands on himself, I think, you know, you're a course or a plumber. And he says, repeatedly, we have made the Quran easy for remembrance, you know, but is there any that will remember? So there's actually a question at the end of the year?
And it's a question that we all should, you know, one way or another answer, and many people answer in the negative, you know, maybe not by word, but by the, yeah, by action and their thoughts as well, we have a lot of negative thoughts towards memorizing Quran. I mean, we, we uphold the virtues of it, you know, we, we recognize the blessing and the hair and so on. But actually, when it comes to implementing, we back off a lot. So it's a question of, Are you up for the challenge? You know, are you going to be somebody who takes up this, have a look around, and so on, and so forth? So I think that that, that wraps it up? Yes. So there's that question there. But it's also what are our
action? It seems that there is a lot of mental barriers we place on ourselves a lot of obstacles that you can say, these scripts that we tell ourselves, okay, I can't do this, because I'm too old. And, you know, I've I've left those golden years of memorizing and stuff and, yeah, yeah, that's actually quite fun. So, so you were talking about capacity as well, like how memorizing Quran is something that, you know, we should strive to do, because it's about, it's about getting more say Baraka in our life and more reward in this life and in the Hereafter. And yeah, it's, it's not really something that from a faith perspective like obligates you, but it's something that we should
aim for in order to be people who are committed to you know, texturally. Yeah, I think from the
case of what I said about tough deal, I mean, many times.
In fact, in the Quran itself, Allah subhanaw taala, who says what Kabbalah Raja talked about, of the law, that in the Hereafter is all about ranking, you know, and it's all about distinction, and how people are distinguished from one another is not just the way you Burt's, but also what they did. On top of that, the extras if you like, the extra attention that they paid to, they're a burden, maybe praying by night or feeding, you know, the poor and so on. And memorizing or, and just becomes part and parcel of that, because I, you know, it is a journey, you have to acquire this journey. So it's like you're with the Quran, every day of you know, of that journey or throughout your life. And that
adds up to mountain loads of reward, if you like in an era.
So one of the things that you were talking about earlier was about people having different capacities to memorize. And like speaking about, like the actual method of memorization, some people go for, like an intensive approach in which they say, put it put aside, like, some years to just focus on memorizing the Quran, and others actually go for like a gradual approach. What are your thoughts on this? Is it that one way is better than the other? Or do both have their pros and cons?
And yeah, I don't, I don't actually believe that it's one or the other. I think for each, there are pros and cons. And for each there is a time and a place. And it's also heavily dependent on what kind of a person you are a person, you know, what if they are a young, you know, student studious person without many responsibilities, then for this type of person, maybe their route will be very, very different to say, a mom of four, who is very busy in the home,
one person might be able to dedicate three, four years to help them or and maybe they're able to seclude themselves if you'd like a bit more. And this route, usually when people start on this route, they can do it intensively they can do it fast, and so on and so forth. Whereas for the mom of four, maybe she needs to take a more gradual approach because she just has that much more responsibility on her. But if you know, if you can't spare many months and years and weeks, the graduate approach is definitely better. And for many, I think many scholars and many teachers, they say the gradual approach is better because you're giving yourself time to allow for and to be
absorbed, you know in your heart, in your mind and so on. But the intensive route is not bad either. So long as you do give yourself that time to, you know, to allow the Quran to sink in and you know, you absorb it.
But the the how of memorizing Quran is perhaps where most of our attention should be going on.
And, you know, just a few pointers, I mean, people think is about rate of memorization, but it's actually never a case of rate, the rate that you memorize at the speed that you memorize that will differ very much from, you know, the beginning to the middle to the end towards the end of your heft. Generally, what I say is work with yourself and never against yourself, you shouldn't be an enemy to yourself, because you will stop yourself I guess, any any,
during the road of the past or your journey in history or so work with yourself, be very realistic
with yourself about your day, your lifestyle is that Do you have a very demanding lifestyle? Are you somebody that works full time, are you studying full time, if that's the case, then you know, it's not case, you can't just get up and leave and abandon everything you just need to incorporate heaven on around your day. Another thing is that a lot, a lot of people at the beginning have enthusiasm, you know, zeal. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that
people sometimes don't know how to channel that, and the zero can run out, they might run out of fuel pretty early in their life they are and so they sort of stall and don't, they don't know what to do with themselves, they don't have that motivation that they did at the beginning. So an advice to just you know, make maybe don't don't run before you can walk, learn how to learn how to be constant and steady on this path.
The other thing is because of this zeal, people try to maybe, like I said, running before they can walk, they try to cram or go very fast with their heft and be intense.
And you have to be really, really careful when you do this. Because the brain is, you know, it's an amazing organ, the last pantalla created, but it does have its ways, right. And by that, I mean, if you push it beyond its limit, you know, before it's ready, but yeah, then it can, you know, almost retaliate and reward you by to shutting down and just, you know, you're going to end up in a mental block, because you've tried to cram more in, you know, more than it can take at that particular time, what it needs and what you know, what the person needs is a bit more patience and just maybe gradually go through
the memorization at the beginning, get yourself, you know, ready try to have a constant portion of urine that you're memorizing, until the brain actually opens up, and it can take on more, that there has to be a momentum built up,
which the brain sort of recognizes, and it says, right, you know, now I can take on more, and that's when a person's portion of Orion increases, that's when the rate or speed of memorization also goes up. So you just have to wait for those, I call them, you know, channels opening or the dam breaking points throughout your head, the end, there'll be several points, you know, it happens is never at the beginning, it happens just after you struggle at the beginning, then it happens again, you know, down the line, maybe halfway, then towards the end, it's just like flood has, you know, the dams been totally broken. And you're just zooming through here, and it's not very difficult. So these
are, I think this these are the more important aspects. So whichever route a person takes, whether they memorize Quran intensively, or they take a gradual approach, they just have to be careful not to overwhelm themselves, they have to be sort of aware of how Moran is being absorbed,
how they're memorizing, and so on, and so forth. Now, there are pros and cons, of course, in each side, I mean, if you if you take the intensive route, usually it's quite fast. And usually, that means, you know, you need to have a strict and maybe more stronger review method, because you have perhaps memorize Fortran quite fast, or memorize that sort of quite fast, so you need to consolidate it a lot more. Whereas for the one who takes the gradual method, it is slower. And I guess the only con about it would be it takes you a longer time. It might take you, you know, a few more years, or maybe few more months in the person who did it intensively. But you're more likely to have absorbed
it better than somebody who did it intensely. And again, this is just a generalization across the board. It really depends on the person themselves. If they can go fast, and maybe they could memorize very well at the same time then handler that's the person you know, is anathema for that person. So each one is is different, but there are pros and cons and there are I think it's more dependent on what kind
person you are and your lifestyle. Yeah. So you know what you said about work against yourself never work? No sorry. Don't work against yourself. Work with your, with your
selves and never get yourself you know what, that's amazing advice and one of the things when you mentioned you know don't run before you can walk reminds me of you see how when people decide that okay look, I want to start eating healthy and stuff and they go on this whole diet overnight and they start you know, eating greens and drinking green breakfast and whatever, the next day
the pizza and the junk food comes up like Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean it's like the knifes isn't it can't be disciplined in in one night. Yes, it needs time to be disciplined and it's the same five different you just need to be given that time and and there is a lot hikma within it, and Allah, Allah made us like this so that, you know, we do acquire certain characteristics along the way. And it's not just the flip or you know, flick of a finger and you're a completely changed person overnight. It just won't happen. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty funny to think about how we approach changing one of the podcasts that we had in the past, we actually spoke about motivation and how
motivation isn't enough to get something done. You need to have the strategy and things in place in order to get it done. And I can just see what what you're saying with the Quran and that so one thing you were you were talking about gradual approach and how long it takes. So, in your experience, what is the longest time have you seen someone actually memorize the Quran?
Personally, like, if I met face to face, I think it was one of my teachers,
and Subhanallah there's so much lessons I derived from her experience. She was somebody that actually started memorizing Quran later. Later in her life, she started when she was in her 30s.
And at this stage, you know, she had children, she had responsibilities. Yeah, like, he's not time. Yeah, life is very busy. So she took around about 10 years to memorize.
But Mashallah, you know, she did it. And she became a teacher, you know, for a very good Institute, and so on and so forth. So it can take a bit of time. But at the end of the day, if you do it, once you do it, then it's a journey for life. And it doesn't matter when you finished Khurana 4050 or you finish it when you're 12. It just means you know, shall the Quran is with you for the rest of your life. Hmm, that's actually very motivating to hear and I hope that you know, many of us are, especially our listeners of our podcast, they're very busy and have their full time jobs or their families and everything and being able to use something like like that, and hearing a story like
that it is very encouraging. So, absolutely. So like without journey with the Quran, does this journey end when we memorize the entire Quran? Because sometimes like I see this approach in which people have this mindset, okay, I have to finish the Quran. And then is there more to it? Or is that the journey then is it just like memorizing cover to cover and then after that you're finished with the Quran back of the shelf? Absolutely not.
And I you know, I say it's not the end of the journey in a very positive way. I mean, it's true when when you are memorizing Quran is a unique journey, it's a journey that's, you know, it's got a lot of ups and downs, it's got rewards, it's got obstacles, it's got
hardships and so on. So there's it's a very unique journey and very unique to you. But it is just one journey. And I think the moment you anyone who can testify to this, you know, they've finished memorizing and got on
a completely different journey actually starts right then.
And I will say is an easy journey, okay, it's a journey with less lesser, maybe hardships, because you already now are familiar with Quran. And by the way, it doesn't always mean you're perfect. Once you finish memorizing Quran, it doesn't mean that you know, your health is, is perfect 100% for many people, it's still quite shaky. So this is why many students they go through another program of revision to sort of consolidate and bring the operand back together and bind it together
very well. So that's just one misconception. I wanted to also get out of the way. But another journey does start and it's you know, it's panela one one example I use is Ramadan, you know, when you go to the masjid for taraweeh
it's, you're in a buzz, because you can actually recite from beginning to end with the Imam, you know to yourself, you can actually go through the passages of Quran and you know exactly what was happening and it moves you really does. So, that that's, you know, that's one aspect. Another aspect is if an eye is mentioned, you can sort of, you know, visualize it, you know it so everything is
Actually,
whenever you hear Quran it does mean a lot more to you and you just feel that much closer if you like to the Quran the the other thing is
for everyone who does finish memorizing Quran they can actually implement the Hadith with the process of said hydrocal mentai lemon Khurana Aloma you know the best of us the one who learns for and then teaches it so for many people, they go on to sort of Teach got on help others memorize help others sort of supervise them and teach it and panela this process and tada, see, these are the best of people. So it is, you know, it is really a companion for life. It's another journey does start as soon as you finish, memorize the Quran, and it's not a book to just pick up, memorize and then put away Yeah, it's a book to pick up and that's it, you never put it back down. It's it's with you, is
with you for life. And I think this notion of just memorizing Quran just so you can finish or an it's quite dangerous in a way
because you're sort of attaching this aim to the Quran that finished that starts in the dunya finished in the dunya you don't want that you want to start in the dunya and that's it is with you until you know you go back to Allah Subhana Allah and we know for many a hadith Orion is like an intercessor an argumentative intercessor one point arguing for your, you know, arguing for your case and arguing for you and you want that, you know, in the Acura, there's, um, I think it was hassanal bursary, he made a really beautiful statement. He said, If I can recall it, he said, you know, son of Adam, how can your heart ever be softened? If your only aim is to reach the end of the surah. And
that's quite
Yeah, it's quite hard hitting, I mean, if your aim is just to get through it, whether it's the sword or whether it's the whole entire bar, and then when will your heart be soft, when you're just rushing, you know, you just have this aim to finish but you know, you should In the meantime, while you're going through the Quran, your heart should be changing, it should be softening your art, you know, you should be changing as a person for the better acquiring all the good characteristics and traits and so on.
So yeah, you don't want the journey to just simply and with the end of your hair, you want to carry on on to the next journey and there will be a much you know, a greater journey if you like and a more nicer one than when you previously had. Okay, so that wraps up part one of today's interview. I hope you enjoyed it. Please stay tuned next Monday for part two in which we'll dive right into the practical tips. Now you can get notified of new episodes and also participate in interesting discussions get access to exclusive content, and have the same the topics and guests we bring on the show. By signing up for our VIP email list. You can check it out by going to Muslim life hackers.com
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